Monday is the best day for email open rates, while Saturday is the worst, according to a new in-depth report looking at email marketing across industry sectors.
Campaign Monitor analysed millions of email campaigns to develop its Ultimate Email Marketing Benchmarks for 2019: By Industry & Day.
The report allows industries to see how their campaigns compare to their counterparts and provides insight on how to create content that appeals to that industry.
With more companies focusing on global and industry expansion, it’s important that they are armed with the best email marketing tips so campaigns appeal to multiple markets.
In 2019, the real estate, design and construction industry ranked #1 for open rates with more than 19% of their subscribers opening email campaigns from them.
Additional top industries include:
- Media, entertainment and publishing (19.3%)
- Government (16.9%)
- Retail (16.6%)
Average email benchmarks for all UK industries
- Average open rate: 18.0%
- Average click-through rate: 0.9%
- Average click-to-open rate: 13.2%
- Average unsubscribe rate: 2.4%
- Average bounce rate: 0.2%
Best days for email marketing
- Best day for highest email open rates: Monday
- Best days for highest click-through rates: Tuesday
- Best days for highest click-to-open rates: Wednesday
- Best day for lowest unsubscribe rates: Thursday
Worst days for email marketing
- Worst day for lowest email open rates: Saturday
- Worst day for lowest click-through rates: Wednesday
- Worst day for lowest click-to-open rates: Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
- Worst day for highest unsubscribe rates: Wednesday
- Worst day for highest bounce rates: Tuesday
Top industries by open rates
- Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting (33.6%)
- Government (26.5%)
- Nonprofit (25.6%)
- Engineering, Architecture, and Design (22.2%)
- Logistics and Wholesale, and Real Estate, Design, and Construction Activities (21.3%)
Top industries by click-through rates
- Logistics and Wholesale (3.5%)
- Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting (2.2%)
- Construction, Contracting, and Manufacturing (2.1%)
- Other (1.7%)
- Engineering, Architecture, and Design (1.6%)
Top industries by click-to-open rates
- Real Estate, Design, and Construction Activities (19.3%)
- Media, Entertainment, and Publishing (16.9%)
- Government (16.7%)
- Retail (16.6%)
- Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting (14.4%)
Campaign Monitor proved some key tips on improving email marketing KPIs:
Open rates way below average? Here’s how to improve your metrics:
- Use your subject lines and preheader text together to craft tempting and enticing previews of your emails.
- Test, test, test to find the tone of subject lines, content, etc. that inspires your audience to open your emails.
- Find the best day and time to send email campaigns to your specific audience.
- Segment your list so you only send the most relevant content to each of your subscribers.
How to improve your email click-through rate:
- Study what links and images receive the most clicks to discover the content your audience is most interested in.
- Segment your list into separate groups based on the type of content that leads to the greatest engagement so you can create more specific emails.
- Ensure your CTAs contain clear, direct copy, then improve the design.
- Optimise your CTAs by including the right amount of links—not too many and not too few.
How to improve your email click-to-open rate:
- Automate your emails to send exactly what your subscribers want at the precise moment they want or need the email.
- Personalise your content through better segmentation.
- Optimise your emails for conversions on mobile devices as well as desktops.
- Test your CTAs to discover what design, copy, and offers receive the most engagement from your subscribers.
If your bounce rate is above the average bounce rate, here’s what you can do to improve:
- Clean your list by running a re-engagement campaign.
- Remove permanently bounced email addresses from your list.
- Suppress previous bounces.
- Use a double opt-in to avoid spam signups.
- Never use purchased lists.
If you see poor engagement, here’s how to improve your email deliverability:
- Make sure your ESP has proven deliverability and familiarise yourself with your ESP’s rules and regulations.
- Improve your engagement in order to prove to email clients that your emails are valuable to recipients.
- Always use double opt-in to ensure only real email addresses remain on your list.
- Choose an email cadence based on your open rates and stick to it.
- Make your unsubscribe process easy so subscribers aren’t tempted to mark your emails as spam.
