Email Marketing Benchmarks for Small Business
Average open, click, bounce and abuse complaint rates by industry
August 22, 2008
Our customers often ask us, "What kind of open rates should
companies like mine be expecting?" and "How many bounces are too many?"
or, "What's an acceptable abuse complaint rate?"
So we scanned over 261 million emails delivered by our system (where
campaign tracking was activated, and where users actually reported
their industry) and calculated average open rates, average click rates,
average soft bounces, average hard bounces, and average abuse complaint
rate by industry.
Best of all, these stats aren't pulled from a survey of big giant
corporations with million-dollar marketing budgets and dedicated email
marketing teams. 70% of our customers are 1-10 employees, and they're
design-it-yourselfers. If you run a small organization, and you do your
own email marketing, now you have an "apples to apples" comparison with
others in your industry.
Average Email Campaign Stats of EmailLoop Customers by Industry
| Type of Company | Open Rate | Click Rate | Soft Bounces | Hard Bounces | Abuse Complaints | Unsubscribes | | Academic book distributor | 21.61% | 3.84% | 4.29% | 3.74% | 0.00% | 0.24% | | Accounting | 27.31% | 4.11% | 3.91% | 10.68% | 0.04% | 0.35% | | Advertising | 24.46% | 4.28% | 2.70% | 7.14% | 0.08% | 0.35% | | Architecture | 32.00% | 1.49% | 6.16% | 8.04% | 0.00% | 0.25% | | Art | 26.54% | 7.28% | 2.23% | 4.09% | 0.08% | 0.35% | | Arts_Music | 16.29% | 2.04% | 1.02% | 1.86% | 0.08% | 0.25% | | Beauty/Health | 15.00% | 0.12% | 7.17% | 14.29% | 0.05% | 0.00% | | Church | 33.37% | 4.59% | 1.19% | 2.83% | 0.05% | 0.24% | | Consulting | 23.00% | 3.42% | 4.38% | 6.58% | 0.03% | 0.29% | | Creative Agency | 20.94% | 3.15% | 2.93% | 5.51% | 0.06% | 0.39% | | Creative Other | 29.98% | 0.86% | 1.13% | 0.61% | 0.03% | 0.10% | | E-commerce | 20.45% | 3.69% | 1.24% | 3.27% | 0.06% | 0.31% | | Education | 25.90% | 4.63% | 2.10% | 4.23% | 0.04% | 0.26% | | Entertainment | 14.90% | 2.74% | 1.10% | 5.69% | 0.12% | 0.24% | | Entertainment/Events | 22.13% | 0.41% | 3.29% | 7.75% | 0.08% | 0.14% | | Financial Services | 20.38% | 2.19% | 2.86% | 4.20% | 0.05% | 0.31% | | Freelancer | 31.46% | 6.05% | 2.95% | 6.95% | 0.05% | 0.51% | | Government | 26.89% | 4.29% | 1.32% | 1.56% | 0.02% | 0.18% | | Graphic Design | 26.78% | 4.86% | 2.22% | 11.77% | 0.13% | 0.44% | | Hardware | 27.30% | 3.49% | 1.22% | 2.83% | 0.06% | 0.19% | | Healthcare | 19.84% | 3.97% | 1.49% | 3.87% | 0.11% | 0.50% | | Healthcare/Medical | 24.66% | 6.95% | 10.47% | 9.00% | 0.23% | 0.41% | | Hotel | 26.60% | 7.49% | 3.25% | 4.79% | 0.07% | 0.53% | | Import, regional sales of machines | 37.71% | 8.98% | 3.82% | 1.75% | 0.00% | 0.53% | | Insurance | 22.88% | 2.22% | 0.84% | 1.90% | 0.03% | 0.23% | | Internet/Web Svc. | 20.19% | 5.63% | 1.46% | 2.90% | 0.05% | 0.26% | | Janitorial | 27.82% | 0.10% | 10.18% | 16.26% | 0.05% | 0.00% | | Legal Services | 25.12% | 3.57% | 4.02% | 4.52% | 0.03% | 0.34% | | Manufacturing | 26.70% | 4.64% | 3.24% | 5.55% | 0.07% | 0.48% | | Marketing | 21.37% | 6.17% | 3.14% | 8.73% | 0.16% | 0.40% | | Multimedia | 20.35% | 3.65% | 1.12% | 1.50% | 0.06% | 0.25% | | Music | 27.21% | 4.69% | 2.16% | 8.16% | 0.13% | 0.42% | | Non-profit | 27.86% | 4.13% | 2.29% | 4.37% | 0.05% | 0.24% | | Other | 15.50% | 2.42% | 1.76% | 3.32% | 0.07% | 0.30% | | Other Groups | 33.07% | 8.32% | 1.26% | 10.31% | 0.08% | 0.41% | | Other Marketing | 18.49% | 3.69% | 2.29% | 3.19% | 0.04% | 0.20% | | Photography | 33.67% | 6.65% | 1.73% | 3.63% | 0.06% | 0.36% | | Public Relations | 20.64% | 3.05% | 4.06% | 8.16% | 0.10% | 0.29% | | Publishing | 46.07% | 9.66% | 2.99% | 8.90% | 0.01% | 0.02% | | Real Estate | 22.03% | 4.27% | 1.88% | 4.29% | 0.07% | 0.31% | | Recruitment/Staffing | 27.22% | 4.35% | 2.90% | 7.00% | 0.07% | 0.76% | | Restaurant | 26.19% | 3.41% | 1.44% | 3.77% | 0.07% | 0.41% | | Retail | 28.65% | 5.79% | 1.52% | 2.92% | 0.07% | 0.42% | | Self-Explanatory | 34.80% | 6.02% | 6.14% | 17.33% | 0.04% | 0.20% | | Software | 18.06% | 2.78% | 3.75% | 6.07% | 0.07% | 0.39% | | Technology | 21.74% | 2.69% | 3.80% | 6.34% | 0.05% | 0.40% | | Telecommunications | 30.06% | 5.03% | 3.28% | 5.56% | 0.07% | 0.51% | | Travel | 25.63% | 5.25% | 2.28% | 3.87% | 0.09% | 0.40% | | Video Production | 32.62% | 5.82% | 2.71% | 2.65% | 0.06% | 0.40% | | Web Design | 26.93% | 6.28% | 2.54% | 5.46% | 0.09% | 0.39% |
Tips for improving your stats
Here are some useful tips from the EmailLoop Resource Center for improving your email campaign performance
- Boring works best. When you write your subject line, don't sell what's inside---tell what's inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines.
- If you want people to open your emails, you need to get past
their spam filters first. Avoid using spammy keywords and phrases, and
avoid using ALL CAPS or too many exclamation points. The best way to
avoid spam filters is to learn how they work.
- Too many hard bounces is a sign of an old, stale list. People
change email addresses every few months. Make sure you keep in touch
with your list regularly (at least once a quarter) so they can stay
subscribed to your list.
- Soft bounces usually mean the recipient is "temporarily
unavailable." Maybe they're on vacation or their mailbox is full. You
can keep those emails and re-try them later (EmailLoop auto-cleans soft
bounces after 5 failed campaigns).
- Hard bounces mean an email address failed. Maybe it no
longer exists, or maybe someone typed their email wrong when they
subscribed to a list. But hard bounces might also be spam filter
rejections. If you see an abnormally high number of bounces after a
campaign, you should read your bounce back records for any messages or
"clues" from spam filters (here's how in EmailLoop).
- Abuse complaints happen when recipients click the "This is
spam" button in their email programs. That usually means they don't
remember you. Make sure your "From:" and "Subject" contain your company
name (so they'll instantly recognize you). Here are more tips for preventing spam complaints.
Other Useful Resources:
- Free Email Marketing Guide
- Inbox Inspector:
Generate screenshots of your email designs in all the major email
programs, test all the major spam filters and email firewalls, and scan
for spammy keywords in one click.
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