Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The average email marketing ROI is $36 for every $1 spent.
The average click-through rate across all industries is 2.62%.
The average unsubscribe rate for email marketing is 0.26%.
The education industry has one of the highest open rates at 28.5%.
The retail industry sees an average open rate of 12.6%.
Nonprofits see an average email click-through rate of 2.79%.
Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%.
Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.
Sending 3 abandoned cart emails results in 69% more orders than a single email.
Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
Including a recipient's first name in the subject line increases the click-through rate by 28%.
Nearly 60% of email opens now occur on mobile devices.
42.3% of consumers will delete an email if it is not optimized for mobile.
Launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile clicks by 15%.
Automation & Types
- 1Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%.
- 2Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.
- 3Sending 3 abandoned cart emails results in 69% more orders than a single email.
- 4Transactional emails destroy the average with an 8-times higher open rate than regular bulk emails.
- 5Emails triggered by user behavior trigger 62.2% of all email marketing revenue.
- 6Cart abandonment emails have a 45% open rate on average.
- 7Birthday emails generate 342% higher revenue per email than promotional emails.
- 8Welcome emails generate 4 times more opens and 5 times more clicks than regular email marketing campaigns.
- 9Post-purchase emails see a 217% higher click-through rate than average.
- 10Back-in-stock emails have the highest engagement rate of all retail email types at 65.32%.
- 11Marketers who use split automation see a 50% higher conversion rate.
- 12Follow-up emails increase the response rate by 65.8%.
- 13Browse abandonment emails have a 124% higher click-through rate than non-automated emails.
- 14Re-engagement campaigns improve deliverability rates in 90% of cases.
- 15Omnichannel marketing automation campaigns earn 90% higher customer retention.
- 1633.3% of marketers use email automation for subscriber engagement.
- 17Triggered emails have a 70.5% higher open rate than BAU (business as usual) emails.
- 18Order confirmation emails have the highest open rate of all e-commerce emails at approx 65%.
- 19Discount codes in cart abandonment emails increase conversion by 18%.
- 20Automated email series have a 119% higher click rate than one-off blasts.
Interpretation
If your email program still favors one-off blasts, you're essentially handing money to competitors, because automated, behavior-triggered and transactional messages such as welcome, cart-abandonment, birthday and post-purchase sequences produce drastically higher opens, clicks, conversions and revenue, and tactics like split testing, discounts and omnichannel automation amplify retention and deliverability.
Elements & Personalization
- 1Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
- 2Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
- 3Including a recipient's first name in the subject line increases the click-through rate by 28%.
- 488% of email users agree that they are more likely to respond to an email if it looks like it was created specifically for them.
- 5Emails bearing a personalized message achieve an ROI of 122%.
- 6Segmented email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.31% higher than non-segmented campaigns.
- 7Using emojis in subject lines can increase open rates by 56%.
- 8Emails with 6 to 10 words in their subject lines have the highest open rate at 21%.
- 965% of marketers say that dynamic content in email is their most effective personalization tactic.
- 10Adding video to your email can increase click rates by 300%.
- 11Interactive email content increases the click-to-open rate by 73%.
- 12Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate.
- 13Segmenting by purchase history results in a 14% higher average open rate.
- 14Emails with a single call to action (CTA) increase clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%.
- 1582% of marketers report an increase in open rates through email personalization.
- 16Using the word "Free" in the subject line creates a 10% higher open rate.
- 1774% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement.
- 18Plain text emails play a significant role as they often get 25% more opens than HTML emails.
- 19Subject lines formatted as questions have an open rate 10% higher than the average.
- 2039% of marketers who segmented their email lists experienced higher open rates.
Interpretation
Treat your emails like conversations, not shotgun blasts: personalize subject lines with a first name, an emoji, urgency or about six to ten words, segment your lists and use dynamic, interactive or video content with a single clear CTA, and you’ll turn tiny open-rate tweaks into massive spikes in clicks, engagement, revenue and ROI.
General Efficiency & ROI
- 1The average email marketing ROI is $36 for every $1 spent.
- 2The average click-through rate across all industries is 2.62%.
- 3The average unsubscribe rate for email marketing is 0.26%.
- 4Marketing emails have an average bounce rate of 0.58%.
- 559% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI.
- 6The average email open rate across all industries is 21.33%.
- 7Email marketing conversion rates are 40 times higher than those of social media.
- 818% of companies achieve an ROI greater than $70 per $1 spent.
- 966% of consumers have made a purchase directly as a result of an email marketing message.
- 10The average click-to-open rate across all industries is 10.5%.
- 11Small businesses usually spend between $15 and $1000 per month on email marketing.
- 1289% of marketers use email as their primary channel for generating leads.
- 13The global email marketing market was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020.
- 1477% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.
- 1599% of email users check their inbox every day.
- 16The average conversion rate for email marketing is roughly 15.11%.
- 1764% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers.
- 184 out of 5 marketers said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing.
- 19Shoppers spend 138% more when marketed to through email compared to those who do not receive email offers.
- 20Email drives an average order value that is 3 times higher than social media.
Interpretation
Think of email as your business’s reliable golden goose: checked by 99% of users daily, it converts at roughly 15% and returns about $36 for every $1 spent, drives far higher order value and conversions than social, and remains the primary lead and ROI engine for most marketers, so ignoring it is a costly luxury.
Industry & Demographics
- 1The education industry has one of the highest open rates at 28.5%.
- 2The retail industry sees an average open rate of 12.6%.
- 3Nonprofits see an average email click-through rate of 2.79%.
- 4B2B companies see an average email click-through rate of 5%.
- 5B2C email campaigns generally have a 19.7% open rate.
- 6The real estate industry has a bounce rate of about 0.99%.
- 7Government related emails have an average open rate of 28.77%.
- 8The travel and leisure industry has a 1.25% hard bounce rate.
- 9Millennials are the age group most likely to check their email from bed (43%).
- 1073% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.
- 11The average open rate for the software and technology sector is 22.71%.
- 12Men click on emails 7% more often than women.
- 13The Vitamin and Supplement industry has the lowest open rate at 15.03%.
- 14Construction industry emails have an average click-through rate of 2.19%.
- 1535% of demographic data in the average marketing database is incorrect.
- 16The Health and Fitness industry averages an open rate of 21.48%.
- 1750% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel for revenue generation.
- 18Financial services emails see an average open rate of 27.1%.
- 1960% of consumers subscribe to an email list to receive promotional messages.
- 20Restaurant and food service emails have a click rate of just 1.34%.
Interpretation
These stats show that email remains a trusted, often bedside channel for millennials and a top revenue driver for many industries, but the wide gap between strong open rates in education, government and finance and the poor click and open performance in retail, supplements, restaurants and construction, plus 35 percent faulty demographic data, means marketers must clean their lists, sharpen their targeting and craft far more compelling creative if they expect opens to turn into real results.
Mobile & Technical
- 1Nearly 60% of email opens now occur on mobile devices.
- 242.3% of consumers will delete an email if it is not optimized for mobile.
- 3Launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile clicks by 15%.
- 470% of mobile email users delete badly formatted emails in under three seconds.
- 5Emails opened on mobile devices have a higher average read time (15 seconds) than desktop.
- 6One out of every three clicks in an email occurs on a mobile device.
- 752% of customers are less likely to engage with a company because of bad mobile experience.
- 8Mobile users check their email 3 times more often than desktop users.
- 9The iPhone is the most popular email client, accounting for 28.4% of all opens.
- 10Use of Dark Mode for email is used by approximately 36% of iPhone users.
- 1123% of consumers say they have made a purchase on a mobile device after opening an email.
- 12Android devices account for only 9% of mobile email opens compared to iOS.
- 1335% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.
- 14Click-to-open rates are systematically 40% lower on mobile compared to desktop.
- 1556% of emails using the Gmail client are opened on mobile devices.
- 16Responsive email design results in a 5% to 15% increase in clicks.
- 17When an email is optimized for mobile, it generates equal conversion rates to desktop.
- 1875% of Gmail's 1.5 billion users access their accounts via mobile devices.
- 19iPad email opens have decreased by 13% as larger phone screens become popular.
- 20Gmail holds the second-highest market share for email clients at 27%.
Interpretation
Think of your email as a smartphone hostage: nearly 60% of opens happen on mobile and the iPhone alone drives about 28% of those, so with 42.3% of people deleting messages that are not optimized and 70% tossing badly formatted ones within three seconds, failing to deliver responsive, dark mode friendly emails means losing frequent checkers who generate a third of clicks and nearly a quarter of purchases, while getting mobile design right can lift clicks by up to 15% and equalize conversion rates with desktop.
