Despite the rising popularity of marketing venues such as social media, YouTube videos, and blogs, one of the most effective and inexpensive options continues to be email marketing. In this article, we’ll examine the statistics for email marketing and demonstrate why you can’t afford to ignore this strategy.
Fundamental Email Statistics
Email is an integral part of most people’s lives. We use it to communicate with colleagues and customers, stay in touch with friends and family, and keep on top of our responsibilities.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some key email statistics that just might surprise you:
- Approximately 347.3 billion emails are sent each day worldwide
- Nearly 92% of internet users in the U.S. have an email account
- Approximately 3B people don’t have access to the internet (mainly in Africa)
- People in the U.S. send the most emails daily, followed by Germany, Austria, China, and France
- There are 8 billion spam messages sent daily in the U.S. (which might explain why it feels like our inboxes are always full of spam!)
- The average professional receives 120 work emails per day
- Gmail is the most popular email service in the U.S., with 53% of the market share
- On average, Gmail users have 1.75 email addresses
- Baby boomers spend over 40 minutes per day reading emails, while millennials spend approximately 10 minutes
It’s unsurprising that email is as popular as it is. After all, it’s one of the best ways to communicate quickly. There’s no need to wait for the postal service to deliver a letter — an email is nearly instantaneous.
Statistics for Email Marketing: An Overview
Nowadays, many digital marketers prioritize paid advertisements, social media, and SEO strategies, and email marketing is often forgotten. Some marketers have written off email entirely to focus more on younger generations’ preferences for other communication channels.
Are marketers right to do so? Is email dead? As a matter of fact, email marketing campaigns are still a very effective option. For every dollar spent on email marketing campaigns, companies receive $36 in return.
Of course, the return on investment varies by industry; for example, ecomm email marketing offers a higher ROI of $45 for every dollar spent.
Here are a few other statistics for email marketing to ponder:
- Revenue from email marketing will reach 10.89B in 2023
- By 2027, spending on email marketing will reach $17.9B
- The annual growth rate for email marketing is 13.3%
- Over 64% of small businesses use email marketing as one of their primary marketing channels
- Roughly 57% of small businesses plan to increase their spending on email marketing in the next year
- Only 10% of small businesses plan to decrease their spending on email marketing in 2023
- Email marketing offers the most significant ROI for small businesses over other channels, including social media, traditional marketing, and content marketing
- Automating emails through a drip campaign leads to a 34% increase in revenue
- Over 91% of businesses believe email automation is critical to their success
- Companies that use triggered emails see a 70.5% higher open rate than regular email marketing
- Approximately 45% of companies send promotional emails weekly, while 33% send them several times per week
The bottom line is that email is still one of the most cost-efficient ways to drive brand awareness and generate revenue. Emails are less demanding and intrusive than phone calls or text messages, allowing consumers to read them on their own time and decide whether to take further action.
Statistics for Email Marketing: B2C Campaigns
Business-to-consumer (B2C) email marketing campaigns are standard in the e-commerce, retail, and service sectors. Companies use them to promote new products, advertise sales, and provide status updates such as shipping confirmations.
Let’s examine some essential statistics about B2C email marketing:
- B2C emails have a higher open rate of 25%, versus 22% for B2B emails
- The best day for newsletter open rates is Monday
- On the other hand, Tuesday is the best day for open rate (21.8%) and click-throughs (2.4%)
- Roughly 61% of consumers want to receive weekly emails from their favorite companies
- France has the highest global open rate for emails at 38.33%
- The average open rate for all countries is 22.45%
- Most consumers sign up for B2C emails to receive notifications for sales and discounts
- Cart abandonment emails have the greatest chance of conversion if they’re sent within one hour
- Approximately 45% of consumers open abandoned cart emails
- Cart abandonment emails have an overall conversion rate of 10.7%
- Sending repeated cart abandonment messages increases conversions by 63%
- Surprisingly, personalized emails have a lower open rate than generic ones
- The average person spends only 9 seconds reading an email they open
- Nearly 46% of people read emails on a smartphone
- Emails concerning the government, hobbies, religion, and artists have the highest click-through rates
- Vitamin supplement emails have the lowest open rate, followed by daily discount promotions
There’s a lot of actionable information you can glean from these statistics. For example, businesses are more likely to see traction from their email marketing campaigns when they use generic emails that are sent on Mondays or Tuesdays when advertising a sale or promotion.
Also, according to these statistics, ecomm email marketing strategists should set their cart abandonment trigger campaigns to send a reminder to consumers no later than one hour after the abandonment, and then continue to follow up if necessary.
Statistics for Email Marketing: B2B Campaigns
Not all companies are marketing directly to individual consumers. Business-to-business (B2B) organizations sell products and services to other companies and have their own email marketing strategies.
Let’s look at some relevant B2B email marketing statistics:
- B2B companies find that newsletters are the best way to generate leads
- Nearly 69% of B2B companies regularly publish email newsletters
- The average B2B organization sends only one email marketing campaign every 25 days
- Businesses are 21 times more likely to close a lead if they respond to an email inquiry within 30 minutes
- Nearly 32% of B2B companies allocate just 5% of their budget to marketing
- Email open rates vary by industry, with agencies having the highest open rate (25.49%) while technology and software have the lowest (20.42%)
- Manufacturing B2B companies have the highest email click-through rates
- B2B consumers are most likely to unsubscribe from real estate and construction emails
There are a few conclusions we can draw from the statistics. First, newsletters remain a great way to communicate with B2B customers, perhaps due to the more professional nature of email. However, most B2B companies don’t allocate much of their budget toward marketing, suggesting that they rely more on in-person events, word-of-mouth, and inexpensive emails to generate revenue.
Statistics for Email Marketing: The Demographics
You might look at the hundreds of spam messages in your inbox and wonder, just who is reading the billions of emails sent each day? While some people religiously read every email and clear out their inbox, you have to ask, how many emails go unread?
Let’s find out and take a look at the demographics behind email statistics:
- Nearly 45% of consumers won’t open emails from people they don’t know
- 64% of consumers prefer to receive emails with pictures, while 54% prefer emails that include video
- Only 35% of consumers prefer text-only emails
- Including a video within an email increases click-through-rates by 300%
- The average email is 434 words long
- 65% of consumers check their email three times each day, while 28% check their email more than ten times each day
- Nearly 60% of individuals check their email when they wake up
- Smartphone users are more likely to check their emails multiple times daily
While it’s tempting to look at these numbers and just conclude that email still works in general, savvy marketers know exactly who reads their emails and formulate strategies to attract more readers.
The Future of Email
So what does the future hold for email? One thing’s for sure: It’s not going away anytime soon! There are currently more than 4 billion email users around the globe, and researchers expect that number will climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. That’s more than half the global population.
Email Is a Critical Tool in Your Marketing Toolbox
As these statistics for email marketing show, no business can afford not to have an email marketing strategy. It’s a simple, effective, inexpensive way to increase brand awareness and customer conversions and improve client retention rates.
However, handling email marketing yourself can be time-consuming, especially if you don’t have an in-house marketing team. So let Galactic Fed help you — our email marketing services can drive your revenue to new heights. Reach out to us today to set up a customized email marketing strategy for your organization.
