Inbox placement rates have declined in the US, with an average of 82% of promotional emails from US senders reaching the inbox in the fourth quarter of 2019, down from 85% during the same quarter of 2018. This is according to Validity’s latest annual Email Deliverability Benchmark report [download page], which looks at deliverability across countries.
During this latest year-long period of analysis (spanning Q1 2019 through Q4 2019), 8% of emails landed in the spam folder, while 10% were classified as “missing,” in that they never made their way past the initial gateway. Although it’s possible that some emails that land in spam folders are read by their intended recipients, previous research from Validity (which acquired Return Path last year) indicates that just 0.02% of emails are marked as not spam.
US Deliverability Slightly Below Par
An average of 83% of emails reached inboxes across the dozens of countries measured during the period of analysis. This is just slightly above the US’ average of 82%.
On a regional basis, senders in Europe and the Asia-Pacific fared the best in reaching the inbox, with an average inbox placement of 84% for each region. Notably, in Europe, the Czech Republic and Belgium both had an impressive inbox placement average of 92% in 2019, with the Czech Republic seeing a 12 percentage point increase between Q1 and Q4.
The average rate in North America (the US and Canada), of 83%, was hampered by the US’ below-average performance, as Canada boasted an above-average rate of 89%. Although Latin America has struggled in the past, in 2019 it reached the global average of 83%, with Argentina matching Canada’s deliverability rate with an average of 89%.
Senders in Switzerland and India both experienced low deliverability rates last year at 67% and 69%, respectively. On the flip side, it was Japan that had the highest placement rate of all the countries analyzed, at a stunning 97%.
The full report can be downloaded here.
About the Data: Findings are based on a “study using a representative sample of more than 2 billion promotional email messages sent to consumers around the world between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019. Global and regional statistics are based on performance across more than 140 mailbox providers in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Country statistics are based on a subset of senders whose locations and industry classifications are identifiable.”
