E-mail Open Rates Declining, Click-Through Rates Rising [Study]

There are mixed messages for e-mail marketers in a new benchmark study from digital marketing software provider Silverpop: E-mail open rates are falling, but click-through rates are on the rise.

The findings are included in Silverpop’s 2012 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study, and include analysis of e-mails sent in 2011 and Q1 of 2012 by more than 1,100 brands in 20 countries. The exact number of e-mails studied isn’t mentioned.

Silverpop reports that the overall open rate for all regions was 20.1 percent, which is down from the 22.2 percent that Silverpop reported in a July 2009 study. Open rate was lowest last year in the U.S. and highest in Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA).

Computer software companies had the best open rate at 24.7 percent, while the Education sector had the lowest at 15 percent.

The numbers are better where click-through rate is concerned. Silverpop’s current study shows overall CTR at 5.2 percent, which is up from 4.5 percent in the 2009 study. Click-through rates were strongest in the U.S. and weakest in Canada.

It should be noted that this year’s study involved a much wider base than the study two years ago, which only involved three regions (U.S., U.K. and Germany) and also covered only one month of e-mails, compared to five quarters in the current study.

This year’s study can be downloaded from Silverpop’s website. You’ll need to provide contact information to access the PDF.