Every marketing channel or industry for that matter has somewhat of a golden period during which profits make for some easy pickings. Just a few short years ago Internet Marketers in particular made a killing through social media advertising, some of whom didn’t even have a specialist niche they were dealing with.
They simply sold anything they could get their hands on and generate an affiliate link for to earn commissions, took out an ad on social media platforms like Facebook and then just watched their referral earnings skyrocket. Things have changes, bringing to light the fact that email marketing is still better than social media marketing. Perhaps this even highlights the fact that email marketing will forever trump social media marketing, but there are a couple of reasons as to why that is.
The opt-in factor
Social media users will always view ads with a bit of annoyance attached to the action, no matter how targeted they may be. With email marketing you can be sure that you’re only sending out offers to prospects that are interested in receiving them as there is that opt-in factor involved.
The general inaccuracy of social media targeting
It’s very simple really when it comes to the identified inaccuracy of social media targeting. People generally filter their lives on social media and don’t really truthfully represent their interests, hopes, fears, needs, desires, etc. So you might be trying to target people with a specific product who live in a certain country for example, whereas they haven’t listed the country they really live in. Your ads are then completely wasted on the wrong demographic…
That said; if you’re rather astutely going to focus on email marketing then there are four metrics which can help you calculate your subsequent email marketing ROI, put together by Delivra.
4 Metrics that help calculate email marketing ROI
- Lifetime value of client
Once a recipient clicks-through and become a customer, they may not open as many emails going forward. However, this doesn’t mean they don’t continue to add to your campaign’s ROI. That’s why it’s a good idea to track the lifetime value of each of your customers.
By doing so, you can find how much profit they contribute to your company over time–long after that initial click.
We touched on this concept above when we reviewed the ROI for a gym membership, but the lifetime value of a client is just as important for online stores and other companies that sell products and services.
If an email turned a recipient into a customer, that campaign deserves credit for all the money they spend going forward.
- Cost per lead
When we covered costs earlier, we did so under the assumption that you were earning all of yours through organic traffic and other “free” methods.
Of course, many companies grow their lists through Facebook ads, Google Ads, or other PPC methods. Some still buy whole lists of subscribers.
In cases like these, there is always some cost per lead that needs to be calculated.
Obviously, this number is going to impact your email marketing ROI. The more you’re spending to generate every lead–or “subscriber” in this case–the more your ROI decreases.
Alternatively, the more you can work on that number–finding cost-effective ways to generate leads–the more your ROI will grow in a positive direction.
Be sure to check the number of subscribers you have every month if you’re paying for any of them. Also, keep track of how many you paid for and which were organic, as this will affect the ultimate ROI calculation.
- List growth rate
While the growth of your list doesn’t directly contribute to its current ROI, it’s still a very helpful KPI when making the case for email marketing.
Keep track of how your list grows month-after-month and you’ll be able to estimate what your future conversions will look like.
During the first few months of your initial campaign, growth and conversions may look modest. However, if you can show what the current trend promises to deliver down the road, you’ll have an easier time winning over management.
A subset of this category is the sharing/forwarding rate that results in new subscribers. Earning them from a landing page is still significant, but it’s also helpful to see what types of messages turn your recipients into marketers by forwarding them to others.
- Conversions by segment
Once you have a large enough number of recipients on your list, it becomes important that you introduce segmentation.
In short, you want to recognize different categories of recipients.
For example, if your company sells products to dog owners, your list would probably be comprised of people who own large, medium, and small dogs. Given that the size of their dogs would affect what products owners buy, it might make sense to segment your list so you’re sending different emails to each category.
Properly segmenting your email list is one of the easiest ways to immediately increase its overall ROI. As time goes on, continue segmenting, so each email you send is precision-aimed at a specific target.
