Have you ever wondered when your email marketing efforts are successful? Are you looking at open-and-click rates without knowing whether you should pop ‘pagne or drink beer? Then you can call yourself a lucky potato because you will get the answer right here.
This blog post tells you when your email marketing can be called a success. I look at the latest email marketing benchmarks and point out what you should be aware of when you compare your efforts with those of your colleagues.
Happy reading!
You must be aware of this when examining your email efforts
Before we dive into various statistics about email marketing, I have to make a number of disclaimers. Although there are some general benchmarks you can hold your data against, it is important that you do not compare 1:1.
It is necessary to put your data in perspective and, among other things, give yourself some slack if your brand is new and you have not yet managed to build the desired customer loyalty. In the same way, you should not settle for an average performance in email marketing if you are used to phenomenal interaction.
Therefore, use the following email marketing benchmarks precisely as benchmarks, a basis for comparison, or a guideline, but not an invariable conclusion.
Among other things, you should keep this in mind when you look at email marketing benchmarks:
- where do the statistics come from
- which industry are you in
- what type of emails are measured.
Let’s look at that a little more.
Email marketing statistics in various industries
There is a huge difference in how the email marketing discipline generally performs in different industries. In fact, according to Mailchimp, the open rate fluctuates by as much as 14%, depending on the industry. Therefore, always compare your data with data from similar companies.
Be aware of where your email marketing data comes from
When looking at email marketing statistics, it’s important to keep in mind where they come from. Look at statistics prepared by email marketing systems generally aimed at small and medium-sized companies. The numbers will typically be lower than if you look at data from email systems aimed at larger companies.
This difference can be due to several things. Among other things, it is typically the case that smaller companies themselves are responsible for their email marketing, which is why it is reasonable to assume that it is largely a trial-and-error approach to the discipline.
In the case of larger brands, there is probably an email marketing agency or a marketing department involved, which, all things being equal, have better prerequisites for success than an owner-manager.
Larger brands also have a greater impact when it comes to recognition than smaller brands typically have. This can affect the opening rate, among other things, especially at the start of a brand’s life.
Email marketing benchmarks depend on the type of email
The opening rate of emails is usually significantly higher for transaction-related emails than for newsletters. With, for example, an order confirmation flow, you can therefore expect a much higher opening rate than with a regular newsletter.
This is because users expect to receive order confirmation, whereas – believe it or not – they do not sit and wait for your campaign email about summer sunglass trends to land in their inbox.
In general, welcome and lost basket flows have high open rates, as users have recently been active on your site and have shown interest in your brand by either signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase.
So you don’t have to pull your hair out if your campaign emails don’t follow suit with general benchmarks within email marketing, which also include flows.
What email marketing benchmarks should I be looking at?
There are lots of different numbers to look at when measuring your email marketing performance. Some of the most important are open rate, click rate, click-to-open rate and unsubscribe rate. Which numbers you should look at, however, largely depends on what goals you have for your email marketing and where your focus lies.
Among other things, look at the following when you measure your email marketing performance:
- Opening rate
- Click through rate
- Click-to-open rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Conversion rate
- Number of spam flags
- Bounce rate
- List size
What is a good open rate?
An opening rate of 12-25% or more is generally satisfactory. This is, according to Zendesk, the average open rate across industries.
As mentioned, however, there is a big difference in performance in different industries. If you are in the retail industry, you can thus be satisfied with an opening rate of 12.60%, whereas you would like to exceed 26.70% if you belong to the category “Government and politics”.
The average open rate across email types:
| Business | Opening rate |
| Advertising and marketing | 18.50% |
| Detail | 12.60% |
| Nonprofit | 25.50% |
| Wellness and fitness | 21.60% |
| Food and drinks | 15.20% |
Good opening rates in e-commerce
If we zoom in on e-commerce, we can learn even more about the good opening rates thanks to Mailchimp.
We have collected data from over 50,000 brands throughout the year. From this, we can see, among other things, that the average opening rate for campaigns in the clothing industry was 18.12%, while the opening rate for flows in the same industry was 39.85%. Looking specifically at welcome flows, the open rate was 43.01%, and on lost basket flows, it was 39.65%.
The average open rate in e-commerce:
| Business | Average Open Rate – Promotions | Average open rate – flows |
| Clothing and accessories | 18.12% | 39.85% |
| Electronics | 20.53% | 40.96% |
| Health and beauty | 17.31% | 37.84% |
| Jewellery | 17.57% | 39.52% |
| Toys and hobbies | 20.95% | 42.48% |
The above statistics can hopefully give you a sense of what your open rate should approximate. If you have only recently started working with email marketing, you must remember that it takes some time before your data is trustworthy, so arm yourself with patience; you cannot conclude anything on the basis of a single campaign email that has reached 15 people.
New to email marketing land? Then read our blog post on email marketing for beginners.
What is a good Click Through Rate?
The average click-through rate (CTR) across industries is, according to our research here in Financebode, 2.4%. The average click-to-open rate (CTOR) is 14.1%.
The click-through rate tells you what percentage of all your recipients have clicked on a link in a separate email. Your open-to-click rate describes how many recipients who have opened your email have clicked on a link. There is, therefore, a significant difference between the two.
Average click rate and click-to-open rate in different industries:
| Business | Click through rate | Click-to-open rate |
| Advertising and marketing | 2.30% | 12.20% |
| Detail | 1.10% | 8.50% |
| Nonprofit | 4.10% | 15.80% |
| Wellness and fitness | 2.80% | 13.10% |
| Food and drinks | 1.70% | 11.30% |
What is a good CTR in e-commerce?
If you have a webshop, it is crucial that your emails are read and the recipients click through to your shop. For example, if you own a fitness centre, the click-through rate is not necessarily decisive, as some emails will be largely informative rather than focusing on conversions.
The average click-through rate in e-commerce is around a few per cent when it comes to campaign emails, whereas it is around 7-8% for flows.
Average CTR on campaigns and flows (e-commerce):
| Business | Average CTR – Campaigns | Average click rate – flows |
| Food and drinks | 2.06% | 6.91% |
| Office Supplies | 2.16% | 7.32% |
| Specialities | 1.93% | 6.73% |
| Sports equipment | 2.35% | 7.75% |
| Interior design, furniture and garden | 1.99% | 6.80% |
Avoid groping blindly: Benchmark your email marketing efforts
Everyone who works with email marketing naturally wants to have a good open rate, CTR, click-to-open rate and so on.
However, it is difficult to improve one’s efforts if one does not know what a “good” CTR or opening rate is.
In your work with email marketing, it is, therefore, sensible to compare your performance with the general trends in your industry.
This way, you avoid fumbling around blindly and can see whether your efforts meet the industry standard in black and white.
Is your CTR or open rate not as good as your industry average? Then you know that there is room for improvement and that it is realistic to aim higher.
If you follow the industry standard, you’ve done well, but it can probably still be done better – someone has to keep the average up.
Do you have such a good CTR and opening rate that you are significantly above your industry’s benchmark? So pat yourself on the back and lean back (a little). It can quickly go the wrong way, so don’t change too much in a setup that plays. Fine-tune, but don’t do anything wild and violent that could hurt your email marketing performance.
Conclusion
No matter what your data looks like, you should be proud of it. Your figures make it feasible for you to see what is working and what is not in regard to your target group.
At the risk of sounding cliché horribly, a low open rate is not a problem but a challenge. If your numbers aren’t impressive, it’s just a matter of jumping into your work clothes and getting started adjusting and split-testing on your own so that you can make your email marketing a success.
