Do you want to ensure your email campaigns resonate with your audience and remain impactful in 2023?
Then look no further and dive right into this freshly updated Email Marketing Benchmarks report that analyzed more than 7 billion emails sent by our customers throughout 2022.
Inside, you’ll find the latest statistics on email marketing, marketing automation, landing pages, webinar marketing, and insights from our in-house experts. With these, you’ll be ready to make better-informed decisions regarding your marketing communications.
Below, you have an insightful snapshot of the key findings and their meaning for your business.
Table Of Contents
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Key findings from the 2023 Email Marketing Benchmarks report
1. It’s time to look at other metrics besides email open rate
As you may recall, in 2021, Apple introduced some significant changes to its privacy policies that affect email marketers’ ability to track message opens.
This change makes it harder for email marketing professionals to measure their email lists’ health and – perhaps more importantly – to set up automated campaigns based on recipients’ engagement.
After more than a year since the change was implemented, we can see that the impact is rather significant. The average email open rate increased by 7.14 points – from 19.66% to 26.8%. At the same time, the average click-through decreased, albeit slightly, by 0.13 percentage points.
While Apple MPP may not be the only reason why the average open rates increased, it’s the main one. That’s mostly because Apple’s email client market share is currently around 60%, as other studies report.
What this means:
While email open rates are still helpful for tracking your campaigns’ performance, they shouldn’t be your main focus. Consider other metrics, especially the click-through rate. Actively motivate your subscribers to manage their email preferences and provide you with more intel via email surveys, replies to your messages, or clicks on your CTAs.
Read more:
Email marketing KPIs and metrics explained
How to increase your email opens
How to increase your email click-through rate
2. Continue to invest in email automation
Automated campaigns are the best solution if you want to drive high click-through and click-to-open rates.
We looked at various types of communication – welcome emails, triggered emails, autoresponders, RSS, and even webinar reminders. They all outperform regular newsletters both in terms of opens and clicks.
| Message type | Average open rate | Average click-through rate |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome email | 63.91% | 14.34% |
| Triggered email | 35.33% | 3.69% |
| Autoresponder | 35.91% | 4.26% |
| RSS | 44.54% | 7.24% |
| Webinar invite | 21.33% | 2.39% |
| Webinar reminder – sent at start time | 77.95% | 20.97% |
| Webinar reminder – sent 5 minutes before the webinar | 80.55% | 24.39% |
| Webinar reminder – sent 30 minutes before the webinar | 76.41% | 24.17% |
| Webinar reminder – sent 1 hour before the webinar | 101.2% | 31.61% |
| Webinar reminder – sent 1 day before the webinar | 98.05% | 15.14% |
But high engagement and conversions aren’t the only benefits you can expect from implementing email automation. Triggered campaigns can also improve your email deliverability, sometimes referred to as inbox placement.
Bad email deliverability can make all your efforts futile. If your emails don’t reach your subscribers’ inboxes, it won’t matter how good-looking or well-written they are.
What this means:
Even though Apple’s changes affect the accuracy with which we can send triggered campaigns, implementing email automation is still the best decision you can make in 2023.
If you haven’t used it yet, you can start simply by setting up a welcome email or an onboarding series to help you nurture and engage your new leads.
Pro tip: You can read more about how Landcafe.pl, an ecommerce company selling coffee, generates 54% of its sales with a highly-educational onboarding email campaign.
Read more:
What is email automation? Examples & tips
Marketing automation for education
How to get started with marketing automation
3. Think long-term and avoid shortcuts
Email marketers often look for quick-win solutions to help them achieve their business goals – this is especially true for writing subject lines.
The internet is full of advice that says adding a particular phrase, emoji, personalization, or a number, guarantees higher opens.
We’ve already discussed that this metric – email open rate – isn’t an ideal one. But do the above-mentioned tactics help you “hack” it?
Once again, our data proves otherwise., Neither using emojis nor simple personalization will give you a head-start over your competition. Unless they’re relevant and your target audience appreciates them, that is.
When it comes to using particular phrases, we don’t see any rules that could help you game the system. Apart from the terms that are mostly associated with sketchy email marketing practices (such as using “re:” or “fwd” in marketing emails), there seems to be no correlation with what does or doesn’t work.
What this means:
Think of email marketing as a long-term game where you first have to earn your recipients’ trust and then delight them with relevant content.
If you keep the promise you made in your newsletter signup forms, you won’t need to take shortcuts that don’t provide real value to your audience.
Read more:
Email marketing best practices for 2023
Advanced email marketing strategies you should implement today
4. Get to know your audience better
One of the broader trends we’ve seen in this report is the growing importance of personalization and segmentation.
Emails triggered by subscribers’ activity also observe higher engagement than manually sent campaigns
As you can see from the above tables, personalized communication outperforms emails that don’t consider the needs or wants of specific customer segments.
But to deliver such personalized experiences, brands need data. And with third-party cookies fading away, that data should primarily be collected by the brands themselves.
As email marketers, we’re in a fortunate position. Email is not owned by anyone. And the data you gather via surveys, signup forms, preference centers, or by observing how people engage with your campaigns belongs to you.
What this means:
In 2023 and the years to come, you should focus on getting to know your audience better. This will help you start delivering them a more personalized experience and make better-informed business decisions.
Read more:
Guide to using email surveys
How to generate leads through progressive profiling
5. Always start your analysis by understanding the context
Finally, once again in our report, we noticed that the average email marketing statistics vary based on several factors.
For example:
- Where you’re located
- What industry you’re in
- How big your email list is
- Where your audience lives
- What content you’re promoting
- How often you’re sending your communication
The differences are sometimes minor, but more often than not, they’re significant. Being aware of how impactful these factors are can help you better understand the condition of your email marketing program.
What this means:
Consider this data as an inspiration for your own tests and analysis. Compare your results to those you had last month or even a year ago, and check whether the trends you’re seeing correlate with what’s visible on the market.
Read our industry guides:
What to do next
Email marketing is always evolving, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the latest trends and developments.
Come back to this article, as we’ll keep adding new insights from our email marketing benchmarks report.
Once you’ve set a goal you’d like to achieve with your email statistics, take a look at this guide that contains 20 tips on how you can improve your opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and spam complaint rates.
To learn more how you can up your email marketing game, visit the GetResponse Resources.
Have a question – or need feedback? Just leave a comment below.
Good luck!
