The Analytics of a Great Email List

by List Spikers | Last Updated: November 16, 2021

Oh, yea you know we have to talk about email lists. After all, that is what List Spike is all about.

What would we be if not the folks who care about not much else other than a great and large (but highly targeted and niche-focused) email list? So what are the analytics of a great email list?

So we sat around thinking about how it is important to not just have an email list just to know, say you have one. Whether it’s 100, 1000, or 10,000, what matters is not the number, it’s the quality.

But how do I know if I have a quality email list?

Well, the first thing you and probably only you would know is the methods (hopefully you used ours) you used to build and grow that list.

Did you use relevant content upgrades for example? Were you using guest posts on other sites whose audiences aligned with yours, or were in the same niche?

Anyway, the next thing again, you and only you, should be able to tap into is the analytics of your email list.

It doesn’t matter what service provider you use, the chances are, they all have a dashboard that allows you to check things like open rates, unsubscribes, click-through rates, and so forth.

So these are the data points you need to be checking.

Here is an example below of an email list we started within the past week using Mailchimp.

So we only have 18 subscribers so far on this list, and we sent one email out giving them our top tips for email list growth.

As you can see we had an open rate of 28.6%. Not bad, but we hope for better, again it’s early with only 18 contacts. If this list was 2,000 and we were offering a $20 ebook, that open rate would certainly be taken gladly.

So Average click rate is zero because we had no links within the email. If you had a link to a landing page or webinar sign up, this is where you would see what % of people who read the email actually clicked on the link.

Btw in case you are wondering, clean contacts, according to Mailchimp, are email addresses that have hard bounced or repeatedly soft bounced and are considered invalid, so we’ll need to fix that up later.

We also had 2 unsubscribes after receiving the email. Yes, we were sad, but that happens, you have to expect that.

So since we actually had 20 people on this list before the email got sent, and 2 unsubscribed, we had an unsubscribe rate of 10% which we don’t want. That is our opinion is super high, but again we are talking about 20 contacts.

If this list were 2,000 like we said before and that was our rate, that would mean one email caused 200 people to unsubscribe. Yikes.

So there you go, in just a few seconds using a few analytics you can see how much you can learn from your list and that was only using the service providers dashboard.

There are in fact, believe it or not, companies and software entirely focused on email analytics.

Don’t believe us?

We figured some might not so here is proof:

Email Analytics

(their name is literally email analytics…what more proof do you need than that?)

EmailAnalytics is an email analytics tool that allows you to track and visualize your email use (or your team’s) and visualize the Gmail metrics that matter.

It’s like Google Analytics for email. It also allows you to add your team members or employees and track and compare their email analytics.

Litmus

Litmus is the all-in-one, easy-to-use set of solutions your team needs to create emails that convert and get more from your marketing.

Simply connect to your ESP, and we’ll equip you with a powerful set of tools to help ensure your messages get heard. From pre-send testing to post-delivery data to high-performance insights, it’s everything you need to cut through the clutter.

Drag App

The DragApp reporting gives you clear insights into team performance and identifies where to improve. This works best for team environments across various industries.

Do we use any of these applications? No, we are not recommending them here, we are just making a point that email analytics matter. Look into these companies at your own discretion.

Honestly, we are good with using our email service provider dashboards because they give us the information we need to know.

Sure there may be all sorts of nuances, but the reality is we all should care about:

• How many subscribers do we have in total?
• How many on average open our email when we send to the entire list (or segments)?
• Click-Through Rate
• Unsubscribe Rate
• Bounce Rate

Something that isn’t measured necessarily is how the list grew. Was it organic growth? Was it based on promotions and giveaways? The specific question is how targeted is your list?

The more targeted, the more likely you have higher open and click-through rates, and lower unsubscribe and bounce rates. Makes sense when you think about it right?

So what are we getting at here?

Pay attention to the analytics

A great email list has solid analytics results that keep you smiling, and your subscribers are engaged.

Your business is going well and you have opportunities to continue building great products and services that your subscribers can’t wait to buy from you.

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