Email continues to be an effective and personalized way for marketers to connect with consumers. That said, your clients should be tracking whether their email campaign ROI stats are as good as or better than what their competitors are experiencing. You can gauge how well your clients are doing by checking out the latest benchmarks reported by Campaign Monitor.

Open Rates

Based on millions of emails sent through the Campaign Monitor system, analysts have pegged the average open rate at 17.92%. The top performing industries in the study, in terms of open rates, were:

• Nonprofit groups 20.39%
• Government agencies 19.79%
• Health care services 19.12%

While some email industry analysts believe that Tuesdays are the peak email open days, Campaign Monitor results show slightly different results. For example, Sundays are the peak day for nonprofit emails with an open rate of 22.9%. And consumers appear to be getting down to business with health care services on Mondays, as that is when 20.9% of email messages are opened in that sector. Wednesdays have the peak open rates for emails from government agencies, with 21.4% of recipients checking out these messages.

CTRs

We all know there’s a big difference between open rates and click-​through rates. For many marketers, the CTR is a key measure of success. In the Campaign Monitor study, the overall CTR came in at 2.69%. Government agencies enjoy a 3.04% CTR. That’s likely because consumers are interested in reading updates about road work, notices about public hearings, or upcoming changes to the local tax structure. Similarly, real estate, design and construction businesses average a 3.06% CTR. And media, entertainment and publishing companies generally experience CTRs of about 3.02%.

A deeper dive into the data reveals that CTRs vary significantly by day of the week. Emails from government agencies experience their highest CTRs, 3.5% on Wednesdays. Recipients of health care services emails click through most frequently on Thursdays and Fridays. That’s when 2.91% of industry CTRs occur. Media, entertainment and publishing businesses can expect their highest CTRs, 3.17%, on Tuesdays.

While your clients will find the Campaign Monitor information interesting, it's important to help them craft attention-​grabbing email subject lines. You can educate them on how email campaigns influence consumer purchase decisions by checking out the audience profiles available on AudienceSCAN from AdMall by SalesFuel.