Definition
Email channel margin represents the true profitability of your email program after accounting for every cost. Most marketers only track platform cost, ignoring creative production, copywriting hours, design time, list acquisition spend, and management overhead.
Cost Categories
- Platform cost: ESP subscription and any overage fees
- Creative production: Design, copywriting, and development time per campaign
- Acquisition cost: Paid subscriber acquisition, lead magnet production, and content marketing
- Management cost: Strategy, analysis, reporting, and team salaries
- Tooling cost: Email verification, testing, and analytics tools
Why It Matters
Gross revenue numbers can make email look more profitable than it really is. Tracking true channel margin reveals whether your program is genuinely delivering positive ROI after all the hidden costs are included.
Related Glossary Terms
A/B Testing
A/B testing in email marketing is the practice of sending two variations of an email to a small sample of your list to determine which version performs better before sending the winner to the remaining subscribers.
Announcement Email
An announcement email is a dedicated campaign that communicates a specific update, milestone, or change to subscribers, from product launches and feature releases to company news and events.
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is a metric that measures the average revenue generated per email subscriber over a specific period, used to evaluate list value and campaign effectiveness.
Attention Rate
Attention rate is the percentage of email opens that last longer than 5 seconds, distinguishing genuine reads from passive opens, preview-pane views, or Apple MPP auto-loads.
B2B Email Marketing
B2B email marketing targets business professionals and organisations with longer sales cycles, educational content, and relationship-driven campaigns compared to B2C email.
B2C Email Marketing
B2C email marketing focuses on sending targeted promotional and transactional emails to individual consumers, emphasising personalisation, urgency, and direct response.