Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
I'll be the first to point out that the ROI on email marketing is high – the highest, even compared to other marketing channels. And I think tracking your ROI is very valuable for several obvious reasons.
For example, your finance team wants to see if the activity and spend you're making on email is working. Your content and product teams want to see what's driving engagement and, more importantly, conversions. Your email team wants to understand what they're driving today so they can optimize, grow, and deliver even more tomorrow.
However, if we only look at email from an ROI perspective – and in many cases that perspective is limited to looking at recent conversions that can be traced back to a single click – we are missing out on a large part of the value that email creates every day, across all channels and all audiences.
Additionally, there are complex multi-touch attribution models and technologies that can give you a more comprehensive view of all the touchpoints that lead to a conversion. But even with that, sometimes we miss the point because we're framing the entire experience around the desired outcome.
Source: The State of Email report
Why is that? Email marketing is more than just a channel. It builds relationships. A single email alone would rarely produce a strong ROI (yes, even in B2C!). But it's the result of a combination of factors that allow you to strengthen that relationship over time.
Everything starts with permission
Permission is a long-winded way of saying that the subscriber has already found some value in your content and brand. Or even simpler: you have something they want. Products, advice, insights, fashion ideas, gossip. It can be anything they find valuable about you and your brand.
But the crucial point is that they are interested before you get involved. Subscribers sign up for your email list and reach out to hear from you. This is critical to email success—and you can't achieve this kind of brand affinity through any other channel.
Email is critical for brand awareness
Once you have that permission, you need to build a relationship by showing up in the inbox regularly and presenting your brand's best experience to increase and maintain brand awareness.
In B2B, we talk all the time about how only 5% of your audience is in a buying cycle at any given time. Can you use email to move some of that 95% into the 5% bracket? Yes, sometimes, if you're careful and use very small amounts.
The same is true in B2C. Because of the eligibility standard, you had to put in some effort to get them to sign up. But in reality, an email that results in a sale is the sum of everything you've done over time to build interest and trust.
In either case, if the intent isn't quite there yet, are you in a better position with email to stay top of mind, build trust, plant a seed, and be the first port of call when the prospect suddenly starts searching? Much better. And this effort is difficult to track in terms of ROI.
Email reflects the entire marketing funnel
In reality, email is its own channel for activity, engagement and trust building at all stages of the buyer's journey. To be effective, different programs and optimization strategies are required.
If you only expect emails to drive end conversions, your funnel will dry up and no more emails will be generated for that lower funnel segment, impacting your ROI. In practice, investing more in email will lead to better opportunities to target your upper funnel group and move them to a higher purchase intent segment. While this won't show up on your ROI dashboard, it's critical to getting there.
What do we do with this knowledge?
Be sure to track your ROI. It's one of the most powerful data points for your team, your leadership, and any arguments you make for future investments.
Should you try to track your email ROI from a last contact perspective? Absolutely. If you can connect the dots to revenue, visits, or leads—whatever you can show—it's worth the effort. It's even more worth the effort if you can compare it to your spend on similar paid media campaigns.
At the same time, use these opportunities to make it clear to your own team and those responsible that email is not a simple channel through which you can pay in and out. It is the sum of a larger experience that reflects the customer journey as a whole.
ROI is really just the tip of the iceberg. It's what you can see, but awareness, retention, and overall engagement are all underneath.
Our paid media teams understand this completely. We can't just “spend more” on conversion ads if we're not working to grow the audience and increase their engagement to that point. The same goes for email marketing – we simply can't send more conversion-focused emails without also working to build awareness, trust and relationships.
Calculate your missing email ROI
How much marketing revenue are you missing out on? Use our free ROI calculator to see how much email-based revenue you're giving away.
Learn more
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
