7 Email Marketing Metrics Every DTC Brand Must Track
Email marketing can drive 20-30% of revenue for DTC brands. But are you tracking the right metrics to maximize performance? With changes like iOS 15 impacting traditional tracking, focusing on key email metrics is more important than ever. Here are the 7 essential metrics every DTC brand needs to monitor:
Open Rate: Measures how many recipients open your emails.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Tracks link clicks to gauge engagement.
Conversion Rate: Measures how many recipients take action after clicking.
Bounce Rate: Indicates email deliverability issues.
Unsubscribe Rate: Shows if your content is resonating.
List Growth Rate: Tracks how your subscriber base is expanding.
Revenue Per Email (RPE): Calculates the revenue generated per email sent.
Email Marketing Analytics: 7 Metrics You Need To Know
1. Open Rate
The open rate is a key metric for gauging how well your email campaigns perform in DTC marketing. For fashion DTC brands, the average open rate is 40.48%, with top performers hitting as high as 56.94% [3].
What impacts open rates?
Subject lines: Are they interesting enough to grab attention?
Timing and frequency: Are you sending emails when your audience is most likely to open them?
List segmentation: Are you targeting the right groups with the right message?
Relevance: Does your content resonate with your audience?
Since iOS 15 has made tracking more challenging, focusing on segmentation and personalization is more important than ever [1]. Fine-tuning these elements can help your emails stand out, leading to better engagement and conversions.
One DTC fashion brand boosted its open rates by 30% by using personalized subject lines and segmenting audiences based on purchase history, combined with optimized send times [3].
Tips to improve open rates:
Keep your email frequency consistent but not overwhelming.
Write subject lines that feel personal and relevant.
Regularly analyze performance data and make adjustments.
Open rates are just the beginning - they influence other important metrics like click-through and conversion rates [1][4]. While they indicate how many people are opening your emails, the real test is whether your content moves them to take action.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures the percentage of email recipients who click on links, offering insight into how engaging your content is. The average CTR across industries is about 2.5% [1], but top-performing DTC brands often exceed this by fine-tuning their approach.
Factors That Influence CTR:
How to Improve CTR:
Stick to one clear call-to-action (CTA) to keep the focus sharp. Use A/B testing to tweak elements like button design, layout, and personalization. Experiment with these variables to find what resonates most with your audience.
Evaluating CTR Effectively:
CTR works best when paired with other metrics for a full picture of your campaign’s success. For example, if you see a high CTR but low conversions, it might mean your email content doesn’t align with the landing page. Break down CTR by customer type - new subscribers versus returning customers - to better tailor your emails.
For DTC brands, increasing CTR is essential for driving more visitors to product pages, which can lead to higher sales. While CTR captures how well your email engages readers, the next step is ensuring those clicks lead to meaningful actions, like purchases.
3. Conversion Rate
Once you've grabbed attention with engaging content, the real challenge is turning those clicks into actions. This is where your conversion rate comes into play.
The average ecommerce conversion rate sits at 1.62%, but health and wellness direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands lead the pack with 3.72% [1].
What Affects Conversion Rates?
Several factors can make or break your conversion rate:
Post-Click Experience: Ensure landing pages load quickly, work well on mobile devices, and offer an easy checkout process.
Product Presentation: Use clear pricing, high-quality images, and detailed descriptions to build confidence.
Trust Signals: Showcase reviews, guarantees, and security badges to reassure buyers.
How to Improve Conversions
Top-performing DTC brands use RFM segmentation (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) to analyze customer behavior. This helps them tailor their messaging to specific groups, boosting conversions [1].
Tracking and Fine-Tuning
Keep a close eye on conversion rates across different areas, such as:
Email Campaigns: Compare promotional emails to transactional ones.
Customer Segments: Analyze new vs. returning customers.
Product Categories: See which items drive the most conversions.
Seasonal Trends: Look for patterns during peak shopping periods.
4. Bounce Rate
For DTC brands, keeping your bounce rate low is key to ensuring emails reach your audience and spark engagement. If your bounce rate goes above 5%, it could point to deliverability problems that need to be addressed quickly.
Here are the two main types of bounces you should track:
Hard Bounces: These happen when emails are sent to invalid or non-existent addresses. They’re permanent failures and should be removed from your list immediately to protect your sender reputation.
Soft Bounces: These occur due to temporary issues like full inboxes, server downtime, or email size limits. While not as severe, repeated soft bounces should still be investigated.
Why Do Bounces Happen?
Bounces can be triggered by a few common issues, such as outdated email lists, missing sender authentication (like SPF or DKIM), or irregular sending schedules.
How to Lower Your Bounce Rate
Try these steps to keep your bounce rate under control:
Double Opt-In: This method confirms that email addresses are valid and that subscribers genuinely want to hear from you. While it might slow down list growth a bit, it’s worth it for fewer bounces.
Clean Your List Regularly: Set up a monthly routine to remove:
Hard bounces right away
Emails that consistently soft bounce
Subscribers who’ve been inactive for a long time
Use Segmentation: Focus your emails on active subscribers and reduce how often you send to less-engaged ones.
Bounce rates give you a snapshot of your email list’s health. On the other hand, your unsubscribe rate shows how well your content connects with your audience. Both metrics are worth keeping an eye on.
5. Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate helps you understand how well your content connects with your audience. While bounce rate deals with deliverability, unsubscribe rate shows if your messaging is hitting the mark. A good unsubscribe rate usually falls between 0.1% and 0.3%. If it’s higher, it might be time to rethink your strategy.
The formula is simple:
Unsubscribe rate = (Unsubscribes ÷ Delivered Emails) × 100
For example, if 50 people unsubscribe from 10,000 delivered emails, your rate is 0.5%. This is slightly above the preferred range.
Why Do People Unsubscribe?
Here are two common reasons why subscribers might hit that unsubscribe button:
Too Many Emails: Sending emails too often - like daily promotions - can overwhelm your audience.
Generic or Irrelevant Content: If your emails don’t match their interests or feel impersonal, people are more likely to leave.
How to Keep Unsubscribe Rates in Check
Want to keep your unsubscribe rate in the healthy range? Try these tips:
Let subscribers control how often they hear from you by offering email preferences.
Use segmentation to tailor messages based on purchase history or engagement.
Focus on creating emails that are useful, relevant, and feel personalized.
A Quick Content Quality Test
Before hitting "send", ask yourself:
Does this email offer something valuable to the recipient?
Is it tailored to their interests or past behavior?
Would you want to receive this email?
Managing unsubscribes is key to keeping your audience engaged, but don’t forget - building a list of interested subscribers is just as important. Next, we’ll dive into how List Growth Rate plays a role in your email marketing success.
6. List Growth Rate
List growth rate measures how quickly your email subscriber base is expanding. On average, a healthy growth rate falls between 10-15% annually, though this can vary by industry [1]. This metric isn’t just about numbers - it directly influences the success of your email campaigns by boosting both engagement and revenue opportunities.
To calculate your list growth rate, use this formula:
((New Subscribers - Unsubscribes) ÷ Total Subscribers) × 100
Ways to Grow Your List
Attracting New Subscribers
Add sign-up forms to the most visited pages on your website.
Offer incentives like discounts, free shipping, or exclusive content to encourage sign-ups.
Use social proof to build trust, e.g., "Join 50,000+ happy subscribers."
Keeping Subscribers Engaged
Send consistent emails packed with value.
Adjust how often you send emails based on engagement data.
Personalize content for different segments of your audience.
Why It Matters for Revenue
A 15% growth in your list can lead to a noticeable revenue boost, especially if you have a strong RPE (Revenue Per Email). But remember - quality beats quantity. Focus on bringing in subscribers who are genuinely interested in your content. This not only improves email performance but also prevents deliverability issues.
Don't forget: Regularly cleaning your email list is essential. It ensures your growth numbers reflect active, engaged subscribers, not just inflated totals. While growing your list expands your potential reach, knowing how much revenue each subscriber brings in is the key to making your efforts worthwhile. Up next, we’ll dive into Revenue Per Email (RPE) to better understand this connection.
7. Revenue Per Email (RPE)
RPE is a key metric that directly measures the financial impact of your email campaigns. It combines insights from metrics like CTR, conversion rates, and list growth to show exactly how much revenue each email generates. This makes it an essential tool for improving campaign performance and maximizing returns.
How to Calculate RPE
The formula is simple: Total Revenue Generated ÷ Number of Emails Sent = RPE
For example, if your campaign earns $1,000 from 10,000 emails, your RPE would be $0.10 per email.
Ways to Improve Your RPE
Timing Matters
Timing can make or break your campaign. For example, Everlane increased their revenue by 20% by scheduling high-value campaigns on Tuesday, their top-performing day.
Customer Segmentation
Segmenting your audience can reveal differences in RPE across groups:
Tailoring campaigns for each segment - like sending exclusive offers to VIPs - can lead to higher revenues.
Advanced Strategies for Higher RPE
A/B Testing and Personalization
Experiment with subject lines, CTAs, and product displays to find what resonates most. Use personalized content, such as product recommendations or cart reminders, to engage high-intent customers and drive conversions.
Common Mistakes to Watch Out For
Prioritizing list size over active, engaged subscribers
Failing to segment campaigns by customer value
Ignoring the balance between email frequency and revenue
Pairing RPE with Other Metrics
RPE becomes even more powerful when analyzed alongside metrics like open rates or click-through rates. For instance, a high open rate but low RPE might mean your content is engaging but not driving enough sales. This could signal a need to improve your CTAs or offers.
Conclusion
Tracking email marketing metrics is essential for DTC brands aiming to thrive in today's data-focused world. The seven metrics we've covered - like open rates and Revenue Per Email - offer a clear framework for making smarter decisions and driving growth.
Boosting Revenue Through Data
Email marketing often accounts for 20-30% of revenue for DTC brands. Take La Portegna, a Spanish leather bag brand, as an example. By analyzing transactional email data, they optimized their order confirmation emails with discount codes. This simple tweak turned one-time buyers into loyal customers [2].
A Practical Plan for Success
To see results like La Portegna, follow this structured evaluation process:
By building these steps into your routine, you can keep your email strategy sharp and results-driven.
Success doesn’t come from looking at metrics in isolation. The real value lies in understanding how they work together to reveal the full picture of your email marketing performance. With this insight, DTC brands can deepen customer connections, boost engagement, and grow revenue over time.
As your business and customers evolve, so will these metrics. Regularly refining your approach ensures steady growth and lasting customer loyalty.