Communicating with your current and prospective patients via email is essential. However, deciding which type of email to send, when to send it, and how you should structure the content can be challenging without context.

Tracking email marketing metrics can help you optimize your approach and increase conversion rates among recipients.

What Are Email KPIs for Dental Practices, and Why Are They Important?

A key performance indicator (KPI) is data that helps you track how well your dental marketing strategy performs. With these metrics, your practice can expand its reach to potential patients and drive users toward other resources like your website. 

Email campaign KPIs specifically monitor how recipients interact with your outbound emails. This data is important to consider because over 4.3 billion email users are active around the globe. You can use KPIs to determine what makes your particular target market respond positively and encourage them to subscribe for more content.

Our Dental Marketing tools give you access to a library of ready-to-use content that can help you acquire new patients and keep returning patients coming back. With this resource, you can eliminate time-consuming guesswork when drafting and testing new emails.

Which KPIs Are Worth Tracking for Dental Practices?

So what KPIs should you track to determine the effectiveness of your email campaigns?

Open rate: Getting patients to look at your emails is the first step. Open rate KPIs help determine how many people open your emails, corresponding to the total number sent. The best ways to maximize your open rates include:

• Creating enticing subject headers (relevant to the content)
• Adding recipient names to subjects
• Sending emails in the morning when most people check their computers

Generated leads: Once your recipients open your emails, you should look for generated leads. These are recipients who are ready to book an appointment or explore further resources. You can generate leads by creating concise, informative email content that encourages users to keep investigating your dental practice.

Cost per lead: Using a strong call-to-action and leveraging paid ads can also help you increase your leads. Cost per lead shows how much money you spend converting an email recipient into a patient. You can calculate this metric by dividing how much you spend on your email marketing campaign by the total leads you generate.

Bounce rate: If your campaigns aren’t generating leads, you should review your bounce rates. Sometimes, your emails go to recipients’ spam boxes if they contain typos or repetitive sentences. You may also have several addresses in your email list that are invalid or broken, blocking messages from getting to recipients.

Recipients will not see your bounced emails if they do not arrive in their primary inboxes. If you have low bounce rates but high unsubscribe rates, your emails may reach users, but the content may be ineffective. Change your text, call to action, or reduce the number of emails you send weekly to discourage recipients from unsubscribing.

How Long Does It Take To Gather Effective Data From Your KPI Metrics?

It can take time to collect sufficient data from your email campaign KPIs. For example, you might spend several days A/B testing emails with a small percentage of their patients before sending mass emails. This method allows you to test which subject lines, content, or images get the best response.

Depending on how many recipients you send your emails to, it could take weeks to determine how well your email campaigns perform. 

Production and collection strategies help you track email data accurately if you use other forms of digital marketing — such as social media, pay-per-click advertisement, or a newsletter. Your front desk can ask new patients how they heard about your practice and recommend subscribing to receive email updates. This strategy helps you allocate resources toward the most effective channels to maximize reach.

What Happens After a Successful Email Campaign?

You can deploy tracking codes on your emails that let you monitor your subscribers’ activities through Google Analytics. Some of the most valuable information you utilize includes:

• The number of page views your website receives through email clicks
• How long users spend viewing your website
• Which links achieve the highest click-through rates

Email Campaign Solutions That Benefit Your Dental Practice Marketing Strategy

Interpreting email campaign KPIs correctly can help you understand your target audience and simplify marketing efforts in the future.

Check out more of our email marketing tips and schedule a demo of our all-in-one solution today!