• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 14, 2020

American emails are achieving an average open rate of 25.85% — the global median, according to Email Marketing Industry Benchmark 2020, a study by Sendinblue. 

The Americas lag behind the APAC region — with its rate of 26.35% — but ahead of EMEA, which has a rate of 24.50%.  

At the same time, the Americas pull an average click rate of 1.17%, versus 1.30% for EMEA.

APAC generates the lowest click rate at 0.77%. The global median is 1.27%.

APAC companies send 47.1% of email volume, compared with 28.9% for EMEA and 26.0% from the Americas region, at least according to this study. 

The statistics are for campaigns sent by Sendinblue Enterprise Plan customers over a period of 12 months.

The Industry Benchmark is based on the campaign statistics of all Sendinblue clients in the last 12 months. Firms based in the Americas have the lowest unsubscribe rate in the world — at 0.03%, suggesting that once consumers click, they remain loyal to a brand, according to the study. 

Not that there is much difference — APAC and EMEA both have a rate of 0.04%. 

The highest bounce rate is suffered by APAC, 2.29%, compared with 1.81% for the Americas and 1.79% for EMEA. 

Among the sectors, Marketing/ Advertising has the best open rate: 

• Marketing/advertising — 38.10%
• Association (Club, Religion) — 36.75% 
• Insurance — 36.25% 
• Electronics/hardware — 31.36% 
• Online Gaming (non-gambling) — 31.35% 

Insurance generates the highest click rate:  

• Insurance — 2.72%
• Association (Club, Religion) — 2.11% 
• Politics/Advocacy/Government — 1.66%
• Career/Job search — 1.64% 
• Media/Publishing — 1.58%

Unsubscribe rates don’t vary greatly among sectors — Media/Publishing has the highest: 0.02%.  

Finance, Manufacture Trade, Agency Consulting and Marketing/Advertising are all tied at 0.01%. 

The lowest bounce rate is enjoyed by the Networking (Dating, Social) sector: 0.93%.  

Overall, the total median of campaigns send I 242. The Fashion/Beauty category leads with 796, and Insurance trails with 70.

And, of emails sent by companies, the median is 177,379. The gambling field has 715,260, and Insurance only 15,925. 

The study points out that while Gambling has the highest volume, it is one of the 5 industries with the lowest number of campaigns. 

“This shows that Gambling appeals to a very broad audience and that blanket emails are mainly sent out to cover this wide range,” the study says. “This sender behavior can affect deliverability. In this case we advise to track bounce rate regularly.”