Key insights and impactful metrics — Stripo.email

Out of 376.4 billion emails, including business correspondence, how many are opened or replied to? As recipients get cautious and skeptical, email marketers need to go the extra mile to stand out from the competition: Message personalization, automation, and reader-friendly designs — anything to make the target audience choose them. The question is: which practices work? Most importantly, how do popular approaches influence marketing campaigns’ metrics?

Out of hundreds of tips promising to change your results, it is hard to tell which lead to improvements. However, this article will lift the veil of the unknown and show you the reality of email. Let’s dive in.

Top 10 key statistics on business emails

Behind every replied email is a smart marketing strategy. That’s why, in this guide, we will examine professional messages from a marketing perspective. 

I handpicked 10 core stats for you to understand the state of email:

1. 60% of email recipients confirm that email is their preferred channel for communication.
2. The average open rates across industries are around 42.35%.
3. The average click-through rates only reach 2.44%.
4. The average unsubscribe rate across 25 industries is 0.89%.
5. More than 30% of recipients ignore and delete marketing emails without even reading them.
6. Around 46% of recipients open marketing messages from the brand when they are certain of their relevance.
7. Around 35% of marketing professionals stated that content reflecting brand values has become more impactful.
8. 56% of email marketers plan to optimize their messages for mobile devices soon, while the remaining half have already ensured email design supports mobile devices.
9. 35% of top AI software for marketing is used for content creation.
10. More than 60% of marketing teams consider automation the top approach to implement.

Now that you are familiar with the core metrics, I suggest that we move to their careful analysis. 

4 key performance metrics and tips that define marketing success

The first step in understanding how to improve results is to determine the key email marketing metrics to track. I have found average numbers, so you know exactly how well your email campaigns perform. 

Let’s take a closer look.

Open rates

The average open rate varies from around 32% to 65%, depending on the industry, according to a GetResponse report. Any declines or lower results often indicate a problem with the first line of defense of the marketing email — its subject line.

Here are a few simple but proven tips to improve it:

• avoid spam words and caps: The words unlimited, massive, guaranteed, or tested show the lowest open rate results. Limit the usage of spam phrases and avoid all caps;
• optimize using AI: A/B test your subject lines using different lengths, adding emojis, or modifying structure. AI tools like Stripo AI Subject Line Generator generate 6 variants within seconds; 
• keep your email subject lines precise: The best performing variants are 61-70 characters in length.

(Source: GetResponse report)

With these up your sleeve, your subject line remains sharp, catchy, and effective, bringing you closer to the open and the desired click.

Click-through rates

The average click-through rate across industries normally reaches 2.44%, with the lowest results in January and April, based on the same GetResponse report. When measuring your results, consider vacation periods, as they often lead to declines that can be confused with campaign problems.

What about tips to improve your email engagement statistics?

• align email content with the email recipient’s needs: Segment your target audience based on their activity, interests, or demographics;
• personalize your messages: Customized messages reach 41% higher click-through rates than non-personalized messages; 
• add primary and secondary email buttons: Use different colors and CTA shapes to highlight the main action and secondary action you want the recipient to perform.

(Source: Email from Substack)

Unsubscribe rates

Healthy unsubscribe rates usually do not exceed 0.21%. However, the actual results often depend on your approach to email marketing. If the messages are too frequent, irrelevant, or spammy, the campaign rates increase exponentially. The key to keeping opt-outs low? Let email recipients manage frequency, ensure that your opt-in options are clear, align content with pain points, and make it relevant. This will make your message desirable, not annoying.

As proof of the effectiveness of the strategy, let’s examine recent findings on the unsubscribe reasons:

• 43% of email recipients unsubscribe when they receive too many messages;
• 18% of prospects opt out when the sender launches campaigns without their permission to receive brand messages;
• 17% of recipients unsubscribe when content becomes irrelevant;
• 13% of contacts opt out because they are overwhelmed with the general volume of received emails;
• 6% of prospects unsubscribe when the message fails to meet their expectations.

(Source: ZeroBounce report)

Bounce rates

Ideally, bounce rates stay below 2%; that’s when you know your campaign performs well. Any results that exceed this point indicate potential deliverability issues that require immediate attention. However, before you write this off as a primarily inbox placement aspect, consider the following Mailgun findings:

• 15.8% of email marketers state that deliverability impacts customer satisfaction;
• 10.3% believe that it helps to increase revenue from email campaigns;
• 8.8% indicate that deliverability helps to protect brand reputation.

After all, all the marketing efforts revolve around clients, and with deliverability, you can impact both campaign results and customer satisfaction. What else can you ask for?

Key trends in email marketing backed by data

There is no such thing as luck when it comes to email marketing. Success is a combination of persistence, A/B testing, and trends that guide you in the right direction. However, popular practices mean little when not backed by data, so I have chosen approaches that passed the reality check. 

While these are not the only trends in the industry, they require attention and are crucial for a positive recipient experience.

Accessible email designs

Would you like to increase email engagement by up to 30%? In this case, ensure that your brand messaging is accessible. Flashing and bright designs can grab the recipient’s attention, but they can also create issues for readers with visual or cognitive disabilities.

It highlights existing gaps in email design and shows the reality for those who struggle. By making your messages accessible, you not only consider people’s needs but also show your dedication to delivering value.

Optimization for mobile devices

More than 60% of email recipients check their inboxes using mobile devices. If your correspondence is not optimized, it will not work for more than half of your audience. Unclickable email buttons, small font sizes, and cut content are just the tip of the iceberg of how optimization ruins the perception and overall customer experience.

Mobile optimization is a must, not a recommendation, and with fewer people working with emails on computers, it has become a marketing trend. 

GenAI implementation

Around 85% of email professionals use GenAI to optimize their content-related tasks, including the creation of images, videos, and text. Furthermore, according to the same CoSchedule report, 75% of marketers believe that AI gives them an advantage.

I suggest that we take a closer look at the key findings of this research:

• GenAI helps marketing teams save around 5 hours per week;
• marketers who use GenAI are 25% more likely to report successful results;
• some 83% of email specialists improved their productivity with GenAI;
• around 84% of marketers improved the speed of creating quality content.

The conclusion? When used right, GenAI can optimize your emails, increasing the chances of receiving replies.

Wrapping up

A good strategy is what makes your brand emails work. However, with little understanding of how to measure your results and the effectiveness of the chosen approach, it may become a guessing game. 

In this article, I have chosen key email metrics that not only reflect benchmarks but also introduce you to the practices that improve outcomes. Good luck with your next campaign!