When to Use Sales vs. Marketing Emails

In this article, we discuss when to use sales emails versus when to use marketing emails.

What is a Marketing Email?

A marketing email is an email sent from a company or an individual via the Email section of the Marketing Hub (Marketing > Email). The purpose of a marketing email is to create brand or product awareness and to generate leads and sales.

A marketing email includes calls-to-actions (CTAs) to invite the customer to take a specific action; e.g., download an asset or sign up for a webinar. 

Which Marketing Email Metrics Can I Track in HubSpot?

• First clicked date: Date of the earliest link click for a marketing email
• First opened date: Date of the earliest open for a marketing email
• First replied date: Date of the earliest response to a marketing email
• Last clicked date: Date of the most recent link click for a marketing email
• Last opened date: Date of the most recent open for a marketing email
• Last replied date: Date of the most recent response to a marketing email
• Marketing email clicked: Overall count of marketing email clicks
• Marketing email opened: Overall count of marketing email opens
• Marketing email replied: Overall count of marketing email replies
• Marketing email unique clicked: Unique count of marketing email clicks
• Marketing email unique opened: Unique count of marketing email opens
• Marketing email unique replied: Unique count of marketing email replies

Why Track Marketing Emails Metrics?

Marketing emails help to further target or refine marketing strategy based on engagement. For example, if the majority of contacts interacted with a CTA in the email that led them to a page where they could download a white paper on a specific topic, it might be worth focusing on that topic in future marketing outreach.

What is a Sales Email?

A sales email is any email sent from an individual's email address with the purpose of converting a lead to a customer. This type of email is usually sent to a lead after they have interacted with marketing from a company in some way (e.g., they supplied their email address in exchange for a downloadable asset, they attended a webinar, etc.).

The goal of a sales email is to obtain a reply from the lead and/or book a meeting with them, as this increases the likelihood that they will convert to a customer.

Which Sales Email Metrics Can I Track in HubSpot?

Sales email metrics in HubSpot include:

• Email average first response time by rep: How long it takes, on average, for a sales rep to send a first response email
• Email average time to close: How long it takes sales reps to close email conversations
• Lead response time: How long it took the lead to respond to the email
• Number of emails opened: Number of emails opened by leads
• Number of emails clicked: Number of emails clicked on by leads

Why Track Sales Emails Metrics?

It is important to track sales email metrics to ensure that your sales efforts are as effective as possible. For example, if you track which sales emails are receiving the most opens, clicks, and replies, you will be able to better gauge whether the content of that email is effective and to adjust future email content accordingly.

Analytics & Reporting for Sales vs. Marketing Emails:

Analytics and reporting in HubSpot is more robust for marketing emails vs. sales emails. This is mainly due to the fact that the purpose of sales emails is simply to obtain a reply (or for a lead to book a meeting), while the purpose of marketing emails is to entice the lead to learn more about the company/product by clicking on CTAs in the email. (It would be great, of course, if the lead reached out in response to a marketing email, but usually a lead needs to be exposed to more content before they are compelled to do so.)

Because of this, HubSpot does not provide tracking for specific links within sales emails (as they do for CTAs in marketing emails). This is also partly due to the fact that sales emails live inside the user's connected mailbox and not in HubSpot, unlike marketing emails (which live inside your Marketing Hub).

Marketing emails allow for more granular tracking of unique link clicks because they utilize CTAs. The CTA metrics you can track in HubSpot include:

• Views: Number of times the CTA has been seen by visitors
• Clicks: Number of button or link clicks on the CTA (any other clicks on the CTA, including form interactions such as clicking the submit button, do not count as clicks)
• Click rate: Percentage of views that lead to button or link clicks on the CTA (percentage of people who viewed, then clicked on the CTA)
• Submissions: Number of form submissions on the CTA (only applies to CTAs using a form module; does not include meeting link submissions)
• Submission rate: Percentage of views leading to form submissions on the CTA (only applies to CTAs using a form module; does not include meeting link submissions) 

Sequences allow you to track a number of metrics, including:

High-Level Sequence Metrics:

• Open rate: Percentage of contacts who opened any of the sequence's emails at least once
• Reply rate: Percentage of contacts who replied at least once while enrolled in a sequence; this includes any emails received from a contact causing automatic unenrollment, and can include emails that were not part of the sequence
• Meeting rate: Percentage of contacts who booked a meeting while enrolled in the sequence and up to 7 days after they complete the sequence; this includes any meetings scheduled causing automatic unenrollment, and can include one-off meetings scheduled in HubSpot
• Click rate: Percentage of contacts who clicked a link in an email sent from this sequences at least once
• Deal rate (Sales Hub Enterprise only): Percentage of contacts enrolled in the sequence that resulted in a deal being created (if a contact enrolled in multiple sequences before a deal is created, the deal will be associated with the most recent sequence)
• Total Revenue (Sales Hub Enterprise only): Total amount of any associated deals in a closed won stage

Individual Steps Metrics:

• Meetings: Contacts who booked a meeting while enrolled in this step; this includes any meetings scheduled causing automatic unenrollment, and can include one-off meetings scheduled in HubSpot
• Open rate: Contacts who opened the email in this step
• Clicks: Contacts who clicked a link in an email sent in this step
• Replies: Contacts who replied to an email in this step