The email marketing industry never runs out of ideas to drive success. We see advice on which metrics to track and tactics for “winning the game” almost daily.
But ultimately, your email marketing success hinges on one key factor: how well your emails inspire action—otherwise known as your email conversion rate.
Fancy metrics aside, your emails must convert to be effective. And that means it needs to encourage email recipients to move beyond the inbox and meaningfully engage with your business.
This article covers the essentials of the email conversion rate. We explain what it represents, how to calculate it, tried-and-true tips to improve yours, and more. Stay with us.
Understanding Email Conversion Rate
Email conversion rate is an email marketing metric that measures the percentage of recipients who successfully complete an email’s desired action—commonly known as the call-to-action (CTA).
This action could include but isn’t limited to:
- Filling out a form
- Downloading a resource
- Buying a product or service
- Signing up for a sales demo
- Proving a review or testimonial
- Renewing an ongoing subscription
- Completing a pending purchase in an abandoned cart
Conversion rates are notably similar to click-through rates, but there’s a key difference. The former considers whether recipients actually follow through on the call to action, while the latter simply tracks whether recipients click a specific link in the email.
Your conversion rate is the ultimate report card for your email campaigns. It tells you, in no uncertain terms, whether your campaigns are delivering the results you need or falling short.
How Important Is Email Conversion Rate in Measuring a Campaign Success?
The email conversion rate is the most telling indicator of a campaign’s effectiveness. Sure, high open rates get you in the door and great click-throughs show interest, but none of it matters if no one eventually completes the requested action.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say your email campaigns are only as good as your conversion rate. After all, it directly ties your email marketing efforts to tangible business outcomes.
But don't just take our word for it.
In a 2023 Statista survey featuring marketers across nine countries, 26.5% of professionals consider the conversion rate their top metric (besides open rate) for defining email marketing success:
Similarly, Mailjet's 2022 Inbox Insights survey revealed that 41% of successful email marketers prioritize conversion rates over all other email marketing KPIs:
High email conversion rates show that your message resonates, your offer compels, and your audience is convinced. Low conversion rates? They're a clear sign to reassess and refine your approach.
What is the Average Email Conversion Rate?
If you're looking for an all-around number, there isn't one. Email conversion rates are as diverse as the businesses that measure them.
Some studies claim that the average email conversion rate hovers between 2% and 5% while others claim it's between 15% and 20%.
These numbers give us a general benchmark, but what constitutes a good email conversion rate can differ widely based on your industry, audience, and specific email campaign.
The bottom line? Don't get hung up on industry averages. Focusing on beating your personal best is the surest way to sustainable success.
How Do You Calculate Your Email Conversion Rate?
To calculate your email conversion rate, start by dividing the number of recipients who completed your email call to action by the total number of emails successfully delivered. Then, multiply that result by 100 to get a percentage.
Here’s the formula:
6 Tips to Increase Your Email Conversion Rate
We’ve seen what the email conversion rate entails and the important role it plays, now let’s go over six proven tips to help you grow this vital metric sustainably.
Practice Good Email List Hygiene
A clean email list helps your messages reach inboxes rather than the spam folder, which is the first step toward achieving a higher conversion rate.
So, how do you clean your email list?
- Keep tabs on engagement over time and remove inactive subscribers
- Filter out invalid, bounced, and duplicate email addresses
- Consider using double opt-in for new email subscribers
- Make it very easy for recipients to unsubscribe
- Validate your cold email accounts and bulk-test your domains to catch missing records
These practices not only boost your email deliverability and protect your sender reputation, but they also keep your efforts targeted and impactful.
Not sure where or how to start? Providers like Instantly.ai make this process effortless thanks to our Done-For-You Email Setup.
By optimizing your deliverability to the highest possible level, Instantly keeps your messages where they'll most likely be seen, read, and acted upon—in inboxes. Try it for free today!
Write Clear, Captivating Subject Lines
Your email subject line is the first thing recipients see, and often determines whether they’ll open your email. This means your subject lines need to be clear, compelling, and relevant to grab attention.
A great subject line sets the tone for your email and significantly boosts your open rates. And the higher your open rates, the better your chances of winning conversions.
So, continuously test out different subject line strategies and use A/B testing to see what resonates best with your audience. Even a simple tweak can sometimes lead to dramatic improvements in engagement.
Include a Straightforward Call-to-Action (CTA)
CTAs are often treated as afterthoughts, but their impact on conversions is no less significant.
For the best results, your CTAs should be crystal clear and as obvious as a neon sign in a dark alley. It should also create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate action.
Here are a couple of examples to get you started:
- Buy now and enjoy a 20% discount
- Sign up now to access the full report
- Download our ebook now to get the latest insights
- Join our webinar live tomorrow to learn from the industry’s finest
- How about a quick 20-minute call next Tuesday or Thursday afternoon to learn more?
Don't forget to keep your CTA buttons visually distinct and optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing. This way, recipients can easily engage with your content, no matter how they access it.
Segment Your List and Personalize Your Pitch
Email list segmentation is another effective email marketing strategy for boosting your conversion rates.
When you divide your email list based on factors like behavior, demographics, and purchase history, your messages become targeted and more likely to resonate with each group’s specific interests.
Once that's done, it's time to personalize your message to make each more relevant, relatable, and compelling to your audience. But since email marketing is inherently a numbers game, personalizing your email content manually isn’t ideal for continued growth.The good news is that services like Instantly.ai were created to take this exact burden off your hands.
With our AI-powered personalization features, crafting highly customized emails at scale becomes a breeze. Simply add elements like names, companies, roles, pain points, and much more without hassle to help your emails evoke the right reaction from recipients.
Optimize Your Emails for Mobile
With 53% of all emails now being opened on mobile devices, it’s vital to keep your emails mobile-friendly.
Plus, there's the fact that mobile-optimized emails have a 65% higher chance of driving website traffic. Translation? Not being mobile-friendly today means leaving money on the table.
To make your emails mobile-friendly, prioritize easy-to-read text, fast-loading images, larger fonts, plenty of white spaces, and buttons that are easy to click on small screens.
Also, pay attention to the length of your subject lines and preview text, as mobile devices display fewer characters.
Leverage Automation Tools
Automation is indispensable in increasing your email conversion rate. Not only does it save time and effort, but it ensures that your audience receives relevant content right when they’re most likely to engage with it.
But the biggest benefit of automation remains the ability to scale. And as we know, the more you scale by increasing your email send volumes, the higher your chances of winning conversions.
No clue how or where to start? Again, you can leave it all in the capable hands of Instantly.ai.
As an all-in-one sales engagement platform, Instantly offers lots of helpful products to streamline the sales process. But it really takes the cake when it comes to automated email outreach.
From unlimited sending accounts to a robust lead database to an AI-powered CRM, Instantly helps scale your every marketing effort sustainably.
Key Takeaways
Your email conversion rate is a yardstick that defines how effective your emails are at driving the behavior you want from your audience. Many email marketers consider it the ultimate measure for determining the success or failure of a campaign.
Short on time? Here are the highlights:
- The average email conversion rate varies widely depending on your industry, audience, and specific email campaign.
- To calculate your email conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the amount of emails successfully delivered, and multiply the result by 100.
- You can improve your email conversion rate in several ways, including maintaining a clean email list, writing compelling subject lines, personalizing your messages, providing a clear call to action, and leveraging automation tools—to mention a few.
Automation tools are powerful drivers of email conversion and, by extension, successful email campaigns. Ready to transform your campaigns with an acclaimed email automation partner? Sign up with Instantly today!
