Email Marketing Success Statistics You Need to Know

If you’ve checked your email in the last 24 hours, you’ve proven the point: Emails get read. 

The question is how to leverage email marketing to grow your audience, sell more, monetize your content, and see a better return on investment (ROI). 

We’ve tracked email marketing success statistics from 11 different sources to help you find answers that you can act on.

Top Email Marketing Success Statistics You Need to Know in 2024

Success leaves clues. Look at what successful email marketers are doing, and you’ll get a glimpse of the email marketing that’s working in 2024. 

Here are some vital email marketing success statistics that point the way:

• The average deliverability rate of emails sent through beehiiv is 98%

• 347.3 billion emails were sent or received in 2023, a 4.3% increase from 2022 (Oberlo)

• You can expect a similar growth rate in the coming year, with a projected 361.6 billion emails in 2024 (Oberlo)

• Nearly a third (29%) of all marketers say that email marketing is their most effective marketing channel—more than those who chose social media, content marketing, or SEO (SmartInsights)

• 58% of consumers say checking email is the first thing they do at the start of the day (Optin Monster)

• The average person spends 5 hours a day reading email (Adobe)

• Almost half (49%) of consumers would gladly open an email once a week from their favorite brand (Statista)

Email isn’t just relevant right now, it’s growing. So let’s look at how you can take advantage of this growth.

What Is the Average Email Success Rate?

Entrepreneurs like to ask, “What is the success rate of email marketing?”

We've got some numbers for you. But keep in mind the “average email success rate” is a nearly meaningless statistic.

First of all, you need to decide what you mean by success. Is it a certain number of sales? Or opt-ins? Does email success mean somebody scheduled an appointment? Would a specific open or click-through rate be a success in your book?

Do you factor in negative statistics, such as unsubscribes, or even spam reports?

Once you’re clear and specific about what success means, you’re still not done. The average email success rate across all industries could be substantially different from the average in your industry.

According to Databox, most industries have an average open rate between 10% and 20%, but our own research at beehiiv suggests many industries have open rates of 30% or higher. 

To give you an idea of how hard it is to find the average email success rate, take a look at the table below. 

What is the best day of the week to send an email? We did our research. Here’s what you need to know:

Why Trust Us? All beehiiv writers are carefully vetted for their knowledge and experience. Jacob Bear has been writing email campaigns for nearly a decade, and was recently named a Top Copywriting Voice on LinkedIn. He learned about email marketing statistics the hard way: By ignoring them in the past.

What is the Average ROI for Email Marketing?

As you can see from above, we're asking for trouble if we try to give you an average ROI for email marketing.

However, Litmus has a widely cited study that found that the average ROI for email marketing was $36 for every dollar spent or a return on investment of $3,600%!

If this is anywhere close to accurate, then email marketing success statistics will show you that email marketing pays.

Email Marketing Success ROI Statistics

While the Litmus statistic speaks for itself, here are some other email marketing success ROI statistics:

• Customer acquisition from email marketing is 40 times higher than from Facebook and Twitter

• Click-through rates for email can beat social media 50 to 1 or even better

• Automated marketing emails have been shown to get 8 times as many opens

Latest Email Marketing Success Statistics for 2024

Among B2B buyers, email is twice as effective as any other channel. A full 77% of these prospects say they prefer it if you contact them by email for your sales and marketing efforts. No other channel has more than a 39% approval rating.

Given the power of email marketing success, let’s look at a few statistics that point the way to an effective email campaign.

Email Marketing Success Effectiveness Statistics

Welcome emails and newsletters are the two pillars of email marketing success. Constant Contact reports that 81% of marketers use newsletters, and 79% use a welcome email.

If you want to get your email opened, take the time to write good subject lines. According to Aweber, 47% of recipients will decide whether to open or delete an email based on the subject line alone.

Emojis in your subject line can increase your open rates by 56%.

We did some more research to find out if the characters in your subject line can affect your deliverability rates. Here’s what we found:

We also found that subject lines with 0-20 characters have an open rate of 40.17% on beehiiv.

Email Marketing Success for 2024 and Beyond

Personalization is a big part of email marketing success for 2024 and beyond. 

A telling statistic is that 83 percent of customers are willing to share their data if it means a more personalized experience. 

In fact, 76 percent of buyers not only want but expect this high level of personalization. If you can provide it, you’ll develop an intimate relationship with your readers. 

This is why the proper segmentation can increase your email revenue by 760%, according to Campaign Monitor. Segmentation is one of the most powerful forms of personalization.

By the way, if you use the recipient’s name in the subject line, your open rates could increase by 22%.

Email Marketing Success Growth Statistics

By the end of 2026, there will be 4.7 billion email users, according to projections by Constant Contact. More people are using or will be using email than ever before. 

Savvy marketers are continuously positioning themselves to take advantage of this trend.

Importance of Email Marketing Success for Long-Term Planning

In a survey put out by SaleCycle, about half the respondents said they buy something from a marketing email at least once a month.

These readers don’t always buy from the same company, but if you could get half your list to make a monthly purchase, you would have a thriving business by almost any standard. 

So when you're planning for the long-term, it's worth thinking about what you need to do in order to consistently grow your list and build email marketing success. 

Is Email Marketing Still Effective in 2024?

Numbers don’t lie. A full 55 percent of consumers say email is their preferred digital channel for business communication.

According to Statista, revenue from email marketing is expected to exceed 10 billion dollars by the end of 2024. 

We would call that effective.

In the interest of full disclosure, there does seem to be a generation-based trend in email popularity. 

BlueCore found that 74% of Baby Boomers think email is the most personal channel to receive brand communications. 

This number dips to 72% for Gen X, then drops to 64% for Millennials and 60% for Gen Z. It’s too soon to tell if this lower popularity is permanent for each age group, or if readers tend to favor email more as they grow older.

Either way, email marketing is still effective in 2024.

Tools and Resources for Measuring Email Marketing Success Metrics

Resources and platforms that support testing are a valuable tool. A/B testing was found to increase ROI by 28%. 

Responsive design can increase unique clicks from mobile devices by up to 15%.

Given this, it's important to have tools that allow for segmentation and testing, in addition to responsive design.

It turns out beehiiv provides an ideal solution for email marketing success.

Many of our best-in-class newsletters, such as Morning Brew, have used our automations and other features to achieve rapid growth. Segmentation and A/B testing are easily set up with a few clicks.

All beehiiv users get a no-code email template editor, which allows you to customize every detail of your newsletter, from header to footer. Responsive design is built in, so your newsletter will look good regardless of the user’s device. 

beehiiv has several programs to help grow your audience, and to date, there are three different ways you can monetize your audience.

Statistically speaking, it’s hard to say how likely you are to achieve email marketing success. But when you start a beehiiv newsletter, you increase your chances dramatically.