Study finds Open Rates, CTRs steady

Email remains an important part of marketers' overall strategy, and consumers continue to engage. That's a key takeaway from new DMA and dotmailer research which found email open rates and click-through rates holding steady from 2017 through 2018.

by Kristina Knight

The 2018 Email Benchmarking report found that email open rates are holding at about 18% with CTRs holding around 1.9%, though there are categories which have slightly higher open rates. Among those categories are Finance/Banking (25% open rate), Non-Profit (21.8% open rate), and Retail (19.3% open rate).

The big difference in email opens, according to the report, is between B2B and B2C email campaigns, with B2C emails showing higher email open rates (19.7%) than B2B (15.1% open rate). B2B messages, however, have higher CTRs at 3.2% vs B2C CTRs at 2.1%.

"These numbers reveal that clicks are still driven by relevance, but opens are driven by interest. The top three sectors for opens (finance, NFP and retail) are no surprise as consumers are naturally engaged with these types of companies, but the top three for clicks (utilities, NFP and travel) deliver more relevant content, which then generate more clicks," said Skip Fidura, Strategy & Insight Director, dotmailer. "It will be interesting to see how these stats change in the coming year with the roll-out of GDPR. While list sizes may decrease, we should see each of these lists become more engaged in the short term. It is down to marketers to up their game and deliver more relevant content to keep this engagement up in the long term."

"It's always interesting to see how email is performing and being utilised across different sectors, as well as between B2B and B2C contexts. The fact that utility companies and B2B organisations are leading the way in click-to-open rates, while consumer organisations like charities, retailers and even banks are securing the greater proportion of opens. This highlights both the functional use of email and the relevance of the medium as a broadcast channel, offering direct drivers to bills or work-related opportunities in the former and the power of its nudge effect in reminding consumers to visit their favourite brands," said Tim Bond, Head of Insight, DMA.

The research was conducted by the DMA and sponsored by dot mailer. The full research set can be accessed here

Tags: advertising, DMA, dotmailer, email content, email CTR trends, email marketing, email open rates