We want to live in a world where emails are relationship builders, not distractions.
The best way to achieve this is by helping marketers design more meaningful campaigns backed by data and insights.
Turns out, as a marketing automation software provider, we have tons of data.
That's exactly why we created the incredibly informative Email Marketing Benchmarks report.
Keep reading to find loads of useful insights into emails, marketing automation, landing pages, and webinars.
Can't find what you need? Just send us an email! We love to know what's important to our fellow marketers.
What we did
We analyzed almost 7 billion messages out of over 35 billion emails GetResponse customers sent throughout 2021.
For the best insights, we only looked at active senders with at least 1,000 contacts.
We also used the total values for average email opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, and spam (abuse) complaints.
That means we count every action your subscriber makes – whether they reopen your messages or click all of your links.
What are the average email benchmarks (open rate, click-through rate, etc.) for all industries?
The average email open rate is 19.66%
The average email click-through rate is 2.02%
The average email click-to-open rate is 9.94%
The average email unsubscribe rate is 0.11%
The average email spam complaint rate is 0.01%
The average email bounce rate is 2.76%
To learn about how to calculate these and other important metrics, check out our post on email marketing KPIs.
What is a good email open rate?
What could be considered a good open rate (OR) is rather individual, and the factors that influence it are often out of your control. The industry you're in, your target audience, and the type of campaign you're running all play a part in how high your open rate will be.
Consider this:
Out of all the industries we analyzed, Internet Marketing had the lowest average open rate of 17.62%. At the same time Restaurants & Food, the industry with the highest result, observed an average open rate of 32.04%.
For better email results, visit our email marketing best practices guide.
What is a good click-through rate?
Much like with open rates, what you should consider a good click-through rate is rather individual.
The elements such as the industry you're in, your target audience, and most importantly — the type of campaign you're analyzing — all affect how high your click-through rate will be.
After all, not all campaigns have the intention to get a response from the recipient, and therefore usually don't observe high click-through rates. An example of one such campaign is an email informing customers about a privacy policy update.
Consider this:
Of all the industries we looked at, Travel had the lowest average click-through rate of 1.63%. On the other hand, Financial Services, which was the top performer, had the highest average CTR of 4.29%.
Follow this link if you'd like to learn how to increase your email click-through rates.
What's the difference between click-through and click-to-open rate?
Email click-through rate (CTR) tells you the number of people who clicked on any of the links inside of your email.
Meanwhile, the click-to-open rate (CTOR) compares the number of people that opened your message with those who clicked on any of the links.
CTOR is an important metric that can help you better understand how relevant and engaging your emails are.
To calculate CTOR, you need to divide your click-through rate by the open rate and multiply it by 100%.
For example:
OR: 20%
CTR: 2%
CTOR = 2%/20% * 100% = 10%
What are good email conversion rates?
Conversion rate focuses on the results — how many times or how many of your recipients have taken a given action.
For example, how many times they downloaded your ebook, how many of them registered for a webinar, or visited your product page.
This metric can be very useful, especially when you assign a monetary value to your conversions. Then it's very easy for you to decide whether a particular campaign was successful and needs repeating, or if you should choose a different approach.
As everyone can have their own definition of conversion, it's impossible to say what a good email conversion rate is, and we suggest that you look at the next best thing, such as the average click-through rate.
Continent
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
All
19.66%
2.02%
9.94%
0.11%
0.01%
2.76%
Average click-throughs are down. What now?
The latest data shows us that there has been a drop in the global average email engagement rates. While the average open rates only slightly decreased (from 22.15% to 22.02%), the drop in the average click-through rates is more noticeable (from 3.43% to 2.13%). Interestingly, Oceania and Africa saw an increase in the average opens reported, but the click-throughs followed the global pattern.
What could be the reason for these drops? Most likely, it's about how engaging our marketing communication has become. Especially in these challenging times, we need to make sure that our messaging hits the right tone, does not seem opportunistic, and offers tons of value. One way to achieve this is by doubling-down on personalization & marketing automation. By tailoring our communication to the customers' needs, we can get them more involved and engaged with our brands.
GDPR? CASL? CCPA? No need to worry.
As we saw in the previous editions of this report, countries with more rigid regulations tend to observe higher email engagement rates.
Out of the five top-performing countries, four – France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany – are from the GDPR-zone that's usually associated with more stringent laws.
At the same time, among the countries with the highest click-through rates, we found Canada and USA, which have certainly become more regulated due to laws such as CCPA and CASL.
The lesson here seems to be the following: Don't be afraid of new, stricter regulations that may come your way. Embrace them, carefully target your audience, and you'll reap the rewards of higher engagement rates.
Industry
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
Agencies
23.86%
1.87%
7.84%
0.13%
0.01%
3.27%
Arts & Entertainment
28.08%
3.50%
12.46%
0.15%
0.01%
1.91%
Automotive
30.87%
4.12%
13.35%
0.19%
0.01%
4.33%
Communications
24.76%
3.09%
12.46%
0.05%
0.00%
6.54%
Education
21.92%
1.75%
7.97%
0.13%
0.01%
1.88%
Financial Services
20.01%
4.29%
21.45%
0.12%
0.01%
1.29%
Health & Beauty
20.75%
1.99%
9.59%
0.12%
0.01%
1.70%
Health Care
25.09%
1.90%
7.58%
0.16%
0.01%
5.85%
Internet Marketing
17.62%
1.81%
10.26%
0.12%
0.01%
2.56%
Legal services
23.39%
2.55%
10.90%
0.17%
0.01%
1.96%
Non-profits
31.73%
3.42%
10.76%
0.11%
0.01%
2.42%
Publishing
23.04%
4.16%
18.07%
0.10%
0.01%
3.22%
Real Estate
28.57%
2.05%
7.16%
0.16%
0.01%
2.36%
Restaurants & Food
32.04%
3.51%
10.95%
0.24%
0.02%
2.68%
Retail
24.84%
2.16%
8.71%
0.16%
0.01%
2.73%
Sports and Activities
26.29%
2.56%
9.73%
0.14%
0.01%
2.98%
Technology & High Tech
22.94%
2.86%
12.45%
0.11%
0.01%
3.22%
Travel
24.60%
1.63%
6.61%
0.10%
0.01%
4.99%
All
25.02%
2.73%
11.02%
0.14%
0.01%
3.11%
Light at the end of the tunnel
Looking at our latest data it seems that we're finally beginning to see some improvement in both opens and clicks.
Among the top five performing industries were Nonprofits, Restaurants & Food, Automotive, Real Estate, and Arts & Entertainment.
Interestingly, four of those also previously topped our rankings. This suggests that despite the present challenges, audiences' engagement doesn't wear out over time and people are still genuinely interested to hear from their favorite brands.
When it comes to the bottom of our pack, Internet Marketing once again places last in our rankings.
However, what's surprising is that Financial Services and Health & Beauty – industries that performed well last time – have also been placed near the bottom.
Now, there may be many reasons for this, including higher competition levels, changes in social dynamics, or the fact that we've analyzed a larger time frame this time.
No matter the reasons, be sure you're comparing apples to apples and that your own campaigns evolve as your audience evolves.
Month
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
Jan-21
19.83%
2.45%
12.35%
0.12%
0.01%
1.45%
Feb-21
20.66%
2.62%
12.67%
0.12%
0.01%
2.24%
Mar-21
20.41%
2.53%
12.41%
0.12%
0.01%
1.91%
Apr-21
20.86%
2.69%
12.89%
0.11%
0.01%
2.45%
May-21
20.19%
2.61%
12.92%
0.10%
0.01%
3.92%
Jun-21
20.21%
2.76%
13.67%
0.10%
0.01%
3.56%
Jul-21
19.56%
2.35%
12.01%
0.10%
0.01%
4.45%
Aug-21
19.79%
2.24%
11.30%
0.10%
0.01%
3.99%
Sept-21
20.38%
2.32%
11.38%
0.10%
0.01%
3.40%
Oct-21
21.22%
2.22%
10.46%
0.10%
0.01%
2.70%
Nov-21
22.20%
2.21%
9.95%
0.10%
0.01%
2.82%
Dec-21
21.81%
2.05%
9.38%
0.09%
0.00%
2.62%
Apple iOS privacy changes – what's the impact?
TLDR: In 2021, Apple announced its New Privacy Policy that lets their users decide if they want their email behavior to be tracked by marketers. When switched on, this privacy setting makes tracking email campaigns more challenging as every message is automatically opened – by Apple and not the user itself – distorting the real statistics. This change affects segmentations based on email engagement, time-optimization algorithms, and automated campaigns based on email open behavior in your email marketing software. This change started rolling out between September and November 2021.
Now that we have this brief intro out of the way, let's see what the data has to say about these privacy policy changes from Apple.
Looking at the attached table, we can see that the average engagement metrics have been rather stable throughout the year between January and August. They were somewhat decreasing, but not to a large extent and some of it could be associated with the slower summer season.
In September, however, we start to observe an increase in the email opens, that's not followed by an increase in the click-through rates. The increase we see is only around 1 to 2 percentage points, which isn't a major one and could again be associated with the change of seasons and the launch of major campaigns such as Back to School, Halloween, or Black Friday.
Keeping this all in mind, it's a bit too soon to say whether Apple's iOS changes are making a noticeable impact. They're definitely something you have to keep in mind when building your email marketing strategy – especially if other mailbox providers decide to make similar changes – so consider updating your automated campaigns or segmentations based on email engagement in the near future.
Landing page conversion by industry
Industry
Avg. Conv. Rate
Agencies
2.22%
Arts & Entertainment
20.48%
Automotive
23.06%
Communications
27.89%
Education
27.82%
Financial Services
10.89%
Health & Beauty
14.65%
Health Care
18.02%
Internet Marketing
15.55%
Non-profits
31.08%
Publishing
38.32%
Real Estate
5.41%
Restaurants & Food
2.11%
Retail
2.31%
Sports and Activities
12.08%
Technology & High Tech
13.87%
Travel
25.76%
ALL
17.15%
Big changes
In our previous report, we were bewildered by the significant dip in conversion rates across all industries.
This came as a surprise to us, especially since in our own campaigns run using our landing page creator we haven't seen any dramatic changes.
Since the data seemed a bit off, we decided to reevaluate our sample selection criteria (looking only at landing pages that were created in 2021, not just active) and extended the time frame for our analysis.
The result? Turns out we were way too pessimistic.
The average landing page conversion rate we saw this time was 17.15%, much higher than the 2.96% we reported last time.
While some industries, like Agencies, Real Estate, or Restaurants & Food continue to see average conversion rates of around 2%, there are many above 20% and two that even scored above 30%.
Now, what stayed the same is the fact that we don't have the full data about the type of traffic that marketers sent to these pages.
Campaigns aiming at cold traffic from paid ad campaigns will certainly show lower results than those observed for pages aimed at your existing audience.
So keep this in mind when comparing your results with others in your industry, and don't forget to design your pages following these proven landing page best practices.
Industry
Double opt-in %
Single opt-in %
Agencies
17.04%
82.96%
Arts & Entertainment
11.67%
88.33%
Automotive
5.67%
94.33%
Communications
4.69%
95.31%
Education
15.36%
84.64%
Financial Services
10.59%
89.41%
Health & Beauty
5.16%
94.84%
Health Care
6.47%
93.53%
Internet Marketing
9.50%
90.50%
Legal services
3.92%
96.08%
Non-profits
9.90%
90.10%
Publishing
19.08%
80.92%
Real Estate
2.31%
97.69%
Restaurants & Food
8.11%
91.89%
Retail
4.80%
95.20%
Sports and Activities
13.09%
86.91%
Technology & High Tech
4.35%
95.65%
Travel
6.89%
93.11%
Double opt-in: great practice, but costly too.
We can see that marketers are still hesitating and often choosing not to use double opt-in in their subscription process.
Despite its many benefits toward deliverability, keeping your audience engaged, and overall security, we understand that there are several reasons why marketers pass on this list management best practice.
The main one, in my opinion, is that as marketers we're mostly focused on attracting the largest possible audience at the lowest possible cost. When reporting to our managers, we want to show a low Cost Per Lead (CPL), and losing 20-50% (or however many) of your potential subscribers that won't click the confirmation button is often too much.
Our suggestion here is to try and start implementing double opt-in wherever you can afford it.
If you do it for organic leads that come through your blog but don't do it for contacts that come from Facebook Lead Ads that's fine. At least you've made a positive change and your deliverability will reward you for this.
What's the best time to send emails?
This is a question we hear quite often, but unfortunately, the answer's not all that simple.
On top of extracting the above data, we also ran a big study that shed more light on the best time and day to send emails. What made it special is that it compared the global results with those observed for key regions like US & Canada, LATAM, DACH, CEE, and Asia-Pacific.
And what did we see in these two studies?
First of all, the best-performing hours are usually somewhere in the early morning. The global results show that this can be as early as 4 a.m.
Secondly, email engagement is usually quite stable throughout the day and goes in-line with the typical business hours.
Keep in mind, however, that the sample size for the early hours was relatively small, which could have affected the data accuracy.
That said, the best way to go about this is to use email send-time optimization algorithms like GetResponse Perfect Timing or Time-Travel to send your messages at the right time. And if that's not possible, test what works best for your audience and stick to it!
What's the best day to send emails?
This is another common question we hear quite often. And again, one we analyzed in our best time & day to send emails report.
So what did we see? Once again, there's little difference in terms of engagement between individual weekdays. While the average open and click-through rates are the highest on Friday and Monday, they aren't that far different from what we saw on the other days. As per usual, the average metrics drop on weekends, but that's something we've all become used to already.
What does this mean? My opinion is that since there's little difference between individual weekdays, stick to the one that works best for your business and your audience.
While weekends typically see lower results, it also means that the competition is lower on these days. While I'm not recommending that you should send your email campaigns on Sunday, it may be an opportunity worth exploring.
Number of newsletters per week
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Complaint Rate
Bounce rate
% of marketers
1
33.33%
3.62%
10.85%
0.24%
0.01%
2.70%
45.79%
2
27.56%
2.84%
10.31%
0.18%
0.01%
2.62%
18.89%
3
25.07%
2.61%
10.41%
0.15%
0.01%
2.55%
9.11%
4
22.45%
1.85%
8.23%
0.14%
0.01%
2.99%
5.55%
5
21.82%
2.08%
9.54%
0.12%
0.01%
2.65%
3.87%
6
23.07%
3.18%
13.76%
0.11%
0.01%
3.85%
3.07%
7
25.69%
3.84%
14.93%
0.09%
0.01%
2.36%
3.16%
8
24.32%
3.35%
13.75%
0.10%
0.01%
2.43%
1.49%
9
18.54%
2.09%
11.26%
0.09%
0.01%
3.50%
1.09%
10
17.36%
2.84%
16.33%
0.09%
0.01%
3.85%
0.86%
11
18.93%
2.57%
13.57%
0.08%
0.01%
5.03%
0.73%
12
17.76%
2.58%
14.52%
0.08%
0.01%
4.19%
0.73%
13
18.35%
2.77%
15.07%
0.08%
0.01%
3.70%
0.58%
14
14.21%
2.45%
17.27%
0.07%
0.00%
3.85%
1.06%
15
15.43%
1.75%
11.37%
0.08%
0.01%
2.35%
0.40%
16+
14.14%
1.74%
12.29%
0.06%
0.01%
2.65%
3.63%
How much is too much?
Setting up a good mailing frequency is no easy task. Yet, it's a very important factor that plays a big role when it comes to deliverability.
According to our latest data, email subscribers are quite persistent. They don't mind frequent communication and even if you send up to 8 newsletters per week, you'll see above-average opens and clicks.
At the same time, if you look at the reasons why people unsubscribe from newsletters, it's usually because they've been receiving too many emails.
Well, what should you do then?
Take a better look at your email marketing metrics – opens, clicks, conversions, deliverability rate, and the cost to acquire new subscribers.
If you see that you're burning through your list, or that people aren't engaging with your communication enough, it'll be a sign that you've gone too far. Then, decide whether you'll want to lower your mailing frequency or work even harder on your email's content.
# of messages
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
% of cycles
1
90.09%
27.06%
30.03%
0.75%
0.05%
3.01%
39.98%
2
71.86%
19.77%
27.52%
0.57%
0.03%
2.49%
8.74%
3
63.82%
15.14%
23.73%
0.63%
0.03%
2.13%
5.88%
4
57.69%
11.16%
19.34%
0.71%
0.05%
2.03%
5.63%
5
52.43%
10.83%
20.66%
0.65%
0.04%
2.41%
3.93%
6
85.16%
21.57%
25.33%
0.46%
0.04%
1.71%
2.80%
7
47.47%
8.34%
17.56%
0.67%
0.03%
2.43%
3.24%
8
54.83%
7.00%
12.76%
0.62%
0.04%
1.66%
3.02%
9
51.60%
9.26%
17.95%
0.51%
0.03%
1.48%
2.26%
10
40.75%
3.87%
9.51%
0.52%
0.03%
3.26%
2.42%
11
62.27%
8.51%
13.66%
0.36%
0.02%
1.54%
1.26%
12
29.78%
4.33%
14.53%
0.22%
0.02%
0.89%
2.14%
13
31.04%
3.42%
11.02%
0.30%
0.02%
1.51%
1.10%
14
36.46%
5.72%
15.69%
0.51%
0.03%
1.17%
1.04%
15
42.48%
5.90%
13.89%
0.41%
0.03%
2.09%
0.88%
16
35.96%
3.42%
9.50%
0.28%
0.02%
1.89%
0.72%
17
48.39%
7.88%
16.28%
0.37%
0.02%
2.28%
1.26%
18
70.62%
7.86%
11.13%
0.66%
0.02%
1.52%
0.50%
19+
25.02%
2.38%
9.52%
0.15%
0.01%
1.32%
13.18%
It's not about length. It's about value.
Shorter email drip campaigns tend to produce better results. In fact, the single message autoresponder cycle – often used as a welcome or thank you email with a link to download something – had an astonishing 90.09% open rate and a 27.06% click-through rate.
But don't get me wrong. It's not really about length – it's all about delivering value. You can easily run engaging long-term campaigns if subscribers keep finding your emails useful.
The trick is to understand the customer journey and create marketing automation workflows that match every stage. For example, B2B sales cycles are usually complex and might even extend into years. They call for long email sequences that seize every potential opportunity to address your audience's needs.
When planning your email marketing communication, start with your subscribers. Which of their problems are you solving? How exactly can you help them? What do they need to know to help them decide to buy your product? The answers will fuel your automated email campaigns – and convert your prospects into satisfied customers.
Opens by hour
% of all message opens
% Cumulative
% of all message clicks
Cumulative %
0
22.24%
22.24%
33.28%
33.28%
1
8.81%
31.04%
8.64%
41.92%
2
6.15%
37.19%
5.97%
47.89%
3
4.73%
41.93%
4.59%
52.48%
4
3.76%
45.68%
3.62%
56.10%
5
3.09%
48.77%
2.93%
59.03%
6
2.62%
51.38%
2.43%
61.46%
7
2.28%
53.67%
2.13%
63.59%
8
2.01%
55.68%
1.81%
65.40%
9
1.80%
57.48%
1.64%
67.03%
10
1.66%
59.14%
1.53%
68.56%
11
1.54%
60.68%
1.46%
70.03%
12
1.45%
62.13%
1.44%
71.47%
13
1.36%
63.49%
1.37%
72.84%
14
1.27%
64.77%
1.34%
74.18%
15
1.18%
65.94%
1.20%
75.38%
16
1.08%
67.02%
1.09%
76.47%
17
1.01%
68.03%
1.01%
77.48%
18
0.95%
68.98%
0.94%
78.42%
19
0.93%
69.91%
0.89%
79.31%
20
0.94%
70.85%
0.91%
80.22%
21
0.95%
71.80%
0.91%
81.14%
22
0.97%
72.78%
0.94%
82.08%
23
0.91%
73.69%
0.84%
82.92%
24
0.82%
74.51%
0.69%
83.61%
25
0.73%
75.24%
0.58%
84.18%
26+
24.76%
100.00%
15.82%
100%
Sending time-sensitive offers? Pay attention.
Email results change over time. There's a big spike in the first few hours, followed by a gradual drop.
So keep this in mind if you send time-sensitive offers.
Over 22% of all email campaigns are opened in the very first hour after sending. With each hour, your chances of getting more opens decreases.
After six hours, over half of your emails have already been opened.
Planning a flash sale? Consider a retargeting campaign (via emails or a PPC campaign) to follow up with the people who don't respond within six hours.
If your offer isn't time-specific, take time to analyze your results before following up. Even though only around 21% of subscribers will open your emails seven to 24 hours after you send them, it's often worth the wait. And sending more emails isn't always the answer.
There's another story this data might be telling us: Since email opens and clicks continue to accumulate over time, perhaps the best time to send email shouldn't be your top priority.
As long as your campaign ticks most of these email marketing best practices, you might still hit a home run even if you miss the best time slot by an hour or two.
Open rate : 35.64%
Click-through rate : 5.31%
Click to open rate : 14.89%
Unsubscribe rate : 0.30%
Spam rate : 0.02%
Bounce rate : 2.06%
Open rate : 29.95%
Click-through rate : 3.77%
Click to open rate : 12.58%
Unsubscribe rate : 0.21%
Spam rate : 0.01%
Bounce rate : 1.43%
Open rate : 20.58%
Click-through rate : 2.51%
Click to open rate : 12.20%
Unsubscribe rate : 0.11%
Spam rate : 0.01%
Bounce rate : 2.97%
Automated emails are on top
Automated emails are on top
Want high open and click-through rates? Send automated emails triggered by your customers' behavior.
It's even worth doing for simple messages like welcome emails sent to your new email list subscribers. Newsletters and email blasts still work. But sending messages with the use of email automation brings the best results.
Why? Timing and relevance.
When someone gets a message straight after taking an action, they're more likely ready to read and respond to it.
The same is true if they find it interesting and relevant. So you need to know your audience (specifically their information needs and preferences.)
With marketing automation, you can collect important data along the customer journey – and use it to segment your list and personalize your content.
For instance, you can add tags to your contacts based on the product categories they buy. The more actionable data you have, the more relevant your messages will be.
That's why marketing automation cycles bring the best results.
Make your emails more engaging with video content
Once again, video proves to be an engaging content format worth including in your emails.
Just by featuring it in your communication, you're off to a good start and can count on much higher click-through rates and deliverability rate.
The thing is that sending video in emails can still be problematic. It's not fully supported by all email mailbox providers, but there are workarounds on how you can do it effectively.
To learn more about this, check out our guide on how to send a video through email.
How long should your subject lines be?
The best practice has always been to keep your subject lines short. This is because most email clients will trim your subject line so that it fits on your device's screen.
Looking at our data, most email marketers are already following this best practice as more than 50% of the email subject lines we analyzed contained fewer than 50 characters.
Now, the tricky part is that it's actually the longer subject lines that tend to get the highest opens and clicks. But does that mean you should make your subject lines longer? Not necessarily.
Our advice is that you should aim to keep your subject line shorter so that you have full control over how they're displayed on various devices. At the same time, you shouldn't get preoccupied if you go above the 60 character mark – your email campaign will still work.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to giving your subscriber an idea of what's inside of your email. Your subject lines need to be compelling enough to get people to open the email. But remember that your sender name and preheader text aim to do the same.
In most cases, it's not about the length of the subject line but rather conveying the message. If the content is relevant to your audience, it's easy to come up with a subject line that scores a high open rate.
And if your gut feeling isn't strong, be sure to A/B test your subject lines and automatically pick the best-performing ones.
Emoji
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
% of messages
No
21.94%
2.75%
12.54%
0.11%
0.01%
2.90%
79%
Yes
20.45%
1.94%
9.50%
0.13%
0.01%
2.52%
21%
Should we be careful about using emojis?
For this report, we've updated our database of emojis to analyze and observed that 21% of all the emails contained some type of emoji in their subject line. Compared to only 3.4% we reported last time, this is a significant increase.
What's also interesting is that emails with emojis had a lower average open rate – 20.45% – than the ones without them – 21.94%. The same applies to their click-through rates.
There may be a few reasons why that's happened. One of them might be that recipients have become tired of emojis or maybe that emojis are no longer something we actually notice. Some studies even suggested that emojis make your brand look cheap or of low quality.
On the other hand, it might be that emojis are popular among certain groups of marketers or industries, that don't usually see above-average engagement metrics.
So, what should you do? As always, consider your target audience and how you want to communicate with them. Then, come up with a plan and run an A/B test to see what works best for your audience.
Personalized?
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
% of messages
YES
18.79%
1.74%
9.27%
0.13%
0.01%
2.15%
13%
NO
22.14%
2.74%
12.38%
0.11%
0.01%
2.95%
87%
Time to reconsider personalization?
For the first time in the history of our Email Marketing Benchmarks report, we're seeing that personalized emails perform worse than generic ones. And this applies to opens, clicks, and even unsubscribes.
Now, why would that be?
My best guess is that marketers have gone too far with using basic personalization tactics like "Special deals for you [[firstname]]". Recipients no longer find this kind of personalization relevant or helpful.
At the same time, we might be looking at another trend here. As the public's concern about data privacy grows, maybe it's time we reconsider how we use personalization in marketing.
Maybe it's time we stop thinking about how it can help us increase marketing metrics and instead think about how it can bring value to our customers?
Whatever you decide, make sure to test this with your audience. After all, we're all different and if you know your audience well, you'll figure out the best approach.
Phrase or symbol
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
video
22.53%
2.97%
13.19%
0.13%
0.01%
2.06%
infographic
32.47%
3.76%
11.58%
0.15%
0.00%
0.35%
ebook
12.80%
2.13%
16.67%
0.08%
0.01%
7.39%
guide
23.58%
3.67%
15.57%
0.14%
0.01%
3.35%
pdf
16.42%
2.78%
16.96%
0.09%
0.01%
2.07%
you
16.23%
1.73%
10.64%
0.11%
0.01%
2.68%
free
20.22%
3.80%
18.81%
0.09%
0.01%
3.05%
quick
18.96%
1.87%
9.89%
0.12%
0.01%
1.92%
now
31.73%
6.30%
19.86%
0.09%
0.01%
2.20%
re:
16.91%
1.67%
9.90%
0.13%
0.01%
2.96%
fw
18.54%
2.16%
11.64%
0.15%
0.01%
1.59%
sale
18.67%
1.80%
9.64%
0.12%
0.01%
2.68%
question mark
19.24%
1.58%
8.20%
0.13%
0.01%
2.96%
exclamation mark
21.40%
2.24%
10.48%
0.13%
0.01%
2.57%
newsletter
27.20%
6.00%
22.05%
0.12%
0.01%
2.43%
today
21.22%
2.35%
11.09%
0.09%
0.01%
3.24%
you
16.23%
1.73%
10.64%
0.11%
0.01%
2.68%
update
31.86%
7.50%
23.55%
0.11%
0.01%
1.68%
new
21.65%
3.40%
15.72%
0.11%
0.01%
3.09%
news
26.70%
5.55%
20.78%
0.12%
0.01%
2.68%
events
38.94%
4.16%
10.68%
0.21%
0.01%
1.94%
offer
20.90%
2.20%
10.52%
0.12%
0.01%
2.46%
guaranteed
6.56%
0.55%
8.38%
0.04%
0.00%
10.44%
special
17.82%
1.64%
9.18%
0.10%
0.01%
4.48%
improved
24.29%
4.07%
16.78%
0.09%
0.01%
3.27%
unique
16.42%
1.22%
7.45%
0.09%
0.01%
4.69%
powerful
13.55%
1.81%
13.32%
0.07%
0.01%
2.46%
tested
22.26%
3.27%
14.67%
0.12%
0.01%
1.71%
big
18.96%
2.79%
14.70%
0.11%
0.01%
2.92%
popular
21.92%
4.29%
19.57%
0.09%
0.01%
3.12%
exclusive
16.53%
1.62%
9.78%
0.11%
0.01%
2.90%
value
18.84%
3.12%
16.58%
0.10%
0.01%
2.94%
crazy
15.21%
1.20%
7.90%
0.12%
0.01%
4.23%
invitation
21.79%
1.62%
7.43%
0.15%
0.01%
1.66%
introducing
16.12%
1.42%
8.81%
0.13%
0.01%
3.46%
we
21.10%
2.63%
12.47%
0.12%
0.01%
2.76%
year number
25.04%
2.76%
11.01%
0.10%
0.01%
3.07%
name of the month (e.g. January)
31.54%
3.33%
10.55%
0.10%
0.01%
2.75%
day of the week (e.g. Monday)
24.62%
2.32%
9.41%
0.12%
0.01%
2.64%
unlimited
11.43%
1.86%
16.23%
0.10%
0.01%
2.25%
discount
19.89%
6.06%
30.45%
0.14%
0.01%
2.16%
wanted
25.00%
1.35%
5.39%
0.13%
0.01%
2.64%
lifetime
16.46%
1.39%
8.42%
0.17%
0.01%
2.24%
compare
10.26%
0.78%
7.57%
0.05%
0.00%
6.55%
affordable
14.82%
2.94%
19.83%
0.08%
0.01%
3.45%
bonus
23.28%
2.50%
10.74%
0.16%
0.01%
2.29%
bargain
39.52%
12.10%
30.63%
0.05%
0.01%
0.72%
massive
20.34%
6.65%
32.71%
0.08%
0.01%
1.97%
prize
22.22%
2.62%
11.82%
0.15%
0.01%
3.11%
No dirty tricks allowed
Email marketing is a long-term play. And a rather intimate one, too.
If you want to generate high ROI, you need to build strong relationships with your audience. That means you need to deliver value to them and keep your promises.
Marketers often talk about how using a specific word in your subject lines can dramatically increase your open rates. Our data doesn't confirm this.
Sure, there may be words that work great and will boost your results, but it's not that simple. You can't just throw in words like "sale" or "free" and expect people to run toward your offer.
Pay attention to the language your audience uses. Come up with a few alternative versions and A/B test them. And don't count on cheap tricks.
Preheader?
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
% of messages
Yes
25.83%
3.35%
12.97%
0.13%
0.01%
2.70%
25.90%
No
20.30%
2.47%
12.19%
0.11%
0.01%
2.87%
74.10%
The preheader: Your subject line's best friend
The preheader is the first snippet of text in your email that appears next to your subject line. People see it before they even open the email.
We've been singing the preheader's praises for a long time – and urging marketers to add one if they want high open rates. And it looks like our effort is finally beginning to pay off as 26% of all messages we analyzed contained a preheader. That's 12 percentage points more than what we observed in our last report.
And unlike personalized subject lines, this tactic still continues to generate positive results and helps marketers to drive more email opens.
So, how should you design the preheader? Here's an example from Interaction-Design.org:
Subject line: Do not seek praise, seek criticism
Preheader: Learn how to conduct effective usability testing
As you can tell, the subject and the preheader go together to tell the story.
In fact, you should make use of all the elements that subscribers see in the inbox before they open the email. Used well, the so-called envelope (sender, subject line, and preheader) can make a difference. And your average open rates will reflect that.
Personalization in email body
Personalized?
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
% of messages
Yes
23.40%
3.18%
13.60%
0.13%
0.01%
2.50%
33.94%
No
20.59%
2.40%
11.65%
0.11%
0.01%
3.01%
66.06%
Personalize your emails, just don't stop there
Once again we can see that personalized emails outperform generic ones. And this time, the difference is more significant.
In terms of click-through rates, the difference is 25%, or 0.78 percentage points (between 3.18% and 2.4%). That's a solid improvement.
Also, we can see that more marketers are starting to personalize their email content. Over 37% of all emails we analyzed had some form of personalization, compared to 31% we observed in the last edition of this report.
That's a good trend and we're hoping the number's going to keep growing in the future. We also understand that personalization requires time and resources, so if you're unable to personalize your communication 100% of the time, try investing more in marketing automation and behavior-triggered campaigns. They're often easier to launch and will work for you long-term.
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsub. rate
Spam. Rate
Bounce rate
68.59%
16.05%
23.41%
0.84%
0.05%
3.94%
Welcome email: your most important email campaign
Welcome emails continue to be your most important email marketing campaign, even if their impact has slightly decreased.
Welcome emails saw an average open rate of 68.59% (drop from 86%) and an average click-through rate of 16.05% (drop from 25%). That's still more than 3x what you'll see from regular newsletters.
In addition to driving engagement, welcome emails are great for setting expectations for your relationship with your new audience. Use them to tell your brand's story, share your most important links, or emphasize what makes your brand unique. And if you're an ecommerce business hoping to increase sales, adding a discount code to your welcome email will definitely increase your subscriber-to-customer ratio.
Has Graphic?
Open Rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsub. Rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
Percentage
YES
24.25%
3.28%
13.54%
0.12%
0.01%
2.92%
75.24%
NO
15.55%
1.30%
8.37%
0.10%
0.01%
2.61%
24.76%
Versatility and relevance matter
Should your email marketing campaigns be text- or image-based? It's a great question – with a not-so-simple answer.
We tried to split the emails our customers sent into those with images versus those without them. The problem? We don't know the image sizes. Was it a simple logo – or was the entire email an image?
What the data does suggest is that image-based emails perform better – both in terms of the average open and click-through rates.
The difference is rather significant – 3.28% vs. 1.30% in the case of CTR and 24.25% vs. 15.55% for open rates.
But once again, this might not be the case for your audience.
Plus the CTRs could increase because there are more eyes to look at these specific emails.
I suggest making your communication more versatile. Try both approaches, and A/B test individual messages to find your winning strategy.
And once you've done that, don't stop evaluating your results. Make sure you're always optimizing your email marketing campaigns.
Type
Open Rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsub. Rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
Perfect timing
22.75%
2.43%
10.67%
0.15%
0.01%
3.61%
Time travel
22.48%
3.62%
16.11%
0.10%
0.01%
2.35%
Want to increase your click-through rates? Time your campaigns better (and automatically!)
Looking for an easier way to increase email engagement rates? In addition to using personalization, automated campaigns, and engaging email content, you'll also want to consider send-time optimization algorithms like Perfect timing and Time travel.
According to our latest data, both of these one-click features can increase your email engagement metrics. Time travel, in particular, has generated a much higher average open (22.48% vs. 20.58%) and click-through rates (3.62% vs. 2.51%) compared to what you'll see with newsletters in general.
How do they work? With Time-Travel you decide at which hour your email campaign should be sent and GetResponse will automatically adjust your campaigns' timing according to your recipient's local time zone. Perfect Timing, on the other hand, will look at past behavior data (if available) and adjust your campaign's timing accordingly.
The first solution's better if you know your audience particularly well and your campaigns are best consumed at a particular hour. Perfect Timing, on the other hand, will work best if you have historical data and your campaigns aren't time-sensitive.
List size
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click to open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam rate
Bounce rate
1.000 - 2.499
32.48%
3.98%
12.24%
0.20%
0.01%
2.66%
2.500 - 4.999
25.80%
3.35%
12.99%
0.16%
0.01%
2.61%
5.000 - 9.999
21.48%
2.49%
11.60%
0.13%
0.01%
3.02%
10.000 - 24.999
20.44%
2.53%
12.39%
0.12%
0.01%
2.64%
25.000 - 49.999
19.71%
1.72%
8.73%
0.10%
0.01%
2.39%
50.000 - 99.999
20.99%
3.61%
17.19%
0.10%
0.01%
3.34%
100.000+
22.53%
3.19%
14.14%
0.09%
0.01%
3.55%
All
23.35%
2.98%
12.76%
0.13%
0.01%
2.89%
Email lists: when quality beats quantity!
When it comes to email lists, email marketers have long preached the importance of quality over quantity. Is this still true? Without knowing the overall conversion rates, it's hard to say for sure.
When it comes to engagement metrics such as email opens and clicks, it would seem that the email marketers with smaller lists are in the lead. But this isn't true throughout the whole spectrum, as marketers with larger lists (100,000+ contacts) actually outperformed those with medium-sized lists (25,000-99,999 contacts).
The bottom line is this: When you're growing your email list, don't lose touch with your customers! Build relationships just like you would if you were running a corner store. Personalize your subscriber experience and make sure the conversation keeps delivering value to them. Your audience will appreciate it and pay you back with interest.
Type
% of message opens
% of message clicks
Mobile
24.11%
45.97%
Desktop and webmail
75.89%
54.03%
Make your emails mobile-friendly
The data clearly shows people use email on all devices, with a strong trend toward mobile in terms of clicks.
That's great news for email marketers: Your customers interact with your emails whenever and wherever they feel like.
To be successful, you need to apply responsive design principles that make your emails look great on any device – and work well with all email clients.
That's why you should start designing your templates with a CTA in mind, cut out the clutter, go finger-friendly, test your results, and constantly optimize for conversion.
And don't forget the actual sale doesn't take place in the email (although Gmail seems to be going in this direction).
So make sure that even after subscribers click-through to your site and go to the checkout, their experience is effortless. On any device.
Make your signup forms flexible
This time around we didn't find anything spectacular, so here's the bottom line:
99% of email addresses have between 5 and 34 characters
95% of email addresses have between 5 and 29 characters
74% of email addresses have between 5 and 24 characters
26% of email addresses have between 5 and 19 characters
If you want to provide a good user experience for the larger portion of your users then build your signup forms to support around 29 characters.
Why does that matter? Not being able to see your address fully when filling out a form can have a negative effect on the conversion rates. Not to mention the fact that the experience can lead to typos and frustration – especially when filling out the forms on mobile devices.
Landing page elements
Feature
Conversion rate
Promotes a webinar
28.27%
Includes a video
7.28%
Includes a link to social media
18.55%
Form has two fields
15.15%
Form has three fields
17.50%
Form has 4+ fields
13.95%
Focus on value and simplicity
Lead generation through landing pages is about exchanging value.
Your audience gives you their contact details with the hope that whatever you're offering is going to be worth their time and effort.
If you're clearly offering them something of value (like a webinar), they'll happily give you their email address. But if you're asking for too much (which could be the case if you have more than four fields in your forms), they'll think twice about whether it's a fair exchange.
That said, pay attention to what information is critical to you and what is just nice to have. Perhaps you can collect some of the information at a later moment through progressive profiling? And if you absolutely need to have that information right away, think about whether your offer is good enough to trade for their email address.
Type of communication
Open rate
Click-through rate
Click-to-open rate
Webinar invitation
27.73%
3.68%
13.28%
Webinar reminder - sent at start time
88.77%
22.15%
24.95%
Webinar reminder - sent 5 minutes before the webinar
90.85%
25.12%
27.65%
Webinar reminder - sent 30 minutes before the webinar
88.64%
39.07%
44.07%
Webinar reminder - sent 1 hour before the webinar
91.48%
28.98%
31.68%
Webinar reminder - sent 1 day before the webinar
89.55%
15.29%
17.08%
Webinar reminders: Not just an idea, a must-have!
If you're building your business using webinars, then you can't ignore the power of simple email reminders.
While you may feel reluctant to send them – after all nobody wants to flood their subscribers' inbox – the engagement rates they generate make a convincing case to do so.
Based on the open and click-through rates alone, you can tell that they're helpful and your audience wants to receive them. Add to it a calendar invite and your attendance rate will grow.
As for timing your reminders, it seems that sending them 30 minutes before the webinar starts will get you the best results. So make sure to
Day
Avg. attendee to registrant ratio
Avg. number of registrants
% of webinars
Monday
45.89%
40,32%
5.77%
Tuesday
40.45%
29,99%
18.33%
Wednesday
41.45%
28,25%
21.17%
Thursday
38.47%
33,66%
22.22%
Friday
42.10%
13,98%
16.34%
Saturday
38.77%
10,77%
12.54%
Sunday
41.21%
20,22%
3.62%
What's the best day to host webinars?
According to our latest data – Monday is the best day to run webinars.
Not only do webinars hosted on Mondays attract the largest average number of registrants, they also have the highest attendee to registrant ratio. At the same time, only 5.77% of all webinars run by our customers are hosted on this day, so you can say that the competition isn't all that high.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday observed rather similar results, so if you're running webinars on these days you're still likely to attract a large number of signups and attendees will be happy to join your events live.
As for days to avoid, your best bet is to skip Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as these are the days aren't popular, no matter if we're looking at signups or attendance levels.
Hour
Avg. attendee to registrant ratio
Avg. number of registrants
% of webinars
1 A.M.
38.05%
20.49%
1%
2 A.M.
19.48%
1.57%
7%
3 A.M.
36.51%
5.31%
1%
4 A.M.
15.16%
1.29%
3%
5 A.M.
20.77%
2.34%
2%
6 A.M.
38.90%
3.42%
2%
7 A.M.
69.90%
11.53%
4%
8 A.M.
63.52%
13.08%
10%
9 A.M.
57.32%
27.04%
6%
10 A.M.
39.73%
21.82%
5%
11 A.M.
45.04%
13.25%
4%
12 A.M.
51.62%
8.74%
5%
1 P.M.
59.42%
12.38%
5%
2 P.M.
46.99%
23.53%
6%
3 P.M.
36.23%
32.66%
6%
4 P.M.
38.67%
39.44%
6%
5 P.M.
31.79%
85.53%
6%
6 P.M.
35.19%
82.34%
6%
7 P.M.
39.01%
36.54%
4%
8 P.M.
42.36%
12.86%
3%
9 P.M.
36.03%
9.99%
2%
10 P.M.
45.63%
24.38%
2%
11 P.M.
37.56%
29.55%
2%
12 A.M.
44.81%
13.11%
2%
What's the best time to host webinars?
Want more people to come to your live webinars? Run them between 7 a.m. – 9 a.m. or 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
These two time slots seem to outperform others in terms of average attendee to registrant ratio. They're also among the most popular times, when our customers host their webinars. 8 a.m. in particular is the time when 10% of all webinars we analyzed were hosted.
To make sure your live webinars are a success, you can't forget about webinar promotion. So be sure to time your webinar invitations and reminders well, and you'll see a positive ROI from your events in no time.
Information
Value
Share of attendees using a mobile device
37.92%
Share of attendees using a desktop device
62.08%
Share of webinars that use surveys
2.42%
avg. number of webinar registrants
26%
avg. number of webinar attendees
10%
Keep your webinar attendees engaged
Keeping your webinar attendees engaged is no easy task, because you have to mix many elements – great storytelling, interactivity, and deliver on the promise you made on your webinar registration page.
When planning out your webinars keep in mind that over 37% of your attendees will be joining you via mobile. That could affect how you design your slides, how you're going to show certain elements during screen sharing, or what level of interactivity you might expect from your audience.
Bottom line – keep adapting, learning, and make your webinars valuable and useful. Not sure how? Start with a poll and ask your webinar attendees for some ideas! Trust us, it works!
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