• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 20, 2021

North America is lagging behind other continents in email metrics, judging by Tackling The Personalization Paradox, a study by Acoustic. 

Worldwide, the average open rate is 14.9%, the click-through rate (CTR) 1.4%, the click-to-open rate (CTOR) 9.6% and the unsubscribe rate is 0.049.%.  

Here in the Americas, the average open rate is 14.2%, while the CTR rate is 1.3%, the CTOR rate is 9.2% and the unsubscribe rate is 0.054%. 

The highest rates overall have been seen in Europe and the UK. 

Why? Perhaps because “Europe saw higher COVID-19 cases per capita than other parts of the world, which could have prompted consumers to open more messages from brands, searching for any changes in policies or procedures due to the ongoing pandemic.”

But the study notes: “Over the coming months, we expect open rates to trend upwards as device and privacy changes drive false positives, but this might take some time.

In general, metrics have improved from 2020, when opens stood at 15.2%), CTR (1.4%), CTOR (9.0%), and unsubscribe (0.057%).

Acoustic analyzed the send data processed by the company from January to September 2021. The firm sent over 60 billion emails and 22 billion mobile push messages for clients in that time period.

For scheduled sends, the worldwide mean open rate is 14.4%, versus 17.3% for automated sends and 24.8% for transactional sends. 

North America registers 13.7% for scheduled sends, 17.7% for automated sends and 25.8% for transactional sends. 

On the other hand, North America is just about holding its own in CTRs, averaging 1.2% for scheduled sends, 2.5% for automated, and 3.2% for transactional. Worldwide, the CTR for scheduled sends is 1.3%, 2.6% for automated and 3.0% for transactional. 

Still, the North American continent dips when it comes to CTORs — it pulls 8.7% with scheduled sends, 14.4% with automated and 12.3% with transactional. 

The global averages stand at 9.2% for scheduled sends, 14.7% for automated and 12.3% for transactional. 

And unsubscribe rates? Scheduled sends—those sent on a schedule decided by the marketer -- generate the highest opt-out levels, perhaps because consumers are “less interested in engaging with the content or seeing similar communications in the future, leading them to unsubscribe.”

The global unsubscribe rate is 0.046% for scheduled sends, 0.119% for automated sends and 0.040% for transactional. The North American averages are 0.050% for scheduled emails, 0.138% for automated and 0.043% for transactional. 

While India lagged behind other nations in email metrics, it also had the lowest unsubscribe rates. 

Not surprisingly, the best numbers by sector tended to be in areas such as Energy & Environmental, Hospitals & Healthcare and Schools & Education.

The latter segment saw the highest CTORs. Consumer products pulled the highest unsubscribe rate.