Three months into an SFMC engagement, the client's CMO asks the question every account owner dreads: "was this worth the spend?"
If nobody wrote down what success looks like on day one, the answer becomes a guess. Open rates go up and down, you can cherry-pick which campaigns look good, and the QBR turns into a defensive explanation instead of a win lap.
Pre-committing metrics takes 30 minutes during discovery. It's the cheapest insurance you'll buy.
The metric set we commit to
During discovery we attach a specific, measurable target to each use case before building it. Here's the sheet we share with the client, with the targets we hit on typical mid-market engagements:
Use case
Metric
Target
Welcome series
Open rate on email 1
40%
Re-engagement campaign
Inactive subscribers who return to active
15%
Abandoned cart email
Conversion rate (purchase after email)
5%
Newsletter
Click-to-Open Rate
10%
Promotional sends
Revenue per send
Benchmark by vertical
Lifecycle
Opt-out rate per send
< 0.5%
Overall hygiene
Bounce rate
< 2% per send
Targets vary by vertical and list quality. The point is to commit the number in writing, signed off by the client, before the build starts.
Why each metric matters
Welcome series open rate > 40%
Welcome emails are the highest-engagement email you ever send. A first-email open rate under 40% almost always means either the subject line is weak or the list source is low-consent. Both are fixable in the first sprint.
Re-engagement return rate > 15%
A "we miss you" campaign to dormant subscribers should lift 15% back to active (open or click within 30 days). Below 15% means the inactive segment is dead - time to sunset, not persuade.
Abandoned cart conversion > 5%
5% of cart abandoners who receive a recovery email complete the purchase. It's one of the highest-ROI flows in the playbook; anything below 5% points to bad timing, a weak reminder, or a cart-recovery link that doesn't work on mobile.
Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) > 10% for newsletters
CTOR = clicks / opens. It measures whether the content was interesting, stripped of the deliverability noise that click-through-rate includes. CTOR below 10% usually means the content isn't matching the subscriber's reason for signing up.
Opt-out < 0.5% per send
Each send losing more than 0.5% of the list is a problem. Check send frequency and segmentation; the audience is either over-mailed or receiving the wrong content.
Bounce < 2%
Bounce above 2% breaks IP reputation. Clean the list, verify emails before import, investigate the last file drop.
Metrics that don't survive QBRs
"Increase engagement"
Too vague. Engagement means different things to different stakeholders. The word shows up in bad briefs constantly; push back with "define engagement with a number."
"Grow the list"
List size without opt-in quality is worse than a smaller list with real opt-in. A target of "50,000 subscribers by Q4" invites bought lists; specify "50,000 opt-in subscribers from [named channels]" instead.
"Send more emails"
Never a metric. Send frequency is an input, not an outcome.
Applying SMART to each metric
Run each candidate metric through SMART before committing:
- Specific: measures one thing clearly (not "engagement").
- Measurable: lives in Journey Analytics, Automation Studio tracking extracts, or Data Views - not "we'll know when we see it."
- Attainable: based on vertical benchmarks, not client wishful thinking. Confirm the target is achievable on similar list sizes in the same vertical.
- Realistic: accounts for current infrastructure. 5% abandoned cart conversion is not realistic if there's no cart-recovery page built yet.
- Time-bound: "within 30 days of send," "in the first quarter post-launch," etc.
Takeaway
Commit the metrics during discovery. Put them in the SOW or the kickoff doc. Review them at every monthly checkpoint. When the QBR comes, you walk in with the scoreboard already decided - not defending what counts as a win.
Planning KPIs for an SFMC rollout? Our Salesforce team runs discovery, metric definition, and Journey analytics setup on production engagements. Get in touch ->
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