From using data to personalize subject lines to writing helpful and value-rich content, here are the 11 answers to the question, “What is your average open rate for email marketing, and what led to your open rate being so high, or low?”

• 18% – Personalize Your Emails
• 28% – Segment Your Users by Buyer Stage
• 40% – Understand the Where and the Why
• 50% – Use Consistent Storytelling With Relevant Information
• 30% – Write Content That Resonates
• 40% – Focus on an Engaged Audience
• 23% – Find the Right Tools
• 40% – Test With A/B Campaigns
• 22% – Regularly Purge Your Lists
• 21% – Send Emails at Optimal Times
• 48% – Craft Helpful and Value-Rich Content 

18% – Personalize Your Emails

We have a high open rate, at 18%, because of the subject line. It is short, clear, and concise, with a limited-time offer included. 

Our emails are also very personalized, as we use customer data to further specify the content. For example, if a customer has purchased an item before and returned it, we will acknowledge that in the email. This makes customers feel acknowledged and valued, which in turn increases the likelihood that they will open the email.

We also send emails based on the customer’s activity. By sending emails at the right time and with the right information, we have increased our open rate from 11% to 18%.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely

28% –  Segment Your Users by Buyer Stage

Our email open rate over the last year is just over 28 percent. Compared to the industry average for marketing and advertising agencies, which is 22 percent, that is a high open rate. 

The reason we’ve seen these results is because of several factors. We A/B test all email sends with different subject lines, then choose the most effective options. We also updated our automated marketing emails so they are segmented by buyer interest and stage in the buyer journey. And, we use personalization to make emails more targeted as well. We avoid sending emails to disengaged contacts. 

As a business with a large audience, we send tens of thousands of emails every year, so it’s vital that everyone gets what they expect and are interested in seeing. These tactics ensure we don’t come across as spammy, as well as boosting our open rates.

Matthew Stibbe, CEO, Articulate Marketing

40% –  Understand the Where and the Why

I’ve seen less than a 15% open rate for small lists, and over 40% for very large lists with hundreds of thousands of contacts from all possible sources. 

The secret sauce is understanding the “where” (where did the leads come from?) and the “why” (why did they sign up?) of these contacts, segmenting them based on initial data and subsequent behaviors, and then going through the process of sparking desire and harvesting that desire with resonant story-telling.

Lots to unpack here:

1. Segment. Pop-up contacts will show lower CTR as compared to existing customers. Not knowing the baseline for metrics may lead you to deem campaigns successful or unsuccessful based on misleading averages.
2. Make sure you aren’t held back by Gmail. Send emails from your own domain, as opposed to the “shared reputation” of your ESP.
3. Understand & respect VoC data. Use it to create compelling offers supported by narratives your database recognizes as its own.

Trina Moitra, Head of Marketing, Convert.com

50% – Use Consistent Storytelling With Relevant Information

My average open rate for email marketing is between 45-50%. I consistently email my list each week with stories and relevant information designed to help them navigate their mid-career journey. 

My emails highlight their pain points, questions, and solutions that they are thinking about and talking with other colleagues, family, and friends. I’ve had my email list for over five years, and I consistently email them each week at the same time on a specific day. 

Being consistent has allowed me to earn my email community’s trust by having permission to be in their inbox each week.

John Neral, Owner, John Neral Coaching, LLC

30% – Write Content That Resonates

My average open rate for email marketing is 30%. These numbers have been achieved through personalized subject lines and content that resonates with the target audience. I also keep the emails concise, to the point, and relevant to ensure it captures attention quickly. In addition, we have optimized our send times to ensure maximum engagement from our subscribers.

It is important to remember that optimizing an open rate doesn’t always mean sending out more messages. Sometimes less frequent but higher-quality messaging will allow you to achieve better results with fewer messages sent overall—well-crafted drip campaigns often perform very well for businesses. 

To maximize your chances of achieving a high open rate each time you send out an email campaign, ensure you take advantage of A/B testing to determine which version works better with your particular audience and scenario.

Kate Wojewoda-Celinska, Marketing Manager, Spacelift

40% – Focus on Engaged Audience Members

Across the email marketing campaigns we run for various brands, the average open rate is around 40%. This is fairly high but we prefer to focus on the most engaged subscribers in an email list—the people who have really shown an interest in opening and clicking through previous email marketing campaigns.

We do this to improve email deliverability and increase the chances of landing in the primary inbox for every contact in our campaigns. We’ve seen good success with this more targeted approach across many different e-commerce markets.

If brands are wanting to experiment and increase average email open rates then a great starting point is to only email the people who have opened a campaign from you in the last 45 – 90 days. In most cases, this will improve open rates, and in time the overall deliverability across the entire email marketing program.

Ryan Turner, Founder, Ecommerce Intelligence

23% – Find the Right Tools 

My typical email open rate is 23%, and a lot of that is owed to the process of finding the right email addresses!

I have used and analyzed over 74 different tools, and in the end, I have narrowed my choice down to one tool that I rely on the most for finding the right email addresses and generating a long list of leads. It’s called Find That Lead, wherein you just have to put a company’s domain name and it generates a list of contacts from the company. 

You can also apply filters to separate out just the email, phone number, and address of CEOs, Founders, Managers, or other C-level executives. You can also use the tool for just verifying the email address of a person.

Kartik Ahuja, CEO & Founder, GrowthScribe

40% – Test With A/B Campaigns

We consistently see an email open rate of about 40%, which is about double the average for most businesses. We’ve achieved this largely through conducting A/B tests where we sent two different versions of subject lines, format, and copy to each half of the recipients. 

From there, we were able to measure which options performed best, and we fine-tuned our strategy. From there, our open rates really began to climb. Even with our open rate success, we still do frequent A/B/ tests because we don’t want our messaging to grow stagnant.

Annie Ricci, Sr. Manager of Digital Marketing, Prima

22% – Regularly Purge Your Lists

In terms of email marketing, my average open rate is 21.5%. Due to the fact that your audience connects with the subject lines we utilize, we have a higher open rate.

We also employ double opt-in. Double opt-in requires the user to confirm their desire to receive communications from your company (although this is not a requirement under GDPR). We don’t send emails to people who don’t care about them too much because if they did, they wouldn’t read them, which would decrease our open rates.

We request that our readers add us to their list of reliable contacts. We may improve the number of emails delivered by simply asking our readers to add the “from” email address to their contact lists

Then, we purge the emails on our list. Three consecutive unopened emails from a subscriber indicate that they may no longer be interested in receiving emails from us.

David Reid, Sales Director, VEM Tooling

21% – Send Emails at Optimal Times

Our average open rate tends to float around 21%, which is more or less in line with national averages for other small businesses our size. 

We have achieved this open rate by crafting engaging subject lines and providing content that is tailored to our customer’s interests and needs. Additionally, we make sure to only send emails at times when our customers are most likely to open them on their email platforms of choice. Having concise and relevantly tailored email content is the name of the game.

Ryan Delk, CEO, Primer

48% – Craft Helpful and Value-Rich Content 

The average open rate for my email marketing is 48%. I’ve cultivated an engaged list over the last four years offering high value or what I termed “irresistible freebies” to opt-in and then continuing to share tips and tricks on ways to make more money with their websites. 

Yes, email lists are there to sell your service, but in my opinion, it’s primarily to build that know-like and trust factor and to offer an immense amount of value.  And eventually, the subscriber may have a problem that you, as the service provider, can solve, and you’ll be right there in the inbox recommending a solution.

Jenny Belanger, CEO & Creative Director, JennyB Designs

From taking subscriber numbers into account to a standard 2-5% CTR, here are eight answers to the question, “What is a good email click-through rate?”

• Adjust by Your Subscriber Count
• Go for 7%
• 5% Click Through Rate, Depending on Industry
• Typically Considered to Be Around 3%
• Usually Between 15% and 35%
• Never Below 2%
• 0.5% to 3%, Depending on Segmenting
• Aim for a 2-5% 

Adjust by Your Subscriber Count

This depends on how big your subscriber list is. For instance, if you have a decent email click-through rate but your subscriber list is below 1,000, this is not necessarily a grand achievement. 

Try to get 1,000 or more subscribers first, and then you can accurately measure how successful your click-through rate is.

Maegan Griffin, Founder, CEO, & Nurse Practitioner, Skin Pharm

Go for 7%

A standard email click-through rate is 7%, so you should aim for that or higher, although most experts agree that even a 3-5% rate is good. 

You can increase your click-through rate by testing better subject lines and keeping your copy to a minimum. Don’t forget to list easy, social sharing options so more than your recipient sees your copy.

Baruch Labunski, CEO, Rank Secure

5% Click Through Rate, Depending on Industry

Typically, a good email click-through rate is around 5%, but this also depends on your industry. 

For example, nonprofits may have a higher industry click-through rate than brands in the tech or real estate industry. Thus, it’s best to optimize your emails, so that you hit the overall industry standard click through rate. 

Some things that affect click-through rates are the number of links in your email, call-to-action, and the length of the email. If your email is long and packed with a ton of links, it is harder for your audience to truly engage with it, and may be confused about what your overall message is.

Sacha Ferrandi, Founder & Principal, Source Capital

Typically Considered to Be Around 3%

We typically consider a good email click through rate to be around 3%.  This means that for every 100 emails you send out, three of your recipients will click through the links in your email. 

To improve your click-through rate, it is important to make sure that your emails are well-designed, properly formatted, and contain interesting content that encourages readers to click. 

Additionally, segmenting your email list into more relevant groups can help you target your emails more effectively and increase the likelihood of users clicking through.

Above all, it is important to test different subject lines, designs, and content to determine what resonates best with your audience. With a bit of trial and error, you should be able to find the perfect combination that will help boost your click-through rates.

Aviad Faruz, CEO, FARUZO

Usually Between 15% and 35%

With email marketing, the open rate is a very important indicator for campaigns. The open rate is obtained by dividing the total number of messages opened by the total number of messages delivered. This is why the goal of every email marketing campaign is to have a high open-rate percentage so that users are more likely to click through to the landing page. 

If you work with a large database, it is normal that the open rate is low. Although there is no average open rate, it is usually between 15% and 35%. 

However, there are certain strategies you can apply to increase this number. For example, the first mailings will have a high percentage of bounced emails, because of unsubscribed addresses, and misspelled, or full mailboxes. This will influence the open rate, but the purification of the database for subsequent mailings will increase the percentage.

Piergiorgio Zotti, Sr. SEO Specialist, Teacher, & Affiliate Marketer, Consulente SEO SEM

Never Below 2%

A good email click-through rate depends on the industry and is often used as an important performance metric. A higher click-through rate (CTR) shows that the content within the email was sufficiently engaging to entice readers to open it rather than discard it. 

Although CTRs will vary between types of businesses, those with higher success rates are typically between 2-5%. Anything higher than 5% or lower than 2%, depending on the industry, would indicate a campaign that is underperforming or outperforming expectations, respectively. 

Achieving a better click-through rate for emails depends on leveraging several strategies, including careful audience segmenting, personalized subject lines, and timely sending schedules.

Jim Campbell, CEO, Campbell Online Media

0.5% to 3%, Depending on Segmenting

A click-through rate (CTR) for email depends on several factors, including the content of the email, the nature of the offer, and the target audience. Generally‌, good email CTRs range from about 0.5% to 3%.

However, there are some exceptions. For example, if you’re targeting a very engaged group of subscribers who are likely to be interested in your offer, you may achieve a CTR as high as 10%. On the other hand, if you’re targeting less engaged subscribers or those who aren’t familiar with your brand, your CTR may be closer to 0.5%.

Kate Wojewoda-Celinska, Marketing Manager, Spacelift

Aim for a 2-5% 

A good email click-through rate can vary depending on the industry and the quality of the email campaign. However, a general benchmark for a good email click-through rate is around 2-5%.

If your click-through rate is higher than this, it may show that your email campaign is well-targeted and engaging. If it’s lower, it could mean that your emails are not relevant to your audience or that they are not effectively capturing the reader’s attention. 

To improve your click-through rate, you can try A/B testing different subject lines, calls to action, and email content to see what resonates best with your audience. You can also segment your email list to ensure that you are sending targeted, relevant messages to each group of subscribers.

Jason Moss, President & Co-Founder, Moss Technologies

From conducting A/B Tests with your email audiences to a chance of designs causing lower reply rates, here are the 11 answers to the question, “Should color and design be used in email campaigns?”

• Build A/B Tests 
• Brand Colors and Design Evoke A Sense of Relatability
• Prioritize a Relationship With Your Audience
• Give Your Message An Eye-catching Look
• Keep Graphics to a Minimum
• Maintain Campaign Consistency
• Use Colors to Attract and Hold Readers’ Attention
• Intelligent Use of Colors Will Make the Right Info Pop
• White is the Only Color All Email Campaigns Should Have
• Colors Help Grab Attention
• Colors and Designed Emails Have Smaller Reply Rates

Build A/B Tests 

The only way that you can know what will jive best for your unique audience is by testing things. Choose an email marketing platform that allows you to build A/B tests. If your current email platform offers this, don’t be afraid to experiment with this feature, which will have a campaign monitor in place to reveal the winning strategy. Performing A/B tests has informed pretty much every part of my brand’s email marketing strategy. The insights we’ve gained are priceless.

Michael Green, Co-Founder, Winona

Brand Colors and Design Evoke A Sense of Relatability

Sending a simple email for communication only is different from running an email campaign for your product, service, etc. As a result of our own study, we performed A/B testing for email subject lines and found that emails with relevant emoticons had a 50% higher open rate than emails without.

A brand’s colors and design evoke emotions and a sense of relatability. Some brands, like Nike and Adidas, use templates with very little text in their email campaigns. The heart of effective marketing is color and design. Color accounts for between 62 and 90% of the impression your product creates. It is therefore necessary to have a cohesive brand message across all marketing channels. The right choice of colors and design makes a difference because they trigger associations.

At our company, we have run a ton of email campaigns with and without the color and design element and I can confidently say that color and design performs way better than text-only emails.

Simon Dayne, Sales Associate, Designitic

Prioritize a Relationship With Your Audience

Marketing is changing fast. It’s harder and harder to break through the noise. The more you can establish a real relationship with your audience the better – and it’s easier to do that with a simple email than with an overly designed “newsletter”.

Because of this, we have seen great results when moving brands from an overly designed newsletter template to a simple email from the business owners.

Ultimately, whether you use color and design in your email campaigns will depend on your audience’s expectations. So experiment, and see what works for your business.

Frank Prendergast, Brand Strategist, Frank and Marci

Give Your Message An Eye-catching Look

Regarding email campaigns, color and design make a big difference. Not only do they help draw attention to your email, but they can also be used to convey the main message. Color can help add interest and emotion to an email that might otherwise seem dull or boring. Design elements like fonts and graphics can help further emphasize the message and give it an eye-catching look.

However, there are also some negatives to consider. If the colors and design elements are too bright or loud, it can distract readers and take away from the message. On the other hand, if the design is too basic or plain, it may not be enough to grab people’s attention. It is important to strike a good balance between eye-catching and appropriate when it comes to email campaign design.

Color and design can effectively make email campaigns more engaging and impactful. Used properly, they can create an email that is visually appealing and conveys the email’s main message in a clear and concise way.

Natalia Grajcar, Co-Founder, Natu.Care

Keep Graphics to a Minimum

Logos ought to be used in an email. Think of it as email stationery. Putting that banner or that logo at the top of an email and at the bottom where you state your name and company information is the very least you can do. In fact, if that’s all you do, that’s perfectly fine.

Try not to go overboard with color and graphics. Try not to use interactive emojis or memes or an overabundance of videos and photos to grab the email recipient’s attention. Too much of that can actually look unprofessional – or worse, desperate.

Less is more. Do just enough that it isn’t too bland, but err on the side of restraint. That’s a good rule of thumb when it comes to email marketing. You want to give off the impression that you’re a reputable, authoritative brand. You won’t achieve that if your emails are too reliant on visual gimmicks.

Emily Saunders, Chief Revenue Officer, eLuxury

Maintain Campaign Consistency

Color and design should certainly be used in email campaigns in order to be more aesthetically pleasing and attractive to your customers. However, use color and design according to your brand style and aesthetic to ensure consistency across your marketing efforts. Your email campaigns, social media, website, blog, etc., should all use similar colors and designs to maintain this consistency.

Nabiha Akhtar, CEO/Founder, Lil Deenies

Use Colors to Attract and Hold Readers’ Attention

The impact of colors has been a topic of academic research for decades. Color and design can be powerful when used in email campaigns, as they can help evoke certain emotions in recipients and encourage them to take action.

A study found that color can attract and hold readers’ attention. With the right color, an email campaign can drive more engagement, generate more leads and help the brand stand out from competitors. However, it’s important to remember that color should be used judiciously not to distract readers from the message. Too much color can be overwhelming and less effective.

Burak Özdemir, Founder, Online Alarm Kur

Intelligent Use of Colors Will Make the Right Info Pop

Using colors is a great idea to help make your emails pop, but selecting muted and complimentary colors is essential in creating balance and harmony within the visual aesthetic of your email. Using too many bright, contrasting colors can make it difficult to read and can diminish the effectiveness of your campaign. Additionally, if you are not careful with the color scheme you choose, it can come off as amateurish and unprofessional. All in all, color is a great way to add visual appeal to your emails when done in good taste.

Ryan Delk, CEO, Primer

White is The Only Color All Email Campaigns Should Have

The colors you use in your email campaign will depend on the demographics and interests of your audience. An email campaign marketed to a 40-year-old woman will be different than that of an 18-year-old male.

The one color that all emails will need is white. Why? Because it is easy to read. Putting black fonts on a white background or white fonts on any color background is what you need for people to read your content without straining their eyes.

Jason Vaught, Director of Content, SmashBrand

Colors Help Grab Attention

If your goal is to create an email campaign that stands out and gets noticed, then incorporating color and design is a must. People are bombarded with emails every day, so it’s essential to make yours stand out in their inboxes.

Adding a pop of color or an eye-catching design will help grab attention and ensure your message is seen. However, using color and design sparingly is important, as too much can be overwhelming and actually turn people off. When used sparingly and thoughtfully, color and design can be powerful tools for creating an email campaign that gets results.

Tom Hamilton-Stubber, Managing Director, Tutor Cruncher

Colored and Designed Emails Have Smaller Reply Rates

In my experience both colored and designed nurturing emails have a much smaller reply rate. Nowadays people are getting a bit tired of their mailboxes full of automated emails and appreciate personal communication. The reason for not using email templates with colors and designs is to make an automated nurturing email mimic an email from a real person.

Andrei Iunisov, Digital marketing expert, Iunisov.com