• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 11, 2025

Open rates and other key email metrics held steady for both scheduled and automated sends across regions and industries in 2024. 

But there were slight increases in unsubscribe and bounce rates, according to the 2025 Marketing Benchmark Report from Acoustic. This was largely due to email fatigue, stricter data hygiene practices and new privacy regulations. 

These upticks could also be attributed to “the introduction of the one-click unsubscribe from Gmail and Yahoo, the unsubscribe link added to the Apple Mail inbox, and enforcements requiring senders to include a clear and accessible way to unsubscribe in all marketing communications,” the study says. 

In addition, unsubscribe rates are now higher for both scheduled sends and automated campaigns in all industries. 

“As email automation increases and customers have rising expectations about the relevance of each message, recipients have highly saturated inboxes and are opting out of emails that feel impersonal, repetitive, or not immediately valuable,” the study says.

The mean unsubscribe rate for scheduled sends in North America stands at 0.077% -- compared to 0.182% for automated emails and 0.067% for transactional sends.

As for bounce rates, these are lower from scheduled emails (0.898%) than from automated (1.180%) or transactional(3.3000 email sends:

This shows “the benefits of successful list hygiene for a brand’s regular audience,” the study adds. “As a best practice, add an email validation mechanism on sign-up pages or transactional sites to avoid collecting bad email addresses.”

How do you avoid having people opt out or the big platforms bounce your emails?  In general, the study advises: “Adopt privacy-first strategies such as offering clear opt-ins and easy-to-understand consent forms. Build trust with your audience by clearly displaying policies in the footer of the email and send communication updates when there are changes. 

Moreover, brands should regularly audit their emails to “ensure they adhere to compliance practices, including geographic regulations.”

In addition, it's important to place first-party data “at the foundation of your engagement strategies so you can collect data directly from customers through loyalty programs, preference centers, and direct interactions, which enables you to personalize experiences while staying compliant with regulations like GDPR or CCPA,” in continues.

The study “underscores the value of highly personalized, timely communications based on customer behavior,” says Meetal Patel, senior director of customer marketing & success programs at Acoustic. “Because consumers are inundated by marketing messages across channels, quality is key to standing out.”

This means behavior-based personalization, Patel adds. 

Acoustic’s researchers analyzed email metrics from brands in more than 50 countries.