New Campaign Monitor report looks at local and global email marketing benchmarks and which industries are doing best
Australian email open and clickthrough rates are tracking higher than the global average but local consumers are quicker to unsubscribe, a new report has found.
The Campaign Monitor Email Marketing Benchmarks report is based on 100 billion emails sent by its global customer base between January and December 2020. It found Australia’s overall email open rate sat at 20.6 per cent, clickthrough rates at 3.1 per cent and click-to-open rates at 14.8 per cent. These figures were higher than those recorded for the US, UK, EMEA as well as the global average of 18 per cent with the exception of click-to-open rates, which were 0.1 per cent higher in the US.
Australia’s unsubscribe rate was also higher, however, than other regional averages, sitting at 0.2 per cent compared to the global and US/EMEA/UK averages, which were all 0.1 per cent.
According to the report, the best day of the week for sending email marketing campaigns is Friday, which recorded the highest open rates at 18.9 per cent and clickthrough rates of 2.7 per cent. Friday was also the best day for click-to-open rates (14.5 per cent).
The worst day for email marketing was found to be Saturday, with recorded open rates sitting at 17.3 per cent globally and clickthrough rates at a low of 2.4 per cent. However, the worst click-to-open rate was recorded by the report on Tuesday (13.5 per cent).
Across industries, Campaign Monitor found government and politics and not-for-profits with the highest open rates across sectors globally at 26.7 per cent and 25.5 per cent, respectively. These were followed by education (24.9 per cent) and financial services (24.8 per cent). The worst performer on the list was retail (12.6 per cent).
In Australia, education, food and beverage plus government and politics sectors led the way on open rates, with education earning a 34.3 per cent open rate, followed by food and beverage (33.6 per cent) and government and politics (31 per cent).
Of the three, Campaign Monitor noted Australia’s food and beverage brands far outstripped the global average, more than doubling the benchmark open rate for their industry of 15.2 per cent.
In terms of click-to-open rates, government and politics again led the global pack at 22.4 per cent, followed by real estate, design and construction activities (17.7 per cent). And again, the worst performer was retail at 8.5 per cent.
In Australia, education led the way (20.2 per cent), trailed by government and politics (17.5 per cent), media, entertainment and publishing (16.5 per cent) and not-for-profit (16.4 per cent).
When it comes to clickthrough rates, retail was also at the bottom of the global list (1.1 per cent), while government and politics led the way (6 per cent), followed by education (4.3 per cent) and not-for-profit (4.1 per cent). Unsubscribe rates were consistent across every day of the week.
In Australia, education (5.7 per cent), government and politics (5.5 per cent) and media, entertainment and publishing (5.3 per cent) all stood well ahead of the pack in terms of clickthrough rate benchmarks, with no other verticals breaking the 4 per cent mark. While this to a large extent reflected global industry trends, Australia’s media, entertainment and publishing sector proved the exception at more than 2 per cent ahead of the sector’s global average (3.6 per cent).
Campaign Monitor marketing director, Lane Harbin, told CMO email proved a lifeline for many organisations and marketers globally during 2020.
“Australia was no exception. While the Benchmarks Report shows that clearly, including engagement metrics up year on year, we were particularly impressed with Aussie brands beating their global counterparts in most metrics," she said. "Significantly higher marks on open rate, click-through rates and click-to-open rates are a true testament to Australian brands being able to quickly adapt and understand what their customers needed during a time unlike any before.”
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