Understanding the Most Useful Email Marketing Statistics

Many of today's marketers believe — mistakenly — that email popularity has decreased. But email campaigns are still effective. Email remains the top preferred communication tool for contacting customers across generations, from Gen Z to baby boomers. Email proves time and again to be a format worthy of all your content creation and marketing efforts.

The reason email works so well is because it's personal, direct, digital, and prevalent. It's not as invasive as getting a text message from a brand, but emails have a high likelihood of being seen and, hopefully, opened. This is why the average ROI of email marketing stays high. 

Understanding the numbers behind email conversion rates and email marketing benchmarks can only help email marketers perfect their craft. This complete guide provides email blast statistics and stats on email marketing that will help you understand the state of the industry.

The Importance of Email Statistics and Industry Benchmarks

So, why do email marketing statistics matter? The marketing industry has gone fully digital, and one of the perks of that shift is data-driven marketing. All this information means marketing teams can better understand what's actually happening with their audiences through data — their return on investment, consumer behavior, campaign performance, and more.

Email marketing statistics serve a similar purpose. They help marketers keep a pulse on what other marketing teams are prioritizing and worrying about, and they allow a deeper dive into consumer sentiment and documented behavior patterns. 

Data and statistics help organizations then craft benchmarks that keep them competitive. Part of being successful in the digital-first marketing landscape is ensuring you fully grasp both industry and internal benchmarks that ensure ongoing success. The key benefits of benchmarking include:

• Helping you set and reach goals
• Keeping track of ROI for each campaign
• Allowing you to compare current performance to that of competitors or past performance
• Helping you understand where to focus attention and allocate resources

All of these advantages start with data — alongside your ability to gather, analyze, and use that data to make better decisions.

Email Marketing Stats for 2024 You Should Know

1. Email Usage Statistics

• Most people use email. Ninety-two percent of the U.S. digital population uses email to communicate. This means you have a nearly endless sea of potential readers when you rely on email.
• Over 4 billion people around the world use email, a number that's projected to reach 4.73 billion by 2026. Over half of the population around the entire globe is engaging with email. It's a massive market.
• Ninety-six percent of email users check their email inboxes every day. So, not only do you have the opportunity to reach people globally — but you're talking to them in a format they already use and check regularly.
• Apple Mail is the most-used email client across the globe, claiming 58% of email users. Gmail from Google is second, with about 29% of users. Understanding why email users prefer the platforms they do can help you understand how they interact with their email.
• Get to know what the different generations are doing, too. Ninety-five percent of people between the ages of 25 and 44 use email, as do 93.4% of people between 15 to 24. It's even prevalent in older users: 85.5% of those 65 or older use email. This is clearly a solid place to connect with people of all ages.

2. B2B and B2C Email Marketing Statistics

• In the world of B2B, email continues to be effective and impactful. Sopro research found that 77% of B2B buyers prefer email as their go-to contact method, more than double their preference for any other communication channel.
• This is why 73% of marketers in the B2B space report using email newsletters as part of their marketing strategy. This shows that content isn't going away anytime soon. Email marketing is a key component of a comprehensive and consistent content strategy for any B2B business. 
• Stats that B2C businesses need to keep in mind: Almost 60% of consumers are influenced by emails when making purchasing decisions, and more than half make a purchase from an email at least monthly. This personal type of communication shows people you understand their wants and needs, which leads to brand trust and more business. 
• Seventy-one percent of consumers already expect companies to provide personalized interactions (with 76% becoming frustrated if that doesn't happen). What's more personal than providing relevant, thoughtful content directly to someone's email inbox?
• It's no surprise, then, that 97% of companies provide personalized experiences, and 90% of marketers believe personalization leads to greater profitability.
• The average ROI for email marketing is around $36 for each dollar you spend. This is an important industry benchmark that can indicate where you stand and where you may need to improve.

3. Statistics on Mobile Email Marketing

• Even while email remains relevant, more people value mobility. Sixty percent of email campaign reads come from mobile devices. People of all ages want to check their email when they're on the go, so it's key to ensure mobile readability and engagement.
• Seventy-three percent of marketers understand the impact of these trends, prioritizing mobile optimization for each of their outreach campaigns. 
• Sixty percent of all web traffic is from mobile devices, and 92.3% of internet users use a mobile phone. When thinking through your marketing strategy, consider what matters to these users and how a mobile view might change their preferences.
• Mobile clicks on email marketing campaigns can increase by 15% when the design is more catered to mobile responses. Meet people where they are with campaigns that speak to the mobile format they depend on — whether optimizing design, ensuring to break up text, or previewing the design on a smaller screen.

4. Email Effectiveness and Benchmarks by Industry

Across industries, the average email open rate is 38%, the average email click-through rate is 2%, and the average bounce rate is 10%. Understanding the overall average as well as the averages within your industry will help you understand the competition and set effective benchmarks. 

Let's look at what these numbers look like for a few specific industries. View the table below to assess how they compare with the global average newsletter open rate:

5. Email Newsletter Statistics

• One survey found that email marketing tops the list for the channels with the most impact on a multichannel strategy, with 50% of marketer respondents pointing to email. This shows the advantages of email newsletters — you need to market where people are going online, and almost everyone checks their email every day.
• Be intentional and diligent about how you target email newsletter audiences. Segmentation, personalization, and automation campaigns have been found to be the most effective strategies. Incorporate these tools into your newsletters for optimal performance and email marketing revenue.
• Emails that have images, videos, and other multimedia components perform higher than those that don't. Email users respond to visually appealing content that's paired with catchy, engaging, and easy-to-consume copy. In a benchmarks report from GetResponse, emails that included images had a nearly 10% increase in open rate.

You can always learn more about email newsletter best practices. Take a look at Compose.ly's email newsletter checklist for a full list of elements you need to create a newsletter to improve ROI and engagement.

6. CTR, Open Rate, and Email Engagement Statistics

• Thirty-four percent of marketers track click-through rates (CTRs), and 31% track open rates, making them the top two metrics for email marketing. These stats are critical to your engagement strategy, as they tell you whether people are looking at your emails and engaging with your content.
• The average open rate is between 46% and 50%, and the average CTR is between 2.6% and 3%. Compare the numbers you're tracking to these rates to see how you stack up.
• You also need your emails to get into users' inboxes to ensure effectiveness. The email deliverability rate in 2024 is 83%, proving spam and other delivery hurdles are still prevalent. Google has the highest deliverability rate at 96%, while AOL has one of the lowest at 76%.
• Unsubscribe rates are fairly low, with many estimates putting the average under 0.2%. If you're seeing numbers higher than this, you know something isn't hitting right with your content and you need to pivot your strategy.

7. Email Marketing Personalization Statistics

• One way to improve personalization and thus content effectiveness is to embrace automation and AI tools now prevalent in the industry. Salesforce found that almost three-quarters of marketers use or plan to use generative AI, helping them improve content quality and more efficiently generate content. 
• Personalization starts with data. Four out of five marketers personalize email campaigns using profile data, and 64% segment customers for personalization. Segmenting based on behaviors, interests, and demographics can help you send the most personal, relevant information to audiences.
• When you segment your email lists as part of your targeted email strategy, you could see 30% more opens and increase click-throughs by 50%.
• Almost all marketers — 96% — believe that personalized experiences increase the likelihood of creating repeat customers, and 94% say personalization leads to more sales.

8. Statistics on Email Timing and Frequency

• Around 22% of emails are opened within the first hour the campaign is sent out. After that, the likelihood of seeing more email opens goes down. What can you do about this statistic? Send out marketing emails when people are in their inboxes and make sure the subject line is engaging. 
• People open emails in the morning more than any other time of day, typically around 10 or 11 a.m. In the U.S., the highest open times are between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. This means you should be aiming to get your email campaigns out during those hours.
• Weekdays tend to have higher open rates than weekends. So, pairing that with time of day, you can start to craft a newsletter calendar that will get you the most ROI and best performance from your specific audience.
• The right frequency of marketing emails depends on your industry, the goal of your campaign, and your specific target audience. But in general, a goal should be to avoid sending too many and overwhelming your base. While 61% of consumers want at least one email per week from the brands they support, typically you don't want to send out more than two per week.

Boost Your Email Marketing Strategy With Our Newsletter Checklist

Digging into these email marketing statistics — and what they reveal about industry trends and consumer sentiment — is an effective way to incorporate data, set benchmarks, and engage email subscribers. It's impossible to know what the future could hold, but this is especially true when you don't use historical data to its full advantage.

What the data tells us: You can improve your email market campaigns by: 

• Embracing personalization
• Using visual elements
• Understanding when people open their emails
• Benchmarking based on industry trends 
• Optimizing content for mobile use
• Incorporating automation and AI to improve efficiency

To ensure your content is resonating with your audience, consider investing in professional content creation. Professional marketers can ensure your brand voice is being properly communicated with impactful stories. 

The Compose.ly team understands marketing trends and how to give customers the content they're looking for. We provide a B2B content creation platform where you can find fully vetted freelancers to take on your content needs, including email newsletter writers, and get help with engaging newsletter content ideas. Allow us to help you tell your story. 

Download our complete email newsletter checklist that you can follow for every campaign.