Transactional messages keep customers informed, but marketing messages keep your brand top of mind, and that’s where you have the most opportunity for growth.

On a call with a customer discussing the health of their email marketing program, we were looking at their subscription types and associated send volume and revenue. Makes sense as we want to know what makes money. 

As we narrowed the time frame for this data pull, the numbers surprised the customer. Most of their subscribers are marketing subscribers, but transactional subscribers had a higher volume of messages and revenue in this specific report. Considering we only pulled subscribers that had purchased within a specific window of time, it made sense. Purchasers are transactional subscribers. In a smaller time frame, they may get more messages and drive more revenue, but we want to make decisions based on long-term trends. It got us thinking of the two, what subscription type really helps move the needle? 

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What’s the difference between transactional and marketing emails? Transactional messages follow an action, whereas marketing messages drive action

Subscription types play an important role in your email marketing program as it defines what types of messages you can and can't send subscribers. So how do you set up your messages in a way that benefits you every time? Let's find out. 

Let’s focus on the most important subscription types: transactional and marketing.

Transactional subscription 

A subscriber has completed an action (most often a purchase) and is opted into being a transactional subscriber. A transactional subscriber can receive transactional messages. These are true 1:1 messages about that action (making a purchase, shipping notification, resetting a password, etc.). There's no promotional content in these messages.

Marketing subscription

A subscriber has opted into marketing messages via a sign-up unit or website form. Marketing messages are a key tool for building brand loyalty and inspiring action from subscribers. They are telling marketing subscribers about an action the brand wants them to take, such as shopping a sale, checking out a new product, or reading a newsletter.

Receiving transactional messages does not automatically enroll a subscriber into marketing messages. If a transactional subscriber opts in for marketing at the time of purchase, they’ll still be classified as a transactional subscriber to get those transactional messages.  

It’s easy to see how for some brands, transactional subscribers could receive a higher volume of messages with different types of notifications being sent. Even though they’ve completed a transaction, that’s not where the money is. Your marketing subscribers are the ones driving higher-value conversions and long-term revenue. And lucky for you, the majority (more than 80%) of subscribers fall into the marketing subscription type. 

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Drive 10x the revenue with marketing messages

We ran the numbers for our top senders (by volume) over a three-month period to highlight some averages for transactional and marketing subscriptions and sends—and show you why marketing messages should be the bigger priority. Your numbers will vary based on your industry and AOV.

Transactional messages are still crucial because they build trust and ensure a smooth customer experience by confirming purchases, providing order updates, and offering customer support. They need to be on-brand, personalized, and designed with customer retention in mind. 

However, marketing subscribers drive more conversions and generate more revenue. Both types of subscribers unsubscribe at about the same time. This small difference between days to unsubscribe proves that both types of subscribers aren’t exhausted immediately after purchase or sign-up. And we see that marketing subscribers are quicker to come back and purchase again.  

If you’re not seeing similar results or want to improve your marketing emails, continue reading to dive deeper into some of the metrics we look at to decide what elements of an email marketing campaign need adjustment. 

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Improve your email marketing messages one metric at a time

Maybe you didn’t need to see the metrics that prove that marketing subscribers are more valuable than transactional ones. You know they’re valuable. You’re looking for the metrics that show you what you need to do to get even better results from your email marketing efforts. You want to understand:

• Why some marketing subscribers aren’t converting (maybe they’re getting too many messages or not enough, the timing could be off, their expectations or preferences haven’t been met, etc.)
• What your cutoff point should be when subscribers aren’t going to engage or convert (hint, it might be around that 11-day mark noted above)
• The order of operations—does your customer base subscribe to get an offer and then purchase, or do they make their purchase and then enroll in marketing communications?
• Why your emails are being opened but your conversion rate isn’t improving over time 

Let’s dive a bit deeper into understanding your marketing subscribers and what the data is telling you. At Attentive, we like to look at these four key email marketing metrics to understand how your email program is performing and areas you can address to drive even better results. 

Revenue per send

If you have a healthy revenue per send, this tells you that your segmentation was spot on. You had a good audience that was engaged with the entire email—they wanted to open it, click the CTA, and convert. 

Based on our top senders (please take into account your own industry and AOV), we see an average revenue per send of $0.06.

‍How to improve revenue per send: The simplest solution is to adjust your audience and be really targeted with who you’re sending your marketing campaigns to. This could include sending to highly engaged subscribers or narrowing your audience down by past behaviors (such as targeting subscribers who only shop when you’ve offered free shipping), narrowing down by geographic location, or targeting by product-specific promotions.

Revenue per open

A healthy revenue per open shows that your audience responded to the subject line and opened the email. 

Based on our top senders, we see an average revenue per open of $0.14.

How to improve revenue per open: A/B test your subject lines to understand what gets subscribers to open your email. This is also a good opportunity to make sure you’re using all the enhancements your ESP offers, such as Gmail Promotion annotations so your offers stand out in the inbox and add a sense of urgency with expiration dates or that your email preview will display attention-grabbing visuals to encourage more opens. 

Interested in adding unique attributes to your emails? We’re launching a beta testing automatically pulling discounted pricing details into email campaigns. If you’re an Attentive email customer and want to join the beta, contact your CSM for more information. 

Revenue per click

If revenue per click is up, it means your email content is good. Your subscribers are engaged and clicking and converting. 

Based on our top senders, we see an average revenue per click of $14.23.

How to improve revenue per click: Revenue per click snowballs from revenue per open. Your content and the offer must match the expectations set by your subject line. If you see a decrease in revenue per click, there’s a disconnect between the subject line and email content. You can also test reducing the number of links and CTAs within your email to guide subscribers toward one action. 

Revenue per conversion

A high revenue per conversion means the product or service being promoted is a good fit for your audience.

Based on our top senders, we see an average revenue per conversion of $205.85.

How to improve revenue per conversion: Test cross-selling or upselling content within your email or on your site to increase conversions and AOV. Something to consider when analyzing your revenue per conversion is how sales or promotions will impact your conversions and AOV. There could be a dip in those numbers compared to your average, but it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your email campaign. 

We’ve shared some of our numbers, but do you know yours? Are your marketing emails performing at their best? If you’re an Attentive customer, just reach out to your CSM and they can get these reports. If you’re not using Attentive yet, we’d love to show you what we can do for your email marketing programs. Schedule a demo. Or, check out our new ebook, 7 Brands Leading the Way with Attentive Email.