Email Marketing Benchmarks to Start Following Right Now

11 min read

Email marketing benchmarks are designed to help businesses with an online presence understand why industry leaders are so successful in the digital realm. Email marketing benchmarks and stats play a vital role in the success of any business. By measuring statistics and understanding benchmarks, companies can better craft their content in order to entice customers.

With this in mind, it’s imperative for any business with an online presence to pay close attention to benchmarks in order to create better marketing campaigns.

Email marketing isn’t a new practice by any means, but it does lead the way in terms of customer conversion and customer retention. Ultimately, you’ll need to know the average performance metrics of similar companies in order to gauge the success of your email strategy.

The most important email marketing stats to consider are your open, click-through rate, bounce, and unsubscribe rates. These metrics will help you determine if your emails are resonating with your customers.

So, let’s take a look at industry benchmarks that will help you bolster your email marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Stats Across All Industries

Average Open rate

2022 saw significantly higher open rates (30%) across all industries. In 2021, it used to be worse (25.35%). But the click rate has slightly dropped. This means that you should be focusing on the context and content of your newsletters as well as your subject lines. While subject lines do play a critical role in enticing leads and customers, keeping them interested in what you have to say is where it has historically gotten tricky.

So, be sure to focus heavily on the context and content of your emails.

Average Bounce rate

The average bounce rate hasn’t moved far since 2021, dropping from 9.4% to 9.96%. This should tell you that customer loyalty is just as relevant as ever. But, what keeps a customer loyal?

To start, consider the ethics, morals, and values of your brand, and how it relates to your target audience. You’ll also want to consider your company’s voice, and how it impacts the buying habits and loyalty of your customer. More specifically, personalized newsletters and special offers for returning customers can always help ensure loyalty.

Average Click rate

A click rate benchmark has been 2.62% on average across all industries in 2022. This means that email recipients were somewhat unlikely to click on direct links to a company’s site or page in an email. While this may seem concerning to some, keep in mind that many people buy on their own time, and have to work regularly.

In most cases, any click rate over 10% is still a successful one. It’s all a matter of perspective. So, with all of these email marketing benchmarks in mind, which are the most important to follow and why?

Which Email Marketing Benchmarks Should I Be Following?

Regardless of your industry, universal email marketing benchmarks can make or break your marketing campaign.

That being said, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not researching and understanding the email marketing stats for your specific industry. Whether you’re an agency, Ecommerce, Arts, etc. you should always pay close attention to the benchmarks of your industry.

For the purposes of this article, we will be taking a look at Ecommerce benchmarks.

The Ecommerce industry has been booming as of late. With the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have taken to the digital realm to bolster their marketing campaigns and attract the ever-growing presence of consumers on social media. Many Ecommerce companies have found success, while others have fallen short.

Let’s take a look at the email marketing stats for the Ecommerce industry.

Ecommerce email marketing benchmarks

The Ecommerce industry has seen some major improvements last years. Metrics indicate that many Ecommerce businesses are becoming more tactical in their email marketing campaigns and are taking the necessary steps to evolve their campaigns.

In 2022, the average open rate for email marketing campaigns in the Ecommerce industry was 15.68%, with a click rate of 2.01% and bounce rate of 0.19%.

Data source

In this case, the Ecommerce industry is one of the leaders in email marketing benchmarks. So, how do these companies maintain such successful metrics? How can you apply this knowledge to your marketing campaigns?

When it comes to email marketing, all success boils down to your understanding of your target audience and how fresh/relevant your content is. By understanding the tendencies, wants, and needs of your target audience, you can begin to craft a successful email marketing campaign.

When working on your marketing campaign, be sure to incorporate what makes your brand original and different, but not so much that it overshadows the effectiveness of your product/service.

That being said, it’s also vital to incorporate some of the current trends in your industry. Relevancy is key, and by incorporating the current trends every time, you craft a marketing campaign you can capture your target audience’s attention.

Content that is compelling, enticing, and attention-grabbing is crucial when attempting to build strong customer relationships and even convert leads into customers. Always be sure that your message is clear, your product/service is emphasized, and that you’re staying relevant with your content.

Why Are Email Marketing Benchmarks So Important?

Email marketing has remained an integral part of corresponding with consumers since it was first introduced. Email marketing has extensive reach to consumer bases and it’s effective and efficient at its job of providing a direct and streamlined form of communication between businesses and customers. While there are hundreds if not thousands of ways to market a product/service and engage audiences, none are as effective as email.

Email marketing is one of the best channels for digital marketing. It involves an immense email list of people interested in hearing from a business as well as the content that the business creates. Email marketing is a valuable marketing tool because it allows businesses to get in touch with customers quickly and professionally. In doing so, customers can learn about the latest products, promotions, news, etc. Email marketing gives brands and businesses the opportunity to connect with leads and customers, new and old, and build relationships that can span for generations.

This is why email marketing benchmarks are so important. Email marketing benchmarks allow businesses and brands to see what’s working, what isn’t, and adjust their email marketing strategies based on fact-checked data. Once changes have been made, businesses and brands can start to gauge their results. For instance, when someone signs up for your business’ email list, it’s because they want to hear more from your company. Those on your list are interested in engaging with your business and will most likely engage with your business in the future.

How Can I Make the Most of Email Marketing Benchmarks?

First, you’ll want to fully understand the benchmarks and the data that you are given. Having a sound understanding of open rates, click rates, CTR, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, etc. will serve you well as you begin to look at your own data. By analyzing the benchmarks of companies in your industry, you can look at your own track record regarding your email marketing campaigns and build from there.

Also, be sure to consider which companies within your industry are performing well. You’ll also want to take a look at which companies are underperforming. Then, do some research on those businesses, their brand, and their presence on all marketing channels. Figure out how your competitors approach customers. Then, depending on their benchmarks and level of success in email marketing, you can choose to use their strategies as a blueprint of what to pursue, or what to avoid.

In the end, all it comes down to is doing your due diligence. Be sure to study your competitors and how they market themselves closely. Sometimes, a brand’s voice can make or break how effective they are at filling their sales funnel.

Try this: check your email, and look for emails from some of your favorite brands. What makes them stand out? What makes them unique? What makes them different? Maybe you recall a specific email that was so enticing you couldn’t help but buy something.

As a business person, you should always be looking for ways to improve your processes. That begins with being a student of your industry!

Making the Most of Email Marketing Benchmarks

Email Marketing benchmarks and email marketing stats play a key role in how businesses in any industry shape their marketing campaigns. When it comes to email marketing campaigns, remember that your subject, links, and content should all be formulated to get a response out of the customer or lead.

Always focus on these three key aspects of email marketing and always personalize content and subjects as often as possible for regular customers. Well, now you have all that you need to know.

So, get started on your email marketing campaigns, and be sure to always utilize email marketing benchmarks!

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Feb 7, 2022

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.