• by Ray Schultz , July 7, 2021

Email open rates slipped worldwide last year to 15.4% in December -- down from 19.9% in June, but still higher than the 14.8% recorded in January, according to Email Matters: The Impact of the Pandemic Year, a recent study by Acoustic. 

The average click rate was 1.7% in December, versus 2.3% in June and 1.4% in January.

And the click-to-open rate hit 19.8%, compared with 11.7% in June and 9.3% in January. 

North America was slightly below average, seeing a 14.7% open rate in December as well as a 1.5% click rate and a 10.4% click-to-open rate, up from 9.1% in January.  However, these rates had returned to nearly pre-pandemic levels. 

But government open rates “increased in alignment with the election season in the United States,” the study notes.

The Asia-Pacific region suffered a 21% decrease in open rates over the calendar year, hitting 11.8% in December. The click rate was 1.1% and the click-to-open rate was 9.0%. 

Travel email volume peaked in November -- reflecting a 70% increase -- but fell again in December.

Charities rose in December, and government-related mailings fell precipitously after December. 

Email unsubscribe rates fell in India and the Asia-Pacific. But they rose to 0.104% in the U.S., the highest rate throughout the globe -- up from 0.073%. No other nation came close. 

Acoustic analyzed email marketing messages deployed through its automation solution from January 1 through December 31, 2020.