Monday, March 7, 2016

How Does Your Email Marketing Open Rate Measure Up to the Competition? | 2016



If you use an email marketing service, after the mailing you probably first check out the “open rate”—the percentage of emails sent that are opened. Seems natural. We all want to know if anyone out there actually read what we sent. Then, we’ll check out the click through rate, an indicator of how compelling the reader finds a specific link provided in the email. But what are “good” rates?




If you ever wonder how your email marketing open rates and clicks stack up against others in your business or topic category, then you are like most small businesses who send out email. Recognizing our competitiveness, the email service MailChimp provides regular benchmark data so we can gloat over (or stew over) our performance. Last week, it updated its statistical overview of data aggregated  from millions of marketing emails its users distribute. In Table 1, we’ve used the MailChimp data to rank (best to worst) the open rates of various business categories, most of which have concentrations of small businesses. Table 2 ranks the open rates sent by companies of various sizes, as measured by number of employees.




Coming Tomorrow | How to Improve Your Marketing Email Open Rate




Table 1: Topics or business categories generating the best marketing email open rates?



















































































































































































Sender / Topic Category Open Rate Click Rate
Hobbies 28.88% 5.45%
Arts and Artists 27.50% 2.89%
Sports 26.03% 3.50%
Agriculture and Food Services 25.22% 3.23%
Architecture and Construction 25.09% 2.99%
Home and Garden 24.72% 3.80%
Music and Musicians 23.00% 2.93%
Manufacturing 22.88% 2.53%
Legal 22.74% 2.98%
Medical, Dental, and Healthcare 22.74% 2.52%
Creative Services/Agency 22.70% 2.77%
Construction 22.68% 1.99%
Health and Fitness 22.55% 2.84%
Media and Publishing 22.30% 4.59%
Restaurant and Venue 22.16% 1.40%
Education and Training 22.01% 2.78%
Restaurant 21.96% 1.28%
Social Media / Forums 21.90% 3.50%
Real Estate 21.65% 2.01%
Entertainment and Events 21.57% 2.38%
Software and Web App 21.57% 2.42%
Retail 21.52% 2.67%
Business and Finance 21.49% 2.77%
Telecommunications 21.44% 2.49%
Computers and Electronics 21.32% 2.34%
Professional Services 21.00% 2.68%
Travel and Transportation 20.71% 2.31%
Insurance 20.47% 2.14%
Recruitment and Staffing 20.13% 2.32%
Public Relations 20.04% 1.68%
Consulting 19.68% 2.40%
Beauty and Personal Care 19.03% 2.15%
Marketing and Advertising 18.41% 2.09%
eCommerce 16.86% 2.50%

Table 2: What is the open rate of marketing email sent by businesses of various sizes?





























Company Size Open Rate Click Rate
1 to 10 21.95% 2.97%
11 to 25 20.99% 2.58%
26 to 50 21.82% 2.94%
50+ 23.10% 2.85%



Illustration: ThinkStock

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