When prospects open your emails, what they find inside may be your one chance to turn them into customers. This is why improving your email open rates should be one of your most important marketing goals. But without learning the ideal open rates in your specific industry, you won’t have real data to measure the performance of your email marketing strategy.
A poll from the American Marketing Association offers in-depth research on marketers' and consumers' habits around the world. And that explains the resurgence of email marketing.
Low cost, high ROI, and especially its ability to integrate with other channels make email marketing a must-have option if you want to get ahead of your competitors. Emails are also easy to personalize, even for smaller businesses.
And with the right use of email deliverability strategies, email marketing is just as effective as anything form of results-driven marketing. Let’s dive into the most important email marketing metrics you should use in your business.
Think of your email subject line as the door to your business. If it’s inviting enough, your prospects will open the email to further engagement. Email Opens, therefore, is one of the most critical metrics for email marketing.
Once the prospects open the door, though, there are three critical metrics to track as they move through the customer engagement process. As legendary copywriter Robert Bly points out in Entrepreneur, these are:
When you look at the average industry rates though, remember that these are only the averages. To excel at email marketing and eventually increase your gross revenue, your click-to-open rate must be more than these averages.
To go beyond the average, we encourage our clients who use email providers to look at factors like timing, subject lines, segmentation, split (A/B) testing, and more accurate customer personas to improve their click-to-open rate.
Email Marketing Resurgence Demands Action
A poll from the American Marketing Association offers in-depth research on marketers' and consumers' habits around the world. And that explains the resurgence of email marketing.
Low cost, high ROI, and especially its ability to integrate with other channels make email marketing a must-have option if you want to get ahead of your competitors. Emails are also easy to personalize, even for smaller businesses.
And with the right use of email deliverability strategies, email marketing is just as effective as anything form of results-driven marketing. Let’s dive into the most important email marketing metrics you should use in your business.
Key Metrics for Email Marketing
Think of your email subject line as the door to your business. If it’s inviting enough, your prospects will open the email to further engagement. Email Opens, therefore, is one of the most critical metrics for email marketing.
Once the prospects open the door, though, there are three critical metrics to track as they move through the customer engagement process. As legendary copywriter Robert Bly points out in Entrepreneur, these are:
- Your clickthrough rate: When your email body is as convincing as the subject line, recipients will click your call-to-action button to learn more about your product or service on your landing page. The clickthrough rate is the percentage of recipients who do.
- Your conversion rate: This is the percentage of prospects who not only read what’s on your sales page but also accept your offer. The offer doesn’t always have to be a sale, especially early in the process. Many customers—especially those who own businesses—want more information. Often the best tool for further engagement is to invite them to download a detailed e-book or register for a live presentation. Keep your offer focused on your customers’ needs to increase your conversion rate.
- Your gross revenues: The revenue you generate in an active campaign depends on several factors: your mailing list’s size, your clickthrough rate, and your conversion rate. The last two factors are the most critical. Simply moving the needle from one to ten percent on either of them increases your gross revenue by a factor of ten. Going from one to ten percent on both will multiply your revenue by a factor of 100.
Boosting Email Open Rates with a Targeted Strategy
When you look at the average industry rates though, remember that these are only the averages. To excel at email marketing and eventually increase your gross revenue, your click-to-open rate must be more than these averages.
To go beyond the average, we encourage our clients who use email providers to look at factors like timing, subject lines, segmentation, split (A/B) testing, and more accurate customer personas to improve their click-to-open rate.
Email Open Rates for Different Industries
MailChimp researched “millions of emails” sent using its platform. These included solo entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 firms. Here are some open rates by industry:- E-Commerce - 15.66%: This industry’s low open rate might reflect prospects’ aversion to sales pitches. When e-commerce companies create more accurate customer personas and segment emails to match their needs, subject lines can focus more on benefits.
- Healthcare - 21.09%: Healthcare organizations’ average open rate reflects the industry’s higher degree of trust as compared to more sales-oriented organizations. There’s always room for improvement, though. Timing email campaigns to coincide with holidays, such as the American Heart Association’s Valentine’s Day push to encourage both donations and heart checkups, can help increase opens.
- Insurance - 20.99%: With a relatively high open rate, the insurance industry also enjoys a high degree of trust. To improve that rate, though, insurers can find potential customers by targeting new home and car buyers on social media, offering them a buyers’ guide in exchange for their email addresses. Then, they can use omnipresent marketing to touch base with them by providing helpful information on social media and other channels to build familiarity, leading them to open the email that will soon appear in their inbox.
- Marketing Agencies - 16.48%: Marketing agencies, like sales-oriented companies, have lower open rates when compared with many other industries. With more targeted customer research and personalized messaging, marketing companies can find just the right message to address potential clients’ specific marketing challenges, making them more likely to click on the subject line through to the agency’s landing page.
- Real Estate - 19.67%: With a 19.67% open rate, real estate agencies, like insurers, can turn their average rate into a revenue-boosting one through a coordinated campaign that leverages customer research and social media to find eager buyers and sellers who can’t wait to read their emails.
