Staying ahead of email marketing trends and constantly optimizing your strategies is crucial if you’re looking to enhance customer engagement and drive meaningful results. We hosted our 2025 Benchmark webinar, where our experts weighed in on the findings from our 2025 Marketing benchmark report and offered tips and suggestions for how to make the most of your email marketing. Here are some of the takeaways.
Key email marketing metrics and optimization strategies
Open rate: This is a foundational metric in email marketing, measuring the percentage of emails opened by recipients. Historically, it was considered a gold standard. However, factors like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection have made open rates less reliable by registering an open event even if the user doesn't actually open the email. Consequently, marketers should focus more on explicit metrics such as conversions, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribe rates to gauge campaign performance. Improving open rates and overall engagement can be achieved by providing value in every email, maintaining consistent sending practices, and leveraging preference centers.
Click-through rate (CTR): This metric measures the percentage of delivered emails that had at least one click on a link within the message. This metric provides insights into the effectiveness of email content, including design, calls to action (CTAs), and messaging. To boost your CTR, marketers should ensure their emails are visually appealing, mobile-optimized, and contain engaging CTAs. Personalization and segmentation allow for more relevant and targeted messaging. Utilizing dynamic content and A/B testing can further enhance the CTR by identifying what resonates most with the audience.
Click-to-open rate (CTOR): Also known as the effective rate, this metric offers deeper insights into customer engagement by measuring unique click-through rates as a percentage of unique messages opened. This metric helps marketers understand how engaging their email content is. To improve CTOR, it's essential to use clear, engaging copy and visually distinct CTAs. Personalization and dynamic content drive engagement by allowing for tailored messaging based on customer personas and behaviors. Regularly testing and optimizing CTAs can also identify areas for improvement and increase click engagement.
Unsubscribe rates: This metric measures the percentage of delivered emails that result in an unsubscribe request. While a certain level of churn is inevitable, high unsubscribe rates can indicate issues with data hygiene or the relevance of email content. Recent changes, such as the introduction of one-click unsubscribe options by Gmail and Yahoo, have made it easier for recipients to opt out of emails. To maintain healthy unsubscribe rates, marketers should ensure their emails provide value, are not overly repetitive, and include clear and accessible unsubscribe options. Automated messages should be personalized and relevant to avoid appearing generic and driving recipients to unsubscribe.
Please don't forget automated messages...they’re such a great opportunity to make these more transactional type of relationships just a bit more personal and valuable, which in return can boost your engagement rate while keeping that churn rate trending a little bit lower.
Why compliance with email regulations is non-negotiable
Marketers must ensure that unsubscribe requests are processed promptly and that subscribers can easily opt out without navigating multiple web pages or links. For high-volume senders, setting up one-click unsubscribe options for platforms like Google and Yahoo is mandatory. This not only keeps you compliant but also enhances the user experience. Unsubscribes are not inherently negative; they can provide valuable insights into how your audience perceives your campaigns. Use unsubscribe data to gauge your success and make necessary adjustments without letting it define your overall performance.
Email deliverability best practices
Maintaining a clean email list is essential for optimal email deliverability here are some tips discussed in our webinar:
- High bounce rates can negatively affect your sender reputation. Regular checks of email authentication records, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, are necessary to ensure proper setup.
- Implementing Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) can improve brand recognition and subscriber experience.
- It's important to distinguish between hard bounces (permanently undeliverable emails) and soft bounces (temporary issues) and manage them appropriately. Automatically adding hard bounces to a master suppression list prevents future emails from being sent to these addresses, safeguarding your email reputation.
- Utilizing advanced analytics and reporting tools is crucial for understanding and enhancing email deliverability. Tools like Acoustic Connect enable marketers to track key metrics over time to identify trends, patterns, and potential issues with specific inbox providers.
- Monitoring soft bounces can uncover underlying problems with content, send volume, or recipient inboxes, enabling timely resolution before issues escalate.
Building a well-rounded strategy
To optimize email marketing strategies effectively, a thorough understanding of key metrics and dedication to personalized, relevant content is crucial. Focusing on metrics like conversions and clicks, utilizing dynamic content and personalization, and maintaining data hygiene can significantly enhance customer engagement and drive results. A multifaceted approach that includes compliance, list hygiene, authentication, advanced analytics, and personalized content will ensure emails reach the intended recipients and drive meaningful engagement. To learn more, access the on-demand replay of our 2025 Benchmark webinar, or read the full 2025 Marketing benchmark report for industry and regional breakdowns.
