Let’s be real for a minute: you could do very well using only email for your business. No social media or guest blogging. No conferences or events. Just email.
It’s that good.
And while you probably won’t – and shouldn’t -– forgo all other channels and tactics, We’ve collected 65+ statistics to show that email should be a top priority heading into 2019.
Email Usage
- There were 3.7 billion email users worldwide in 2017. That number is expected to top 4.3 billion by 2022.
- Email is the most preferred channel for marketing communication for 72% of consumers.
- About 85% of American adults check their email at least once per day.
- Despite what we may believe, teenagers are still very active on email, with 75% of them calling it a ‘fact of everyday life’.
- The Radicati Group estimates that we sent 281+ billion personal and professional emails per day in 2018.
Email Trends
- The time of day with the highest open rate is 2pm (25.29%), while 2am has the lowest open rate, at 14.52%. Perhaps surprisingly, the highest click-to-open rate occurs at 3am (17.04%).
- ‘Hoping for a reward’ is the number-one reason why 86% of consumers agree to receive marketing emails.
- 68% of email messages were opened on mobile in 2016, up from 21% in 2012.
- 86% of professionals list email as their preferred communication channel.
- The Apple iPhone (29%) and Gmail (27%) command the lion’s share of the email client market. Apple’s iPad is a distant third at 9%.
- Half of recipients immediately delete an email that does not display properly on mobile.
- The average open rate in North America is 21.97%, while the average click-through rate is 3.69%. Europe? It’s 28.91% and 5.15%, respectively.
- The worldwide average open rate is 24.82%. The global average click-through rate is 4.07%.
- The highest average open rate is for restaurants and food at 39.69%. The lowest is internet marketing at 16.73%. Arts and entertainment boasts the highest average click-through rate at 6.13%.
- Consumers who buy products marketed via email spend an average of 138% more than those who do not receive promotional email messages.
- The worldwide number of mobile email users is projected to be 2.2 billion by the end of 2018.
Prospecting
- 61% of business prospects make first contact via email.
- Compared to Facebook and Twitter, email is 40x more effective at customer acquisition.
- Eight out of ten prospects prefer communicating with a new provider via email.
- 81% of surveyed marketers – the most of any answer – listed email as a key driver of customer acquisition.
- Over three-quarters of consumers (77%) have responded positively to an email from a new provider within the past year, and 80% of them prefer to be contacted by email.
- Email prospecting is effective, consumers prefer it, and it fits any business budget.
Email Marketing (Including Nurturing and Converting)
- 174% more conversions are driven by email than social media.
- Nearly 75% of companies described the ROI of email as either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, just beating SEO for the top spot.
- Email marketing delivers an average return-on-investment of $44 for every $1 spent. That’s a spectacular 4400% ROI.
- 86% of U.S. adults would like to receive promotional emails at least monthly, 61% at least weekly, and 15% daily.
- 96% of consumers earning between $75,000 – $99,900 want to get promotional emails from the businesses and brands they’ve used in the past.
Retention
- Email was named by 80% of respondents as a key tactic for customer retention.
- 77% of buyers like it when a business shows their appreciation. A quick email goes a long, long way.
- When receiving emails based on past behavior, 41% of consumers say they purchase more than they would have otherwise.
- It’s up to 350% more profitable to sell to an existing customer than to a new one.
Automation
- Automated outreach and marketing increased leads for 80% of users, and increased the number of conversions for 77% of them.
- Overall, automated email workflows get up to 309% higher open rates, and 455% better click-through rates than bulk newsletter campaigns.
- Transactional emails deliver 6x more revenue and 8x more opens and clicks.
- Browse abandonment emails have open and click-through rates that are 80.9% and 50.5% higher, respectively, than other messages.
- The vast majority of email messages – 91.24% – are opened on the first day, with 89.74% of replies coming on the same day, too. Follow up if you haven’t heard back in the first 24 hours, keep at it, and you’ve still got a 25% chance of getting a reply.
- A series of three emails performs better than a single email: 90% more orders for welcome campaigns, 63% more orders for cart abandonment campaigns, and 75% more orders for customer reactivation campaigns.
Personalization and Segmentation
- Just over half of marketers (51%) cite segmentation as the most effective email personalization strategy, topping all other tactics.
- Segmented email campaigns can generate up to a 760% increase in revenue, according to the DMA.
- A personalized subject line is 26% more likely to be opened.
- Compared to non-personalized messaging, personalized promotional emails produce 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher click-through rates.
- 76.9% of consumers expect emails to be personalized with interests listed in their profile, 76.3% with purchases they’ve made, 67.3% with their birthday, 62% with items they’ve browsed, and 57.9% with their gender.
- A study by Optimove found an average customer value of $28 when targeting all customers, but an average of $42 for segmented groups.
- The same research discovered that the smaller the segment, the larger the uplift: groups up to 150 saw an uplift of at least $1.90/customer, while groups larger than 1500 experienced a maximum lift of only $0.50 per customer.
- Using the customer name in the subject line produced the best open rate at 46.21%, according to a study by SaleCycle.
- Segmented campaigns supply 14.31% higher open rates, 100.95% higher click-through rates, 3.90% fewer abuse reports, and 9.37% fewer unsubscriptions overall when compared to non-segmented ones.
- For marketers using email personalization, 82% experienced a lift in open rates, 75% witnessed higher click-through rates, 58% saw an increase in customer satisfaction, and 56% produced an increase in revenue.
- Personalized messaging delivers 6x higher transaction rates.
- Grow your email list. Segment it. And personalize it for each segment.
Best Practices
- Test, test, test. Brands that A/B test their emails produce an average of 20% more revenue. Successful email marketing programs are 70% more likely to have tested their triggered emails and 95% more likely to have tested their transactional emails at least annually than less successful campaigns.
- Of those that A/B test their email campaigns, 94.6% test the subject line, 60.6% the CTA, 43% the images, 38.7% the layout and position of content, 34.3% the preview text, and 33.5% the headings and subheadings, among others.
- 69% of people report an email as spam – and 47% open an email – based on the subject line alone.
- Subject lines matter at least as much as the rest of the message. Make it count.
- When recipients are thinking of unsubscribing to an email list, 40.3% would consider staying if they had the option to receive fewer messages.
- Welcome emails deliver 3x the transactions and revenue, 4x the open rate, and 5x the click-through rate of other types. Use them.
- Emails that include a graphic of some sort see higher open (27.12% vs 20.24%) and click-through (4.50% vs 3.32%) rates than text-only versions.
- A relevant and timely subject line emoji – lips around Valentine’s Day, a gift box near Mother’s Day – leads to higher read rates and inbox placement.
- A message with 1-3 questions, written at no higher than a third-grade reading level, with either a slightly positive or negative tone, performs better.
- Including the product name and/or details in an email subject line generated an average open rate of 44.01%, second only to using the recipient’s name.
- Quality over quantity: 57% of consumers leave a brand after being unnecessarily spammed, and 50% are most annoyed by too many marketing emails.
- The selective use of words like ‘free’, ‘sale’, or ‘free delivery’ in your subject lines can increase both open and click-through rates. Including ‘save’ produced 27.8% higher open and 100.3% higher click rates.
- Eliminating all but one call-to-action within an email delivers an increase in clicks. Whirlpool saw a 42% increase when dropping from four CTAs to one.
- Using first-person rather than second-person in the call-to-action text increased clicks by 90% in one study.
Have we missed any highlight-worthy stats? How will your email efforts change moving forward because of something you read here? Leave your comments below:
