What is Email Marketing ROI?
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2025 10:43 am
ROI stands for return on investment. In simple terms, it is a measure of money coming in versus money going out. In the context of email marketing , ROI means the profit you have left after you cover the cost of a particular email campaign.
Whether you’re using email marketing for outbound sales lead generation , product launches, newsletters, or nurturing existing leads, you need data to verify whether your efforts are producing the expected results.
This is where ROI comes in. ROI is a useful metric to track the success of various campaigns, make adjustments, and allocate resources accordingly. But many brands fail to adequately track such a powerful KPI.
How to Calculate Email Marketing ROI
Now let's take a look at the steps needed to calculate email marketing ROI.
Add up the money spent
To calculate the amount spent on a marketing campaign, you need to factor in the architect data cost of the email service provider, the salaries or hourly rates of the marketing team, and the costs of any tools involved in the campaign.
Calculate the money earned
Determining how much money a campaign has made is more complicated.
Email marketing is done for a variety of reasons, from lead generation to cold emails to a variety of value-added content sent to existing customers. When a recipient clicks on the CTA, they may not directly spend money, but they move through important stages of the sales funnel, which ultimately leads to conversion.
Email Sales Funnel
Therefore, email marketing can indirectly add value to your business in more ways than you think.
It’s up to you how you want to measure the amount of money you make. You can choose to track key metrics like conversion rate, click-through rate, list growth rate, forward/share rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate.
Whether you’re using email marketing for outbound sales lead generation , product launches, newsletters, or nurturing existing leads, you need data to verify whether your efforts are producing the expected results.
This is where ROI comes in. ROI is a useful metric to track the success of various campaigns, make adjustments, and allocate resources accordingly. But many brands fail to adequately track such a powerful KPI.
How to Calculate Email Marketing ROI
Now let's take a look at the steps needed to calculate email marketing ROI.
Add up the money spent
To calculate the amount spent on a marketing campaign, you need to factor in the architect data cost of the email service provider, the salaries or hourly rates of the marketing team, and the costs of any tools involved in the campaign.
Calculate the money earned
Determining how much money a campaign has made is more complicated.
Email marketing is done for a variety of reasons, from lead generation to cold emails to a variety of value-added content sent to existing customers. When a recipient clicks on the CTA, they may not directly spend money, but they move through important stages of the sales funnel, which ultimately leads to conversion.
Email Sales Funnel
Therefore, email marketing can indirectly add value to your business in more ways than you think.
It’s up to you how you want to measure the amount of money you make. You can choose to track key metrics like conversion rate, click-through rate, list growth rate, forward/share rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate.