Study: Average Email Open Rate Across Industries Is 22%

Less than a quarter of email marketing messages are opened, according to a study released Thursday by GetResponse -- an engagement metric easily lifted with marketing best practices.

The average email open rate amongst all marketers is 22%, according to the report, and the average click-through rate hovers just below 4%. GetResponse conducted a global survey of over 2,500 email marketers for its study, Email Marketing & Beyond: Global Industry Benchmarks 2017.

Ironically, the Internet marketing industry has the lowest open rates across all verticals polled, with only 13% of emails being opened on average. The automotive and travel industries rounded out the bottom three weakest performers, with an average of 18% and 21% of emails being opened, respectively.

Those three industries also suffered the lowest click-through rates. Only 2.2% of automotive emails are clicked on, followed by 2.5% of emails for the Internet marketing industry and 3.2% of travel emails.

The industries with the highest open rates, according to the report, are Legal Services (39%), Nonprofits (36%), and Health Care (34%). The best-performing industries with the highest click-through rates were Publishing (7.9%), Nonprofits (6.6%), and Arts & Entertainment (6.6%).

The better-performing industries are likely integrating better marketing practices into their customer outreach. Almost three out of four marketers surveyed by GetResponse admitted to not tracking email engagement metrics for each send, although 30.6% of marketers do track mid-funnel metrics such as downloads and registrations. Only a little over 15% of the respondents tracked email attribution and how email affects other channels.

Furthermore, the majority of marketers do not target their email lists with more personalized, segmented messaging. More than 50% of marketers still send the same exact email message to every subscriber, and the most popular form of email marketing, by far, is the common newsletter.

A majority of email marketers also do not proactively test their email messages, with only 27.1% of marketers testing subject lines, 20.3% using different offers and 19.6% using different layouts and creative design.

Considering the lackluster email marketing strategies of many marketers, technology providers will be happy to hear that the majority of email marketers plan to increase their marketing budget in 2017. Only 7% of marketers planned to decrease investment, according to GetResponse. 

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