"Very few executives give a hoot about opens and clicks," says Stephanie Miller in a post at the Daily Fix blog. "In fact, very few marketers even look at their email system reports (I can't make this stuff up!)."

The problem, she argues, is that these types of data cannot be directly connected to ROI; rather, they indicate behavior that leads to ROI. Important to you, perhaps, but not so much to the bottom-line-watchers. To grab your leadership team's interest, Miller says, you'll need to also show them metrics like these:

• Revenue per email campaign
• Revenue per subscriber (and subscriber segment)
• Conversion rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Average order size
• New subscriber growth rate

"To improve performance," Miller stresses, "[w]e need to see the data at the subscriber level, (or at least subscriber-segment level) and not just in aggregate."

This means asking your email vendor or IT administrator for even better reporting. "Are you seeing trend reports?" she asks. "Are you seeing response and revenue linked? Are you seeing if email messages actually reach the inbox—by domain and campaign?"

The Po!nt: Dig deeper. Use metrics like these to give your company's leadership the numbers they want to see—and stats they can understand.

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