The chances are that you measure the success by the number of people who open the mail (email open rate) and the number of people who click on a link (click-through rate). Show
That's how I used to measure it. And while there's nothing wrong with that, what gets overlooked is that the click-through rate is entirely dependent on the open rate, because unless people open your email, there’s no chance they can click on it! Therefore, in order to get a better click-through rate, you need people to open your email. So, how do you get more people to open your email? There’s a lot of opinions on the web about how to increase email open rates, but I’m only interested in the concrete data behind email open rate success - which is why this article is stacked full of more than 50 email marketing statistics! Since launching SuperOffice Marketing, we've helped thousands of companies use email marketing to engage with their subscribers. It's also given us access to data and insight on how people open, respond and engage with email campaigns - which we'll be sharing in this report. The science and data presented to you in this article will help you get more people to read your email marketing campaigns and help you increase email open rates, which in turn positively impacts the overall performance of your email marketing strategy. But, first... What is an email open rate?Before I dive into the data, you and I need to understand this metric. You see, most people consider the open rate as the number of people who open your email. Sounds logical, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case. An email is only counted as opened when one of the following occurs:
OK, easy enough. But, how are email open rates calculated? Email service providers (ESPs) calculate the open rate by taking the number of people who open the email and dividing it by the number of emails sent that did not bounce, i.e. failed to reach the recipient. For example, if you send 100 emails, and 10 of them bounce, this leaves you with 90 delivered emails. Of those 90 emails, let's say that 10 are opened. This means that your email campaign open rate is 11% (10 emails opened from 90 delivered). Emails that are not delivered cannot be opened, which is why this number is not included in the open rate percentage. What is the average email open rate?Given that B2B email marketing has been the most popular marketing channel for several years' and that the average number of promotional emails sent to readers continues to increase, you would think that email open rate is on the decline. For the most part, that wasn't the case. Between 2015 to 2018, the average open rate for email was steady - hovering at 24% globally. However, in 2020, the average open rate dropped to 21.3% (a slight decrease compared to 2019).  Does a decrease in email open rates signal the death of email marketing? Of course not. It's not the first time open rates will fall and it's not the last time. The good news is that based on historical data, we can see that each time there is a decrease, it's always followed by a strong period of growth. So, we can expect to see an increase again in 2023. Before you get more people to read your emails, you first need to understand where you stand. How many people currently ready your emails? What is your current email open rate? This is where industry benchmark open rate reports comes in. How do I compare to the industry average?Benchmark reports are important in understanding of how the industry is changing on the whole and you should find out your own benchmark based on your email campaign performance. You should be able to pull this number from your email service provider. Here's a look at our own open rates based on an email campaign we ran back in 2020: As you can see, open rates differ from country to country. How do your own email open rates compare? In 2021, the average open rate across all industries was 21.3%. In 2022, the overall average open rate dropped again and stood at 16.97%, with a 10.29% CTR. When it comes to your individual results, numbers may differ. After all, you know your email subscribers better than anyone else. For example, if you consistently reach a 15% open rate, which is below average yet your campaign is delivering results, it's obvious that you are not under performing even if the "industry average" says you are. Of course, averages are to be taken lightly. Open rates in the insurance industry, for instance, differ from those in the health care industry. And open rates in Europe differ from those in North America. The first challenge you need to work on is getting your email to your subscriber list. It’s no use spending hours crafting a perfectly optimized campaign if it ends up in your readers’ spam folder, is it? How do I get more emails delivered?Think about this: More than 20% of marketing emails never make it to a subscriber’s inbox. That's more than one in five emails! Of course, just like open rate, average deliverability rates differ by region. For example, only 66% of emails reach a reader's inbox in Asia compared to 86% in Europe. This makes a huge difference to your email open rates! So, how can you make sure your emails are delivered to your readers? Here are a few tips on how you can increase delivery rates.
The more emails that are delivered to your audience, the better chance you have of getting more people to open them. How do people read my email campaigns?The way people read emails can provide key insights in how you create your email marketing campaigns. For example, the type of device they read it on. Marketers' can no longer ignore mobile and tablet devices. Email open rates from mobile devices have grown by more than 100% since 2011 and the percentage of open rates from mobile continues to grow each year! Today, 81% of all emails are now opened and read on mobile devices. Can you guess what your readers do when you send them an email that isn't optimized for mobile? They delete it. In fact, 80% delete the email immediately! And companies are realizing the importance of email marketing optimization. As many as nine in ten businesses are developing a strategy to optimize their email layout. Worse still, our own email marketing benchmark report found that only 20% of email campaigns are optimized for mobile devices. Have you seen how your own email campaign template reads on a mobile device recently? If not, you should take a look. If you haven't optimized your email campaigns for mobile devices yet, now is the time. When should I send my email campaign?Timing is important to open rates. To know when to send your email campaigns, you have to know your audience. If you sell software, most of your customers will be enjoying family time on the weekends. That means sending an email campaign on the weekend will lead to fewer opens, if any at all! So when should you send your email? Research by Get Response found that the best day to send emails in order to get the highest open rate is on Tuesday. Now that you know on which day to send your emails, what about the time of day? Further research shows that subscribers are most likely to read your email at either 10am, after they arrived at work, or at 1pm, when they are catching up on their emails after lunch. And that 23% of all email opens occur during the first hour after delivery. After 24 hours, an email's chance of being opened drops below 1%! As you see, the timing of when you send your email is crucial to the success of your campaign. If you send it on a day when people are less likely to read your email, then you could be missing out on a lot of interested customers. So, when it comes to sending out your email campaign, Tuesday, after 1pm. is your best bet. How do I increase email open rates?The sender name and subject line of your emails are the most important factors in getting them opened and read. For example, our own research found that 45% of subscribers say they are likely to read your email because of who it’s from, and 33% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line. What sender name do you use? Do you send your emails from company XYZ, or do you use a specific person's name? Believe it or not, but this can make a huge difference! Research from Pinpointe marketing found that by using a specific personal name, rather than a general email address or company name, you can increase open rates by as much as 35%! Which is why it's surprising to find that that our own B2B email marketing research found that 89% of email marketing campaigns are sent from a company name. When it comes to subject lines, have you heard the phrase "you should spend as much time writing your headline as you spend on writing the content"? Well, the exact same phrase applies to your subject line. A well-crafted subject line shouldn't be the first thing you think of. Instead, it should take time. And you should use research and data to help guide you. A report by Retention Science found that subject lines with 6 to 10 words deliver the highest open rate, making 8 words an ideal number for a subject line. If a subject line is too long, it will get cut off and your reader will not know what the email is about (and could ignore it). This is especially important for mobile readers as the subject line character length is even shorter - which is why more than 85% of subject lines are shorter than 90 characters! Another reason for opening an email is if the subject line is addressed to the recipient, as subject lines personalized with a recipient’s first name, for example, can lift open rates by as much as 20%! Personalized subject lines are still popular, but the results have dropped in 2019. There is only a 2% improvement if you use personalized subject lines. Today, it’s not enough to add “Hey John” to your subject line to increase open rates. What’s important is how relevant and compelling your message is. Using a recipients name in a subject line is simple, if you use a CRM. Of course, if you are feeling super creative, you can take it one step further. Retention Science found that subject lines with movie titles and song lyrics have an average open rate of 26% (Tweet this!)! Here's some ideas for you to start testing with:
(OK, they might be a little lame, but hey I tried!) If you link to a video within your email, you can also include the word "video" in your subject line. It's something we have tested and including the word video increased our open rates by 6%! Are there any words I should use or avoid? By analyzing billions of emails sent and opened, Dan Zarella was able to find out which words to use and which to avoid in the subject line. Here's a look at the findings:
Creating the perfect subject line that includes key words proven to increase open rates, and sending the email from a known sender should now be at the top of your to-do list for when you next send out an email. But wait, what about emoji's? Should you use emoji's in your email subject lines? Well, according to the latest research from Neilsen, the answer is no. The research compared email subject lines sent with and without an emoji in the subject line and found that emojis in subject lines increase negative sentiment toward an email and do not increase the likelihood of an email being opened "...all things being equal, adding an emoji to the email does not make people more likely to want to open that email"Email open rate case studyBy now, you're probably thinking: "Steven, this sounds really great, but does it work?" And you know what? If I was reading this article, I would be thinking the same thing! The good news is that I've tested the science. And it works! Earlier in the post, I referenced that the average open rate in 2019 was 22.15%. Using the techniques listed above and based on data of more than 99,000 emails sent during the last 10 months, my average email open rate is 40.9%. That's right - 40%! That's 85% higher than the average open rate. If you're looking to increase your own email open rates, then try one or two of these techniques the next time you send out a campaign! How important is segmentation?Earlier this week, I conducted an email campaign test. In the test, I sent two emails. The first email was sent to a segmented list (based on interest) and the second was sent to my main blog subscriber list. The subject line was the same. And the email content was the same. Upon viewing the results, the main blog subscriber list generated my average response of a 40% open rate. I was happy. But, what happened next blew my mind... The segmented list earned a staggering 94% open rate! The sad part is that 89% of marketers do not segment their email list. Perhaps now is a good time to start segmenting your lists? (On a side note, the campaign also generated a 30% click-through rate. Improving your click through rate starts with the design. Use these B2B email marketing examples to help you craft a template that's designed for maximum clicks.) ConclusionSo there you have it! I’ve provided the science behind email open rates and the ways you can use the data to make actionable decisions about your email marketing. Here’s the key points for you to take away and use the next time you send an email to increase email open rates:
Of course, the best option for you might not be to use any of the above. It depends entirely on what your reports tell you. But you can start with the data provided in this post and use the science to guide you to more get more emails opened. Back to articles About Steven MacDonaldSteven Macdonald is a digital marketer based in Tallinn, Estonia. You can connect with Steven on LinkedIn and Twitter. View all articles by Steven MacDonald CommentsNiraj7 years ago Awesome article, Steven. Great takeaways. Double opt-in and testing the emotional impact of subject lines are great ways to improve email open rates. Thanks, Niraj (Founder at grexit) Steven MacDonald7 years ago Thank you for the kind words, Niraj! Let me know how it works out for you. Bhavesh Viththani6 years ago Awesome information.You put summery of so many scientific researches in one article! Steven MacDonald6 years ago Thanks Bhavesh! Glad you liked it Louise6 years ago Interesting statistics and info Steven. What source is the statistic about "Reasons for opening the an email" from? Steven MacDonald6 years ago Hi Louise. The original source is from CMB (link: http://forms.cmbinfo.com/10-facts-about-how-and-why-consumers-like-and-subscribe), but that leads to the a report. MakrketingCharts also covered it here: http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/brand-and-subject-lines-fuel-email-opens-clutter-drives-users-away-21629/ Jenn6 years ago Hi there! I really appreciated this post. I have a question about one of your stats. "For example, 64% of subscribers say they are likely to read your email because of who it’s from, and 47% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line." When I click the link, I go to: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33901/The-Ultimate-List-of-2012-Email-Marketing-Stats.aspx#sm.00001caei117dnd48xp1t1ayugb4f I see instead that "31) 64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey)" Unfortunately the CMB article is gone. But my question is: how many subscribers open based on who it's from? I'll keep digging, and I wanted to let you know that you need to update your stat/change the link Steven MacDonald6 years ago Hi Jenn, thanks for the comment. Great question! The percentage in this article is accurate at 64% (as in 64% open the email based on who it is from). The HubSpot article features a blue chart underneath their comment (#31) that is taken from the CMB study. The chart shows the reasons why people open emails. I think in this case, HubSpot need to update their copy to either "64% of people say they open an email because of who it is from", or to "47% of people say they open an email because of the subject line". Lin5 years ago Hi Steven, What a great article. I am currently doing research on the effect of personalization on the CTR. Do you think I can measure the effect of a personalized subject line on the CTR? Since it probably will cause a higher open rate, would this lead to a higher CTR as well? Or would you prefer to measure the effect of the subject line on the open rate? Steven MacDonald5 years ago Hi Lin, Thank you! There's a lot of research out there that proves personalization in subject lines can increase CTR. I'll be working on a follow up post to this article that covers everything CTR related. Stay tuned! Joseph smith5 years ago Hi steven, I run email marketing company we provide B2B email list to the companies to market there product or service. Can you let me what subject line and what pitch should i use to get more leads. Thanks, Steven MacDonald5 years ago Thanks for the comment, Joseph. I recommend running a test using two variations to see which subject line generates higher email open rates. Fei5 years ago Hi Steven, I have a question: 'How to calculate the mail's open rate when we sent a pure-text campaign mail?' Kate Brack5 years ago Hi Steven, I'm a content marketing writer for a B2B company that markets industry trade shows around the world. We do a hefty amount of email marketing to get attendees to register, and get exhibitors to showcase their products. This article is full of good insights and links. Thank you. Question: the data seems to be up-to-date but some of the comments are from years ago. Is this an article you continue to update? Steven MacDonald5 years ago Hi Kate. Thanks for the comment. Glad you found it useful. Yes, that's correct. I continue to update it based on new data that is published. Adam5 years ago Hi, thanks for the article. Ive just started experimenting with emails. I sell websites to European clients from South Africa. Web design is very expensive in Western Europe and we are able to offer a world class service at half the price. But calling becomes expensive from SA abroad when you consider the amount of cold calls needed to get some good deals. I was thinking of personalizing each email to look as if it is directly aimed at the specific company. So it doesn't look like a random marketing email that I've banged out to a thousand co's. Would you be able to comment or recommend anything? Steven MacDonald5 years ago That's a great idea, Adam. I suggest including personalization in their name, company name and location (city). And, if you have clients from big cities, like Cape Town or Johannesburg for example, then include their logos or quotes in the email as social proof for when you send an email to prospects in those cities. Bartosz5 years ago Thanks for the article. It helped me a lot! I have encountered the same problem - people won't read my emails, especially millennials. Was trying everything and in the end of my email adventure, I had a ~45% open rate. Now I am experimenting with communication through Facebook messenger. Open rates are much higher than with emails. I highly recommend to check this out. kristy5 years ago Hi Steven, Thank you for the great article. I was hoping to use your graph data "open rate benchmark by year" for a presentation with attribution, would this be acceptable? Steven MacDonald5 years ago Hi Kristy. Of course, you are more than welcome to use the "open rate by benchmark by year" chart, or any other chart featured in this article. Jeff Grice4 years ago Good information. What type of program are the open rates for? And what type of audience, B2B? Steven MacDonald4 years ago Hi Jeff, great question! As each study differs, I'm sure it's a combination of programs and audiences. Umer Idrisi4 years ago Hi, I was looking for some email marketing guides like this and found that this piece on email clickthrough rates is the most amazing guide, with insights and a case study! Thanks for this, Regards! Michael Gorman4 years ago Just wondering if you think personalized send time optimization is worth the effort. e.g. A customer opens the most emails between 4pm and 5pm on Tuesday so when we send an email on Tuesday we should send emails to him close to 4pm. We identify the ideal send time for each day for each customer. If they do not have enough opens data for a day we do not use STO on that day. We have been trialing this and have only seen a small increase in open rate (from 0.5 to 1.0%) where the overall open rate is around 40%. Hardly seems worthwhile given the cost and effort involved to implement the STO. The open rate is fairly high given we can only do STO with people who are already openers; we need enough opens to allow us to identify the time they open the most emails. What do you think? Steven MacDonald4 years ago Great point, Michael! How much testing have you done with email segments? You might get different results based on the segment and send out times. Cory Sheldon4 years ago Hi Steven, Your article provides very nice info on email open rates, thanks for sharing it with everybody! I am convinced that this article is relevant for any business, in order to help them become successful in email marketing. Harry Altman4 years ago Very instructive and great anatomical structure of email marketing subject matter, that's also user pleasant. Thank you! Helena Matthews3 years ago Great article! For me, newsletters sent out midweek yield the best results. However, rather than daytime, I usually send it in the evenings. Steven MacDonald3 years ago Thanks, Helena! That's great feedback, and something I may have to try for myself. Sarkan B.3 years ago Email marketing, if done in a productive way, can be hugely profitable. Thank you for this informative article, it will help to boost open rates and reach my audience effectively. Ronny T.3 years ago Great article! I just wanted to see if I was doing well in my email marketing campaigns. This article gave me so much more information so I'm freaking grateful. I have a 30.5% average open rate and a 3% average CTR, is that bad? The CTR seems a bit small to me. Steven MacDonald3 years ago That's a great question, Ronny. Thank you! Your open rate is fantastic, but if you're looking to increase CTR, I recommend reading this article: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/email-click-through-rates/ Bridget Hallam3 years ago Hi Steven Thank you for your article - much useful information and clearly communicated. :) We are about to embark on our first email campaign and are keen to make it as effective as possible. Wix currently doesn't allow us to include the recipient's first name and I have requested that they add this feature. Otherwise, we can use a lot of the information you have shared. :) Thank you Bridget PS. We are currently touring Europe on our motorcycle and would love to see your beautiful Estonia, but we are short on time. :( Perhaps next tour ... :) Steven MacDonald3 years ago Thanks Bridget! Glad you like it, and best of luck with the email campaign! P.S. Yes! Estonia will be looking forward to having you Kelly3 years ago Hi Steven - Great article! I was wondering though when these benchmarks are calculated are they taking the open rate for each email campaign and averaging these (i.e. campaign A is 10% and campaign B is 50% = Avg. 30%) or are they calculating by taking the total number of opens across all email campaigns and dividing against the total number delivered (i.e. campaign A has 10 opens/100 delivered and campaign B has 1 open/2 delivered so if totaled then averaged would be about 11%)? This is something we are looking at as we try to optimize our email marketing KPIs. Thanks! Steven MacDonald3 years ago Great question, Kelly. I'm not sure how they calculate it, but the answer should be here https://www.signupto.com/email-marketing-benchmarks/ Kelly Mason3 years ago Great article! Question though...to improve open rate you suggest to send e-mails out during the work week around mid-day. However, in your article pertaining to CTR you suggest to send e-mails out in the early morning hours and on the weekends. If I'm just starting an e-mail campaign and want to have both successful open rate as well as CTR what do you suggest? Thanks, Kelly Steven MacDonald3 years ago Thanks Kelly! I suggest you test the send out times and see what works for you. Start with early mornings or weekends, measure the performance and then experiment with the send out times sent out in the middle of the day. Let me know how it works out for you. Christian Cortacero3 years ago Great article, how can you add the first name of the contact in the email subject? Steven MacDonald3 years ago Hi Christian! Usually, you can just add in some form of personalization, like [first_name]. Morgan Homehow3 years ago I hope that this science is real, and I can get more people to read my emails. I have seen that this sort of thing works only for a limited number of people and I don't think that I am one of these people. Steven MacDonald3 years ago Best of luck, Morgan! Rupam3 years ago Awesome post. This blog is indeed very informative and helps users increase their email opening rates effectively. Matt3 years ago I have a feeling that some companies use open rate to decide to send more frequently. I use thunderbird, so most emails are considered "opened" when I delete the previous email and it goes to the next. First I get signed up for something. Maybe I bought something. Maybe I showed a little interest. I get 1 or 2 emails a week. Fine, maybe I'll just let them be, and I might even order something. Fast forward 2 months later...I'm getting sent daily emails, maybe even more than once a day. Unsubscribe, here we come. You changed an engaged customer to one that will never come back. Happy??? Steven MacDonald3 years ago That's so true, Matt. I experience the same thing, every day! Jenna2 years ago Two years ago, my role was to make my company's email campaigns successful and increase good open rates. I wish I had read this post then! Thank you. bharath adumala2 years ago Hello Steven, Thanks for sharing such a nice article. The article was productive. We will implement the strategies mentioned above. I have a doubt regarding segmentation. We have a list of 70000 active subscribers but the open rate is below 10%. We did segmentation for 70000 email contacts as an active list & inactive list. The active list has a good open rate above 20% but the inactive list has below 10% open rate. This sounds good I have an open rate of above 20% but we fail to generate orders and revenue. How come this segmentation feature works in terms of generating sales? Can you please explain? Steven MacDonald2 years ago Hi Bharath, thanks for commenting. My suggestion would be to segment based on recent order activity or account engagement, rather than list performance. For example, several thousand subscribers might open and read your emails, but never buy - while several thousand subscribers could be regular customers, but never read your emails. Ross Eisenberg2 years ago Hi Steven, Thank you for providing such a great article! Amateur Question - What's the point of segmentation? I segmented my list and went from a 10% open rate to 50% (for the segmented group) but what do I do with the 50% list? Do I email them differently or more frequently than the regular list? Also, how often do you recommend emailing someone that opens an email versus not. I take it that if they don't open an email it doesn't hurt to just send them the same email (perhaps different subject-line) a few days later. The goal of the email is to set up a phone call and start developing a long-term relationship. Appreciate your help! Alexander2 years ago Hi Steve, well done for this helpful masterpiece. But, I have a quick question: When you write that the optimum time to send emails is 3 pm, which country time are you referring to, please - you know times are different around the world. I want to benefit from the knowledge you've shared. Steven Macdonald2 years ago Hi Alexander, Thanks for commenting. The time zones are localized, so it's your 3pm that's the best time for you to send it. Greg2 years ago Hi Steven. Interesting and very useful information. I appreciate the effort you put into this and helping marketers improve their email campaigns. Donna2 years ago Thank you for writing this article on email open rates. You have helped a small nonprofit (we have no digital marketing staff) with this information. Roman B.2 years ago I have just forwarded this article to a co-worker who had been doing a little research on how to improve her email campaigns. Thank you. Julian2 years ago This is a must read article! Thank you. I can't wait to try these tips on my own email campaigns. Bernie2 years ago Hello Steve: what is your opinion about tracking the Repeat Open Rate and how would you say is the best way to calculate that? Really enjoyed your article btw, very useful. Janet Gone year ago Steve - Thank you for updating this information. Very helpful! I completely agree about segmentation. Very powerful, frequently overlooked. Which of the following is the most important part of an e mail message?The subject line is the most important section of your email. If you use the same line repeatedly, customers will stop opening and reading your emails. You should always try to use a subject line that describes the content of your email.
What information should be included in any e mail you send?"Generally, this would state your full name, title, the company name, and your contact information, including a phone number. You also can add a little publicity for yourself, but don't go overboard with any sayings or artwork." Use the same font, type size, and color as the rest of the email, she says.
What kinds of information can you learn from analyzing email headers?Email headers contain important information about the origin and path an email took before arriving at its final destination, including the sender's IP address, internet service provider, email client, and even location.
What is an email analysis?Email analytics is the method of tracking how your subscribers interact with your emails by tracking different metrics that deal with email delivery, engagement, and conversions. Such analytics helps email marketers to draw valuable insights and optimize and strategize email campaigns for better performance.
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