IBM’s annual Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study is hot off the presses. For email and digital marketers alike, it’s one of the best times of the year.

The study is extremely comprehensive. This year’s report includes data from over 3,000 brands and 750 companies. Reading the report gives you an insight into how your email marketing performs against other brands. Plus, it highlights opportunities you may be missing or not investing enough resources in.

Have you ever asked yourself, is this really a good open rate? Should our emails be getting read more?

It’s time to discover the answers. See how your brand’s email marketing stacks up to others by learning the biggest insights and takeaways from this year’s report.

(Note: all below data is specific to the U.S. For information on other regions and countries’ email marketing, please read IBM’s full report.)

Open Rates

Snapshots:

  • Average: 21.8 percent
  • Top 25 percent of brands: 41.6 percent
  • Bottom 25 percent of brands: 7.9 percent
  • Industries with the best average open rates (listed from best to worst): Schools and education (30.9 percent); insurance (27.5 percent); automobiles and transportation (27.3 percent); nonprofits, associations and government (26.4 percent); hospitals, healthcare and biotech (26.1 percent)
  • Industries with the lowest average open rates (listed from worst to best): Marketing agencies and services (18.2 percent); media and publishing (19.3 percent); retail and e-commerce (20.5 percent); food service, sports and entertainment (20.7 percent); computer software and online services (20.8 percent)

Takeaways:

  • The more emails you send, the less likely they’ll be opened. For example, media and retail often send more than one email in a day, which consequently hurts the overall open rates.
  • Transactional emails – those based on an action a user made — are opened two times more than the average marketing email. For example, if a customer recently ordered a product or service, send them a follow-up email advertising similar items or requesting a review. The average open rate for those emails is 47.1 percent.

Click-Through Rates

Snapshots:

  • Average: 3.3 percent
  • Top 25 percent of brands: 9.2 percent
  • Bottom 25 percent of brands: 1.4 percent
  • Industries with the best average open rates (Listed from best to worst): Nonprofits, associations and government (5.3 percent); computer hardware and telecommunications (5.0 percent); schools and education (4.3 percent); consumer services (4.0 percent); automobiles and transportation (3.7 percent)
  • Industries with the lowest average open rates (Listed from worst to best): Lodging, travel agencies and services (2.4 percent); marketing agencies and services (2.4 percent); computer software and online services (2.7 percent); media and publishing (2.7 percent); banks and financial services (3.2 percent)

Takeaways:

  • The industries with the highest click-through rates strongly rely on two elements in their email marketing: personalized pieces thanks to content marketing and automation programs and action-orientated messages. To improve your own email marketing, invest in a powerful program, which can harness the power of data, personalization and automation. Then, have a clear call-to-action (CTA) in every email. Make it clear, concise and visual. Try making the CTA the subject line, and see if it boosts the open or click-through rates.
  • Again, transactional emails based user behavior are stronger across every measurable field. These emails are opened on average three times more than standard marketing emails. Yes, they take more resources and time to create, but it’s worth every extra minute and penny spent.