Or put another way, what is a click worth? Unless your revenue comes from advertising, clicks don’t directly create revenue. So why do we judge email marketing performance based on click-through rates?

I recently saw results from a couple of projects executed by Lyris' talented UK professional services team. They did a great job of ensuring that the entire customer database was well-utilized and that email messages were well-targeted. The creative was impressive, and their A/B testing approach was very insightful. But the most important part of the presentation was that they measured their results in revenue. At the end of the project they were able to report the actual lift in revenue that resulted from their efforts (which was many times more than their fees, by the way).

Of course, this was an ecommerce business, so revenue was directly measurable. But all email marketing should have a purpose, or you wouldn’t spend the money to send it. Here are some other examples:

Lead Nurture: You should have a call to action in each email message that’s tied to a measurable goal. It could be downloading a white paper or trial software, registering for a demo, contacting an account representative (through an online form), or even viewing a specific page on your Web site. All of these are measurable goals which can also be used to segment warm leads for better follow-up targeting.

Life Cycle: Like lead nurture, life cycle messages should have a clear, measurable call to action. Align goals with each and use them to measure email performance.

Subscription-based Services: Even if your email message isn’t designed to drive a specific online transaction, you’re likely to see a lift in subscription renewal rates by engaging customers more deeply with your site. Try measuring Page Views per Visit or Average Time on Site.

Ad-driven sites: While an ad-driven site does technically make revenue directly from the first click, a more effective and accurate metric is Total Page Views, which should correlate with the number of ad impressions.

Newsletters/Branding: If you really only want recipients to read a specific news article and leave your site, click-through rate might be the best measure for an e-newsletter. But is this a missed opportunity? Make sure your online news articles have opportunities to cross-sell or otherwise engage with your brand. Then measure Conversions or Average Time on Site.

Transactional: This is the most often overlooked opportunity. With the high open rates of confirmations and other transactional messages, you have a prime opportunity for cross-selling or deeper engagement. Try a soft call to action with a measurable goal.

This is the essence of data driven marketing, and the purpose of an integrated marketing solution like Lyris HQ. Any of these goals can be easily established and measured using its Web analytics component. Web analytics is more than a “hit counter”, but you don’t need a PhD in statistics to use it. Start by simply looking at each email campaign individually and measuring its success with an appropriate goal. When you identify underperforming campaigns, work your way backwards through clicks, opens and delivery rates to identify the weakest link and improve it. For more information read: Using Web Analytics to Fine-Tune Email Campaigns.

And if you need help, just ask your Lyris account manager.

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About the Author

Dan Miller is professional services and sales engineering manager at Lyris. He helps companies adopt data driven marketing techniques to improve their ROI.

Related Resources:

• Subscribe to Inside Lyris HQ our monthly online-marketing newsletter.
• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.

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