But that’s not all, as email marketing ROI varies by industry too. PR and advertising agencies have an ROI of 4,200% and retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods boast an ROI of 4,500% If you just spent $100 on email marketing then that’s a return of $4,500!
Now that we know what ROI is and how to work it out – why should we? What’s the matter with simply posting ads on your site and other tried and tested ways of marketing?
You also have to factor in your customers’ demographics too. If your customers are generally people who work a 9-5 job, then you want to send them emails when they’re home and can open them. An email sent at 11 a.m. is just going to get buried by their emails throughout the day. No matter how engaging your subject line might be, if your email isn’t in the first 50 results of the inbox, it’s not getting opened.
Marketing works best when you know exactly who you’re marketing to. With the anonymity of the internet, this important factor is lost. The simplest way to get up close and personal with a potential customer online is through their email address.
Email marketing services like these will let you create templates and schedules so you can sit back and relax as the emails hit your customers’ inboxes. They cost a subscription fee, but we think it’s justified for the amount of time they save!
#2. Get A Mailing List
The best recourse is to just create clear, quality content. If your emails are honest and not overly “salesman-like” and feature copy, images, and other quality makers, they’ll make it past the spam filters.
Top Tip!
Always include an unsubscribe button on your emails. If your customer wants to opt out of your emails, it is totally within their right to. For more information on how to avoid becoming spam and other legalities related to emails, check out the FTC’s page on the CAN-SPAM Act.
#7. Testing, Testing, Testing!
Now that we have the basics out of the way, let us continue and give you the juiciest inside scoops on email marketing with our top seven ways to increase email ROI.
#1. Don’t Do It Yourself
This method is handicapped by its length since it can take years to build up a substantial email list, but it’s worth it for the quality leads you’ll gain. While you may get more reliable returns, it will require patience.

Top Tip!
If you don’t know how to add a signup section on your site, there’s no need to worry. If you have built your site using a website builder or ecommerce platform, there should be a feature allowing you to add one. Simply go into your builder’s editor and add it to your site.
#3. Categorize Your Lists
With this equation, we can work out how much return you get for the investment.
But if you’re running email marketing campaigns without knowing the ROI, you don’t know if they’re working, or if you should continue/invest more into it – and if you’re part of a larger business, you have no data to justify spending money on more email marketing! Basically, without knowing the ROI, you’re throwing money into the dark!
Once you’ve enticed your customer with your amazing subject line, your actual email needs to be filled with interesting stuff too. Videos, images, and GIFS are all great additions to make a drab email that bit more exciting. This “live content” also affects your conversions, as emails with video thumbnails in them have a reported 22% higher click-through rate.
Possibly the most useful feature of email marketing services is their ability to do “A/B testing”. A/B testing is when you release two pieces of content that are identical except for one small variation. You then see how well each piece of content performed. If the small variation increases the interaction, it gets added to the template and then a new variation is added.

The variations can be anything from the placement and color of CTAs to being a completely new template. What’s great about A/B testing is that it helps reduce bounce rates and increase conversions and ROI with relatively little risk. Your customers will most likely not be aware they are participating in A/B testing, making their responses even more valuable.
There’s no point crafting an email marketing strategy if you have nobody to email! Now, there are two options to go about this.
Over 50% of emails are actually opened on mobile devices, so if your emails are not responsively designed for both mobile and desktop you could be missing out on a lot of potential ROI.
Say you have 3,000 daily visits to your website and you can only collect 500 names for a mailing list. If we take the stat above and say that 59% of customers convert, then you’ve got 300 people making a purchase. That’s one-tenth of your audience becoming customers. And now imagine that every day with continuous email marketing campaigns running…
With advancements in technology, there is no longer a need to labor over a computer screen and individually send every email by hand. From our research, we recommend getting an automated email marketing platform like GetResponse, though there are other good options too, like Mailchimp or Sendinblue.
Sending emails whenever you finish them isn’t going to help anyone. You need to work out when the peak time is to send out your emails. If you have a mostly international customer base, then you need to figure out the correct time to schedule so it hits their time zone at the right time. An email sent out at 5 p.m. EST isn’t going to hit UK inboxes till 11 p.m.
Once you’ve collected your list, it’s good practice to start separating it into different groups so you can better target the right people. Separate by purchase history, age, demographic, gender – whichever way you want. What’s important is that you have different groups you can target with your emails. Marketers have noticed a 760% increase in revenue from segmenting email lists like this, so it’s a great practice to get into.
The second method is to build an organic email list over time with a sign-up section on your site. These are your typical “Sign up here” or “Subscribe to our Newsletter” sections you see on most websites. People who have already visited your site may just give up their email address willingly, meaning you have a list of already interested parties to message and easily convert.
Top Tip!
When you’re working out your ROI, it’s best to choose a specific time frame. “Amount Gained” can be a bit of a vague value for some. It’s best to measure the amount gained from when you started the email marketing campaign to when it ended.