The Secret to Higher Email Conversion Rates: There Is No Secret, Just Science

Email marketing is an essential part of running a successful eCommerce business. Your email conversion rate is the best metric for understanding how effective your email marketing strategy is. Naturally, that makes increasing your email conversion rate a vital step to success. Upon learning this, many eCommerce business owners start looking for the secret to a high email marketing conversion rate.

But there’s just one problem with that: There is no secret. Unfortunately, there’s no hidden trick, magic bullet, or secret method for quick and easy, overnight conversion rate marketing success. As with most things in life, the only true path to success is taking slow and steady action consistently over time.

While there’s no secret get-rich-quick-style shortcut, there is a proven method of using strategic action, empirical data, and trial and error. Effective conversion rate marketing is a science. It requires deliberate effort and a constant cycle of measurement and improvement.

Let’s establish the basics of what email conversion rates are and why they matter. Then, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of how conversion rate marketing works and how the right partner can help you achieve a high email marketing conversion rate.

What Are Email Conversion Rates?

Your email conversion rate is the percentage of people who receive your email and complete your desired call to action (CTA). Your CTA can be anything from visiting your site or using a coupon to completing a purchase. Typically, though, the end goal is to make more sales.

Why Do Email Conversion Rates Matter?

Your email conversion rate matters because converting the subscribers on your email list into paying customers is the ultimate goal of conversion rate marketing. Your email marketing conversion rate is how you measure your success.

While there are other digital marketing techniques that could help you convert potential customers into completed sales, there are many reasons why email marketing should be your priority.

Email Marketing Statistics:

• Email marketing has an incredible ROI, bringing in $36 for every $1 spent.
• According to over half (51%) of marketers surveyed, email is the most effective marketing channel.
• The vast majority of customers (80%) say a personalized experience increases their likelihood of making a purchase. Email makes segmentation and personalization easy and effective.

As you can see, email marketing and email conversion rate optimization are well worth the time and effort. So, what is the science of increased email conversion rates?

How to Get Higher Email Conversion Rates

Getting higher email conversion rates is a matter of doing the right tests, observing the data, and making improvements. Before we get into the specifics, there are some foundational elements we should cover.

When building your email list, offer something of value in exchange for email addresses like a download or newsletter.

It’s best to only email people who have signed up for them. Cold email conversion rates are much lower. Also, with new Gmail and Yahoo! sender requirements, you have to comply with their regulations, including keeping your spam rate low. Considering how low cold email conversion rates tend to be, it isn’t worth the risk.

Once you have an email list, segment it by what stage of the customer journey they’re in. There’s no use trying to sell to someone who doesn’t know enough about your product to want it. Top-of-funnel emails to increase brand awareness and explain how your product solves their problem will help them get there.

A/B Testing

You should always utilize A/B testing. It is a vital tool for successful email marketing. In fact, on average, A/B testing improves conversions by 49%. A/B testing your email CTA can improve click-through rates by 127%. That’s huge! That’s why there’s no substitute for good A/B testing when you’re trying to get a higher email conversion rate.

It’s important to test every element. Test multiple headlines to see what gets the most opens. Try out different formats to see when your subscribers prefer paragraphs or bullet points. Also, try out different images and GIFs to find the most engaging ones. Even the wording of the CTA or the color of the CTA button can make a huge difference.

When it comes to email conversion rates, you never know what little detail can make an impact and get you big results. The email marketing experts at Future Holidays know that A/B testing is a delicate process. It may not always be obvious why a change makes a difference, but over time, our experts have grown familiar with what is most likely to work and where to start testing.

Refine Your Approach Over Time

Every test helps you learn something. You may find that your audience prefers more or less personalization, prefers certain formats and mediums, or responds best to specific CTAs. Every time you learn something, you can make improvements to your approach.

Slowly, over time, you can gradually increase your email conversion rate. Making the right changes based on rigorous testing is the best way to get the results you want. That’s the powerful science of iterative testing.

Constantly Measure Data and Trends

It’s vital to keep an eye on your campaign data and analyze it for trends. While your email conversion rate is a top metric of success, it isn’t the only one. Other KPIs like open rate and click-through rate can help you learn more about what’s working and what isn’t.

This is a tricky process. Not only do you need to keep constant track of all the relevant data from the most important metrics, but you need to understand what the data is telling you and how to fix it.

For example, a high open rate but a low click-through rate can indicate that your subject line is enticing, but your CTA isn’t resonating with your audience. It could also be that the contents of the email aren’t what people expect based on the subject. A seasoned professional can help you understand all the nuances contained in that mess of numbers.

Increase Your Email Conversion Rates With the Power of Science

There’s a reason the scientific method has been around for so long. It works. It’s the best method we’ve found for understanding anything. Email marketing conversion rates are no different.

While this method is wildly effective, it’s far from easy. It can take a lot of time, effort, and expertise to get it right. That’s why it’s important to have the right partner by your side who knows how to get you the results you want.

Future Holidays is a creative-led web design agency. Email marketing, among other things, is a specialty of ours. We can help you increase your email conversion rate and set up a process for collecting and analyzing the right data. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help.