Email Marketing Statistics: Are you Using Email?

July 30, 2013

2 minutes

Is email marketing dead? I think not.

Even though many are calling email marketing old fashioned and ineffective, it is still one of the top sources for lead nurturing and management.

Consumers enjoy receiving emails. And at least 91% of consumers check their email everyday. Which makes email the leading communication channel.

Everything from the content within the body of the email to the length of your subject line to the ratio of pictures to text can effect the open and click through rates of your messages.

Before you decrease your email marketing budget, we've highlighted 25 compelling statistics that will convince you to continue using email.

The truth is email marketing is here to stay.

Email Marketing Statistics: Are you Using Email?

1. 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone. (Source: Convince and Convert) Tweet this Stat!

2. Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate. (Source: GetResponse) Tweet this Stat!

3. Click through rate (CTR) is higher when using the recipients first name in the subject line over no use of the first name. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

4. Email marketing as a channel was the third overall lead generation source for marketers in 2013, producing 13% of all leads. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

5. Saturday has the highest CTR at over 9% (Sunday is second just under 9%) for consumer email campaigns. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

6. Triggered email messages yield 71% higher open rate and 102% higher click rates than non-triggered email messages. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet this Stat!

7. 6 AM has the highest CTR of any hour. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

8. Most clicked lead nurturing subject line words include secrets, e-sales and awesome. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

9. 14% of all opens and clicks on a mobile device occurred from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. The second-biggest peak, at 12% share, occurred between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. (Source:TailoredMail) Tweet this Stat!

10. 69% of subscribers say that too many emails is the number reason they unsubscribe from email. (Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey) Tweet this Stat!

11. 38% of email is now opened on a mobile device, with 33% for desktop and 29% for webmail. (Source: Litmus) Tweet this Stat! 

12. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers. (Source: Convince and Convert) Tweet this Stat!

13. Emails issued on Saturdays and Sundays had higher open, click, and transaction rates—but much lower volume. (Source: Experian) Tweet this Stat!

14. More than 50% of marketers aren’t optimizing emails for mobile viewing (Source: MarketingSherpa), yet 63% of Americans and 41% of Europeans will close or delete an email not optimized for mobile. (Source: ReturnPath) Tweet this Stat!

15. 64% of decision-makers read their email via mobile devices. (Source: TopRankBlog) Tweet this Stat!

16. 37% said that more than 20% of their inbox comes from marketers, and 53% said they’re happy with the number of marketing emails they get. (Source: Blue Kangaroo) Tweet this Stat!

17. 88% prefer to receive HTML emails vs. 12% who prefer plain text from companies. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

18. The retail apparel industry has the highest proportion of active members (39% opened or clicked an email within 3 months), followed by the business publishing/media general (34%), travel/hospitality travel services (31%), and retail general (30%) segments. (Source: Epsilon) Tweet this Stat!

19. Subject lines that contained terms such as “ROI,” “asset,” and “industry" perform the lowest. (Source: Adestra) Tweet this Stat!

20. Subject lines with 30 or fewer characters performed above average in opens, clicks, and click-to-opens. (Source: Adestra) Tweet this Stat!

21. “You/your” were the most common words, used in 18.7% of subject lines, up 3.4% year over year, followed by “off” and “get,” both in 16.6% of emails, and both up 5.2% year over year. (Source: Experian) Tweet this Stat!

22. 14% of all opens and clicks on a mobile device occurred from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. The second-biggest peak, at 12% share, occurred between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. (Source:TailoredMail) Tweet this Stat!

23. 91% of people check their email daily. (Source: Exact Target) Tweet this Stat!

24. The 9am click-through rates outperformed the 12pm emails by 10%, and gained 15% more clicks compared to the 4pm time slot. The 12pm emails only outperformed the 4pm email by 6%.” (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this Stat!

25. Most unsubscriptions happen on Tuesdays with a 0.52% unsubscribe rate. (Source: HubSpot) Tweet this Stat!

Think Twice Before Hitting “Send”

If you’re not put off by the shortcomings of email and you find 140 characters more limiting than liberating, then you’re well on your way to incorporating email in your social media campaigns. Chances are your email subscribers are your most loyal audience, so treat them with respect (which means offering valuable content, and not too often), and they could become your greatest advocates.
While reams of articles are devoted to creating social email campaigns, here are just a few tips to get you started:

1. Have something to say.
   Sounds simple, but while your daily musings are permissible on Twitter, your email audience will be less forgiving.
2. Make it digestible.
   Email doesn’t limit your word count, but you’ll need to apply some editing of your own. If it’s a long article, include an excerpt and link through to the website for the full story. This has the added bonus of enabling you to track the most popular items.
3. Be regular.
   Set a schedule of emails that you know you can keep to. A monthly or quarterly newsletter can be a good guide.
4. Be personal.
   Tailor your tone to the audience. Most email services offer invaluable segmentation tools. You wouldn’t speak to your spouse the way you talk to your bank manager; neither should you address your entire audience the same way.

Don’t forget that email is only half of the conversation. Find out where your readers hang out (you can use their email addresses to locate them), and continue the discussion there!
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Carolyn Edgecomb

As an account manager at IMPACT, Carolyn is a key contributor towards the success of client marketing campaigns through the execution of strategy and task based duties. She has a passion for anything that’s inbound marketing. Staying on top of the latest social media updates and marketing trends allows her to strategize and develop solutions that fit the needs of the client. When she’s not spending an overwhelming amount of time on Pinterest, you’ll find her shopping and catching up on the latest inbound marketing trends. Who doesn’t love a good book, blog article, or cup of frozen yogurt?
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