Metrics that matter: How to measure the performance of your sourcing emails
3 mins, 2 secs read time
In today’s remote-first working world, even alongside popular career networking sites like LinkedIn, email remains a hugely popular way to communicate with candidates.
According to Gartner's 9 Future of Work Trends for 2023, "56% of candidates report applying for jobs outside their current area of expertise," and that’s expected to rise in the near future. With a large and diverse pool of jobseekers, recruiters and hiring managers need to find ways to measure the effectiveness of their candidate sourcing emails.
But, how do we know if our emails are connecting with candidates effectively? That’s where email metrics come in. If your team has been sourcing candidates via email for a while now, it’s likely that you have an excess of performance data to sort through. The great thing is that there are specific metrics that we’ve found to be the most helpful when planning and launching candidate sourcing email campaigns.
Read on to learn three key email metrics to pay attention to in order to understand the effectiveness of your messaging and enable better strategic planning.
1. Open rate
Open rates are measured by the number of people who received your emails and opened them. Tracking the open rates of your sourcing emails is essential to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your email campaign.
Before a prospect decides to open your email, the first thing they'll read is the subject line. If it grabs their attention, they’ll likely open your email to read the rest of it, which boosts your open rate. On the other hand, if the subject line doesn’t resonate with them, they might not open your email at all, resulting in a low open rate. We recommend aiming for a 50% open rate as a good starting point.
2. Click-through rate
The number of links clicked within an email is measured to give you your click-through rate. It indicates how engaged people are with your emails since it shows that they’re actively looking to learn more about the information you shared. Some useful links to add in your sourcing email include your company website, a link to the job posting and a calendar link for the prospect to schedule a call with you. To optimize your click-through rate, be sure to only include relevant links and avoid overusing them.
3. Reply rate
Reply rates measure the amount of people who responded to an email, usually to express interest in a job opportunity or to ask questions. This key metric can help you evaluate the effectiveness of the sourcing email in initiating a conversation.
A high reply rate is a good indicator that your messaging resonated with the prospect and that they’re interested in the job opportunity. A great way to boost your reply rate is by personalizing your email copy and tailoring it to the prospect’s interests and experience. On the contrary, a low reply rate could mean that the content wasn’t personalized enough to spark the prospect's interest or that the call to action wasn’t clear enough for them to respond. A good baseline to aim for is a 10% reply rate.
If you’re part of a fast-paced talent team, we hope you found these actionable tips helpful as you work toward optimizing your email outreach to candidates. While there might be a lot of data available about the emails you’re sending, these three metrics will be ones to watch when building your next candidate sourcing email campaign.
Ready to level up your sourcing email campaigns with candidates? Learn how Greenhouse Sourcing Automation can help your teams leverage automation to achieve better results.