• by Ray Schultz , August 14, 2018

Email delivery has improved worldwide. But one in six commercial emails is still failing to reach its target, according to the 2018 Deliverability Benchmark Report, a global study from Return Path. 

Some 85% of email now reaches the inbox, versus 80% in 2017 and 79% in 2016. The improvement is largely due to gains in North America and Europe, Return Path reports. But the U.S. is below average.

U.S. marketers achieved only an 83% inbox placement rate in this study. But that is an increase of 6% over the prior year. Canadian marketers had an 89% rate, down from 90% in 2017.

“We’re thrilled to see inbox placement rates on the rise, but marketers need to realize that even 15 percent of email missing the inbox is too much,” states said Tom Sather, senior director of research at Return Path.

He adds, “with every email that fails to reach its intended recipient, brands lose the opportunity to connect with customers and ultimately make a sale.” 

European marketers saw a 3% hike in inbox placement — to 86%. The overall rate saw an increase from high rates in Belgium (91%), Greece (93%), Ireland (92%), Norway (93%) and Portugal (93%).

Inbox placement in Mexico hit 88%, but the overall rate for Latin America was 77%.

Most countries in the Asia-Pacific region exceeded the global average, including Australia (89%), Hong Kong (88%), Japan (89%), New Zealand (90%) and Singapore (90%).

China, however, had a below-average rate—57%. And that lowered the regional rate to 78%. 

Sectors with strong account-based consumer relations did best. These included banking & finance (96%), distribution & manufacturing (96%), and travel (94%).