Finding success with email marketing often requires testing, analyzing data, and gathering feedback from your customers. All of those things are great and can help you improve your campaigns.
But, wouldn’t it be nice to know what’s working for marketers and how your results compare to other companies? We’ve put together a list of 35 email marketing statistics and what they mean for you—starting with why email campaigns are vital to success.
Power of email marketing
Email marketing continues to be an important tool in a marketer’s toolbox, as these stats show.
- $8.5 billion in email marketing revenue
- 4.1 billion email users
- 80 percent of adults say they like receiving promotional emails at least monthly
- 60 percent say they would like to receive the emails at least weekly
- 99 percent of email users check their email daily
- 320 percent more revenue is driven through automated emails than non-automated ones
- 59 percent of consumers say marketing emails influenced their purchasing decisions
Implementing solid email marketing techniques is crucial for success. To help with that, we’ll dive even deeper into what the professionals who rely on email marketing think about it.
What marketers are saying
Across industries, here’s what marketers have to say about how they’re using email marketing.
- 89 percent say email is the primary channel for lead generation
- 47 percent use it for multi-step welcome emails for new contacts
- 46 percent use email for promotional campaigns
- 28 percent use it for transactional emails
- 54 percent say email is the most effective type of digital marketing and the least difficult to use
- 47 percent use videos in their emails
- 65 percent use automated email marketing
- 66 percent say artificial intelligence optimizes email send times
- 40 percent saw budget cuts since the pandemic
The main takeaways here are that email marketing is far from dead and is often the easiest, most cost efficient marketing option. That’s especially important during and after the pandemic since companies are looking to make more with less.
Types of emails that work
The main goal of email marketing should be to engage your subscribers, whether that’s driving them to a landing page, back to their cart, or further down the sales funnel.
- Non-profit emails earn an open rate of 36 percent, which is the highest across industries.
- Agencies receive the lowest open rate at 16 percent.
- Publishing has the highest click-through rate (CTR) at 6.5 percent.
- Personalized emails increase open rates by 29 percent and the unique CTR by 41 percent.
- Emails with videos boost click rates by 300 percent.
- More than half of email campaigns are opened on mobile devices—and mobile emails have a 65-percent higher chance of bringing customers to your site.
- 40 percent of users want to receive emails with informational content, instead of solely product promotions
- Email subject lines with emojis increase open rates by 56 percent compared to text-only.
- Sending three abandoned cart emails will result in 69 percent more orders than a single email.
Visitors who leave something in their cart obviously have some level of interest in your products, so reaching out to them more than once with a cart abandonment email helps remind them about what they thought about purchasing.
Personalization and interactive elements that provide targeted value to subscribers will continue to positively affect metrics, as well. All of your campaigns should also be optimized for mobile, as the number of mobile opens is only going up. Your site also needs to be optimized so they can easily find what they’re looking for after clicking through.
How campaigns perform
Email marketing metrics vary depending on your industry, but here’s an overview of how campaigns perform worldwide according to Statista.
- 18 percent email open rate
- 2.6 percent CTR
- 14.1 email click-to-open rate
- 0.1 percent opt-out rate
You can check out engagement rates for your specific industry on sites like Statista to get a better idea of how your campaigns are stacking up against the competition. Subscribing to emails from other similar companies will also show you what does (and doesn’t) work so you can better position your email marketing campaigns.
Practices to avoid
Not all email marketing stats are positive—like these that show reasons why people unsubscribe from your list.
- 59 percent if they receive too many emails
- 43 percent say the information is no longer relevant
- 43 percent don’t remember signing up or the brand
- 17 percent say emails are over-promotional or spammy
- 5 percent say email doesn’t provide the content that was promoted when they signed up
- 3 percent say the emails contain typos, broken links or other unprofessional elements
Setting realistic expectations for your subscribers is key to lowering your unsubscribe rates. Before they sign up, let them know how often they will receive your emails and what will be included—and then follow through on those promises.
Take that practice to the next level by letting the user choose how often they want to receive your campaigns and what type of content they want. The more you can personalize their content and experience, the better your engagement metrics will become.
Find an email partner
Become a part of these encouraging statistics by choosing an email service provider that offers easy-to-use tools to design emails, send engaging campaigns, reach your audience, and grow your list. Robly offers our users features that can get you 50 percent more opens and grow your list 10 times faster, so start your free trial or reach out to us today!
