What Is Email Engagement?

Definition

Email engagement refers to how recipients engage with your email. High engagement means people are opening, reading, and clicking links in your email. Low engagement could indicate that your emails are ignored, deleted, or marked as spam.

Email engagement metrics include:

• Open rate. This indicates how many emails were opened by recipients. Open rates by industry. eCommerce, for example, has an average open rate of 29.81%.
• Click-through rate (CTR). The number of recipients who clicked links in your email. High CTRs mean your content is engaging and drives recipients to take action.
• Unsubscribe rate. The percentage of recipients who unsubscribed from your list. This may indicate that your content doesn’t resonate with your audience.

Example

Say you’re a fitness brand. You’re sending promotional emails with an exclusive discount code. You monitor the following engagement metrics:

• Open rate. Only 30% of recipients open your email.
• Click-through rate. 10% click the discount link.
• Unsubscribes. 15% unsubscribe, indicating they aren’t interested in your email.

These figures indicate the need to improve your email engagement.

How to drive email engagement

Boosting engagement can be tricky due to factors such as deliverability issues, cluttered inboxes, and irrelevant campaigns. To improve engagement, you can:

• Enhance targeting. Segment recipients based on interests or demographics. For example, send cold emails to recipients who can immediately benefit from your business.
• Make sure your message is valuable. Tailor your content according to the recipient’s individual preferences or behaviors. You can also add captivating or informative visuals like high-quality imagery or infographics to make your message more impactful.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff. While personalizing the subject line and preheader text is a great start, you need to go beyond that to improve engagement. For instance, you can feature an offer in the subject line instead or tailor your content to reflect the recipients’ interests.

Strategies for successful email engagement efforts

These tips, strategies, and best practices can help you improve overall engagement:

• Optimize timing and frequency. Use A/B testing to determine the best times and frequency to send emails.
• Check your email lists. Remove inactive subscribers and invalid or low-quality addresses from your list.
• Improve the quality of your emails. Craft subject lines that immediately capture your readers’ attention and make a good first impression. Include high-quality images, introduce interactive elements, or inject humor when appropriate to make your emails stand out. Additionally, always optimize your designs for mobile.

Related terms

• Conversion Rate
• Email Open Rate
• Email Recipient Segmentation

Related articles

• What Is a Good Open Rate for Email Campaign?
• Email Marketing Metrics to Track for Better Performance
• Email Marketing ROI: Why Email Verification Matters