How Email Marketing Companies in Australia Measure Campaign Success

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective digital marketing channels, delivering impressive ROI when executed correctly. However, crafting the perfect email campaign is only half the equation — the other half is knowing how to measure its success. Whether you’re handling your campaigns internally or working with email marketing companies in Australia, understanding key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential to optimise your results and grow your business.

In this article, we’ll explore the top ways to measure the success of an email marketing campaign and how working with the right email marketing agency in Australia can help you improve those results over time.

1. Open Rate: Are People Interested in Your Emails?

The open rate is one of the first and most basic metrics to look at. It tells you how many people opened your email compared to how many received it. While this metric doesn’t confirm engagement beyond a quick glance, it’s a good indicator of the effectiveness of your subject line and sender name.

What’s a good benchmark?
Across industries, open rates can vary, but most email marketing agencies aim for a rate between 20% and 30%. If your open rate is consistently lower than this, it may be time to review your subject lines, email frequency, or sender reputation.

Pro Tip:

To improve open rates, email marketing companies in Australia often A/B test different subject lines and pre-header text to identify what resonates best with local audiences.

2. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Are Readers Engaging With Your Content?

While open rates tell you how many people viewed your email, the click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links within the email. This is a more valuable metric because it demonstrates genuine interest and engagement.

A healthy CTR typically ranges between 2% and 5%, depending on your industry and the nature of your content.

Why it matters:

CTR helps you understand whether your content, design, and call-to-action (CTA) are compelling enough to drive action. If your CTR is low, it may signal the need to adjust your messaging, link placement, or CTA buttons.

Working with an email marketing agency in Australia can give you access to professional copywriters and designers who understand how to create emails that drive clicks — not just opens.

3. Conversion Rate: Are You Achieving Your Campaign Goals?

The ultimate goal of most email marketing campaigns is to drive a specific action, whether that’s purchasing a product, signing up for an event, or filling out a form. The conversion rate measures how many recipients completed that action.

To track this accurately, you’ll need to integrate your email marketing platform with your website analytics and eCommerce tools. This is where many businesses turn to email marketing companies in Australia to set up proper tracking and ensure reliable data.

What affects conversion rates?

• Landing page experience

• The relevance of the offer

• The alignment between the email and the destination page

• Audience targeting

4. Bounce Rate: Are Your Emails Getting Delivered?

The bounce rate tells you how many of your emails failed to reach recipients’ inboxes. There are two types of bounces:

• Hard bounces: Invalid email addresses or blocked emails

• Soft bounces: Temporary delivery issues like full inboxes

High bounce rates can harm your sender reputation and reduce deliverability. A bounce rate above 2% may require you to clean your email list or review your sign-up process.

Top email marketing agencies often implement list hygiene strategies, such as regular list cleaning and double opt-ins, to maintain high deliverability rates.

5. Unsubscribe Rate: Are You Losing Subscribers?

While unsubscribes are inevitable in any campaign, a high unsubscribe rate (above 0.5%) can be a red flag. It might indicate that your content is irrelevant, too frequent, or not meeting expectations set when the user subscribed.

How to lower unsubscribe rates:

• Set clear expectations at sign-up

• Deliver consistent and valuable content

• Allow users to manage preferences (e.g., frequency or topic selection)

Email marketing companies in Australia can help tailor your content strategy to fit your audience’s interests, reducing churn and increasing long-term engagement.

6. List Growth Rate: Are You Growing Your Audience?

While most metrics focus on what happens during a campaign, it’s equally important to measure the growth of your email list over time. This includes new subscribers minus unsubscribes and bounces.

A growing list means your brand is reaching more potential customers — a critical long-term objective of any successful email marketing strategy.

Partnering with an email marketing agency in Australia can help you implement list-building strategies, such as lead magnets, gated content, and social media promotions, to continually expand your reach.

7. ROI: Is Email Marketing Worth the Investment?

Perhaps the most important metric of all is Return on Investment (ROI). How much revenue did your email campaign generate compared to what you spent on it?

Calculating ROI involves combining all your other metrics (conversion rate, average order value, etc.) and comparing them to your costs, including software, design, copywriting, and time. A high ROI shows that email is a profitable channel for your business.

According to research, the average ROI for email marketing is around $42 for every $1 spent — but only when campaigns are well-targeted and professionally executed. That’s why many businesses choose to work with email marketing agencies rather than go it alone.