Email marketing has made significant improvements over the years. As a whole, the industry has improved email marketing strategy, message design, targeting and delivery. But one area that hasn't improved is tracking metrics. ESP's are still using the same metrics that have been in place for years. It's time for that to change.

For the past 2 years, the eec's Measurement Accuracy Roundtable has been developing a new set of email marketing measurement standards called the Support Adoption of Metrics for Email (SAME) project. The new standards are a dramatic improvement over original metric definitions. They provide more insight into the true results of a campaign and paint a more accurate picture of your campaign performance.

The reasons why the email marketing industry needs the new metric standards are numerous. They include:

1. The ability for all marketers to benchmark their results against the metrics from any delivery platform
2. The ability for the industry to aggregate results knowing that all source data was acquired using the same definitions
3. The ability to compare data across multiple systems and databases
4. The ability to better integrate metrics with other platforms, such as CRM system

Because of the benefits of the new metrics, many ESPs are adopting the new standards or are planning to do so.  At Email Transmit, we've made an update to our tracking area to provide our clients with access to the new metrics. Our interface now defaults to the new eec metrics and we've allowed clients to continue to view traditional metrics as well. 

While implementing the new metrics we've also provided their definitions so marketers can fully understand how the results are calculated. Client feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, as clients are able to get more usable data from their campaign results. 

Are you ready for the next step in email metrics? Start by signing the petition, then read the definitions and commit to incorporating the new metrics or contact your ESP and ask them to support the project. Hopefully in the near future we'll all be able to abide by a common set of metrics and have usable industry-wide benchmarks based on the same definitions.


- Adam Q. Holden-Bache
CEO/Managing Director
Mass Transmit, developer of Email Transmit
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