September 8, 2010 — The Email Experience Council and Epsilon today released the Q2 2010 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results which show an 18.0 percent increase in open rates from the same time two years earlier.
The quarterly analysis is compiled from 5.6 billion emails sent by Epsilon in April, May and June 2010, across multiple industries and approximately 160 participating clients. The analysis combines data from both of Epsilon’s proprietary platforms, DREAM and DREAMmail.
Report Highlights:
- Open rates remain steady at 22.1 percent, increasing 18.0 percent from Q2 2008. Six of the thirteen industries had an increase in open rates over Q2 2009.
- The average click rate is 5.3 percent, down from the same time last year.
- The average volume per client increased 10.5 percent from Q2 2009.
- 60.9 percent of emails delivered by Epsilon were categorized as Marketing messages.
- Services messages had the highest open (42.5 percent) and click (7.7 percent) rates.
According to Kevin Mabley, Senior Vice President of Strategic & Analytic Consulting at Epsilon, "With a small decline in click rates coupled with increasing volumes, it is more important than ever to break through the clutter and compel customers to open and click on links in your messages. At Epsilon, we recommend data-driven campaigns with personalized content. Consumers are much more likely to open messages that contain relevant content based on their past behavior and preferences. In addition, our analysis of message types shows that all communications including service messages and editorial content are an opportunity to build the brand and send targeted messages and offers to your customers. These trigger-based opportunities will help improve email metrics and allow marketers to get more return on their marketing investment.”
“Although bounce rates continue to drop indicating better list hygiene, the dip this quarter in click-thru rates indicates that email marketers need to work harder at cutting through the media clutter. Consumers receive more emails and have more media options each quarter and will only click on emails that offer them something valuable or entertaining,” said Ali Swerdlow, Email Experience Council, Sales & Marketing.
For more information and industry-specific benchmarks, the Q2 2010 Email Trends and Benchmark report is available at www.epsilon.com/pr/Q210emailbenchmarks.
About Epsilon
Epsilon is the industry’s leading marketing services firm, with a broad array of data-driven, multichannel marketing solutions that leverage consumer insight to help brands deepen their relationships with customers. Services include strategic consulting, acquisition and customer database technologies, loyalty management, proprietary data, predictive modeling and a full range of direct and digital agency services, including creative, interactive web design, email deployment, search engine optimization and direct mail production. In addition, Epsilon is the world's largest permission-based email marketer. Epsilon is an Alliance Data company. For more information, visit www.epsilon.com or call 1.800.309.0505.
About the Email Experience Council
The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council is a global professional organization that strives to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and actively advocating its critical importance in business and its ROI value.
We are committed to regularly conducting a broad series of initiatives for a variety of organizations that highlight the positive impact and importance of email as a marketing tool, communications vehicle and branding device. Additionally, eec members are setting the standards for email through our Member Roundtables. The members who belong to our organization are representatives of other trade organizations, agencies, advertisers, technology partners, clients and companies focused on the potential of email marketing via mobile and other digital devices. We encourage you to become part of the eec at http://join.emailexperience.org.
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