Noob question... So I noticed that some of you swear by ePC and others by ePCM. How about ROI based on fixed and variable costs, vs revenue? As I'm getting setup, my first question what's my ROI going to be? No easy answer... So after getting setup, based on your experience, what's the point of break-even, when do you start seeing some returns, covering your fixed expenses, etc.
Do some searching. airin wrote a really good post about this topic. Ecpm's are much more objective then EPC.
Not easy to answer indeed, actually impossible with the info provided. ROI is obviously the most important but the least likely to predict for a while, your costs won't be steady, results won't be steady, random black listings, random (or maybe not so random) shut off of servers, etc. These are all things you have to take in to account, and I think your questions are good tho, like most people don't seem to realize how important finding what the break even point is. This is what to focus on, or minimizing losses. Most of your questions tho can't be figured out in mailing, at least not at this point, its not like anyone can tell you after you get set up to expect to lose x amount of dollars the first month, then break even here, then profit ... etc. It all depends on every single thing you do, what you buy, what your data is like, what your plan is, and even then will change constantly. What I can answer however is your first question, ecpm or epc. I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for most in that epc is almost a useless stat for you, an adnetwork shows that stat because its all they can show you, if they could show ecpm they would cut out epc completely (they don't know how many emails you sent). So ecpm is all you need to concern yourself with there, this is how you gauge all your other questions. But you're skipping steps here, a lot of them, ecpm is important for you to get in to the habit of finding and always watching but before you will ever get a decent ecpm you need to look at the following first, and in my opinion in this order: (the questions asked are retorical, ask them to yourself as you mail, we don't need to know the answers) 1. Delivery rate - this is not the same as inbox rate with some exceptions basically consider the junk folder a success at first. Whats the percentage of email you send that gets completely blocked / banned / rejected? 2. Unsub rate - is everyone who gets your emails either reporting it as spam or unsubscribing? If so, why? Checking your data to make sure its really opt in is a first start, then look to see if your message looks like spam opposed to a newsletter. 3. Now messages are getting in, what's the open rate? Low open rates mean either your subjects and friendly froms are doing bad, OR all emails are junking. Junk emails still get opened, and like I said expect the junk folder for now, so if your open rate is nearly 0 and your messages look like they aren't being rejected, this is far more important to figure out. 4. Now your messages are opened ... are they getting clicked? If so, how many are real people and how many are fake bots? How many clicks per 100 emails sent (this is not epc btw). Why aren't they clicking mesages they are reading? Next thing to figure out. 5. Now your seeing clicks, epc is somewhat helpful here, is the offer a free sign up and only getting 1 in 100 clicks as converts? This tells you tons of bots are clicking (this is an extreme example). So even tho epc tells you this, if you have been tracking the rest of what I said so far, and watching ecpm, this ecp isn't even necessary to look at, you would already have seen that problem coming. A lot to grasp I am sure, but this is how to look at things. If you don't have a real method to this part down, forget about making any kind of ROI. Once you know all of this, and improve enough to get this stuff at respectable levels, then you can start judging ecpm against different drops to earn some income (not profits, just income), and once income is somewhat steady, as in you at least have something earned on each drop, THEN and only then can you consider ROI.
@ FrankD Thanks. Yes, I read Airin's post about Epcm and found it helpful... this is what prompt me to write this post. @ afcpmc Thank you for your reply. Lots of info here.... very helpful. I know there is a lot of process here, but it seems like these are the every day stats that all mailers should have for their business. In other words, I'm guess after a weeks, you should your delivery rate (and everything else) like the back of your hands and that's what you discuss over beer with your buddies. Now one of the things I have learned in business is that mediocre action beats no action... don't know how much this applies to email marketing since mediocre action can get you in trouble here lol... but with the knowledge I have (and a lot thanks to this forum), I should be able to take some educated action and then start measuring from there. I'll post some numbers once I get started. Thanks again and any other feedback is appreciated.
