After analyzing four billion emails across 19 industries in 126 countries, GetResponse has found new data about the most effective ways to utilize email marketing.

For starters, in the U.S., emails average:

• Open Rate: 18.89%
• Click-​Through Rate: 3.18%
• Click-​to-​Open Rate: 16.85%
• Unsubscribe Rate: 0.19%
• Spam Rate: 0.02%

How do your clients’ emails compare?

Timing

If your client’s emails are performing below average, it may be a timing issue. GetResponse found that weekdays have the highest open, click-​through and click-​to-​open rates compared to weekends. Tuesdays are the most effective email days, and Mondays aren’t far behind. Recipients are primarily opening their emails between the hours of 4 a.m. and 5 p.m., with spikes of activity between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Click-​through rates, however, occur the most often between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., and click-​to-​open rates dramatically rise at 2 a.m. and again from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Also, don’t let your clients overfill their customers’ inboxes. Open, click-​through, and click-​to-​open rates are highest when companies only send out one newsletter per week. The more weekly newsletters a company sends out, the quicker the chance of engagement dwindles.

Subject Lines

You may have heard that shorter subject lines result in higher open rates, but GetResponse discovered that’s not necessarily true. Yes, subject lines with one to nine characters in the subject lines do have the highest open rates at about 27 percent. However, 240 to 249 character subject lines have an open rate of 26% and all the character counts in between never fall lower than 19 percent. There is an obvious sweet spot for click-​through rates, though. Most subject line character lengths average about 5% or lower, but 180 to 189 character subject lines have an astounding 18% click-​through rate in comparison. 

Email Offers Lovers make up 43% of U.S. adults, and that’s only one of the nine email-​related customer profiles available on AudienceSCAN by AdMall from SalesFuel. All of them offer demographic and purchase intent information, as well as advertising effectiveness rates for various media. Knowing who you’re targeting and when to do so are the keys to successful email marketing.