About seven in 10 (69.8%) business emails sent via the Epsilon Dream platform during Q2 2011 were marketing messages, according to data from Epsion and the Email Experience Council. Data from “Q2 2011 Email Trends & Benchmarks” indicates this figure is about 5% higher than the 66.7% of emails which were marketing messages in Q1 2011.
A majority of the remaining emails (25.1%) fell into the “other” category, with small percentages consisting of service, acquisition and editorial emails.
Service emails had the highest open rate (42.8%) by a wide margin. The next-highest open rate, for editorial emails, was about 35% lower at 27.4%. Service emails also had the highest click rate (8.9%), closely followed by editorial emails (8.3%). Editorial emails had the highest click-to-open rate (30.4%), followed by research emails (25.9%).
Financial Service Emails Have Highest Open Rates
The highest open rates were in Financial Services CC/Banks (33.7%), Financial Services General (29.7%) and Retail General (25.2%). The highest click rates were in Consumer Services Telecom (9.0%), Consumer Products CPG (8.0%) and Financial Services CC/Banks (6.5%). Consumer Products CPG (46.9%) and Consumer Services Telecom (40.7%) had the highest click to open rates.
Meanwhile, Retail Apparel (99%), Consumer Services General (98.2%) and Travel/Hospitality Travel Services (98.1%) had the highest non-bounce rates.
Business Publishing/Media General, Consumer Services General, Retail General and Retail Specialty experienced at least a 5% increase in open rates compared to the previous year’s metrics.
Furthermore, Consumer Service Telecom, Financial Services CC/Banks and Retail Specialty had an increase of at least 5% in click rate compared to the same quarter in 2010.
Non-bounce, Open and Click Rates Stay Steady
Open rates (22.2%) saw a slight decrease quarter over quarter (4.8%). However, they increased compared to the same quarter last year by 0.4%. Four of the 13 reported industries saw at least a 5% increase in open rates compared to Q2 2010.
Click rates (5.2%) decreased by 11.1% from last quarter. Click rates are directly in line with this same time last year and remain established during the last two years.
Average volume per client increased 16.2% from Q1 2011, but shows a decrease from last year of 14.3% (Q2 2010).The non-bounce rate remained fairly stable, decreasing only 0.3%. In addition, average order size saw a slight improvement of 0.9% compared to last year, while unique click to conversion rates increased 14.6% from Q1 2011 and 6.2% from Q2 2010. Revenue per email decreased less than 1% from Q2 2010 but improved 17.3% from Q1 2011.
ReturnPath: ISP Rate Corresponds with Sender Score
The average inbox placement rate (ISP) for promotional emails correlates with the sender score of the entity sending them, according to a study conducted from January to April 2011 by ReturnPath. Data from “The Sender Reputation Report” indicates that emails from IP addresses with the highest sender score (91-100) have an average 88% ISP rate.
In contrast, emails from IPs with the lowest sender score that still indicates a legitimate address (41-50) only have a 64% ISP rate. That means IPs with a sender score of 91-100 are 38% more likely to get an email into an inbox than IPs with a sender score of 41-50. ISP rate steadily climbs along with sender score; industry average ISP rate is 80.
About the Data: This study is compiled from 7.7 billion emails sent by Epsilon in Q2 (April-June) 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 130 participating clients.
