Choosing the right metric

A target is only as useful as the metric behind it. The best metric for a target ties to revenue or retention, can be influenced by the next campaign, has clean data feeding it, and isn't distorted by the way modern inboxes work.

Think in three tiers

Most email programs need a small set of metrics arranged in tiers — start at the top and work back to the levers.

A plan with one Tier 1 metric and one Tier 3 guardrail is usually enough to start. Tier 2 is what you watch weekly to predict where Tier 1 is heading.

Pair leading with lagging

Every lagging outcome target should ship with at least one leading indicator nearby. Revenue (lagging) tells you what happened last month; click-to-conversion (leading) tells you what's about to happen. Without the pair, you only know you missed once it's too late to do anything.

Demote open rate

Apple Mail accounted for roughly half of all email opens in early 2025 and pre-fires the tracking pixel via proxy servers — opens get logged whether the subscriber read the email or not. Real-world cases show campaigns jumping from ~28% to ~52% open rate with no change in clicks or conversions.

Treat open rate as a directional signal at best. Put your target on something further down the funnel — clicks, conversions, replies, time-on-site after a click.

Be specific enough to act on

"Total revenue this year" is too broad and too slow — by the time it's slipping, three quarters of decisions are already made. "Revenue from promotional campaigns to active subscribers, this month" narrows the who and the when, so a missed week has an obvious next move (test subject lines, swap creative, re-segment).

A good target points at something you'd know how to change if it started slipping.

Pick a metric you have clean data for

A target is only as accurate as the data feeding it. If a metric depends on a UTM that's often missing, or an attribution window that doesn't match how your audience buys, the pacing won't reflect reality. Start with metrics you trust today.

Limit the total list

Two to three metrics per plan, no more than a dozen total across all plans. Past that, no one looks at any of them.

Examples for email teams

• Track revenue per email sent (Tier 1) for promotional campaigns, paired with unsubscribe rate < 0.5% (Tier 3) as a guardrail. Requires an ESP that exposes attributed revenue.
• Target click-through rate from the welcome series (Tier 2) paired with complaint rate < 0.1% (Tier 3) as a guardrail — both universally available.
• Target email-attributed revenue from active subscribers (Tier 1) with complaint rate (Tier 3) — keep the focus on the segment that buys without burning the rest of the list. Revenue metric depends on your ESP.
• Build an engagement rate target as a custom metric — formula: (opens + clicks_unique) / sent. Universally available. For more recipes, see Custom metric recipes and combined targets.
• Use unsubscribe rate (Tier 3) as a guardrail metric — catch list fatigue before it eats deliverability. GDMA's global average is ~0.14%; below 0.2% is healthy; above 0.5% is a warning signal.

Start with one or two

You don't need a target on every metric. One revenue target plus one guardrail is usually enough for a first plan. You can grow from there once the rhythm is established.

Tip: Not sure which metric to start with? Ask yourself "If this number moved 10% in the wrong direction, would I notice — and would I know what to do?" If the answer is yes, it's a good candidate.

Updated on: 07/07/2026