What is the average email open rate for B2C house lists?

Robert Mendelson from Select Blinds Canada is looking for stats. He sends in the following post...

I'm looking for e-mail open rates from companies who e-mail to B2C house lists weekly, ideally a product related to Home & Garden, but I'll take all the stat's I can get!

Anyone have stats that can be shared?

Comments

[June Li]

Hi Robert,
MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Guide might be of interest to you. Visit http://www.sherpastore.com/Email-Marketing-Benchmarks-Conversion-Data-2006.html#

~June

[Kelly]

We publish Canadian email statistics, and our Q2 report is broken down by industry (so there is a Retail/B2C - but not as specific as you are looking for)

it's available here: http://www.cardcommunications.com/quarterly_report.html

I know how difficult it is to find Canadian Email Stats - hence why we started publishing our own!

[Kate]

Hi Robert,
A 20-40% open rate is attainable, so long as you have a solid list and an engaging subject title.
I have seen this in both b2c and within your home decor vertical. If you would like to discuss further, feel free to contact me.
Best,

Kate Driscoll
Principal
Lux 9

T: 416.915.9909
E: kate@lux9.com

Robert, along with "what is the average clickthrough rate", this is probably the most asked question from email marketers when they are trying to benchmark their own email programs. The problem is that there are so many variables. As such, the answer to your question is: "It depends."

The MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Guide is a good start... http://www.sherpastore.com/Email-Marketing-Benchmarks-Conversion-Data-2006.html#

You can also download the Response Rate Study from Morgan Stewart at ExactTarget. This covers the reslts of of over 100,000 email campaigns, and over a billion email messages. Go here for this complimentary download... http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/whitepapers_form.aspx?id=466

One of the big issues with tracking open rate is that more and more email recipients are using email clients or webmail services that block images by default. Since email opens are tracked using an invisible image, opens by these people are not measured. Clickthroughs still get tracked so the trend is for lower open rates and higher clickthroughs "per 100 opens".

The main variables that drive open rates include:

1. Deliverability - If you aren't getting your emails delivered to the recipient inbox they are unlikely to be seen or opened. Make sure you know what % of your emails get through versus those that go to the spam or junk folder and those that get blocked.

2. Relationship - Does the recipient know you or the brand? Are they expecting your email? Do they have a compelling reason to open it? The From display will be the main factor in communicating who the email is from.

3. Subject Line - Once you get the eyeballs to your message in the inbox you need to give them a reason to open the email. Let them know what's in it for them. But be sure to test your Subject line against spam filters (avoid things like $, ! or all upper case letters).

Many of the people I have worked with can see up to 60% or higher open rates. Some reports I read say that the average is 20-30%. Again, the answer to your question is: "It depends."

Let me know if you would like more information.

Stefan Eyram
ExactTarget - http://www.exacttarget.com
T. 905.827.4630
E. seyram@exacttarget.com