Common Email Marketing Statistics: Opens, Clicks And Subscribers

Statistics are the bread and butter of email marketing. That’s the beauty of the email channel – you can obtain real-time results quickly and easily. Let’s take a look at a few of the most common statistics and how they can help you hone your email marketing strategy.

Opens

All opens are not created equal. What you want to focus on is unique opens, considered the industry benchmark. Unique opens, as opposed to total opens, counts only one open for each email address. The median unique open rate in the U.S. last year was 16.5 percent. 

While you might be interested in industry averages, more important are the unique open rates for your particular industry – and, more specifically, for your own company. Do certain days of the week or times of day have higher open rates? Does length or type of subject line impact your open rate. Test… then retest.

It’s not only important to know how many people opened your email, it’s also key to know what devices they used to open them. If your audience is heavily mobile, you’ll want to make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices.

Clicks

Opens are one thing, but it’s the click-through rate (CTR) that most email marketers obsess over. The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of click-throughs by the number of email messages delivered. The resulting percentage is your click-through rate. In 2012, the median CTR in the U.S. was 2.2 percent.

Click-to-open rate (CTOR)

The CTOR – also referred to as the “effective rate” – measures the relevancy and context of an email. To get the CTOR, divide the number of unique clicks by the number of unique opens. If you want a percentage, multiply that figure by 100. The CTOR shows you how many openers clicked on the email itself.

The reason this metric is also called the “effective rate” is because it reveals the effectiveness of your email content.

Subscribers

Subscriber statistics can tell you a lot about your list. A subscriber stat you can’t overlook is unsubscribes. A high unsub rate can mean several things, including:

• You’re sending too many emails
• Your email content is not relevant

If your unsub rate is less than 2 percent, you’re within industry norms. If it’s higher than that, take a look at your frequency and content. And if you notice a spike in unsubscribes following deployment of an email, take a close look at that email to see what might have caused the mass exit.

Other important subscriber statistics include activity (or lack thereof). Sure, you want to see how many actives you have on your list. But equally important – if not more so – are the inactives.

It’s best practice to remove inactives from your list, as leaving them on your list can impact deliverability. You may want to start with subscribers who have never opened or clicked an email. Many email marketers segment inactives by length of inactivity, such as 24 months, 12 months, six months.

If you’re reluctant to simple delete your inactives, you can create a re-engagement campaign to determine which subscribers truly want to remain on your list. In any case, if you ignore this statistic, you do so at your own peril.

You don’t have to be an analytics whiz to interpret email statistics. You do, however, need to be consistent in your regular review of statistics. Deploy, analyze, apply. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Each email you send is a learning experience. Find out what worked, what didn’t, and apply to upcoming campaigns. Add a dash of diligence and a pinch of patience. It’s the recipe for email marketing success.

Image: Lindsey Turner