MailerMailer: Emails are being opened faster

A new study from MailerMailer reveals some interesting figures regarding the speed at which emails are opened, the effect of subject line length and the direction in which open rates are heading.

by Helen Leggatt

According to MailerMailer's recently released findings, email remains a valuable tool for marketers, often yielding the highest ROIs.

The report reveals that, while open rates have declined slightly to 13% in the first half of 2008 from 16% in the same period a year ago, emails are being opened faster. Nearly a third of emails are opened within the first two hours of receipt - a 10% increase on last year. This could well be due to many more users receiving emails on-the-go, via mobile devices, instead of having to wait until they return to their PCs.

Some industries had higher open rates than others, with banking/finance, religious, government and telecoms having more success than others.

Subject line length is also proving to play a role in whether an email is opened or not. Short subject lines work better than longer ones, found MailerMailer, with those under 35 characters in length most effective. While subject lines with fewer than 35 characters experienced an average open rate of almost 20% and a click rate of 3%, emails with longer subject lines yielded open rates of almost 15% and click rates of 2%.