The Ultimate List of 2012 Email Marketing Stats
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Contrary to rumor, email is not dead. Nor is it dying in the wake of social media's rise in popularity. According to our 20 Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2013, email will live on longer than you might think.
Because email is alive and kicking, email marketing is still an incredibly important channel for most businesses. But while email is here to stay, it is also rapidly evolving. The way email is consumed and delivered is not what is used to be, and that means marketers must adapt to meet the demands of finicky subscribers and internet service providers.
To give you a sense of the current state of email, below are 50 facts about the changing world of email marketing. The data is divided up into four categories: email performance, subject lines, email behavior, and deliverability and devices.
Email Performance Trends
1) Email clickthrough rates dropped to 4.4% in Q2 of 2012, down more than 6% from 4.7% in Q1, and marking the 3rd consecutive quarter-over-quarter drop. (Source: Epsilon Q2 2012 Email Trends & Benchmarks Report) Tweet This Stat
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2) 59% of new subscribers (who have subscribed within 3 months, and who represent 11% of an email list on average) are not engaged, neither opening nor clicking on emails. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
3) Email open rates decreased in Q2, down slightly from 26.2% to 25.6%, the first quarter-over-quarter drop since Q1-Q2 2011.?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
4) Average email volume per business was down 6.3% quarter over quarter in 2012 and 29.7% year over year (not factoring in triggered email sends).?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
5) In Q2 of 2012, triggered email (deployed as a result of an action) represented just 2.6% of total email volume, though it was up 22% from Q1.?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
6) Open rates for triggered emails hit 49.8% in Q2, jumping 8.5% from 45.9% in Q1 -- almost 95% higher than the mass email send rate. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
7) The average clickthrough rate for triggered emails is more than double the rate for mass emails.?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
8) Triggered emails' non-bounce rates remained at 95.2% in Q2 2012, only slightly below mass emails? rate of 95.9%.?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
9) Roughly half of an email list will be active ? either opening or clicking on emails. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
10) Among new subscribers, 16% are dubbed ?new clickers? (who have opened and clicked), and 25% are ?new openers? (who have opened). (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
11) ?Mature? subscribers represent members who have been on a list for longer than 3 months. Among these, 51% have engaged in some way in the past 12 months, including 26% who have either opened or clicked recently. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
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12) The retail apparel industry has the highest proportion of active members (39% opened or clicked an email within 3 months), followed by the business publishing/media general (34%), travel/hospitality travel services (31%), and retail general (30%) segments. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
13) The consumer services pharmaceutical vertical has the highest average proportion (52%) of dormants (inactive members for the past 12 months), followed by the consumer services general (49%), and business products and services general categories (49%).?(Source: Epsilon) Tweet This Stat
14) 40% of B2B marketers rated the leads generated by email marketing (house list) as high quality. (Source: Software Advice Survey) Tweet This Stat
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15) Only a mere 2% of marketers rated leads generated from email marketing as 'high cost,' representing the lowest cost channel. (Source: Software Advice Survey) Tweet This Stat
16) Commercial emailers account for 70% of spam complaints. (Source: Return Path?s Email Intelligence Report for Q3 2012) Tweet This Stat
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Email Subject Line Stats
17) For B2B companies, subject lines that contained terms such as ?money,? ?revenue,? and ?profit? perform the highest. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
18) Subject lines that contained terms such as ?ROI,? ?asset,? and ?industry" perform the lowest.?(Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
19) Subject lines containing the ? symbol had a far better than average (57.8%) click-to-open rate. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
20) Subject lines with $ signs scored above average in opens (15.7%) and clicks (14.7%), but slightly below average in click-to-opens (-0.8%). (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
21) Subject lines containing the ? symbol were above average in opens (2.9%), but below average in clicks (-8.2%) and click-to-opens (-10.8%). (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
22) Discount terms in subject lines generally performed below average. ?Sale? was the outlier, above average in opens (14.4%), clicks (76.5%), and click-to-opens (54.3%). Others such as ?% off,? ?discount,? ?free,? ?half price,? ?save,? ?voucher,? ?early bird,? and ?2 for 1? all came in below-average in all 3 metrics, save for ?voucher,? which had above average opens (6.5%). ?Early bird? was the worst performer in terms of clicks (-71.6%) and click-to-opens (-67.6%). (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
23) News-related terms in subject lines perform fair but better than discount-related terms. ?News? (16.2%), ?update? (4.9%), ?breaking? (33.5%), ?alert? (25.9%), and ?bulletin? (12.5%) all saw better than average click-to-open rates (as well as clicks and opens), with ?newsletter? being the only term to perform below average in each metric. ?Alert? saw the best differential for clicks (78.3%), while ?news? did best for opens (30.9%). (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
24) Some content terms perform better than others in subject lines. ?Issue? (8.5%) and ?top stories? (5.9%) were the only to perform above average in click-to-opens. ?Research,? ?interview,? and ?video? scored above average for opens, but below average for clicks and click-to-opens. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
25) ?Latest? was the only benefit-related term to see above average clicks (8.8%) and click-to-opens (9%), while ?special,? ?exclusive,? and ?innovate? -- while performing about average in opens -- fared far more poorly in clicks and click-to-opens. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
26) Personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened. However, personalized emails had a clickthrough rate 16.5% lower than the average, and a click-to-open rate 31.7% below the average. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
27) Subject lines with 30 or fewer characters performed above average in opens, clicks, and click-to-opens. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
28) Subject lines fewer than 10 characters long boasted an open rate of 58%, 38% higher than the next highest open rate, for subject lines of 50-59 characters in length (42%). (Source: Informz 2012 Email Marketing Benchmarks Report) Tweet This Stat
29) ?Snappy? subject lines of 1-2 words easily performed best in each of the metrics, while those with more than 14 words also performed above average. All other word count groups skewed closely to the average. (Source: Adestra July 2012 Report) Tweet This Stat
30) ?You/your? were the most common words, used in 18.7% of subject lines, up 3.4% year over year, followed by ?off? and ?get,? both in 16.6% of emails, and both up 5.2% year over year. (Source: Experian's 2012 Digital Marketer Benchmark and Trend Report) Tweet This Stat
Email Behavior Stats
31) 64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey) Tweet This Stat
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32) 61% of people state that "not being interested in an email" was the most common reason for not opening an email, followed by "getting too many emails" (45%). (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012) Tweet This Stat
33) 25% of people complain they dislike all the marketing clutter they get, yet 40% claimed to enjoy getting lots of marketing emails from favorite brands and deal services each week. (Source: 2012 Blue Kangaroo Survey on Marketing Emails) Tweet This Stat
34) 6 in 10 people spend half an hour or less per week opening and browsing marketing emails. 1 in 5 people spend an hour or more doing so. (Source: 2012 Blue Kangaroo Survey on Marketing Emails) Tweet This Stat
35) 8 in 10 people say the marketing emails they receive go mainly into their primary personal email account, displayed alongside their personal emails. Just 8% have a separate account specifically for receiving marketing emails. (Source: 2012 Blue Kangaroo Survey on Marketing Emails) Tweet This Stat
36) 14% of all opens and clicks on a mobile device occurred from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. The second-biggest peak, at 12% share, occurred between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. (Source: TailoredMail 2012 Email Marketing Trends) Tweet This Stat
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37) 7 in 10 people say they had made use of a coupon or discount they had learned about through a marketing email in the prior week (35%) or month (33%). (Source: 2012 Blue Kangaroo Survey on Marketing Emails) Tweet This Stat
38) 69% of subscribers say that too many emails is the number reason they unsubscribe from email. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012) Tweet This Stat
39) 58% people say receiving discounts and special offers was the top reason for subscribing to emails from businesses or non-profits. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012) Tweet This Stat
Email Deliverability & Device Metrics
40) Inbox email placement in the U.S. was 84% in Q3 2012, which was down about 5% compared to the same period in 2011. (Source: Return Path?s Email Intelligence Report for Q3 2012) Tweet This Stat
41) Europe has the highest inbox placement at 84%, but it too was down about 5% year over year. (Source: Return Path?s Email Intelligence Report for Q3 2012) Tweet This Stat
42) 84% of respondents use desktops or laptops to access email; however, two-thirds of those under 30 use their smartphones or cell phones to access their email. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012) Tweet This Stat
43) 38% of email is now opened on a mobile device, with 33% for desktop and 29% for webmail. (Source: Litmus Email Analytics, 2012) Tweet This Stat
44) 78% Of U.S. email users will also access their emails via mobile by 2017. (Source: Forrester Research, ?Email Marketing Forecast 2012 ? 2017?) Tweet This Stat
45) 52% of companies let people sign up for email or text alerts about products and offers as a path to purchase in mobile. (Source: Chief Marketer 2012 Mobile Marketing Survey) Tweet This Stat
46) Men open 20% more emails on mobile, but women click 10% more often on mobile email. (Source: TailoredMail 2012 Email Marketing Trends) Tweet This Stat
47) 24% of companies use email and non-mobile signups as a metric to gauge mobile marketing success. (Source: Chief Marketer 2012 Mobile Marketing Survey) Tweet This Stat
48) 48% of marketers don?t know what percentage of their emails are read via a mobile device. (Source: eConsultancy 2012 Email Marketing Industry Census) Tweet This Stat
49) 39% of marketers have no strategy for mobile email. (Source: eConsultancy 2012 Email Marketing Industry Census) Tweet This Stat
50) Despite the fact that 13% of execs are now primarily checking their email via a mobile device, less than half of websites/emails are optimized for customers to view or respond to via handheld resources. (Source: MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Benchmark Report) Tweet This Stat
We can see from all this data that the world of email marketing is changing. While email continues to remain a top marketing channel, it's getting increasingly difficult to maintain engaged subscribers while delivering highly targeted and personalized content. Companies are starting to shift away from mass email to dynamic, triggered, and mobile-optimized email nurturing in order to achieve better performance. Are you staying ahead of the curve?
Image Credits: jayfreshuk (Pacman); MarketingCharts (charts/graphs)
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