Q3 2011 North America Email Trends Results: Open Rates Increase Over Previous Quarter And Year

December 7, 2011 — The Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Email Experience Council and Epsilon today released the Q3 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, which show a 7.1 percent increase in open rates from Q2 2011, and a 7.8 percent increase since Q3 2010. Click rates remained stable at 5.5 percent and the average volume per client increased from the previous year by 14.9 percent.

The quarterly analysis is compiled from 5.7 billion emails sent by Epsilon in July, August, and September of 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients. The analysis combines data from both of Epsilon’s proprietary platforms, DREAM and DREAMmail.

Report Highlights:

Non-bounce rates remained strong quarter over quarter and year over year, at 96.5 percent.
Open rates (23.8 percent) saw a slight increase quarter over quarter (7.1 percent), as well as an increase over last year (7.8 percent).
Click rates (5.5 percent) increased 0.3 percentage points from Q2 2011. They are also in line with Q3 2010 results (5.4 percent) and have remained steady over the last two years.
Average volume per client increased over Q3 2010 (14.9 percent), but decreased by 30.4 percent over last quarter.

"While email marketing performance remains strong, incorporating best practices will ensure an increase in customer engagement and drive desired behaviors,” said Judy Loschen, vice president of digital analytics at Aspen Marketing Services, a division of Epsilon. “As email continues to mature as a marketing channel and is often used with other mediums, it’s key for marketers to leverage customer data and to dive deeper into testing in order to deliver clear and relevant messaging that drives loyalty, engagement and action.”

“A nearly eight percent rise in open rates year-to-year, even as volumes go up, is a big deal,” says Ali Swerdlow, director of the Email Experience Council. “Email is a mature channel, so an improvement on that scale indicates better marketer practices regarding subject lines and preview panes.”

For more information and industry-specific benchmarks, the Q3 2011 Email Trends and Benchmarks report is available at www.epsilon.com/pr/Q311emailbenchmarks.

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://emailexperience.org/member-center/why-join-eec.

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.

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