This compilation contains average email open rates and click-through rate data. What is a good email open rate? To benchmark, your email campaigns within your industry sector, check out these top email statistics sources
Email marketers frequently ask me ” How do our campaigns compare?” when I conduct training workshops on Email Marketing. Email statistics are needed to help them compare subscriber engagement rates for average open rate, clickthrough and delivery rates. We include this in our regularly updated compilation of the top email marketing response statistics from different countries and sectors.
There are many good options for benchmarking email responses across sectors. Email marketing service providers that compile statistics for clients’ campaigns are the best sources of stats. The top eight questions we were asked included:
- What is the industry’s email engagement rate?
- What is the email engagement rate for larger companies?
- How does the market share of email clients on desktop and mobile compare to ?
- What is the best open rate and clickthrough rate for your email? What are the differences between different types of emails?
To make the most accurate comparisons, it is important to look beyond industry averages to compare email types. Transactional emails, such as the welcome sequence, tend to have higher interaction and click-throughs than regular newsletters.
The email platform used to send the email will have different benchmark statistics for email response. SMB customers with lower-cost platforms are more well-known than those with higher-cost enterprise platforms. This will result in a less responsive response.
Email statistics – January 20,23 update
These stats will be updated through 2023, as new reports from the major email platforms that we link to will show the most recent open rates and clickthrough rate.
Q1. What are the industry’s email open and clickthrough rates?
This table shows the average open rate and clickthrough rates for industry, based on data published by Constant Contact in January 2023. This average open rate is 16.97% with a 10.29% CTR. How do your email rates compare to this?
The most recent 2022 GetResponse Email marketing benchmarks sector summary includes unsubscribe rates and spam rates. Getresponse also provides a global average of open rates and clickthroughs by B2C and non-profit sectors. This is one of the most reliable sources to compare email response statistics by region and country.
This report provides the breakdown by industry of opens, clicks, and unsubscribes for B2B markets . This indicates that there is a lower response rate in certain sectors, such as Events, Education, or Legal Services.
Also, I like the Click to Open rates. This is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your email creative.
Q2. What is the email engagement rate for larger companies?
Constant Contact and Getresponse are more typical for smaller businesses than big brands.
This Email benchmark compilation 2021 by Accoustic (formerly IBM commerce and marketing) includes 750 companies that represent 3,000 brands across 40 countries. You can also find breakdowns by EMEA and APAC. I have chosen the industry breakdown which will be more useful for comparing your performance.
What is the average open rate for email? These open rates show the variation in performance from the lowest performing sectors such as publishing and tech, to consumer brands and non profit organizations.
Instead of clicking-through rates, which are also included in the report I have chosen Click-to-open. This shows engagement with copy and creative. You should aim for 10% to 15% CTOR so that you can compare emails with this benchmark.
I decided that it would be helpful to share data about list churn, as measured by hard bounce rates or spam complaint rates, based on this benchmark. These are not recommended as you may have a problem inbox delivery or your ESP will contact you.
Q3.What is the market share of email clients on desktop and mobile?
Litmus, one the most reliable sources of stats on email marketing provides a summary of email reading environments and clients. This allows you to see the latest figures for 2023. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which reduces open rates, means that when comparing countries and sectors, open rates can now be distorted by different proportions using Apple Mail.
Did You Know that more than a third of all emails are opened using an Apple iPhone?
Litmus ‘s latest compilation of email client market share demonstrates why it is so important to think about how your emails look on mobile. It is based on how many people open the email on each platform.
Q4. What is the best open and clickthrough rates? These rates can vary for different industries.
We are only presenting averages here, but it is important to look beyond averages when analyzing your email marketing to see how you can compare apples with apples. Segmenting your email responses is a good idea.
- Email type (see below).
- By type of offer
- By audience demographics
This will provide a better indicator of performance than an analysis by revenue per 1000 email sent. These GetResponse Email marketing benchmarks show the differences in email types.
It is unsurprising that autoresponder and triggered emails have higher open and click rates. They are more relevant and immediate and more related to an action taken by a subscriber. This is a testament to the power of marketing automation.
Sales Cycle has also provided some valuable insight into the response rates of remarketing emails such as cart abandonment email rates, in their 2019 Ecommerce Remarketing report.
Q5. How does engagement rate vary based on email frequency?
Frequency is an important part of email marketing strategy. GetResponse provides useful data that shows how frequency affects open and clickthrough rates.
First for enewsletters…
For a number of autoresponder emails…
This is a useful insight as it shows that higher frequency will result in higher overall responses. Autoresponders are typically used to send welcome sequences. However, most autoresponders only send one message so they miss out on a lot of potential responses.
Q6. How does the number of characters in a subject line impact the response?
You can also get a response to gain insight into how engagement changes depending on how many characters you use. The subject line. It is evident that between 20 and 60 characters, the click through and open rates of these links are highest.
The researchers also provide insight into the effects of using emojis within the subject line. Although this may be thought to increase open rates it actually decreases click through rates. Their data suggests that it is best to avoid it.
Q7. How do you email open and click through rates differ depending on the day of week?
This is a common question. It is important to know the best day of week to send emails. Get response data shows that open rates vary across the week. Friday is slightly higher than the other days. Weekends are definitely lower. This is different for both business-to business and business-to consumer Email marketing. The open rates for Tuesday and Wednesday of the week are generally higher than Thursday.
Q8. When is the best time to send an email newsletter campaign?
When is the best time to send an email newsletter campaign? Another question is frequently asked. After normalizing the time zones, this tends to change a bit more. It is evident that the best times to be awake are around breakfast, lunch and early evening. We can speculate that these times coincide with commutes or starting/finishing work.
