What are good open and click-through rates for email marketing campaigns?

Porfirio Partida Software Engineer at Nearsoft

April 16th, 2015

Mailchimp says 18-22% is average but I'd love to hear what people have experienced as good and standard email open and click-through rates for both a) marketing blasts emails b) transactional emails - more personalized and don't go to everyone at once.

Mathieu Guerville Director, UL Ventures (Corporate VC)

April 16th, 2015

It depends very heavily on industry, if these numbers are anything beyond "open rate"it seems very high, even with high quality content and a highly target audience I'd be surprised to see rates of click-thru upwards of 10% and conversion upwards of 4%

Dr. Geoff DePaula visionary, integrative medicine doc, disruptor

April 17th, 2015

3% CTR is about industry standard. Open rates depend a lot on subject line. Mail Chimp has a free "subject line rater" and gives you a sense of how "good" your line is.

Rodrigo Vaca Product & Marketing

April 17th, 2015

Porfirio -

It really doesn't matter. What matters is - are you testing and iterating on your campaigns so they continue to get better? Are you sending relevant messages? Are you acquiring list the right way? Are you sending your campaigns at the right time - not only time of day, day of week - but in the purchase cycle, in the business cycle, etc.

Do that and you'll be in good shape.

Rodrigo

Marc Duke CMO in a box giving marketing support to start ups

April 16th, 2015

Depends on industry and context I have heard an average of 1- 2% given and have had much higher rates when audience is more focused. Despite the allure of social email marketing is still a crucial component of any marketing campaign

Julien Fruchier Founder at Republic of Change

April 16th, 2015

With promotional emails, list hygiene and quality is important. Things like market or industry are not in my experience. What's important is the content of the email, starting with the oh-so-important subject line.

I've had open rates as high as 47%, click through rates in the mid 20's and conversion in the low teens. This is very much the exception. I'm only sharing this because it is achievable. A lot of thought went into these campaigns and there is an element of luck or good timing. I've had my share of campaigns with open rates in the single percentage points, zero click through and zero conversion range.

I would say that 20-30% open, 5-10% click through and 3-5% conversion would be considered extremely successful in today's environment.

Maksim Zinovev Looking for a business partner /expert to help me monetize website

May 4th, 2019

I can share my numbers in Mailchimp.

Average

Opens: 26.4%

Clicks: 5.3%

Highest:

Opens: 37.3%

Clicks: 12.4%

Lowest:

Opens: 9.6%

Clicks: 0.8%

David Crooke Serial entrepreneur and CTO

April 16th, 2015

It depends heavily on market, content, email hygeine and the quality of the list. I built a SaaS email system used by hundreds of big non-profits ... typical clickthrough rate on a charity email is about 1%, higher for a cause with passion like animal welfare or a rare disease. Open rate is impossible to measure accurately, the 20% sounds high for commercial stuff.

L. Marshall-Smith

April 16th, 2015

I agree it's difficult to measure. We have a list where open rate hovers at 30%, because the recipients are extremely interested in the subject matter. It depends largely on that interest quotient and how specifically you are able to match content to readers interests. Typically, anywhere between 15 to 20% is good.

Igor Polevoy

April 16th, 2015

as with anything in email marketing, "it depends". The smaller the list, the higher engagement. If you are only getting 1 - 2%, something is wrong. However, some of our customers sending transactional emails are getting over 90%.

Eliav Cohen Investor and Founder

April 16th, 2015

Depends on where you got your subscribers from. If they are good scrubbed leads are not from a list you bought, a 20 to 25 is good. Are you paying a CPA for leads? What is your conversion to a sale from that open rate?

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