The data you gather on email marketing campaigns might not be as useful as you think. "Real danger lurks in not measuring the right factors or not measuring accurately," says Marco Marini in a post at the Email Experience Blog. "You could suffer lost revenue. You might not know which messages are working. And your sales team won't know what to focus on."

Measuring well, he notes, is tricky—for a few reasons, including these:

• With so many key performance metrics to measure, it's difficult to establish industry benchmarks and make effective comparisons.
• We focus primarily on clicks, or only those that lead to sales. "The purpose of email marketing is to trigger an action, not only to get a click," says Marini. "That action might be a forward to a friend, signing up, a visit to a brick-and-mortar store, attending an event, or simply being more aware of a brand."

It's critical, he argues, to have a clear view of your company's organizational goals, to create email campaigns that support those targets and to measure their effectiveness within that framework.

The Po!nt: You need more than data—you need the right data. "Remember," says Marini, "if you can't measure it, you can't improve it."

Source: Email Experience Blog. Click here for the full post.

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