What Is a Good Engagement Rate for a Newsletter?

If you’ve begun sending email newsletter content or you’re thinking about getting started, you’ll likely be wondering how to measure whether it’s successful or not. Tracking engagement metrics will help you measure the success of email newsletters. 

This article will provide you with good benchmarks for email newsletters and help you understand the most important metrics. Keep reading to learn more about email engagement.

What Is a Good Email Open Rate in 2023?

If you’re sending an email marketing newsletter, one of the engagement metrics you’ve probably heard of is open rate. Email opens are important for newsletter content, since they measure consumer receptiveness. A good email open rate for newsletters is between 17-28%, depending on the industry.

The average email marketing open rate is 21.33% across major industries, excluding Apple MPP opens. This means that if you’re getting an open rate above this percentage, your newsletter content is likely performing well. 

How Apple MPP Impacts Newsletter Open Rates

While the open rate metric is important for newsletters, Apple’s new mail privacy protection (MPP) has impacted how it is tracked. Apple MPP inflates open rates when they are tracked in email analytics tools, since emails sent to the mail app on Apple devices are opened on proxy servers before landing in inboxes. 

However, AudiencePoint has a solution by helping isolate Apple MPP opens from reporting to give you accurate open rate metrics for your newsletter content that are up to date with current standards. 

How Is Newsletter Success Measured?

In addition to open rate, you’re likely wondering what other metrics can be used to measure email newsletter success. There are a handful of other main key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to provide an overview of how your newsletter content is performing. 

Email Newsletter KPIs

Other important email newsletter KPIs are:

• Click-through rate: Click-throughs are when someone clicks a link within the email’s content. Email newsletter click-through rate is calculated by taking the percentage of recipients that click a link from the total emails delivered.
• Conversion rate: If you’re sending newsletter content, you likely have a targeted action you would like consumers to take after reading your emails, such as making a purchase. Email newsletter conversion rate is measured by taking the percentage of recipients that convert from the total emails delivered.
• Click-to-open rate: Click-to-open rate for newsletters combines the click-through and open rate metrics. To calculate click-to-open rate, you take the percentage of link clicks from the total number of recipients that opened the email. 
• Bounce rate: Bounce rate for email newsletters tracks how many emails aren’t accepted by receiving domains. To calculate bounce rate you would take the percentage of bounces from the total emails sent. If you’re sending newsletters, you want people to receive them, so keep tabs on this metric.
• Unsubscribe rate: When you’re sending newsletter content, you want your subscribers to be satisfied with what they’re receiving. This means tracking unsubscribes is essential. Unsubscribe rate is calculated by taking the percentage of unsubscribes from the total emails delivered.

By tracking each of these main metrics, you will be able to get a good read on your subscriber’s receptiveness and interaction with your content. 

What Are Considered Good Newsletter Metrics?

Now that you know the main metrics for email newsletters, you’re probably wondering what good numbers are for each one. Good email newsletter metrics are:

• Click-through rate: The average click-through rate for email is 2.62%. If you’re getting a click-through rate above the average, this is considered good email performance, especially if you’re in the 3-5% range. 
• Conversion rate: The average conversion rate is around 1.5%. If your newsletter is getting a 2-5% conversion rate, this would be considered good performance. 
• Click-to-open rate: The average click-to-open rate is 10.5%, so getting numbers above this percentage is considered a good performance for email newsletters. 
• Bounce rate: Typically, it is recommended that you take action on bounce rates that are at 2% or above, as it is essential to find a solution to the problem at that point. If your bounce rate is at 0.5% or lower, that means your emails have a good bounce rate. 
• Unsubscribe rate: If you have an unsubscribe rate for newsletters around 0.2%, that’s considered average. Less than 0.2% would be a good unsubscribe rate. If you’re at 0.5% or above, you should take note and try to fix the problem as soon as possible. 

Using these numbers, you should have a good set of benchmarks to help you measure your newsletter’s success. 

How Are Email Marketing Metrics Measured?

Email marketing metrics are usually measured and tracked using email analytics tools. Email analytics are typically available in most email platforms or softwares that a business would use to send content to their subscribers. 

However, if you would like more advanced metrics or help making sense of the different metrics that can be measured for email marketing, AudiencePoint is an excellent option to track and get insights from email newsletter data. 

How AudiencePoint Can Help You Win in Email Marketing

AudiencePoint will help you improve newsletter content to win in email marketing. AudiencePoint’s email insight software takes analytics and data tracking a step further by providing actionable insights into how you can improve your campaigns. 

Through AudiencePoint, you will be able to track data, improve send times, and get insights into subscriber inbox activity. This will help you understand how to create more engaging content, segment your email list, and re-engage any inactive subscribers. 

If you would like to learn more about AudiencePoint, contact us today.