Email

The following excerpt is from eMarketer's report:"Email Benchmarks: Key Metrics and Trends for 2013"

Nearly one in three emails sent in North America during Q1 2013 were opened—the highest number in recent history.

Benchmark data and interviews with nearly a dozen industry professionals uncovered multiple factors affecting email marketing performance. Most notable were the continued effects of mobile device adoption and the use of marketing automation to send more targeted emails.

As mobile continues to steal greater open rate share from the desktop, it's affecting measures such as open rate, clickthrough rate (CTR) and best day to mail. However, data suggests mobile might not yet have as strong of an influence on business-to-business (B2B) emails, considering the majority of business-related communications continue to be opened on the desktop.

Companies are using marketing automation to drive greater email engagement via triggered messaging. And marketers that are feeding these automation platforms with consumer data and responsive design to create more personalized, targeted communications are seeing even greater gain.

THIS REPORT ANSWERS THESE KEY QUESTIONS:

• What are the latest email marketing benchmarks for common metrics such as open rate and CTR?
• How do general email benchmarks compare to B2B benchmarks?
• How do benchmarks differ by industry, subject line, time of day or specific email marketing tactics such as personalization and automation?

The Email Audience

eMarketer estimates the US adult email audience will reach 188.3 million in 2013 and will continue to climb to 203.8 million by 2017. During that time, US adult email users will account for 96% of all US internet users across the digital landscape.

Worldwide, market research firm The Radicati Group forecasts the email audience will grow from 2.42 billion this year to 2.76 billion by 2017.

The slight growth rates for both the US and worldwide email audiences during the next few years are evidence of the maturation of this digital marketing channel. Though email is a tenured marketing medium, it is not a tired one. In spite of the growing number of digital channels and platforms that increasingly vie for consumer attention, the population remains engaged and invested in email.