101 Facts about Email Marketing

Email marketing is central to your ROI.

That’s because email automation, mobile devices, and email segmentation are reinventing the relationship between prospects/leads and marketers. Plus, with the help of a user-friendly marketing platform, it’s never been easier to optimize your sales funnel and communicate your message.

To highlight just how vital email is in 21st century B2C and B2B, we’ve done all the research for you with Maropost’s 101 facts about email marketing:

Interesting Facts about Email:

• The open rate for emails with a personalized message was 18.8%, compared to 13.1% without any personalization in 2016. (Statista, 2016)

• The fourth quarter always dwarfs the others in the number of emails sent and often approaches double the amount of emails sent in the third quarter. (Vertical Response, 2016)

• Email had a median ROI of 122%– more than four times higher than other marketing formats, including social media, direct mail, and paid search. (DMA, 2016)

• One-third of millennial workers are comfortable using emojis to communicate with a direct manager or senior executive. (Capterra, 2016)

• Gmail has 1 billion active users worldwide. (Statista, 2016)

• 51% of marketers say enriching contact data quality is their most significant barrier to achieving email marketing success. (Ascend2, 2016)

• Monday emails have the highest revenue per email. (Experian, 2012)

• A vast majority of customers (92% of those earning $100,000 or more) want to receive promo emails, but do not want to share them. (MarketingSherpa, 2015)

• Open rate is highest when companies send two emails per month. (Database Marketing Institute, 2011)

• Email marketing was the biggest driver of Black Friday transactions, with 25.1% of sales originating from the marketing channel. (Custora, 2015)

• Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind only colleague recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders. (Imagination, 2017)

• Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email, according to 10 email marketing studies. (CoSchedule, 2016)

• Men and women are equally likely to convert from an email opened on a desktop. (EmailMonday, 2017)

• Companies who send automated emails are 133% more likely to send relevant messages that correspond with a customer’s purchase cycle. (Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, 2013)

• For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (DMA, 2015)

• Open rate is highest when companies send two emails per month. (Database Marketing Institute, 2011)

• 29% of marketers look at ROI metrics to evaluate email effectiveness. (DMA, 2015)

• Only 39% of online retailers send personalized product recommendations via email. (Certona, 2012)

• 72 percent of consumers prefer email as their source of business communication. (MarketingSherpa, 2015)

• People are twice as likely to sign up for your email list as they are to interact with you on Facebook. (Forrester, 2014)

• Nearly half (47%) of marketers say they sometimes test alternate subject lines to optimize email performance. (MarketingProfs, 2016)

• Recipients decide whether your emails are attention-worthy in 0 to 3 seconds. (US Consumer Device Preference Report, Q3 2015)

• Emails with social sharing buttons see a 158% increase in click-through rates. (Nonprofit Hub, 2015)
• The percentage of emails containing GIFs rose from 5.4% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2016. (MailCharts, 2016)
• 80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention.(eMarketer, 2016)

Facts about Email Marketing Trends:

• The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to rise to 2.9 billion users by 2019. (Statista, 2016)

• Revenue for B2B marketing automation systems increased 60% to $1.2 million in 2014, compared to a 50% increase in 2013. (VentureBeat, 2014)

• 56% of companies currently use an email marketing provider and are 75% or more likely to be purchasers of marketing automation software over the next year. (DMA, 2015)

• In 2011, mobile accounted for 8% of email opens, compared to 2015 with 55% opens on mobile. (Litmus, 2016)

• 89% of marketers say that email is their primary channel for lead generation. (Mailigen, 2015)

• 57% of email subscribers spend 10-60 minutes browsing marketing emails during the week. (ChoozOn, 2012)

• On a daily basis, US consumers interact with about 11 brands through email, compared to 9 brands via Facebook, and 8 brands via Twitter. (EmailStatCenter.com, 2014)

• 61% of consumers like to receive weekly promotional emails and 28% want them even more frequently. (BlueCorona, 2017)

• Interactive emails increased by 27.2% in 2017. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Automated emails increased by 14.2% in 2017. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Big data personalization in emails increased by 21.6% in 2017. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Omnichannel email increased by 10.8% in 2017. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• 91% of Americans want to receive promotional emails. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Amount of emails sent a year is expected to reach 246 billion by the end of 2019. (Radicati, 2015)

• 38 percent of consumers would like promotional emails to come more frequently. (MarketingSherpa, 2015)

• On average, consumers have about 8 email accounts per person. (Radicati, 2016)

• B2B email campaigns reported a 47% higher click-through rate than B2C in 2016. (eMarketingPlatform, 2016)

• Currently, 49% of the companies automate their campaigns in some way or the other. (EmailMonday, 2016)

• 73% of the millennials prefer email for business communication because it is a ‘part of the everyday life’. (Clickz, 2016)

• 24% of Americans believe they check email “way too much,” and 40% say they go on “self-imposed email detox programs” and don’t check their email for an average of five days. (Capterra, 2016)

• Only about 30% of US retail email list subscribers have actually made a purchase from the retailer whose email list they subscribed to. (eMarketer, 2016)

• Nonprofits lose about $15k/year in donations due to spam filters blocking fundraising campaign emails from prospects’ inboxes. (Philantrophy.com, 2015)

• Nearly 105 billion emails are sent each day; this number is expected to reach 246 billion before 2020. (Radicati, 2015)

• While 26% of SMBs polled use email marketing for sales, just 7% use email as a brand-building tool. (DMA, 2015)

Facts about Mobile Email Marketing:

• Two-thirds of emails are read on either smartphones or tablets. (Marketing Land, 2015)

• 75% of Gmail users access their accounts on mobile devices. (TechCrunch, 2015)

• 48% of emails are opened on a smartphone. (Movable Ink, 2015)

• 41% of emails are opened on an iPhone. (Movable Ink, 2015)

• 39% of marketers have no strategy for mobile email. (eConsultancy, 2012)

• Women click 10% more often than men on mobile emails. (Tailored Mail, 2012)

• Though the number of new Internet users is growing at less than 10% per year, the number of new smartphone subscribers is growing at a 20%+ rate. (Mary Meeker, 2014)

• Mobile email will account for 15 to 70% of email opens, depending on your target audience,
  product, and email type. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Replies sent from phones are 54% faster than those sent from desktops. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• In 2017, 2.282 million people will access email via their mobile device. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• B2C emails get 57.4% more opens on mobile than B2B email. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Webmail and desktop opens have steadily declined throughout 2015, each dropping 13% since January. (Litmus, 2015)

• The iPhone is the most popular platform in the mobile email space (60%) followed by Apple iPad (21%) and Google Android (18%). (Litmus, 2016)

• Apple users are quick email readers; Ipad and iPhone both show a higher percentage with a 0-3 seconds email read length. (Movable, 2014)

• The biggest turn-offs people have with mobile email are: receiving too many (44%), Not relevant (37%), Too small to read and interact with (32%), Website and landing pages not mobile optimized (26%) and Not well formatted for mobile phones (21%). (LiveClicker and The Relevancy Group 2015)

• Of people using email apps on their smartphone, only 45% use them at home. (Google, 2016)

Facts about Email Segmentation:

• 83% of companies use at least basic segmentation for their emails. (Econsultancy, 2016)

• Only about one-third of US retail email list subscribers have actually made a purchase from the retailer whose email they subscribed to, according to industry data cited by email marketing firm Listrak. Many have made just one purchase from that retailer. (eMarketer, 2016)

• marketers who segmented their email lists experienced 39% higher open rates. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• marketers who segmented their email lists experienced 28% lower unsubscribe rates. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• marketers who segmented their email lists experienced 24% better deliverability. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• 52% of marketers say they have a great need to improve email database segmentation and relevant emails using segmentation drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• Segmented campaigns receive 14.64% more opens. (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• targeted and segmented lead nurturing emails generate an 8% click-through rate compared to general email sends, which generate just a 3% click-through rate (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• targeted emails saw a 68% open rate while the general email saw about a 22% open rate (MarketingProfs, 2017)

• The ability to segment email lists and individualize email campaign messaging
  is the most effective personalization tactics for 51% and 50% of marketing influencers respectively. (Ascend2, 2016)

• More than 60% of marketers use mass email blasts to stay in touch with customers, however, only 13% are using automation software. (Autopilot, 2015)

• Marketers using automation software generate 2X the number of leads than those using blast email software and are perceived by their peers to be 2X as effective at communicating. (Autopilot, 2015)

• Recipients decide whether your emails are attention-worthy in 0 to 3 seconds. (US Consumer Device Preference Report, 2015)

• Email is the preferred means of business communications across all age groups. (MarketingSherpa, 2015)

• For one in five companies, email marketing provides an ROI greater than 70-to-1. (DMA, 2015)

• Emails that are relevant to the recipient drive 18 times more revenue than general broadcast emails. (Mailigen, 2015)

• Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%. (ContentMarketingInstitute, 2016)

Email Usage Statistics:

• Of the 35% of US retail email list subscribers who are customers of the retailer they received an email from, just 15% have made multiple purchases. (eMarketer, 2016)

• Time spent checking email increased 17 percent YoY. (Capterra, 2016)

• 66% of unsubscribes occur between 5 and 10 p.m. (Tomasz Tunguz, 2015)

• U.S. white-collar workers say they spend about 6.3 hours per day checking their email. (Reuters, 2015)

• 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email. (Convince and Convert, 2016)

• 64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line. (Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2013)

• Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate. (GetResponse, 2013)

• Millennials are the age group most likely to check their email from bed (70%), from the bathroom (57%), or while driving (27%). (Capterra, 2016)

• Email subscribers are 3 times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources. (QuickSprout, 2013)

• A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook. (Radicati, 2013)

• Employees spend 13 of their working hours each week in their email inbox (on average). (McKinsey & Company, 2012)

• Six in ten (61%) American workers who use the Internet say email is “very important” for doing their job. (Pew Research, 2014)

• 24% of Americans believe they check email “way too much,” and 40% say they go on “self-imposed email detox programs” and don’t check their email for an average of five days. (Capterra, 2016)

• 58% of adults check their email first thing in the morning. (Customer Intelligence, 2015)

• 24% of visitors from email marketing buy something as compared to 2.49% of visitors from search engines and 0.59% from social media. (Monetate, 2013)

• Six in ten (61%) American workers who use the Internet say email is “very important” for doing their job. (Pew Research, 2014)

• Employees spend 13 of their working hours each week in their email inbox (on average). (McKinsey & Company, 2012)

• 57% of email subscribers spend 10-60 minutes browsing marketing emails during the week. (ChoozOn, 2012)
• Email’s ROI was 28.5% compared to 7% for direct mail. (Chief Marketer, 2012)

Key Takeaways:

• Email marketing automation is key for a higher ROI

• More and more people are using email every year

• Email is the preferred medium for all business communication