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Email Marketing Open Rate By Industry In 2024
How Does Your Newsletter Measure Up?
Megan Smith
February 21st, 2024
Table of Contents
Curious how your email marketing open rate measures up to the competition? You're not alone. Google queries about good or average open rates have soared over the past year.
It can be hard to find the perfect benchmarks for your industry and platform. That's why we're releasing beehiiv's proprietary research on the subject. These are the metrics for beehiiv publications.
Even better, we're providing you with average open rates by niche. We want you to be able to compare apples to apples and AI publications to AI publications.
Learn more about open rates, global averages, and how to improve your engagement numbers. Or find out how your newsletter measures up.
What Is the Formula for Open Rate in Email Marketing?
Your open rate is one of the five key email metrics to track.
Open rates are a critical metric in email marketing, offering insight into how many recipients are opening and viewing the emails you send.
What is the formula for open rate in email marketing?
The formula for calculating the open rate is simple:
Open Rate = (Number of Emails Opened / Number of Emails Delivered) x 100
For instance, if you send out 1,000 emails, and 20 emails bounce (meaning they didn't reach the recipient), you would have delivered 980 emails. If 245 were opened, your open rate would be 25%.
What is a Good Open Rate For Marketing Emails?
A "good" open rate varies significantly depending on the industry, the nature of the email, and the audience. Geography matters, too. Canadians open 20.12% of marketing emails, which is the highest rate for any country.
As for industries, the financial services sector leads the way with the highest open rate globally at 16.68%. Close behind are the publishing and communication sectors, with open rates of 14.47% and 11.83% respectively.
However, most marketers report better success. Around 60% of marketers worldwide report open rates above 20%. 34.7% of marketers experience open rates between 10% and 20%.
Only a small fraction of marketers (4.2%) claim that their campaigns regularly generate less than a 10% open rate. Email marketing tends to get results. People are ready to open up your message and listen to what you have to say.
These statistics represent average open rates for 2023 on the beehiiv platform.
A quick refresher on terminology:
Delivery Rate: The percentage of emails that were successfully delivered to recipients' inboxes.
Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who opened the email and viewed its content.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within the email, indicating engagement with the content.
Bounces: The percentage of emails that were not delivered successfully due to various reasons such as invalid email addresses or full mailboxes.
Spam Complaint Rate: The percentage of recipients who marked the email as spam or reported it as an unwanted message.
With no further ado, here are the averages across the platform.
Welcome emails are particularly attractive to subscribers. They have an average open rate of 47.05%.
Note: this article mainly focuses on email marketing open rates, but people can only open what they receive. If your delivery rate seems low, check out the best practices for email deliverability and start using them for your publication.
Email Open Rate By Industry and Niche
As promised, these are the detailed-niche-level statistics for beehiiv publications.
(Some of the niches fit better in their categories than others. I did my best.)
Arts and Entertainment
News, Politics, and Law
Health and Wellness
Math, Science, and Technology
Business and Finance
Sports, Fitness, and Recreation
Lifestyle and Leisure
Communities, Relationships, Households, and Education
How To Improve Your Email Marketing Open Rates
Successful email campaigns require strong open rates. Help your content attract readers by following these tips.
Segment Your List
Readers are more likely to open emails relevant to their interests.
By dividing your audience into smaller, more specific groups based on factors such as demographics, interests, or engagement levels, you can tailor your content to each reader.
For instance, you might create lists for groups that only want to hear from you monthly or ask subscribers to indicate their favorite topics.
Brands can also segment by customer intent. Send offers and calls to action that align with the subscriber's stage in the customer's journey.
A/B Test Subject Lines
First impressions matter. Use A/B email testing to find the subject lines that engage your audience.
A/B testing entails crafting two distinct subject lines for the same email and sending each version to a small subset of your audience. The subject line with a higher open rate is then sent to the rest of your list.
Keep your subject lines short, engaging, and to the point. Use action words and personalize where possible. Remember, the goal is to entice your reader to open the email.
Optimize for Mobile
Cater to readers on the go. 85% of U.S. workers regularly check their email on smartphones. If your emails aren't optimized for mobile, you could be missing out on a significant number of potential opens.
Use email marketing tools that offer mobile-optimized templates, and preview your emails on different devices to ensure they display correctly.
Run a Re-engagement Campaign
Reconnect with old friends.
A re-engagement campaign targets subscribers who have become inactive or less responsive over time.
Identify inactive subscribers and send them an email reminding them of your brand, offering them special deals, or asking for feedback. The goal is to reignite their interest and encourage them to interact with your emails again.
You might even ask them to opt into your list again, confirming their interest. After all, if they're simply not listening, you don't benefit from their presence on your list.
Clean Your List
Speaking of dead weight, it may be time to clean your email list. You should regularly remove bounced email addresses and unengaged subscribers.
It's hard to give up on a potential customer, but dead weight only harms your open rates and deliverability in the long run.
Send at the Right Time
The timing of your emails can significantly impact your open rates. Identify when your subscribers are most likely to check their emails and schedule your messages accordingly.
Niche Down
Focusing on a niche audience can dramatically improve your open rates. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, tailor your content to a specific audience interested in what you have to offer.
Look at your past issues. What content receives the highest open rates? Can you improve engagement by narrowing your focus?
Sometimes focused sub-niches or industry intersections prove to be untapped sweet spots in the newsletter marketplace. By merging his financial and space technology expertise, Ian Vorbach of SpaceDotBiz regularly gets open rates over 50%.
Get Engaged
Create more engaging content that appeals to your audience. Dazzling content goes beyond just providing information. It tells a story, arouses emotions, builds a connection, and prompts action.
Effective tactics include:
Taking advantage of audience polls
Chatting with subscribers
Using automation to welcome new fans
Adding visual appeal to your design
Including case studies or personal anecdotes
Find out what people want to read and provide it.
Remember, the goal of email marketing is not just to send emails, but to get them opened, read, and acted upon. Start implementing these tips today and watch your email engagement soar!
Improve the Open Rates For Your Niche Publication
Open rates are more than just numbers—they're a reflection of your audience's interest and engagement. A successful email should reach inboxes and pique your audience's curiosity.
You can stand out in a crowded inbox by understanding your audience, delivering valuable content, and optimizing each issue. You should also regularly clean your list of inactive subscribers.
Learn from your mistakes and successes. Take a look at your recent email campaigns, and identify your best and worst performers. Use the numbers as messages from your audience about the content they want to read.
And if you think your niche publication could do better on beehiiv, what are you waiting for? Sign up for a free beehiiv account, migrate your list, and start benefiting from the best newsletter service around.
Why Trust Us
beehiiv is more than just an email marketing tool. It's a team of experienced newsletter creators and marketers who understand the intricacies of email marketing audiences and niche publications. As for me, I'm a digital marketer who regularly writes about the benchmarks and best practices for email marketing.
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