Marketing Metrics to Track

most b2b marketers obsess over the wrong email metrics. tracking opens and clicks is like measuring website visits when you actually care about pipeline and revenue. here's what actually matters (and why): 𝟭/ 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝘁𝗼-𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 click-to-open rate = clicks ÷ opens. this tells you how compelling your content is *after* someone opens. campaign monitor data shows this is a better indicator of content quality than raw click-through rates. if your click-to-open rate is low, your email content isn't resonating. if it's high (10.5% is the cross-industry average), you've nailed the message-market fit. if you’re following advice to “write good content”, this is an appropriate metric to follow. 𝟮/ 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 (𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆) 95% delivery sounds great until you realise your emails are landing in spam folders or promotional tabs. what matters isn't just technical delivery, but actual inbox placement that drives engagement. 𝟯/ 𝘂𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 most marketers fear unsubscribes. i'd argue its not to be feared. healthy list churn (under 2%) means you're sending relevant content to engaged people. if your unsubscribe rate suddenly spikes, it's an early warning your messaging is off-target before other metrics catch up. 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀: 💡 segment by engagement recency, not demographics. we've seen 3x higher conversion rates emailing "opened last 30 days" vs "job title = vp of marketing". aim to address intent. 💡 track conversion rate alongside open rates. we can borrow from b2c here: 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴 (𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵) 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘵 1-6%, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬-𝘪𝘯-𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 5.84% 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 - way higher than broadcast campaigns. use nurture emails for contacts who have shown intent (reading your content, attending your webinars, etc.) the bottom line: measure what moves the needle. any other email metrics that you track that correlates with pipeline in your experience?

Are you sending more than 5k emails to Gmail accounts and is your spam rate <0.3%? 🤔 It's not a question you would have asked yourself a week ago. Google's latest announcement around new Gmail requirements as of Feb'24 will mean a good amount of companies will need to review their email-sending practices very soon if A) they're sending over 5k emails per day to Gmail users B) have a >0.3% spam rate A couple of things to note on the spam rate 1. Spam rate applies to all email traffic of the domain, not just sales/marketing 👀 0.3% is 3 emails marked as spam for every 1,000 emails sent This means you'll need to drive down spam rate for your email domain across every email motion whether you're sending newsletters, cold emails etc. 2. 0.3% spam rate requirement is for all the senders, not just those sending over 5K emails to Gmail users. What you should consider doing? 1. Monitor Postmaster Tools 2. Increase quality and reduce quantity (Easier said than done). 3. Warm-up EVERY mailbox you use to send emails to people you don't know 4. Introduce dedicated domains for email motions and do domain rotation 5. Reduce # of emails you have in a sequence. More emails sent to a recipient within a short timeframe = higher likelihood of spam report There's more, but ultimately think from a user's standpoint and reduce the likelihood of them reporting your email as spam. There are things that aren't in your control due to email fatigue. Some users # Don't open emails from unknown senders. They can't/won't manage it. # Automatically filter emails from unknown senders or use tools to block them. # Mark automatically as spam, even newsletters they signed up to, which is cruel :) The good news there's plenty of time for you to adjust. More info and a link to the article in the comments below.

Your most effective channel is losing you sales. You can often make campaigns more effective by moving money to less effective channels. What? Marketing Science maestro Simon Toms explains how: In the example image, the blue line represents a channel that’s 2x more effective than the pink one at every spend level. $1M invested in Channel 1 returns $2M in incremental revenue (A). But split the $1M between Channel 1 and 2 (50:50) and you’d drive $2.5M total incremental revenue (B + C). That’s 25% more revenue from investing in a “less effective” channel. So what? Don't accept average metrics alone, always look to understand the marginal returns. Ideally you should know the curves for all your investments. MMM can obviously help with this, but incrementality testing typically provides more detailed curves based on actual sales rather than modelled ones. Incrementality testing is not A/B testing. It's test and control - the test group see the ad, the control group (who match the ad audience but are withheld from the ads) don't. The difference is the incremental impact. (In an A/B test you do not withhold a segment of your audience from seeing the ad, so it can't measure incremental impact.) Here's where curves from incrementality testing can help: 1. Optimal Full Funnel  Different optimisations have very different curves. The curve for reach spend is very different to conversion spend which can be very different to ASC activity etc. Plotting curves helps you understand where you should pull back investment and where you should double down, critical insights for maximizing incremental returns. 2. Channel synergy The curve for one channel changes depending on your investment in others. Charlie Oscar found that social reach improves paid search performance by 32%, YouTube improves email by up to 25%, most crazy of all, 70% of the value from social and video channels is their impact on other channels with only 30% direct. 3. Plan at the margins  Don't use average ROIs to determine where to shift your budget. It depends on the curve, not the average. Incremental returns show which channels to invest in, marginal returns show how much. Your most effective channel isn't often where you should put your next $. Bottom line:   To make your campaigns work harder, you need to understand how each investment works at the margins. That's the route to higher returns across the mix.

New Strategies For Keeping Your Emails Out of Spam 👇 You might be making amazing emails. But if no one sees them, they won’t drive revenue. Step 1: Your Domain Has a Credit Score (And You Probably Don’t Know What It Is) Inbox providers like Google and Yahoo assign a kind of “credit score” to your domain based on how people interact with your emails. Open rates, clicks, replies = build a good credit score → inbox. No engagement, high bounce/spam complaints = bad credit score → spam folder. Use GlockApps to check yours (not a sponsor I just like them). They’ll give you test email addresses, you send a campaign, and they’ll show you exactly where you’re landing (Inbox vs Promotions vs Spam). Goal: You want 75%+ inbox placement. Step 2: Set Up Your Technicals (Takes 5 Minutes) This is non-negotiable. Missing this = guaranteed spam. Make sure the following records are correctly set up: SPF DKIM DMARC If you're using Klaviyo, this is pretty painless and most of it is automated. You just need to manually add a DMARC record (Klaviyo has an article in this if you look it up). Once it's done, it's done forever. Step 3: Warm Up Your Domain (Even If You’ve Been Sending for Years) Think of warming up your domain like building trust with inbox providers. You wouldn’t apply for a $100k loan with zero credit history. Same thing here. If you’re switching domains or have low open rates, treat your list like it’s fresh: Example Warm-Up Cadence: Start with 250 contacts. Then 250 → 500 → 1000 → 2000 Send unique campaigns every other day. Monitor open rates and only scale when engagement stays strong. Even with a massive list, you can get to full sends within 1 month. Step 4: Send Consistently! In 2025, going silent for weeks and blasting your full list out of nowhere is a huge red flag. Set a minimum cadence of 2 emails per week, even if it’s just a simple text-based update. This keeps your domain “active” and builds positive sending history over time. Step 5: Engagement Is Necessary Open rates, clicks, and replies tell inbox providers, “Hey, people actually want this.” Shoot for: 50%+ open rates 0.5%+ click rates <0.1% spam complaint rate Pro tip: If you’re not hitting those numbers, STOP sending to everyone. Instead, build a 30-day engaged segment (people who opened/clicked in the last 30 days) and only send to them. Once you’re consistently hitting 50%+ open rates, expand to 60, 90, 120-day segments. Bonus: Simple Emails = Higher Engagement Fancy designs are cool. But inbox providers love engagement, not aesthetics. Mix in text-based founder emails. Keep buttons clear. Add PS sections. Make it feel personal. It’s not just better for engagement, it builds trust and makes people want to open the next one.

Most Meta advertisers are addicted to retargeting. Why wouldn’t you? The performance looks incredible. But here’s the hard truth: Retargeting often gives the illusion of success, not the reality of incrementality. Here are 3 uncomfortable truths about retargeting that should change how you buy media: 1. Retargeting happens anyway. Meta knows who’s likely to convert. If you’re using broad targeting, the platform is already prioritizing people who’ve engaged with you. Break down performance by audience segments—you might find 20–40% of your “broad” campaigns are actually hitting engaged users and existing customers. 2. It’s not scalable. Audience pools for retargeting are inherently limited. You can’t scale spend or results when you only target past visitors or past customers. Broad campaigns include those users plus net-new ones. 3. It inflates results—and hides lack of incrementality. Retargeting conversions are often view-through. The user already knew you. They saw an email, a post, a recommendation. Your ad helped—but wasn’t the reason. That’s not incrementality. That’s attribution noise. Want to really grow? Start by trusting the algorithm more than your instincts. Curious how much of your "cold" campaign is actually warm? Run the breakdown. You might be surprised.

Is your D2C brand really growing or are you just spending more to make less? Most founders think sales are the only success metric. But if you’re not tracking these 6 numbers daily, you’re not scaling, you’re surviving. 1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Every new customer costs you. If this number is rising, your profits are dying. Dial in your targeting, creative, and retention. 2. Conversion Rate 10,000 visitors mean nothing if they don't buy. Are your landing pages optimized? Is your checkout process smooth? A 1% jump in conversion = a major revenue boost. 3. Average Order Value (AOV) Want to earn more without new customers? Focus on AOV. Bundles, upsells, and time-limited deals can easily 2x this metric. 4. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) A great D2C brand turns one-time buyers into loyal fans. Aim for LTV that’s 4–5x your CAC. If it’s not, prioritize retention strategies like loyalty programs, re-engagement flows, and post-purchase content. 5. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) If your ads aren’t returning profit, you're just burning cash. Test daily. Better creative, sharper offers, tighter targeting. 6. Refund & Return Rate High returns = leaking revenue. Understand the why. Quality issues? Misleading product descriptions? Fix it now. Track these. Improve these. Scale smart. Which of these metrics are you ignoring today? #businesscoach #businesstips #D2C #founders

This brand owner discovered their "best performing" ads were stealing credit from their email flows. They'd been running the same playbook everyone else does - dumping budget into Facebook, watching the platform tell them they're crushing it, assuming that's the whole story. But something felt off. The numbers didn't match the bank account. So they ran a proper attribution analysis using Polar Analytics 🐻❄️  and discovered: → Ads claimed 60% revenue attribution  → Email got credit for only 15% → Server-side tracking showed the opposite was true Classic case of platforms marking their own homework. Their email flows were actually driving 3x more incremental revenue than ads. The ads weren't converting cold traffic - they were just catching people at the finish line who were already sold through email nurturing. That's the gap between platform attribution (what Facebook wants you to believe) and real attribution with first-party data tracking. Most brands never figure this out. They keep feeding the ad machine because that's where the "results" show up, while their email flows do the actual work in the shadows. Stop letting platforms tell you where your revenue comes from.  Track it yourself or you're just guessing with extra steps. This is exactly why I’m a #proudpartner with Polar Analytics 🐻❄️  - one of the few tools that actually shows you what's driving incremental growth versus what's just good at taking credit. What would you do if your "best" channel was stealing credit from your actual best channel? Time to get real with your attribution: https://lnkd.in/gDwiPSxw

After optimizing email deliverability (NOT THE SAME as email open rates lol) for 50+ ecommerce brands over 3+ years, This is how you need to view deliverability: Good reputation = Primary tab placement Average reputation = Promotions tab Poor reputation = Spam folder Most brands focus all their energy on subject lines and email design (not a bad thing) But none of that creative work matters if your emails aren't actually reaching inboxes. Let’s do the math: If a brand sends an email that 100 people see, 20 open, and 2 buy Vs: If a brand sends an email that 200 people see, 40 open, and 4 buy That makes a massive difference with a list of 10,000 subscribers right? Here's the email deliverability system we use to fix this: → Configure a dedicated sending domain in Klaviyo settings → Add DMARC record for proper authentication → Implement gradual domain warming over time → Monitor performance per ISP and adjust accordingly We use specific tools to track and improve deliverability performance: - Google Postmaster Tools gives us Gmail-specific insights and data. - GlockApps provides comprehensive spam testing across all major providers. - GMass helps us verify actual inbox placement rates. These are our target benchmarks that separate good from great performance: → Open rate: 30%+ → Click rate: 0.4%+ → Delivery rate: 97%+ → Bounce rate: <1% → Spam rate: <0.03% The reality is that deliverability is the foundation everything else builds on. Everything else is just a small percentage increase on top of that foundation. DM 'Email' for a full audit of your brand's emails

Unsubscribes aren’t bad. They’re feedback. We’ve been trained to flinch when we see that unsubscribe rate tick up. But here’s a different take: An unsubscribe is not a rejection. It’s clarity. It’s consent. It’s someone saying, “This isn’t for me right now” — and that’s OK. Here’s what’s worse than unsubscribes: X Dead weight on your list X Engagement tanking X Spam complaints X Ending up in the junk folder because you were too afraid to let people leave In fact, healthy unsubscribes can improve your deliverability and help you see what’s working. Instead of dreading them: ✔ Look for patterns ✔ Review recent messaging or frequency ✔ Segment smarter ✔ Respect the ‘no’ — it’s a gift in disguise Unsubscribes are feedback. Ignore them, and your email strategy suffers. Use them, and your list becomes stronger, cleaner, more responsive. #emailmarketing #emailunsubscribe

Marketers, are you still measuring email the old way? We get told email is dead, but everyone reading this has most likely read an email, logged in using it & made a purchase with it. So it's not dead, but how we judge its effectiveness hasn’t evolved fast. We’ve relied on open rates & click-through rates (CTR) — metrics that, frankly, are no longer fit for purpose. Why open rates are no longer reliable Open tracking depends on image loading, which Outlook often blocks, & Apple & Gmail preload by default. As a result, you might see machines open, not human ones. And proper visibility is vanishing with more “text-only” creatives or image-blocked environments. And CTR? It’s got its own problems Think about user intent. If a customer reads “50% off this weekend” in your subject line, they may just go straight to your site—no click needed. Even Gmail’s AI summarising content & extracting voucher codes means users engage without clicks. Email is quickly becoming a powerhouse for brand awareness, but it doesn't have the metrics to prove this. So, what should we look at? As the rest of adtech races toward incrementality, attention, and post-impression attribution, email needs to catch up. Here’s how: 1. Conversion Attribution (Beyond Last Click) Don't stop at click-based conversions. Track who received the email, & assign influence weightings to openers, clickers, & even non-clickers who later convert. This mirrors how display and social now assess "view-through" impact. 2. Frequency & Multi-Touch Engagement Did the recipient open on mobile in the morning, revisit via desktop, & convert on payday? That’s a multi-touch journey. Look at repeat site visits, device switching, & re-engagement post-send. 3. Pay Day or Trigger-Based Lift Create holdout groups and measure uplift around high-conversion moments (e.g., end-of-month). This mirrors the incrementality testing often used in paid social or programmatic, proving that email drives behaviour, not just volume. 4. Attention Metrics Use tools to estimate dwell time on emails or the time between opening& clicking. These are soft proxies for intent, similar to how platforms measure scroll depth, hover rate, and ad exposure time in other channels. 5. Site Quality Metrics Did email recipients spend longer on site, view more pages, or have higher AOVs? Your session quality tells you if email delivers high-intent traffic, something brands already monitor from Google Ads or affiliates. 6. Ask them! Simple, but powerful: survey your audience. What emails did they find valuable? Did it change their behaviour? Self-reported attribution, done well, can give you what click-tracking can’t. Email deserves more credit than. If adtech is shifting toward attention, incrementality, & deeper behaviour analysis, email should, too. Let's measure actual impact, not just opens & clicks. I bet you will discover that email isn't just for conversion but also a branding-building superpower.