If you operate an email list, you probably take great interest in the statistics of your various email campaigns.
After all, it’s very important to know how successful or not, your email marketing efforts are.
You want to ensure you get the maximum possible open and click rates and minimal number of unsubcribes.
I found the following email marketing statistics on MailChimp and they make very interesting reading.
The statistics are compiled from over 273 million emails sent out by MailChimp users, so with a sample size that large, you have some really useful data to analyse.
Firstly an explanation of each column.
- Open Rate – The percentage of recipients that opened the email.
- Click Rate – The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in the email.
- Soft Bounces – The percentage of email addresses that were temporarily unavailable. For example a full mail box.
- Hard bounces – The percentage of email addresses that failed. Causes can be email address no longer existing or spam filters rejecting the email.
- Abuse complaints – The percentage of recipients that click on the “This is spam” button in the email.
- Unsubscribes – The percentage of recipients that unsubscribed from the list.
| Type of Company | Open Rate | Click Rate | Soft Bounces | Hard Bounces | Abuse Complaints | Unsubscribes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accounting | 27.36% | 4.13% | 3.91% | 10.67% | 0.04% | 0.35% |
| Advertising | 23.79% | 4.20% | 2.77% | 6.67% | 0.08% | 0.36% |
| Architecture | 32.05% | 1.52% | 6.16% | 8.04% | 0.00% | 0.25% |
| Art | 26.12% | 6.86% | 2.04% | 4.49% | 0.09% | 0.41% |
| Arts_Music | 16.22% | 2.09% | 0.97% | 1.86% | 0.08% | 0.26% |
| Beauty/Health | 29.88% | 6.94% | 2.63% | 8.54% | 0.15% | 0.85% |
| Church | 32.95% | 4.48% | 1.18% | 2.89% | 0.05% | 0.26% |
| Construction | 23.86% | 4.44% | 2.95% | 5.33% | 0.19% | 0.85% |
| Consulting | 22.34% | 3.30% | 4.29% | 6.57% | 0.03% | 0.29% |
| Creative Agency | 20.97% | 3.12% | 2.69% | 5.16% | 0.06% | 0.38% |
| Creative Other | 29.94% | 0.86% | 1.11% | 0.60% | 0.03% | 0.10% |
| E-commerce | 19.80% | 4.78% | 1.48% | 3.21% | 0.10% | 0.37% |
| Education | 25.86% | 4.72% | 2.11% | 4.39% | 0.05% | 0.26% |
| Entertainment | 15.42% | 3.27% | 1.10% | 5.59% | 0.12% | 0.25% |
| Entertainment/Events | 21.96% | 0.42% | 3.27% | 7.58% | 0.09% | 0.14% |
| Financial Services | 20.87% | 2.47% | 2.76% | 3.98% | 0.06% | 0.33% |
| Food | 36.62% | 7.90% | 0.84% | 2.02% | 0.09% | 0.63% |
| Freelancer | 32.95% | 6.33% | 3.16% | 7.15% | 0.07% | 0.50% |
| Government | 26.64% | 4.30% | 1.33% | 1.95% | 0.03% | 0.22% |
| Graphic Design | 25.35% | 4.34% | 2.49% | 11.71% | 0.12% | 0.41% |
| Hardware | 28.05% | 3.57% | 1.29% | 2.01% | 0.02% | 0.18% |
| Healthcare | 19.91% | 3.99% | 1.47% | 3.81% | 0.12% | 0.50% |
| Healthcare/Medical | 24.66% | 6.96% | 10.47% | 9.00% | 0.23% | 0.41% |
| Hotel | 27.50% | 7.17% | 2.90% | 5.31% | 0.08% | 0.49% |
| Insurance | 24.43% | 2.92% | 2.85% | 5.71% | 0.04% | 0.37% |
| Internet/Web Svc. | 20.34% | 5.65% | 1.46% | 3.18% | 0.06% | 0.27% |
| Janitorial | 27.82% | 0.10% | 10.18% | 16.26% | 0.05% | 0.00% |
| Legal Services | 25.48% | 3.97% | 4.14% | 4.60% | 0.04% | 0.35% |
| Manufacturing | 26.70% | 4.92% | 3.15% | 5.61% | 0.09% | 0.46% |
| Marketing | 20.52% | 2.97% | 3.32% | 8.29% | 0.16% | 0.40% |
| Multimedia | 19.46% | 3.54% | 1.24% | 1.60% | 0.06% | 0.25% |
| Music | 27.94% | 5.17% | 2.05% | 7.73% | 0.12% | 0.39% |
| Non-profit | 27.66% | 4.06% | 2.24% | 4.31% | 0.06% | 0.24% |
| Other | 15.29% | 2.36% | 1.74% | 3.19% | 0.07% | 0.29% |
| Other Groups | 27.66% | 6.83% | 1.72% | 13.16% | 0.08% | 0.34% |
| Other Marketing | 18.49% | 3.66% | 2.39% | 3.15% | 0.04% | 0.21% |
| Photography | 34.17% | 6.82% | 1.73% | 3.59% | 0.07% | 0.36% |
| Public Relations | 20.99% | 3.13% | 4.00% | 8.21% | 0.11% | 0.30% |
| Publishing | 21.05% | 1.60% | 1.11% | 3.22% | 0.03% | 0.18% |
| Real Estate | 22.84% | 4.24% | 2.02% | 4.31% | 0.08% | 0.30% |
| Recruitment/Staffing | 27.59% | 4.61% | 2.82% | 6.49% | 0.07% | 0.74% |
| Restaurant | 26.17% | 3.40% | 1.33% | 3.44% | 0.08% | 0.41% |
| Retail | 27.61% | 5.76% | 1.48% | 2.80% | 0.08% | 0.42% |
| Self-Explanatory | 34.80% | 6.02% | 6.14% | 17.33% | 0.04% | 0.20% |
| Software | 18.22% | 3.26% | 3.00% | 6.01% | 0.08% | 0.43% |
| Technology | 21.05% | 2.75% | 4.01% | 6.60% | 0.07% | 0.40% |
| Telecommunications | 29.77% | 5.46% | 2.98% | 9.35% | 0.10% | 0.53% |
| Travel | 24.97% | 4.96% | 2.17% | 3.74% | 0.10% | 0.39% |
| Video Production | 33.09% | 6.81% | 2.48% | 2.63% | 0.09% | 0.43% |
| Web Design | 27.42% | 6.90% | 2.45% | 5.05% | 0.09% | 0.37% |
Campaign Categories
Looking at the data above, I thought it would be interesting to highlight the highs and lows. Note that I’ve excluded the categories “Other” and “Other Groups” as they are too generic.
The lowest open rate is Entertainment with 15.29%
The highest open rate is Food with 36.62%
The lowest click rate is Janitorial with 0.10%
The highest click rate is Food with 7.90%
The lowest soft bounces is Food with 0.84%
The highest soft bounces is Healthcare/Medical with 10.47%
The lowest hard bounces is Creative Other with 0.60%
The highest hard bounces is Self Explanatory with 17.33%
The lowest abuse complaints is Architecture with 0.00%
The highest abuse complaints is Healthcare/Medical with 0.23%
The lowest unsubcribes is Janitorial with 0.00%
The high unsubscribes is Construction and Beauty/Health with 0.85%
Analyzing Your Own Email Campaigns
These statistics are useful to know how you are tracking against these averages.
If you are performing better than average, then well done, you obviously know how to create effective email campaigns.
If not, then you need to pay more attention to the area in which you are under-performing.
If your open rate is low, then you should look at writing more compelling subject lines.
If your click rate is low, then you should look at the placement of your links and the call to action.
With soft and hard bounces, that’s mostly outside your control. Generally the larger the list, the more likelyhood of higher bounces.
If your abuse complains are high, you definitely need to take a very careful look at the content you are writing. There will always be a percentage of people who forget they have subscribed to your list, but that is always a minority.
If your unsubscribes are high, you should definitely be concerned:
Is your content too spammy?
Are you sending out emails too frequently?
Are you send out endless offers without any real value?
Cheers
Very interesting article. Having all the data on display is very interesting for comparative purposes. While I am not surprised that food related emails have a very high click rate, I am rather surprised that entertainment based emails are lacking.
You make quite a few good points with regards to email marketing in general as well, especially the point to minimize the spammy content that so many people send out. As a consumer, spam is one of the few business practices I absolutely despise.