With so many emerging marketing platforms, is email marketing worth the hype? Does it generate good returns on investments? Or can we engage users with just emails? I would say yes to all these questions.
Why?
Look at these statistics: DMA report 2021 says that 72% of marketers prefer emails to engage with their customers. Moreover, the ROI for email has increased year on year from 47.75 USD (£35.41) to 51.52 USD (£38.33). These numbers show that email marketing is not one of the most prevalent and beneficial forms of marketing, and you leverage it to achieve your business objectives.
So, to help you, we created this guide of all email marketing statistics, which you can use to understand the importance of email marketing and develop your strategy.
Table of contents
- General email marketing statistics
- Email ROI and conversions statistics
- Average email benchmark for all industries
- Deliverability rate
- Email client statistics
- B2B email marketing statistics
- B2C email marketing statistics
- Email content statistics
- Email accessibility statistics
- Email performance tracking statistics
- Best day and time to send emails
- Email frequency statistics
- Email sign up statistics
- Unsubscribe statistics
- Email personalization statistics
- Automation and segmentation statistics
- Device related statistics
- AMP email statistics
- A/b testing statistics
- Open Rates: Pre and post-Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
- Wrapping up
General email marketing statistics
72% of the brands prefer email to engage with consumers across the customer journey - DMA, Marketer email tracker 2021.
Sales (24%) and relationships building/ loyalty (16%) are two primary objectives of email marketing campaigns by marketers - DMA, Marketer email tracker 2021.
By 2025, the number of global e-mail users is expected to reach a total of 4.6 billion - an approximate six hundred thousand increase in users, up from 4 billion in 2020 - Statista 2021.
Gmail dominates global email volumes with 72% of the total emails sent to Gmail inboxes with the highest deliverability of 95% - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
Email ROI and conversions statistics
Large businesses are more likely to see higher returns that is 59.44 USD (£44.08), than small/micro-companies that is 41.28 USD(£30.61) for every 1.35 USD (£1) spent - DMA 2020.
B2C are slightly more likely to see a higher return on their investment of 51.56 USD (£38.24) - DMA 2020.
The average conversion rate for 2021 stands at 15.22%, slightly lower than the previous year that was 15.67% - Barilliance 2021.
Conversion based on campaign types are: Browse Abandonment Emails: 4.10%, Email My Cart Emails: 24.58%, Cart Abandonment Emails: 18.54% - Barilliance 2021.
Related guide: How to Calculate and Improve Your Email Marketing ROI
Average email benchmark for all industries
Getresponse, Mailchimp, and DMA measured the industry average for all email metrics. The table below is what they found:
| Metrics↓ | Getresponse | Mailchimp | DMA (2016-2020) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average delivery rate | - | - | 94.9% |
| Average open rate | 22.02%. | 21.33% | 28.0% |
| Average click-through rate | 2.13%. | 2.62% | 3.8% |
| Average click-to-open rate | 10.12% | - | 14% |
| Average unsubscribe rate | 0.12%. | 0.26% | - |
| Average spam complaint rate | 22.02%. | - | - |
Also, Netcore and Campaign Monitor tried to find out the average statistics of all industries. Here's what they found:
| Metrics↓ | Netcore 2020 | Campaign Monitor 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Average open rate | 10.28% | 18% |
| Average click-through rate | 0.5% | 2.6% |
| Average click-to-open rate | - | 14.1% |
| Average unsubscribe rate | - | 0.1% |
Deliverability rate
Global inbox placement rate stands at 83% in 2019 Q4, while the spam placement rate was 7% - Validity report 2020.
Email client statistics
B2B email marketing statistics
31% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the best way to nurture leads - Content Marketing Institute, 2020.
The top 2 technologies B2B organizations use to assist content marketing are analytics tools (86%) and email marketing software (85%) - Content Marketing Institute, 2020.
- 59% of B2B marketers cite email as their top channel for revenue generation - Backlinko.
Related guide Your One-Stop Guide For B2B Email Marketing to Drive Sales
B2C email marketing statistics
- Open rates increased 2X for brands in the retail sector when they used to send time optimization (STO) for their audience - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
Media and Publishing brands have the highest open rates (75%), followed by the insurance industry with a 70% open rate. - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
The overall average open rate for cart abandonment emails is 40.14%, with a click-through rate of 28.64% - Sales cycle.
Related guide: A Comprehensive Guide To B2C Email Marketing
Email content statistics
The subject line 30-40 characters and 7-8 words have the highest open rates. - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
Adding video to emails can increase click-through rates by an average of 300% - Biteable.
The use of gifs and images led to an increase in click rates in Insurance by 40% and the Securities sector by 31.96% - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
- 91% of consumers want interactive content, but only 17% of marketers provide it. - Litmus 2020.
Email accessibility statistics
57% of email marketers consider email accessibility, while 245 of them sometimes consider it. However, 195 marketers do not consider email accessibility at all - Pathwire Accessibility in the Inbox report 2021.
Based on the target audience, 54% of B2B use email accessibility while a relatively higher number of B2C marketers, i.e., 64%, use it - Pathwire Accessibility in the Inbox report 2021.
Email performance tracking statistics
- 48% of the businesses are focused on ‘Sales’ as the key metric in evaluating their email marketing effectiveness, and this is closely followed by ‘Click-throughs,’ ‘Conversions,’ ‘Brand awareness’ and ‘Engagement (active and inactive subscribers)’ – all at around 40% - DMA, Marketer email tracker 2021.
Best day and time to send emails
Email frequency statistics
Americans spend an average of 143 minutes checking email weekly. - Adobe Email Usage study, 2019
Deals/e-coupons brands send 36 campaigns monthly that is the highest frequency of email campaigns sent.
Email sign up statistics
Unsubscribe statistics
Email personalization statistics
55% of consumers believe receiving targeted promotions and discounts would create a more enjoyable email experience. - Dynamic Yield
Marketers report a 760% increase in email revenue from personalized and segmented campaigns. - Campaign Monitor
Personalized calls to action convert 202% better than default or standard calls to action. - HubSpot
Open rates are double for retail and entertainment industry emails with personalized subject lines - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
Only the BFSI industries like Banking and Insurance sectors see a reduction in their open rates with personalization. At the same time, other sectors see an increase in open rate with personalization - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
80% of financial services companies personalize email body copy vs. 55% of retail/ eCommerce/consumers goods and services companies - Litmus State of Email Report 2020.
Emails with personalized subjects are 50% more likely to be opened - Litmus State of Email Report 2020.
Automation and segmentation statistics
Only 37% of emails sent to users are automated, while 395 are segmented - DMA, Marketer email tracker 2020.
23% of the small/micro organizations are more likely to be missing ‘Automation’ while only 7% of large businesses are less likely to be missing ‘Automation' - DMA, Marketer email tracker 2020.
The Entertainment industry shows double the open rates when the campaigns have targeted segmented audiences - Netcore, Email Benchmark Report 2020.
Automated emails get 152% higher click rates than broadcast emails - Myemma.
Device related statistics
PC users have the highest click rate (72%), followed by mobile (18%) and tablets (9%) - Mailchimp 2019.
Responsive email templates get higher click rates on all devices. However, they are particularly effective on mobile users, where the increase in unique clicks from 2.7% to 3.1% represents a 15% increase in actual clicks - Mailchimp 2019.
AMP email statistics
Indeed, a job-seeking website got 2X more job clicks on active jobs alert - alite international.
Guru, a knowledge-based system, increased their card comment actions by 2.5x and card verifications by 75% with AMP emails - AMP Fest 2020.
AWeber, a marketing automation software, included a poll in their newsletter in October 2019. Over the last five months, their engagement on AMP for Email skyrocketed 225% - AWeber.
A/b testing statistics
- Companies that A/b test every email see email marketing returns 37% higher than brands that never include A/B tests - Litmus.
Open Rates: Pre and post-Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
Sparkpost has witnessed an increase in open rate after Apple MPP went into effect. Earlier open stands at 38%, but the opens shoot up to around 46% after the MPP policy.
Wrapping up
With these statistics, you can bolster your lead gen efforts even further as you now have data to back your claims. And in the future, whenever you feel like you need a good list of email marketing statistics, you can always refer to this article.
We will also keep updating this whenever there is any new data will be available.
