If I asked you how effective your email marketing efforts are, would you be able to answer? Do you know your open and click-through rates? Do you have a ballpark idea of your conversion rates?

Are you tracking your metrics?

If you aren’t paying attention to how well your emails are performing, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to pinpoint what works, what doesn’t, and where you can improve.

What should you be tracking?

There are a few key metrics that you should be tracking via your emailing marketing platform. (Don’t worry — these are standard metrics offered by most providers.)

• How many people actually open your emails
• How many people hit the unsubscribe button
• How many people actually click a link in your email
• How many of those clicks actually result in a purchase

Knowing these numbers can give you a pretty good idea of what you need to work on.

• Do you have a low open rate? Work on making your subject lines a little more compelling and clear.
• Are a lot of people unsubscribing? Work on making your emails more relevant to your audience or more enjoyable to read.
• Do you have a low click-through rate? Maybe your Call-to-Action isn’t as visible or exciting as it could be.
• Low conversion rate? Try tweaking your offer and see if that rate jumps up.

What lies behind the numbers?

While very helpful, these metrics are only numbers and don’t tell the whole story. If you want more detailed feedback (why are people unsubscribing? What do people want to see in your emails? What sort of offers are your subscribers interested in?) then you can develop a short survey and send it out to your subscribers. Providers like Survey Monkey make it easy to dig deeper and learn the story behind your metrics. The answers you receive can help you rework your strategy to better appeal to your prospects. When it comes to survey-making, the trick is to keep it simple.

• Keep questions short and clearly-worded
• Don’t offer too many options per question (up to 6 options is best for most questions)
• Have “Does Not Apply” or “Other” options when needed
• Allow respondents to fill out a field when selecting “Other”
• Don’t ask unnecessary questions (few people want to answer a 20-question survey)

If you want to boost the number of people taking part in the survey, you can offer participants a chance to win a small prize or access to an exclusive deal. Once you’ve received the answers, take some time to re-examine your digital marketing strategy and use this new knowledge to make changes where necessary.