Seasonal email marketing analytics: What to measure
Track seasonal email performance with holiday-specific metrics. Master optimal send timing subject testing and campaign comparisons.
Your email list is your most valuable seasonal asset. These are people who said "yes, I want to hear from you." During seasonal peaks, email consistently delivers the highest ROAS of any channel—typically 15-40x versus 2-5x for paid ads.
But here's what most stores get wrong: they measure seasonal email performance using the same metrics as regular emails. Open rate, click rate, revenue. Done.
That's not enough. Seasonal emails behave differently than regular emails. Your Black Friday email might get lower open rates than your August newsletter (list fatigue, inbox competition) but generate 10x the revenue. Is that email successful or not? Standard metrics won't tell you.
According to email marketing research from Litmus analyzing seasonal email performance, holiday campaigns show 15-25% lower engagement rates (opens, clicks) but 200-400% higher conversion and revenue versus baseline periods—making traditional engagement metrics misleading success indicators during promotional peaks.
You need seasonal-specific email metrics that actually tell you if your campaigns are working. This guide gives you exactly what to measure, when to measure it, and most importantly—what those measurements mean for optimization.
📊 The 5 metrics that actually matter for seasonal emails
Forget vanity metrics. Track these five and you'll know exactly how your seasonal email program performs.
Metric 1: Revenue per email sent (RPES)
This is your single most important metric. It answers: "Was this email worth sending?"
How to calculate: RPES = Total revenue attributed to email / Number of emails sent
Example:
Black Friday email sent to 45,000 subscribers
Generated €127,500 revenue
RPES = €127,500 / 45,000 = €2.83 per email
What makes good RPES:
€0.50-1.00: Decent (worth sending)
€1.00-2.00: Good (strong performer)
€2.00+: Excellent (priority tactics)
<€0.50: Questionable (evaluate cost-benefit)
Why RPES matters more than open rate:
Email A: 18% open rate, €1.20 RPES Email B: 28% open rate, €0.75 RPES
Which performed better? Email A—despite lower engagement, it drove more revenue per send making it more valuable.
During seasonal peaks, RPES should be your north star metric. Everything else is supporting detail.
📈 Metric 2: List revenue contribution %
What percentage of your total seasonal revenue came from email versus other channels?
How to calculate: Email revenue % = (Email-attributed revenue / Total revenue) × 100
Example seasonal analysis:
Total Black Friday revenue: €485,000
Email-attributed revenue: €127,500
Email contribution: 26.3%
Benchmark ranges:
15-25%: Typical for stores with balanced channel mix
25-40%: Email-heavy stores (engaged lists, strong email program)
<15%: Underutilizing email (opportunity for growth)
40%: Over-dependent on email (channel diversification risk)
Why this matters:
If email drove 35% of Black Friday revenue last year but only 22% this year, something changed—and it probably isn't good. Investigate:
List growth stalled?
Email deliverability declined?
Competitive email increased (everyone's inbox more crowded)?
Email content/offer quality decreased?
Tracking email revenue contribution year-over-year reveals whether your email program is strengthening or weakening as seasonal revenue driver.
🎯 Metric 3: Incremental revenue per additional send
How much additional revenue does each extra email generate during seasonal periods?
Many stores worry: "If we send too many emails, we'll annoy subscribers." Valid concern. But the data often shows something surprising: the 4th email generates nearly as much revenue as the 1st.
How to measure: Track revenue from each sequential email in your seasonal campaign series.
Example Black Friday email sequence:
Email 1 (Nov 22, "Early Access"): €42,000
Email 2 (Nov 24, "Black Friday is Here"): €51,000
Email 3 (Nov 25, "Ending Soon"): €28,500
Email 4 (Nov 26, "Final Hours"): €18,200
Incremental revenue: Each email added value. Even Email 4 (which some stores skip) generated €18,200.
Diminishing returns analysis:
Email 1: €42K (baseline) Email 2: €51K (+22% vs Email 1) Email 3: €28.5K (-44% vs Email 2) Email 4: €18.2K (-36% vs Email 3)
Returns diminishing but Email 4 still generated significant revenue. Continue sending until incremental revenue drops below email cost threshold (typically very low for email—maybe stop at <€5K incremental revenue).
According to email frequency research, optimal seasonal email frequency is 3-5 emails over 4-5 day promotional period for most lists—beyond 5 emails, deliverability and engagement decline sharply outweighing revenue benefits.
💡 Practical test: Next seasonal event, send one more email than you're comfortable with. Measure incremental revenue. If positive and engagement holds, you found more revenue. If negative (deliverability tanks, unsubscribes spike), you found your limit.
📧 Metric 4: Subject line performance ranking
During seasonal peaks, your inbox competition explodes. Winning the "open" battle requires standout subject lines.
How to track: For every seasonal email, document:
Subject line
Open rate
Click rate
Revenue
RPES
Sort by RPES (not open rate) identifying highest-performing subject approaches.
Example Black Friday subject line analysis:
Subject Line | Open Rate | RPES | Rank |
"BLACK FRIDAY: 40% OFF EVERYTHING" | 24% | €1.80 | 3 |
"Ashley, your exclusive early access" | 19% | €2.40 | 1 |
"⚡ Ends tonight: Final chance at 40% off" | 28% | €2.10 | 2 |
"Our biggest sale of the year starts now" | 22% | €1.35 | 4 |
Insights:
Personalization ("Ashley, your exclusive...") generated highest RPES despite lower open rate—the opens that happened were highly qualified.
Urgency with emoji ("⚡ Ends tonight...") drove highest open rate and strong RPES—effective combination.
Generic announcement performed worst despite decent open rate—opened but didn't convert.
Pattern detection:
After 3-5 seasonal events, you'll have 15-25 subject lines tested. Categorize by style:
Personalization
Urgency/scarcity
Benefit-focused
Question-based
Emoji usage
Identify which styles consistently rank top 3 in RPES. Double down on those approaches, eliminate consistent low performers.
⏰ Metric 5: Send time optimization analysis
When you send matters—especially during seasonal peaks when inbox timing is everything.
How to measure: Track performance by send hour comparing revenue outcomes.
Example send time analysis:
Send Time | Open Rate (1hr) | RPES | Notes |
06:00 | 8% | €1.20 | Early, some open before work |
09:00 | 12% | €1.85 | Strong work-morning performance |
12:00 | 15% | €2.40 | Peak performance (lunch check) |
15:00 | 14% | €2.10 | Strong afternoon performance |
19:00 | 18% | €1.95 | High opens but lower conversion |
22:00 | 9% | €0.85 | Late night, poor performance |
Findings:
12 PM (noon) send optimal—highest RPES combination of opens and conversion.
7 PM shows highest open rate but lower RPES—people browsing in evening but not buying as readily.
Morning (9 AM) and afternoon (3 PM) both strong.
Avoid late night (10 PM) and very early (6 AM) sends.
Day-of-week seasonal patterns:
Weekend emails during seasonal events often underperform weekdays despite conventional wisdom about "weekend browsing time."
Test: Compare Friday 12 PM send versus Saturday 12 PM send. Most categories show Friday outperforms—people in "weekday mode" more ready to transact versus weekend relaxation mode.
Exception: Fashion and lifestyle categories sometimes show stronger Saturday performance—leisure browsing converts to discretionary purchases.
🔍 Deliverability monitoring (the hidden metric)
If your emails don't reach inboxes, nothing else matters.
Deliverability indicators to track:
Inbox placement rate: Percentage of sent emails landing in primary inbox (vs spam/promotions folder).
Target: >90% inbox placement Warning: <80% inbox placement (indicates deliverability problems)
Hard bounce rate: Percentage of emails permanently undeliverable.
Target: <0.5% Warning: >2% (indicates list hygiene problems)
Spam complaint rate: Percentage of recipients marking email as spam.
Target: <0.1% Warning: >0.3% (indicates content/frequency problems)
How to monitor:
Most email service providers (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, etc.) show these metrics in campaign reports. Check them after every seasonal campaign.
If deliverability declining:
Review content (avoiding spam trigger words: FREE, URGENT, CLICK HERE, !!!)
Check send frequency (too many emails = more spam complaints)
Verify authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC records current)
Clean list (remove hard bounces, inactive subscribers over 12 months)
According to deliverability research, seasonal email frequency increases can degrade deliverability 10-20% if not managed properly—more sends = more spam potential in ISP filtering algorithms requiring proactive content and engagement optimization.
⚠️ Warning sign: If your Black Friday open rates dropped from 22% last year to 14% this year with similar list size, check deliverability first. Lower opens often indicate inbox placement problems rather than content issues.
📊 Year-over-year seasonal comparison
Track these comparisons revealing program health trends:
YoY metrics to monitor:
Metric | This Year | Last Year | Change |
Total seasonal email revenue | €184K | €152K | +21% |
List size at event start | 48,500 | 42,000 | +15% |
Revenue per subscriber | €3.79 | €3.62 | +5% |
Average RPES | €2.15 | €1.98 | +9% |
Email revenue % of total | 28% | 26% | +2pp |
Health indicators:
Revenue per subscriber increasing: Good—list quality improving or email effectiveness improving.
RPES increasing: Good—email content/offers resonating better.
Email revenue % increasing: Good—email growing as channel (unless other channels declining for bad reasons).
Concerning patterns:
Revenue up but revenue per subscriber down: List growing faster than revenue (list quality possibly declining).
Email revenue % declining: Email losing effectiveness relative to other channels (needs attention).
RPES declining: Email content/offers less effective than previous year (creative refresh needed).
🎯 Segmentation performance analysis
Not all subscribers behave the same during seasonal events. Measure segment-specific performance.
Key segments to track:
Engaged subscribers (opened in last 30 days):
Typically 30-50% of list
Should show 2-3x higher RPES than average
Recent purchasers (bought in last 90 days):
Typically 10-20% of list
Should show 3-5x higher RPES than average
Highly valuable—prioritize with VIP messaging
Inactive subscribers (no open in 90+ days):
Often 20-40% of list
Should show near-zero RPES
Consider suppression or reengagement before seasonal events
Example segment analysis:
Segment | List Size | Revenue | RPES | Notes |
Engaged | 18,200 (38%) | €94K (51%) | €5.16 | 2.4x average |
Recent buyers | 4,850 (10%) | €62K (34%) | €12.78 | 5.9x average |
Inactive | 16,400 (34%) | €8,500 (5%) | €0.52 | 0.24x average |
New subs | 9,050 (19%) | €19K (10%) | €2.10 | 0.98x average |
Strategic implications:
Recent buyers delivering 34% of revenue from 10% of list—create VIP early access program exclusively for this segment next year.
Inactive subscribers generating minimal revenue (5% from 34% of list)—suppress from main campaigns, send separate "We miss you" reengagement sequence instead.
New subscribers performing slightly below average—acceptable, they'll engage over time.
Seasonal email analytics focuses on revenue-driving metrics rather than engagement vanity metrics. Track revenue per email sent (RPES) as primary success indicator revealing actual campaign value. Monitor list revenue contribution percentage showing email's role in total seasonal performance. Measure incremental revenue per additional send determining optimal email frequency. Rank subject line approaches by RPES not open rate identifying highest-converting messaging styles. Analyze send time performance optimizing for revenue not engagement. Monitor deliverability metrics ensuring emails reach inboxes. Compare year-over-year metrics revealing program health trends. And segment performance analysis identifying high-value subscriber groups deserving differentiated treatment.
Seasonal email success isn't about highest open rates—it's about highest revenue generation from your most valuable owned channel. Measure what matters, optimize for revenue, and watch email deliver outsized seasonal returns.
Want to see how your daily email performance compares to last week and last year? Try Peasy for free at peasy.nu and get automated reports showing sales, conversion, and traffic trends—perfect for tracking your seasonal email campaign impact.
