This week eMarketer released their second report of the month on email marketing open and click-through rate benchmarks.
If you missed them, here are the two articles:
E-Mail Marketing and Click-Through Rates features benchmarks recently released from MailerMailer.
E-Mail Marketing and Click-Through Rates: Part II features benchmarks recently released from Epsilon.
Looking at the charts, it does not take much time to notice that the data is different. In many cases, it is VERY different. Consider:
Average Delivery Rates
Average Open Rates
Average Click-Through Rates
To understand the differences, one must take into account their respective client bases. MailerMailer conducted their research based on 300 million emails sent from 3,000 clients over 6 months. Do the math and their average client is sending just under 17,000 emails per month.
Alternatively, Epsilon’s numbers are based on an analysis of 6 billion emails sent from 200 clients over 3 months. Their average client is sending approximately 10 million emails a month.
Epsilon clients send 600 times the number of emails MailerMailer clients send. No wonder they are different. Epsilon is focused on big senders. MailerMailer is focused on small senders.
So, what’s the benchmark?
Benchmarks in email marketing can be tricky. Considering the large and significant differences in the benchmarks published by MailerMailer and Epsilon, this should be crystal clear. Use these numbers as guidelines and nothing more!
I commend the authors of these studies, but all benchmarks I have ever seen (or published) are subject to scrutiny. Benchmarks such as these (generated from client data) are subject to the diversity of the client base. Benchmarks generated from surveys are subject to the reality that marketers (like all survey respondents) tend to report best-case scenarios.
Keep in mind than benchmarks represent the average. The university I attended is notorious for grading on a curve. So, if we performed average, you got a “C”--hardly worth writing home to mom and dad about. Shoot high by benchmarking yourself against the better averages.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions based on my experience of looking at benchmarks over time.
Delivery Rates
MailerMailer’s average delivery rate seems high to me… as an average. Epsilon’s 94% average seems low based on our data.
Companies getting A’s in deliverability are consistently at or above 99% deliverability. Anything below 96% should be looked at with some scrutiny. Permission-based email marketers who send on a regular schedule do not tend to fall below the 96% threshold on a consistent basis.
Open and Click-Through Rates
MailerMailer’s averages are somewhat erratic, especially when looking at the benchmarks by industry. Looking at Banking and Finance open rate averages for example, one would not normally expect to see such wild swings between messages sent to a list of 500-999 compared to sends sent to 1,000 or more. This is likely due the their client base consisting of smaller senders. These swings are likely driven by individual senders who either consistently over or underperform instead of true variance by industry.
Epsilon’s numbers are more in line with what I typically see and would expect. They are also much more stable. Given a choice, benchmark your program against the Q1 2009 numbers presented in these charts.
If you are looking for ways to increase your click-through rate, sign-up for InSight and receive an email each month with the best tips and tricks to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns.
If you missed them, here are the two articles:
E-Mail Marketing and Click-Through Rates features benchmarks recently released from MailerMailer.
E-Mail Marketing and Click-Through Rates: Part II features benchmarks recently released from Epsilon.
Looking at the charts, it does not take much time to notice that the data is different. In many cases, it is VERY different. Consider:
Average Delivery Rates
- MailerMailer says 99%
- Epsilon says 94%
Average Open Rates
- MailerMailer says 12.5%
- Epsilon says 22.1%
Average Click-Through Rates
- MailerMailer says 2.8%
- Epsilon says 6.1%
To understand the differences, one must take into account their respective client bases. MailerMailer conducted their research based on 300 million emails sent from 3,000 clients over 6 months. Do the math and their average client is sending just under 17,000 emails per month.
Alternatively, Epsilon’s numbers are based on an analysis of 6 billion emails sent from 200 clients over 3 months. Their average client is sending approximately 10 million emails a month.
Epsilon clients send 600 times the number of emails MailerMailer clients send. No wonder they are different. Epsilon is focused on big senders. MailerMailer is focused on small senders.
So, what’s the benchmark?
Benchmarks in email marketing can be tricky. Considering the large and significant differences in the benchmarks published by MailerMailer and Epsilon, this should be crystal clear. Use these numbers as guidelines and nothing more!
I commend the authors of these studies, but all benchmarks I have ever seen (or published) are subject to scrutiny. Benchmarks such as these (generated from client data) are subject to the diversity of the client base. Benchmarks generated from surveys are subject to the reality that marketers (like all survey respondents) tend to report best-case scenarios.
Keep in mind than benchmarks represent the average. The university I attended is notorious for grading on a curve. So, if we performed average, you got a “C”--hardly worth writing home to mom and dad about. Shoot high by benchmarking yourself against the better averages.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions based on my experience of looking at benchmarks over time.
Delivery Rates
MailerMailer’s average delivery rate seems high to me… as an average. Epsilon’s 94% average seems low based on our data.
Companies getting A’s in deliverability are consistently at or above 99% deliverability. Anything below 96% should be looked at with some scrutiny. Permission-based email marketers who send on a regular schedule do not tend to fall below the 96% threshold on a consistent basis.
Open and Click-Through Rates
MailerMailer’s averages are somewhat erratic, especially when looking at the benchmarks by industry. Looking at Banking and Finance open rate averages for example, one would not normally expect to see such wild swings between messages sent to a list of 500-999 compared to sends sent to 1,000 or more. This is likely due the their client base consisting of smaller senders. These swings are likely driven by individual senders who either consistently over or underperform instead of true variance by industry.
Epsilon’s numbers are more in line with what I typically see and would expect. They are also much more stable. Given a choice, benchmark your program against the Q1 2009 numbers presented in these charts.
If you are looking for ways to increase your click-through rate, sign-up for InSight and receive an email each month with the best tips and tricks to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns.
Comments for Email Open and Click Benchmarks
blog comments powered by Disqus