T, R, S Metrics
The metrics to measure the success of an email campaign are, in that order, inbox delivery, open rates and clickthroughs. Inbox delivery hinges on the brand’s domain reputation and to a large extent an assessment by the email provider’s spam filtering algorithms. Every mail has to be tested against how Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail would handle it. Once delivered, there is a competition among various other emails to get opened and not ignored – this is where the subject line and send time optimisations come in. AI assists the marketer in both – which subject line is likely to attract, and when should the email be sent to ensure the recipient has the greatest likelihood of opening it. After that, the goal is to get an action – the click which takes the user to the brand’s website or app. All these metrics serve like a funnel.
A micron’s success is not just being opened but that action happening without latency. Microns can also be shared thus bringing a multiplier in reach. Keeping these factors in mind, microns can be evaluated with three new metrics:
- T (time): the time elapsed (latency) between receiving the email in the inbox and it being opened and read; this should be as low as possible; a good T would be under an hour given that we don’t check emails as often as say SMS or WhatsApp which intrude with notifications
- R (reproduction number): this is used to measure virality; how many people does one person share the content with; an R of 1 or more ensures spread – as we have seen with the coronavirus
- S (subscriptions): the number of active micron channels; from a brand’s perspective, the goal would be to have at 2 or more, with at least one of those subscriptions being a daily connect which creates the habit and offers recurring brand visibility
T, R and S are the metrics that can replace opens and clicks to measure micron efficacy. The simplicity of microns will ensure delivery into the primary inbox. The brevity and minimalism of the content-rich microns will ensure they get consumed. And the hope is that every so often the recipient will find something unique and interesting to share so that the micron can go viral. Consumers will have subscriptions to two types of microns: the infinite series (something new every day) or the finite series (a limited sequence of microns for a very specific purpose linked to a moment).
The target for a brand should be to have a T of less than an hour, an R of 1 or more and S of 2 or more.
