One of the great things about e-mail marketing is the ability to track nearly everything about its success (or lack thereof).
A recent Return Path Intelligence Report on e-mail statistics covering the 4th Quarter of 2012 is a case in point. Return Path conducts these studies by monitoring data from thousands of e-mail campaigns that utilize its delivery platforms.
Specifically, the study tracks the inbox, blocking and filtering rates for more than 400,000 campaigns that use Return Path’s Monitor and Email Client Monitor suites, along with panel data from the company’s Inbox Insight program.
For the 4th study, Return Path reviewed nearly 250 ISPs in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
And what does its most recent study find? Fewer than one in five e-mails (17%) were opened. And that rate is slightly lower than what was recorded in the 2011 4th Quarter study.
However, some business sectors performed substantially better than the average:
- Finance sector: ~28% open (read) rate
- Business sector: ~24%
- Real estate sector: ~20%
Shopping e-mails fared less well, with a read rate of ~15% (down from ~17% the previous year).
E-mail open rates in the education (~11%) and entertainment (~10%) fields were lower still.
And the worst sectors? News sector e-mails had an average open rate of only ~8%, while social networking e-mails fared even worse at ~6%.
Moreover, both of these bouncing-in-the-basement sectors experienced very significant drop-offs from the previous year, underscoring how they continue to struggle in their efforts to be interesting and relevant to readers.
For those who wish to view additional results and analysis, the Return Path report is available here. It’s a free download.
Nones Notes 