• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 3, 2020

Complain all you want about the government, but there is one area where it excels — email open rates.

Government emails now draw an average open rate of 30.5%, according to Ultimate Email Benchmarks (2020) By Day And Industry, a study by email service firm Campaign Monitor. 

In this, Government leaped over the Nonprofit sector, improving by 10.71% from an average open rate of 19.79% last year. But the Nonprofit category still made the top three with 25.2% and the Education was next with 23.4%.

Government also pulls the highest click-through rate with 4.1%, with a jump of 1.06% from 3.04% last year. Government has jumped two places to become the leader in this area.

Government is followed by Real Estate, Design and Construction Activities (3.6%) and Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting (3.5). 

Campaign Monitor analyzed over 30 billion emails sent globally by its customers in 171 countries between January and December 2019. 

It found that the averages for all industries are: 

• Open rate — 17.8%
• Click-through rate—2.6%
• Click-to-open rate — 14.3% 
• Unsubscribe rate — 0.1% 
• Bounce rate — 0.7%

The lowest open rates are generated by Automotive and Aerospace (12.6%), Food and Beverage (13%) and Retail (13.9%). Consumer Packaged Goods was flat at 14.5%, but that was good enough to pull it out of the bottom the three. 

And the lowest click-throughs are generated by Automotive and Aerospace (1.2%), Food and Beverage (1.2%) and Consumer Packaged Goods (1.6%). An Travel, Leisure and Hospitality (1.6%). 

The picture changes slightly when examining click-to-open rates. The top industries here are:

• Real Estate, Design and Construction Activities — 17.7%
• Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting — 17.1%
• Media, Entertainment, and Publishing — 16.9%

And the worst: 

• Food and Beverage — 8.9%
• Automotive and Aerospace –9.8%
• Professional Services — 9.9%

Tuesday is the best day for email opens. But it also is the day with the highest unsubscribe rates. Here are the best days for the following metrics: 

• Highest email open rates: Tuesday — 18.3%
• Highest click-through rates: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday — 2.6%
• Highest click-to-open rates: Thursday and Friday — 14.4%
• Lowest unsubscribe rates: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday — 0.1%
• Lowest bounce rates: Wednesday — 0.6%

Judging by this report, here are the days to avoid: 

• Lowest email open rates: Saturday — 17.5%
• Lowest click-through rates: Wednesday and Saturday — 2.5%
• Lowest click-to-open rates: Sunday — 14.2%
• Highest unsubscribe rates: Tuesday — 0.2%
• Highest bounce rates: Friday, Saturday — 0.8%

But these best-day metrics don't mean much, given that the differences between days are tiny.

Campaign Monitor advises brands to “stop chasing an elusive "best day" and instead focus on the real answer to seeing better metrics:following email marketing best practices and A/B testing to discover the days their audience is most engaged.