Email Marketing is a way to connect with your customer base directly, and it is recommended to put email marketing at the top of every businesses’ marketing efforts. In this article we look at email marketing statistics in different industries so you can evaluate where your stand against your competitors.
Advantages of Email Marketing
As long as the email does not go to spam, you will be reaching out to your customer base, even if they left the email unread. They will still see the sender of the email and if the title of the mail is intriguing enough, they will surely open it up.
In return, the opening of the email will help to reach across to your customers and they will either be aware of the promotion that you are running or redirected to your website/ blog/ social media. This is highly dependent on the Call-to-Action (CTA) that is in the email.
Email marketing also has a high conversion rate of 15.11% in 2020. This translates to a higher Return on Investments (ROI) overall. Additionally, a huge proportion of email users checks their inbox on a regular basis. This would mean that the recipients will definitely receive your email (if it does not go to spam).
Email Marketing Statistics & Metrics
Open Rate
The open rate tracks the number of emails that have been opened by your email list. It is significantly affected by the copy in the subject and preview text. Email subject (title of email) should ideally have no more than 1 emoji and is fewer than 9 words. This helps to keep the subject short and punchy for the readers.
As much as possible, personalized subject line should be used as well. For instance, an automation can be set up to send the customers a birthday email when their birthday is approaching. This is shown to have increased the open rate for most users.
An email marketing strategy to increase the open rate is to use A/B testing. It helps you to analyse which type of subject line is more appealing to your email list and will improve the open rate in the long run. According to MailChimp, the average open rate across all industries is 21.33%.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
CTR refers to the number of clicks on the links or buttons that are in the email. For example, the email’s Call-to-Action (CTA) could be ‘Find out more’, and it redirects the recipients to the website. The CTR will be based on the number of clicks of the ‘Find out more’ button.
A tip on improving the CTR is to create relevant and useful content to the readers. The link to the website should also be directly related to the content. For example, if you are promoting your new products, the link should go to the products page and not the home page of your business.
Bounce Rate
There are two types of bounce rates – soft bounce and hard bounce. Both means that the email is unable to reach the targeted recipient’s inbox.
Reasons for soft bounces include the recipient’s inbox was full, the server was down, content of email is too large, or too many emails have been sent over a short period of time. Hard bounces could be due to a wrong email address or inexistence of email domain.
A way to decrease bounce rate is to send an email to ask the customer to confirm that they are opting in to the email list. This ensures that your email list is not filled with fake email addresses.
Types of Emails
In general, there are two types of emails – promotional and informative.
As the name suggests, promotional emails highlight the existing sales that are ongoing, or are going to happen. Instead of directly shoving the offer right into the customers’ face, it is recommended to give a brief description of the product (non-daily essential products). For low-cost and high usage items such as groceries, the email has to offer a clear view on the discount and savings if the product were to be purchased.
Informative emails keep the readers updated on the industry news. For example, it could be The Straits Times for breaking news and Adweek for marketing and advertising related news. It requires a deep understanding of the targeted audience and the mail should not be mass sent to everyone on your email list. It should also be time sensitive as readers tend to skip on news that has already been past a week old.
Email Marketing Benchmarks Across Industries
According to MailChimp, these are the email marketing statistics across all industries.
| Industry | Average Open Rate | Average Click Rate | Hard Bounce | Soft Bounce | Unsubscribe Rate |
| All non-labeled accounts | 22.71% | 2.91% | 0.40% | 0.61% | 0.25% |
| Agriculture and Food Services | 23.31% | 2.94% | 0.32% | 0.50% | 0.28% |
| Architecture and Construction | 22.51% | 2.51% | 0.73% | 1.18% | 0.32% |
| Arts and Artists | 26.27% | 2.95% | 0.30% | 0.51% | 0.28% |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 16.65% | 1.92% | 0.26% | 0.33% | 0.30% |
| Business and Finance | 21.56% | 2.72% | 0.43% | 0.55% | 0.20% |
| Computers and Electronics | 19.29% | 2.08% | 0.47% | 0.79% | 0.27% |
| Construction | 21.77% | 2.26% | 0.86% | 1.28% | 0.39% |
| Consulting | 20.13% | 2.49% | 0.50% | 0.79% | 0.27% |
| Creative Services/Agency | 21.39% | 2.66% | 0.58% | 0.93% | 0.35% |
| Daily Deals/E-Coupons | 15.06% | 2.23% | 0.07% | 0.13% | 0.10% |
| E-Commerce | 15.68% | 2.01% | 0.19% | 0.26% | 0.27% |
| Education and Training | 23.42% | 2.90% | 0.32% | 0.51% | 0.21% |
| Entertainment and Events | 20.51% | 2.36% | 0.28% | 0.43% | 0.26% |
| Gambling | 21.62% | 3.30% | 0.42% | 0.38% | 0.15% |
| Games | 21.10% | 3.66% | 0.37% | 0.44% | 0.25% |
| Government | 28.77% | 3.99% | 0.33% | 0.50% | 0.13% |
| Health and Fitness | 21.48% | 2.69% | 0.30% | 0.40% | 0.40% |
| Hobbies | 27.74% | 5.01% | 0.18% | 0.31% | 0.23% |
| Home and Garden | 21.60% | 3.03% | 0.32% | 0.52% | 0.35% |
| Insurance | 21.36% | 2.13% | 0.67% | 0.71% | 0.25% |
| Legal | 22.00% | 2.81% | 0.52% | 0.66% | 0.22% |
| Manufacturing | 19.82% | 2.18% | 0.72% | 1.18% | 0.31% |
| Marketing and Advertising | 17.38% | 2.04% | 0.44% | 0.68% | 0.27% |
| Media and Publishing | 22.15% | 4.62% | 0.14% | 0.27% | 0.12% |
| Medical, Dental, and Healthcare | 21.72% | 2.49% | 0.51% | 0.63% | 0.28% |
| Mobile | 19.29% | 2.27% | 0.48% | 0.58% | 0.37% |
| Music and Musicians | 21.88% | 2.94% | 0.28% | 0.48% | 0.26% |
| Non-Profit | 25.17% | 2.79% | 0.33% | 0.49% | 0.20% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 18.58% | 2.25% | 0.39% | 0.53% | 0.17% |
| Photo and Video | 23.24% | 3.23% | 0.43% | 0.65% | 0.40% |
| Politics | 22.94% | 2.37% | 0.28% | 0.41% | 0.21% |
| Professional Services | 21.94% | 2.55% | 0.56% | 0.83% | 0.31% |
| Public Relations | 21.02% | 1.98% | 0.45% | 0.71% | 0.17% |
| Real Estate | 19.17% | 1.77% | 0.38% | 0.56% | 0.27% |
| Recruitment and Staffing | 21.14% | 2.53% | 0.45% | 0.53% | 0.30% |
| Religion | 27.62% | 3.16% | 0.17% | 0.25% | 0.15% |
| Restaurant | 19.77% | 1.34% | 0.37% | 0.50% | 0.28% |
| Restaurant and Venue | 20.39% | 1.40% | 0.32% | 0.45% | 0.39% |
| Retail | 18.39% | 2.25% | 0.22% | 0.32% | 0.25% |
| Social Networks and Online Communities | 21.06% | 3.32% | 0.20% | 0.34% | 0.22% |
| Software and Web App | 21.29% | 2.45% | 0.65% | 0.97% | 0.37% |
| Sports | 24.57% | 3.09% | 0.26% | 0.39% | 0.28% |
| Telecommunications | 20.92% | 2.27% | 0.63% | 0.87% | 0.23% |
| Travel and Transportation | 20.44% | 2.25% | 0.31% | 0.51% | 0.24% |
| Vitamin Supplements | 15.03% | 1.62% | 0.23% | 0.36% | 0.27% |
| Average Totals | 21.33% | 2.62% | 0.40% | 0.58% | 0.26% |
Best Time of the Day to Send Your Email
Intercom, a software company, has researched on the best time and day to send your email based on multiple email marketing statistics. According to them the best days and time to have your emails opened are between 10am – 2pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Despite that said, it is important to be aware of your recipient’s time zone as the local 10am time might be 10pm in their location.
It is also recommended to avoid sending any emails outside of business hours, according to the recipient’s time zone.
Is Email the Way to Go?
If you have a social media presence, you should build up your email marketing strategy. The chances of your social media accounts being suspended is not impossible. While building up your email list, it is important to go for quality leads to avoid the high bounce rate and to have a high conversion and CTR.
The content of the email should be personalized to the target audience, and provide valuable and useful content to the readers. As time passes, you will see that your open rates will increase when there’s a good quality of content and email leads.
