07/2025

Email Is an Impact Channel, Not a Conversion One (And That’s a Good Thing)

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Email as a channel is misconstrued, from the way it’s used to the way it’s measured.

Let’s be real - if you’re still obsessing over open rates and click-throughs as your golden success metrics, you’re measuring the wrong thing entirely.

That’s because a lot of marketers will immediately view email as a conversion engine, or a last-click miracle worker to drive action.

In reality, email is an influence channel that builds trust through reminders, nudges, vibes, and moments.

When conversion occurs, it’s a nice bonus.

But if you want to make email work, and we mean work at its absolute best, you’ve got to flip the script.

Email = impact (always has, always will)

We’ve built up email as a tactical performance tool when really, it’s a strategic experience driver.

But what do we mean by that, and how does that play into your wider email marketing strategy?

Well, email:

Builds recall and brand visibility
Triggers emotional responses
Drives downstream action (not always inside the email)
Influences buying decisions over time

In both B2B and B2C, email should exist to do one (or preferably, all) of the following:

Entice an action: Not just clicking, but searching, talking to a colleague, remembering a feature.
Evoke emotion: Curiosity, FOMO, confidence, relief, excitement.
Earn attention: It doesn’t even have to be long-lasting - buying two seconds in a crowded inbox is still attention!

All of that = impact.

Email is an impression, too

Email marketing strategies are so heavily focused on specific metrics sometimes that it’s easy to forget every email you send is an impression.

Whether someone deletes your email or doesn’t even open it, they’ve seen it, which means they’ve also recognised your name, brand, and tone, regardless.

It all counts because visibility matters.

The next time you catch yourself saying “They didn’t click, this failed”, try asking:

“Did they see us?”
“Did this reinforce who we are?”
“Did it play a part in their journey?”

Engagement will fall, but that’s okay!

You don’t need to go into panic mode when you check your engagement metrics and see a drop.

Think of it this way - do you open every single email you receive? Probably not. So why should you expect someone to open every email you send?

Realistically, they’re not supposed to open every single email, and this line of thinking can have us falling into one of the biggest email marketing traps of expecting constant engagement.

Rather than giving yourself a headache and spiralling over what caused a drop in engagement, ask, “Did we show up at the right time for this person?”.

Vanity metrics will always fuel a feeling of something being wrong. True email impact lives in that above question!

So, what should you measure? Start with a better strategy

How DARE you plan content without a strategy?!

In all seriousness, you need to start by zooming out rather than focusing inwards too closely.

Before you plan any content, segment a list, or test a CTA, ask yourself:

What do I want email to impact in my business?
Why does this matter?
And how will I know it’s working?

This is your impact story, and it’s also the starting point for a real strategy that focuses on the right things.

Sure, email can drive revenue, increase recall, and improve conversions, retention, and loyalty.

But you need to be clear on what you want it to do first before any of that can happen!

What is Return on Impact (ROI²)?

Forget ROI for a sec (no, we’re not trying to sabotage you, we promise!).

Focus on Return on Impact. That’s the value your email delivers across the journey, even when you can’t directly track it.

That could be momentum in the sales pipeline, a life in brand searches, direct traffic after campaigns, and even reply sentiment and emotional engagement.

It might also look like long-term LTV increases linked to retention or a correlation between your CRM strategy and business growth.

The point is, these aren’t UTM trackable results, but they’re clear signs of the impact that your emails are having, and the difference is tangible.

Ask any brand that paused email and watched everything crash and burn - that’s impact.

How do you measure Return on Impact?

Here comes that age-old marketing reply… “It depends!”.

It does depend on your strategy, though, but here’s how to get started.

Start with your goal, then map signals that show it’s working, like so:

If the goal is brand awareness:

Look for lifts in direct traffic
Brand keyword search volume
Email replies and mentions

If the goal is pipeline support:

Sales feedback
Reply quality
Sales cycle velocity

If the goal is customer retention:

Repeat purchases
NPS score changes
Engagement after post-purchase comms

If the goal is revenue enablement:

Attribution correlation
Multi-channel lift
Campaign-assisted conversion

Really, you’re looking for patterns and correlations to show that email is doing its job (not just chasing a click).

Email can support multiple goals (if you’re clear on what you want)

Okay, Olivia Newton-John, you don’t have to sing it.

But email is one of the few channels that can support:

Lead gen
Sales
Nurture
Retention
Brand-building
Education
Lifecycle marketing

…but only if you treat it like a channel within a system rather than a silo, because your wider email marketing strategy requires it.

After all, if you’re going to just send tick boxes, you’ll get tick-box results.

TL;DR - the bottom line

If you can take away anything from this blog, let it be this:

Email is not a conversion tool. It’s a brand, relationship, and impact driver.

It’s normal to experience some disengagement with your audience, but it’s important to remember that your presence still counts.

By focusing on Return on Impact (not Return on Investment) and having clearly defined goals to build your strategy around, you can start to measure what matters and use email to show up consistently - with meaning, not just messages.

Want to audit your email strategy through the lens of impact?

Psst - you don’t need more clicks, you need a better story.

That’s exactly what I’ll be unpacking in my free masterclass on the PPPP™ Email Ecosystem:

How to audit your current email strategy
How to embed impact at every level
How to stop shouting into the void and start owning your channel

Find out more here.

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