Running an e-commerce business? Nailing email marketing can give your e-commerce game a serious boost, tapping into the heart of customer engagement just like nifty storytelling grips readers in a book.

Dive deep into metrics that matter, like how often customers come back and spend—way past just tracking opens and clicks. Discover how your emails are directly driving sales and sharpen your decision-making with solid, numbers-backed evidence. Get a grip on your goals, dive deep into the data, and use those nuggets of wisdom to knock your sales goals out of the park.

No matter if you're starting out or already a savvy marketer, this guide has the sharp email strategies you need to really boost your game. Unleash your campaign's true power—master the art of email marketing and see real results.

Every e-commerce venture stands to gain massively from well-crafted email campaigns, acting as a direct line to customers' inboxes. Email is the ONLY direct response marketing channel in the online world. Email marketing does more than just share info; it's a bridge to forming deeper bonds with your audience, fostering trust, and sparking those all-important sales. But to really get the full picture of how your email strategies are performing, you've got to dig deeper than just tracking how many people open or click through. This is where e-commerce email marketing metrics come into play.

Diving into e-commerce email marketing metrics gives you the lowdown on how well your emails are performing, spotlighting which areas might need a tweak or two. Email metrics are like a report card, showing you where your messages rake in cash and where there's room to level up. Keeping an eye on key figures like how many sales you're making, the overall worth of a customer over time, and what you earn from each email sent out can guide your choices and really dial in your approach for top-notch outcomes.

So, let's dive deep into these metrics to see how they really shape your email marketing game plan.

The open rate used to be one of the most basic email marketing metrics. But in the post-iOS 15 world, marketers are starting to lose confidence in its reliability.

Open rates are historically used as a measure of how much your subscribers look forward to reading your emails. Open rates not only gauge reader anticipation but also serve as a key indicator of how well your subject lines are performing.

But first things first: what is an open rate? Well, there are actually two open rates: total open rates and unique open rates.

In every commercial email, there is a tiny image file (literally a 1-pixel x 1-pixel image) embedded at the top of the email. When a person opens the email and the email app starts downloading the images in the email body, it also downloads the open tracking pixel. The email service provider takes note that the image file was downloaded and records the email “open.”

Open rates are calculated as a percentage of emails delivered, and not of emails sent. Emails delivered are calculated as the number of emails that your service provider sent minus the number of emails that your recipients’ mailbox providers rejected (more on “rejected” later).

Total Open Rate is calculated as the total number of times your emails were opened as a percentage of emails delivered.

Unique Open Rate is calculated as the total number of individuals who opened your emails as a percentage of emails delivered.

I only look at Unique Open Rates. I never look at Total Open Rates.

Here’s why: let’s say that 5 people opened my email 4 times each. That gives me 20 total opens. And let’s also say that with another email, 20 people opened my email once. Out of 100 emails delivered, I’d rather take a 20% Unique Open Rate than that example of a 20% Total Open Rate because I’m more interested in how many people find my emails interesting.

I wrote about the impact of iOS 15’s mail privacy protection feature a few years ago. So yes – since then, we’ve seen an artificial rise in open rates. But not really by as much as we feared.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Still, pay attention to (unique) open rates – but just don’t place as much emphasis on them as perhaps you used to.

Boosting your email open rates hinges on nailing those subject lines and preheader snippets—they've got to catch the reader's eye right off the bat. The best subject lines always convey a core emotion. Strong emotions like urgency (the Fear of Missing Out), outrage, curiosity, and humor are effective at piquing the interest of your subscribers. Personalization and the use of emojis are good too.

Don’t forget segmentation. Crafting emails with a specific audience in mind can ramp up your open rates and spark more conversations. Deliver relevant content to the right people, and you’ll increase the chances of them opening your emails and responding to your call to action.

The click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of subscribers who click on a link within your email. CTR really shines when it comes to showing us how much our emails resonate and get people clicking.

There are two click rates: total click rates, and unique click rates. And just like open rates, I care about unique click rates, not total click rates. I’m more interested in how many of my subscribers responded to my email’s call to action.

If you send your emails primarily to businesses, government agencies, or educational entities, then your email’s click rates are artificially inflated. The reason is that these organizations use a special type of spam filter that crawls through every single link in your email, causing them all to be recorded as a click.

To up your email game and get more clicks, zero in on creating standout content that prompts readers to act. As I mentioned in, you want to make sure that your call to action matches the audience of your email. Your call to action should never ask for more trust than your reader is willing to give.

Craft buttons for your calls to action that grab attention, and always give content that matters and hits home with your readers. A/B testing different variations of your emails can also help you find what resonates best with your audience and drives higher click-through rates.

By monitoring your email click-through rates, you'll spot exactly which parts aren't hitting home and can fine-tune them to boost interaction and draw a bigger crowd to your website.

The conversion rate measures the percentage of subscribers who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, after clicking on a link within your email. Tracking the conversion rate gives you a clear picture of how your emails are turning subscribers into buyers or sign-ups.

Depending upon the email service provider you’re using, you’ll be able to see online purchases appear in your email campaign conversion data. MailChimp integrates with Google Analytics. Klaviyo integrates with Shopify.

Other email service providers like Maropost and Klaviyo also offer a nifty feature called “Last Touch Attribution” which makes an educated guess which most recently received campaign led to an online sale. While having the ability to know exactly which email campaign lead to which sale, I like Last Touch Attribution because it’s good enough without requiring too much technical work. Plus, I can use any well-known e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento.

To ramp up your email game and see better conversion rates, zero in on sending tailored messages that resonate with your audience's interests and behaviors. Segment your email list based on factors like past purchase history, browsing behavior, or any other information. So, craft your emails to resonate with individual interests and behaviors. When you really get into the nitty-gritty of your audience's preferences and tailor those emails just right, you're setting yourself up for better sales numbers.

But sometimes, conversion rates aren’t totally in the realm of email. Tighten up your landing pages and streamline the checkout to echo what's in your emails; this could really give those conversion rates a leg up. The higher the friction through the purchase process, the lower the conversion rate.

The revenue per email metric measures the amount of revenue generated from each email you send. This metric sheds light on just how well your email strategies are turning clicks into cash.

To really rake in the cash from each email, you've got to nail down crafting messages that speak directly to what your audience digs – like hitting them with deals and content that match their own shopping vibes or what they're into. Segment your email list based on factors like purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographic information, and tailor your email content and offers accordingly. Tailoring your emails to align with individual behaviors and preferences can seriously boost your chances of making a sale.

Experimenting with various offers and incentives in your email blasts can highlight what resonates best, sharpening your strategy to boost those profit margins.

When conducting A/B tests, it's important to focus on testing one element at a time. This could be the subject line, call-to-action button, email layout, when you want to send, or any other element you want to optimize. Zeroing in on one thing at a time, you nail down exactly how much it sways the outcome. That way, when you've got to choose a direction, your call's rooted in real numbers.

Nevertheless, it’s not uncommon to do multi-variate testing all in the same A/B campaign. I’ve seen marketers use more than 10 different test groups, relying on the email service provider to automatically send the winning group to the remaining audience based on a predetermined success criterion.

Tracking how well your emails do—like seeing if people open them, click on stuff inside, or buy something after reading—helps you know what's working and where to tweak things for better results. Keep an eye on how many people open your emails, click on links, make purchases, and the money you earn from each email; also, test different versions to see what works best.

To truly ace email marketing, you've got to hit the mark with content that resonates precisely when your audience is ready to engage. By digging into your e-commerce email marketing stats, you'll uncover what really clicks with your audience and can then craft emails that hit the mark every time.

Pour over your email data, set sharp objectives, and tailor tactics for a stronger punch in your campaigns. Arm yourself with the smartest tactics and nifty tools, and you'll crack open a treasure trove of possibilities for your online store's emails—think more shoppers hitting 'buy' and pumping up your profits.

Alright, it's go-time—let's take what you've learned and ramp up your e-commerce email game. Steer your venture with confidence and take the helm of your e-commerce email marketing strategy.