Email Marketing Conversion Rates and Statistics in 2024

Email Marketing Statistics

Plenty of email marketing statistics are available for companies to use to their advantage. Any business using an email marketing service will have access to their email marketing performance numbers in various categories. Two of the most critical email marketing statistics, however, are:

This is the percentage of subscribers who open a specific email out of your total subscribers. Smart Insights said the average overall email open rate as of early 2022 was 16.97% across all industries.

On the other hand, using statistics for email lead generation is a highly effective approach. It helps you understand how successful your targeting really is – and whether you need to refine the campaign further to get better results.

Email List Quality and Maintenance

Email list quality greatly impacts the efficacy of your email marketing efforts. 

Ensuring your list is well maintained and employing evidence-based segmentation and personalization strategies is essential for success! 

Personalization and Dynamic Content

Personalization is crucial for email marketing success. According to research, it’s one of the most effective email marketing strategies. 

Personalized emails connect the company and the subscriber, leading to higher open rates. 

This is especially important for subject lines; each should be tailored to reflect a recipient’s interests or purchase history. 

Dynamic content is closely related to personalization and essential for customer engagement.  

It involves personalizing content in real-time based on the subscriber’s behavior and preferences and can hugely increase click-through and conversion rates. 

• Email Marketing Conversion Rate

Email marketing conversion rate is the percentage of subscribers who complete an action (not just a purchase) after reading your email. A very important metric for email marketing, conversion rate demonstrates the effectiveness of your email marketing and also determines your ROI. Barilliance calculated the average email conversion rate from 2021 to be 15.22% for those who clicked through; that rate was 1.33% for all emails sent.

What Is a Good Conversion Rate for Email Marketing?

A reasonable email marketing conversion rate varies by industry, so there's no hard-and-fast number to target. As previously mentioned, 15.22% was the average email conversion rate (for those who clicked through) in 2021, so anything above that can be considered above average.

The statistics fluctuate from year to year, which is something to consider. For example, just a few years ago, Barilliance determined the average email conversion rate to be 18.49%, which has not been approached. That year, the conversion rate was 1.63%, compared to 1.33% for 2021. The best approach to take is to keep improving your email marketing conversion rate, year over year. Globally speaking, if your overall conversion rate is near 10%, congratulations--that's an elite number!

A/B Testing

A/B testing or split testing is an essential component of email marketing, backed up by statistics. It is an ideal method to help you set B2B conversion rate benchmarks. Which, on the other hand, you can also use from other industry leaders to help you devise strategic campaigns in the future.

The numbers are clear: businesses that employ A/B testing see a 37% higher ROI than businesses that don’t! 

It’s the perfect way to experiment with different subject lines to see what resonates more with your target audience and leads to higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. 

It’s also a great way to drive your personalization and segmentation strategies. 

A/B testing can give you insights into the preferences of different audience segments and how they respond to your content, allowing you to tweak and make changes to your approach!

Email Marketing Conversion Rate by Industry

Given the nuances of email marketing, it's not surprising that conversion and open rates vary by industry. As of October 2022, some of the highest email open rates by industry were:

• Faith-Based Organizations: 43%
• Travel & Tourism: 39.92%
• Child Care Services: 38.59%
• Recreation, Sports & Entertainment: 38.34%
• Non-Profit Membership Organizations: 37.57%
• Non-Profit Services: 37.28%
• Home & Building Services: 36.88%
• Dining & Food Services: 36.23%
• Family & Social Services: 36.20%
• Education: 36.08%

Now, remember that the average open rate across all industries from this source is 33.41%, which is far greater than the 16.97% figure published by Smart Insights, which suggests different data and calculation methods were used by each source. Regardless, the industries' open rates are above the 33.41% average across all industries.

Click rates also vary by industry and don't necessarily correlate directly to that industry's open rate. Here are some of the latest click rates (clicks/delivered) by sector according to the same data:

• Faith-Based Organizations: 2.49%
• Technology Services: 2.36%
• Non-Profit Membership Organizations: 1.68%
• Independent Artists, Writers & Performers: 1.64%
• Administrative & Business Support Services: 1.62%
• Education: 1.60%
• Non-Profit Services: 1.59%

Across all industries, the average click rate was 1.46%, so all of these industries performed well above that rate. Notice that three of the highest performers by click rate were not even ranked among the top 10 industries in open rates. This likely reflects the quality of content within the emails of these industries.

Segmentation

Email segmentation has a massive impact on the success of email marketing campaigns. 

The numbers show that segmenting email lists can lead to a whopping 760% increase in revenue after running a segmented campaign! 

It’s also the perfect way to keep your customers happy by ensuring that your content is targeted to them and aligns with their interests. 

Impact of Visuals

Emails that include images often perform better than purely text-based emails. 

You don’t want to include too many; using three images or fewer results in the highest click-through rates. 

Well-chosen images can increase engagement and raise levels of interaction with your content. 

Metrics Beyond Conversion

Although conversion is important, it isn’t the only metric to consider when looking at how your email marketing campaigns are performing. 

Consider long-term customer retention and subscriber growth rates to get a long-term view of how your email marketing campaigns are performing. 

Repeat customers are the number one key to a profitable business, so ensure you analyze your repeat customer stats and determine how to retain your loyal subscribers. 

Post-purchase emails are a great way to do this, as are loyalty programs and personalized content. 

How to Calculate Conversion Rate Email Marketing

The simple email marketing conversion rate formula is:

Email conversion rate = [# of conversions / # of successfully delivered emails] x 100

But there's more to it than a simple formula. First, figure out what a conversion means to your business. Is it a click? Is it a purchase? Is it someone subscribing to your email list? Establish a consistent definition for conversion (there's no right or wrong--it's simply what matters most for your business) and stick with it.

Second, determine whether to base your conversion rate on all successfully sent emails vs. emails that received a click-through. Again, whichever you choose, stick with that figure. By using the total number of sent emails as your base, your data will be far more comprehensive and can help you tailor your email copy, subject lines, and deliverability. If you use emails clicked through, you'll move a level past the email itself and better understand the effectiveness of your message, offer, landing pages, and customer segmentation.

Legal Aspects and Compliance

It’s critical to ensure your email marketing campaigns comply with all legal regulations. 

With restrictions on data protection and privacy tightening, it’s essential to ensure you’re operating within the bounds of the law to avoid fines and legal repercussions. 

Key laws to be aware of are the GDPR in Europe and the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States, although other countries have other laws. 

These laws relate to consent to being marketed, clear unsubscribe options, and the need for truth in marketing. All email marketers should stay informed of the law changes and comply with industry standards. 

Mobile Optimization

Nowadays, most emails are opened on mobile devices – so optimizing your email content for mobile is not optional! 

Poorly formatted emails are the quickest way to get your content instantly deleted. Focus on using mobile-friendly layouts, easily clickable buttons, and easy-to-read fonts. 

You must also ensure quick loading times or risk your customers becoming frustrated and deleting your emails.

How to Increase Conversion Rate in Email Marketing

A seemingly simple question that has a wide range of answers. You'll need to carefully review your email metrics to determine areas of strength and those that could help. The tactics below, however, generally help increase conversion rates in email marketing.

• Subject Lines

Subject lines make or break open rates, making them attractive to your audience through urgency, questions, personalization, and deals or offers that make it worthwhile to check out.

• Mobile-Friendliness (aka Responsive Design)

About half of all emails are opened on a phone or tablet, so it's an immediate loss if the email design needs to be mobile-friendly. Use responsive design to condense subject lines, concise copy, provide a clear call to action (CTA), and optimize images to load more quickly.

• Customer Segmentation

If your emails aren't being opened at your desired rate, step back and ask yourself…"Am I sending emails to the right people?" If not, start segmenting your recipients by purchase history, demographics, and browsing activity.

At Book Your Data, your company can buy email lists of potential contacts and sales leads that are right for your business so that you can master your next email marketing campaign. Use our prospector to create a custom list and purchase.

• Crystal-Clear CTAs

The entire message of your email goes to waste if you don't provide a clear CTA. Offering a good CTA will do wonders for your email conversion rates.

• Follow the Funnel

Ensure you track your customers through the sales journey and contact them at the right points. For example, send a welcome email after a new user subscribes to your email list, a post-purchase email after a customer completes a sale, and re-engagement emails if someone has not visited your site for some time.

• Landing Pages

If your email recipient is intrigued by your message and CTA and clicks through, they will expect to quickly and easily find what they're looking for wherever they're sent. If a busy webpage muddies your offer or message or is challenging to find, they will bounce. Ensure your landing page prominently displays whatever message or offer is conveyed in the email so the customer has a seamless experience and is more willing to complete the sale.

• Freebies and Rewards

Who doesn't enjoy a free…whatever? People love freebies and discounts. If your business can provide those, your conversion rates are more likely to increase. Mentioning “free" or “discount" or “coupon" in the subject line is also effective.

• Make Checkout Smooth

If you've effectively tailored your message to the point where you consistently get more clicks, what happens after the click is paramount. If the intent of your email is for customers to make a purchase, be sure you're providing them with a fast, easy, and straightforward checkout process.

If, for some reason, the customer does leave their cart, follow up with a practical, personalized abandoned cart email; many people use that prompt to finish the purchase.

Integration with Other Marketing Channels

Your email marketing campaign shouldn’t be your only marketing effort - it’s essential to diversify your methods. 

Incorporate your email marketing with other channels (like social media marketing) to create a unified brand voice across all your marketing platforms. This is a great way to enhance overall customer engagement and get better conversion rates. 

Feedback and Surveys

Feedback and surveys are a great way to determine what your customers think. 

It’s also perfect for making your subscribers feel listened to, which increases their brand loyalty!

Make sure you analyze the responses you get from surveys and implement changes based on customer feedback. 

Re-engagement and Win-back Campaigns

Don’t treat your inactive subscribers as lost causes! Targeting inactive former customers with win-back campaigns is a great way to boost conversion. 

Analyze the data to determine why they disengaged, then focus on personalized content to bring them back to active customer status!

Impact of Deliverability

Deliverability significantly impacts the overall success of your campaign — after all, if your emails aren’t even being delivered, they certainly can’t lead to conversions! 

Regularly clean and optimize your email list to ensure it’s in good health, and avoid tactics that will get your emails sent to the spam folder. 

If you want to buy leads, always purchase from a reputable company like BookYourData, which boasts a 97% deliverability rate!

Role of Content

In marketing, content is king. Ensure your emails are well-written and relevant, designed to grab your subscribers' attention. Personalizing your emails goes a long way toward this, as does focusing your attention on well-crafted subject lines. 

Your campaign is only as good as your content, and all the leads and marketing strategies worldwide won’t help if your content is lackluster and unprofessional!

Does Email Marketing Increase Conversion Rate?

It certainly helps! The average ROI on email marketing is more than 40 times what you spend on email marketing, so it's a must for most businesses. Besides the robust ROI, email marketing is a way to build relationships and a customer base. It can help nurture them through the buying journey, restore lost confidence in your business, and create a loyal following.

Frequently Asked Questions About Email Marketing and Email Marketing Statistics

What Percentage of Emails Convert to Sales?

According to Barilliance, the average conversion rate of emails to sales was 1.22% in 2021. So, over one sale for every 100 emails sent. Remember that number, though. Considering the ROI on email marketing, it's alright.

What Are Conversions in Email Marketing?

We've covered aspects of email marketing conversions, but to review, email marketing conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients that complete a CTA (remember, this doesn't always have to be a sale…it's whatever action you're asking them to complete). To find out the conversion rate, divide the emails with performed actions by the total number of email recipients and multiply by 100 to determine your email marketing conversion rate.

Can Ready-Made Email Marketing Lists Help Conversion Rates?

They certainly provide your business with a good start! Bookyourdata.com's pre-made lists are our ready-to-download directories, all of the most valuable contacts in many industries. You can find various accurate, verified lists to help you reach your target group. Explore our lists here.

What's the Best Way to Engage My Prospects with Email Marketing?

Engaging your sales prospects through email will help you gain valuable insight into how they interact with your brand, content, and product. The key is to create compelling emails that increase engagement and lead to conversions and sales.

Bookyourdata.com has a free download available to help you maximize your return on prospects by getting their attention, earning their trust, convincing them to purchase, and keep them coming back.

Bookyourdata.com is the #1 site for accurate business-to-business (B2B) email lists. You get the verified contact information of those in your target industry so you can better zero in on your audience and email leads to make more deals and boost your sales. Choose from pre-made mailing lists, or create your marketing solution with our innovative online list-builder tool, an industry first. Have a question on how to get started? Send us a message through our contact page.

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