Measuring The Success Of Product Emails

This post sets out what product teams should realistically expect from email metrics: open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribes. It explains that open rates are an imperfect approximation because of image blocking and auto-loading clients, yet still useful for tracking trends against a baseline. The author argues that click-through rates are easy to misread and recommends reporting conversion rates to stakeholders, which tend to be stable at roughly 2% to 5% for recurring emails. It also offers a rule of thumb that unsubscribes above 0.5% signal a content-audience mismatch, with an allowance for list cleanup on old addresses. The piece matters because it gives PMs benchmarks and a measurement vocabulary before they start optimizing email programs.

01Key takeaways

• Start measuring open rate now to establish a baseline, even though it is imperfect.
• Treat subject line, from address, and list quality as the main levers for open rate.
• Report conversion rate to stakeholders rather than click-through rate to avoid misleading expectations.
• Expect recurring product email conversion around 2% to 5% and use that as a planning benchmark.
• Keep unsubscribes under 0.5%; if they stay higher, revisit content relevance to your audience.
• Use A/B testing to improve click and conversion performance once the baseline is set.

02Key sections

Measuring open rates

Open rates are estimated via tracking images, which undercount when images are blocked and can overcount through auto-advancing clients. Despite the flaws, the author treats them as the best available signal for comparison and improvement.

What shapes open rates

Subject lines get the most attention, but the from address and the quality of the list also strongly influence how many recipients open messages. Engaged fans produce much higher open rates than long-dormant addresses.

Click-through versus conversion

The author distinguishes click-through rate, measured against opens, from conversion rate, measured against all recipients. Click-through is easily mistaken for conversion, so conversion is the figure to report externally.

Typical conversion benchmarks

Conversion rates for recurring product emails cluster between 2% and 5% and are more predictable than opens or clicks. Teams can beat this range, but doing so requires knowing the audience and testing content.

Unsubscribe thresholds

Unsubscribe rates below 0.5% are acceptable, while higher rates suggest the content is not what the audience wants. A spike on the first send to an old list is normal cleanup, but persistent high rates point to content problems.

03From the post

“We've discussed why you should send product emails, how you can design emails to convert, and how you can ensure your emails get delivered. Today, we'll look at what you can expect from your product emails. Understanding Open Rates Open rate = the # of people who opened your email”

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.