Definition
Email marketing ROI (return on investment) compares the profit your email program generates to what it costs to run. Beginners should think of it as: how much revenue did email bring in, minus how much did it cost, divided by the cost.
To measure it, you need attribution: knowing which revenue actually came from email. Track revenue per email, revenue per subscriber and campaign revenue, and sum up your costs across software, tools and staff time.
Email's advantage is efficiency. Because it reaches an opted-in list at low cost, ROI tends to be high when executed well. Beginners should calculate ROI per campaign and per period, and use it to decide where to invest more.
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Frequently Asked Questions
ROI = (Revenue attributed to email - Email program cost) / Email program cost. Track both revenue and total costs, including software, tools and staff time, to compute it.
Industry research reports average email ROI around $36-$42 for every $1 spent. Actual results vary, but a well-run program should beat the returns of most paid channels.
Use tracked clicks, coupon codes, UTM parameters and automation-conversion reporting to assign revenue to specific emails, then sum it per campaign or period.