Affiliate Moguls Blog
About Affiliate Moguls
Founded by Meghan Damico and Ryan Alarid, Affiliate Moguls is a consulting business that specializes in hiring, training, and optimizing affiliate and email media buying programs. 

With over 15 years of direct response marketing experience, they bring a wealth of experience and connections to each partnership.
Do You "Know Your Numbers?"
Written by Meghan Damico on May 11, 2022
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make in our industry is living and dying for each email send. 

“It didn’t meet my revenue goals.”

“The conversion rate was below average.”

“The EPC was too low.”

“I didn’t hit my profit margin.”

I had a client recently who was focusing too much on each email media buy and not enough on the big picture.

Ryan and I do coach our clients on the importance of “knowing your numbers,” but this phrase has two meanings.

The first meaning is that yes, it’s important to pay attention to each email send. 

Why? 

Because you want to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. If clicks are low the email send might not have gone out. 

If there were a ton of clicks but no sales there might be something broken on the order form (or the offer needs re-worked).

But if you buy an email drop and it didn’t back out for you, don’t pull your hair out or think you’re going to get fired.

The second meaning to “knowing your numbers” is that it’s critical to look at your stats from a holistic view instead of one-off.

For example, take a look at this example email send below:
The company’s goal is 80% of breakeven (meaning for every $100 spent they want to make at least $80 in return on day one). 

This screenshot shows they didn’t meet that KPI. 

Now, look at this screenshot:
This screenshot shows the results of every email send in January, not just the first one.

In this screenshot you’ll see that even though that one email didn’t perform, enough of the other email drops in January did. January's average breakeven was 83.6%.

That’s above goal! 

Now, take a look at all the email sends in Q1 and thus far in Q2:
This tells an even bigger story about how your email program is performing.

NOW your average is 84.7% breakeven.

What does this mean?

If your goal is 80% breakeven and you're above that, it’s time to be more aggressive in your media buying. It's time to take more risks.

$ Scared Money Don't Make Money! $

What happens if you’re below your goal this month/quarter/or YTD? 

It’s time to be less aggressive and scale back your marketing efforts.

Granted, every business is different. Some business owners might want to look at results holistically over every month vs. every quarter or year. 

It’s important to have this conversation with your manager (or if you're a business owner, with your marketing team). 

There needs to be transparency into what a company’s breakeven is: AKA when you need to see $100 in revenue for every $100 you spend.

This breakeven point could be within 30 days, 60 days, or even 90. It depends on how aggressive your business is. 

On the flip side, perhaps you need to see a profit from every email send you do.

Although it’s crucial to look at results from each email send, my point is that you also need to look at email media buying results from a 10,000 foot view. 

It’ll allow you to tell a better story, deepen your relationship with list owners and brokers, and gauge whether to be more aggressive in your marketing efforts.

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