How Do I Know If My Email Marketing Program Is Effective??

You've been asking, so I'll answer.

Here's how I judge if your email marketing program is effective, based on hundreds of projects for various e-commerce brands.

1. Based on last-click attribution your email marketing program must generate at least 15%-20% of all e-commerce sales. I use last-click because it is easy to measure ... I've used attribution-style modeling and the percentage is ... wait for it ... wait for it ... higher ... yes, higher. For many retailers, you get a dollar of in-store sales for every dollar of e-commerce sales.
2. Among your best customers (via last-click attribution) your email marketing program generates at least 35% of all e-commerce sales.
3. In e-commerce / retail, open rates and click-through rates tell you if a campaign was successful. It has minimal/no correlation with determining whether an Email Marketing Program is successful.

I know, I know, I can hear you barking at me from all the way out here in the suburbs of Phoenix!

You control email marketing. 

You're the boss. It's up to you if you truly want to sell or be passive (hint - many marketers want to be passive ... that's where opens and clicks come in ... .they are the success metrics of a passive marketer). 

You decide whether you want to do the hard work of personalizing the merchandise in every single campaign (hint - almost nobody wants to do this, and that's sad). 

You decide whether you want to work hard to promote new items. 

You decide whether you want to showcase winning items. 

You decide whether you want to sell at full price or use the channel as your primary source of discounts/promotions. 

You decide whether email marketing is the center of your marketing universe (i.e. selling) or is just a support channel for the marketing channel you care most about (typically social or television or print).

You decide whether you employ brilliant storytelling that causes customers to want to follow along with you or you decide to take the easy way out and just scream UP TO 50% OFF five times a week.

If email marketing doesn't represent 15%-20% of total e-commerce sales and at least 35% of best customer e-commerce sales, you've decided that your program should not be effective.

Start personalizing the merchandise in every single email campaign ... it's a 20% bump (usually between 10% and 50%) in sales that is sitting there waiting to be capitalized on. Capitalize on it!

Send a campaign five times a week. Unsurprisingly, clients who have highly successful Email Marketing Programs tend to be able to send more campaigns.

At least once a week, tell a serialized story. Try to dazzle somebody via creativity.

At least once a week, feature new merchandise.

At least once a week, feature best sellers.

Discounts are boring, so if you have to discount, do so in a creative way (serialized stories, clearance - avoid new items and best sellers).

Ok, now that you are mad at me, describe why this post is incorrect.