Email Marketing Benchmarks To Measure (and Improve) Your Success

Email Marketing

Jun 11

Email marketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy. It’s effective, easy to set up, and extremely affordable. It can create great results when properly executed.

But, what does it mean to properly execute email marketing? What are the best strategies for getting the most out of each campaign? And, what email benchmarks do you need to hit to consider your campaign a success?

Well, it depends. I know, I know, but that’s with all things marketing. Let’s explain.

There are so many variables that influence email marketing success - list quality, brand reputation, use of personalization, appropriate content, a good call to action, among many others. But here’s the good news, there are industry benchmarks and best practices to take into full consideration. Let’s look at them so you can start to understand how your company can plan, execute, and measure successful email marketing campaigns.

Email Marketing Benchmarks

To measure the success of email marketing, start by tracking common performance metrics, and then compare your results with industry averages.

Below you will find average email marketing benchmarks. To get a better idea of how your results compare to other companies like you, research to find the average for your specific industry or vertical through your industry trade resources.

Open Rate

Open Rate is the percentage of people who receive your email and open it.

These average open rates are reported by different platforms by industry as a result of their varied customer base metrics:

A high open rate indicates that you have an engaged list that is interested in your content and brand. It may also reflect the quality of your email subject lines. If your open rates are low, it could be that your subject lines aren’t catching attention. It could also mean that your list isn’t engaged and may not include the right people.

To increase open rates:

Focus on improving email subject lines.
A/B test email subject lines to find the highest performers.
Research to see when is the best time to send emails for your industry and audience.
Don’t use a “no-reply” email address which can make your email look spammy.
Improve the first sentence of your email which can appear in inbox views along with the subject line.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate is the percentage of people who open your email and then click on a link in the email.

Average click-through rates as reported by different platforms as:

If you have more than one link in your email, you may have an overall click-through rate that counts clicks on all links. Or, you can break the click-through rate down for each individual link (and have a CTR for each link).

High click-through rates mean that people are interested and engaged with your content. Low CTRs may indicate that your copy and messaging is not resonating with your target audience.

To increase click-through rates:

Use personalization when addressing readers.
Segment your list to send targeted, relevant content.
Don’t include multiple call-to-actions in one email. Give audiences just one thing to do.
Consider using buttons or design elements to highlight call-to-actions.

Bounce Rate

A bounce rate is the percentage of emails you send that don’t reach the recipient's inbox.

Average bounce rates are reported as:

There are two types of email bounces.

A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure. The email address has an issue that can’t be resolved. The email address is bad and should be removed from your list.
A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure. The email address has a temporary problem that may be resolved. The email address can remain on your list unless the problem persists.

Bounce rates aren’t necessarily tied to the performance of your email marketing tactics, but a high bounce rate may indicate that your list building strategies aren’t collecting high-quality contact information from real leads. High bounce rates could also indicate that the email marketing tool you’re using isn’t effectively reaching inboxes and may have technical problems.

To decrease bounce rates:

Remove email addresses with hard bounces.
Monitor email addresses with soft bounces, and remove them if they continue to bounce.
Look at the average bounce rate of your email provider and consider if the system could be the problem.
Consider adding a double opt-in for new subscribers.

Unsubscribes

Unsubscribes are the number of people who asked to be removed from your email list when they receive an email from you.

Average unsubscribe rates are reported as:

A high unsubscribe rate may mean that you aren’t reaching the right audience or you are sending irrelevant content. It could also mean that audiences don’t know who you are or have become disengaged with your brand.

To decrease unsubscribes:

Review your list building tactics to ensure that you are collecting email addresses from relevant audiences.
Use personalization and segmentation to send relevant content to each person.
Send your emails on a consistent schedule so your audience comes to expect emails from you.
Allow people to adjust settings on how often they receive emails from you or opt-out of certain email categories.

Conversion Rate

Every email you send should have an objective. It should have a goal to drive audiences to do something through a call-to-action. The conversion rate relates to that action. The conversion rate is the percentage of people who saw your call-to-action and followed through to complete the action.

Conversions can be:

Non-transactional which is intended to drive audiences to perform a task such as read a blog post, share something on social media, respond with a comment, register for a webinar, download a whitepaper, set up a demo, etc.
Transactional which is intended to drive audiences to make a purchase. There is an exchange of currency during the conversion.

Conversions are an important email marketing metric as they can measure the overall success of your campaign. While high open rates are great, the goal of email marketing is usually to get audiences to take action. So if your open rates are low, but your conversion rates are high, you may find that you are succeeding with your email marketing campaigns.

To boost conversions, use the best practices mentioned in this guide to improve your overall email marketing strategies. Get the right people on your list, use tactics to get them to open your email, and then provide content that gets them to take action.

Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is an effective way to reach your audience and drive them to take action. But if you find that you’re following best practices, and still struggling to reach common email benchmarks for your industry, SpotOn Digital is here to help.

From list building and audience segmentation to email design and copywriting, we’re here to help you improve every email you send. Contact us to learn more.

Amanda Sanz