Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for driving customer engagement and conversions. Email marketing benchmarks play a pivotal role in providing businesses with a comprehensive understanding of their campaign performance and industry standards.
As we step into 2025, understanding industry-specific and regional benchmarks is essential to set realistic goals and measure the success of your email campaigns. In this article, we explore the latest email marketing benchmarks for 2025, breaking them down by industry and region.
Why Benchmarks Matter
Benchmarks help businesses :
- Compare their performance to industry standards.
- Identify areas for improvement in email campaigns.
- Set data-driven goals for engagement and conversions.
Email Marketing Benchmarks Across all Industries
First up, here are the overall email marketing benchmarks across all industries. Use these to see how your campaigns compare against all the accounts in our dataset. You can then dig deeper into the industry-specific data in the sections below.
- Open rate: 42.35%
- % of the total recipients that opened the email.
- Click-to-open rate: 5.63%
- % that clicked in the email out of the total recipients who were delivered and opened it.
- Click rate: 2.00%
- % that clicked in the email out of the total recipients who were delivered it.
- Unsubscribe rate: 0.08%
- % of the total recipients who clicked the unsubscribe link.
Benchmarks are your compass to navigate email marketing.
To gain a competitive advantage, industry, and regional benchmarks continuously come in handy to analyze email marketing effectiveness within the broader landscape.
Benchmarks provide performance guidelines:
- Improvement areas identification and progress tracking against industry best practices and specific nuances over time.
- Realistic goals and strategy refinements to stay competitive in the ever-evolving digital marketing.
- Decisions based on regional and industry customer preferences to increase engagement and conversions.
- Targeted adjustments to the strategy with metrics comparison (open rates, click-through rates, etc.) to industry averages and standards.
To get a leg up on the competition, industry and regional benchmarks are really useful for figuring out how well your email marketing is doing compared to the bigger picture.
Benchmarks help you:
- Figure out where you can improve and track your progress compared to the best practices in your industry and any unique things that change over time.
- Set realistic goals and adjust your strategies to stay ahead in the constantly changing world of digital marketing.
- Make decisions based on what customers in your area and industry like to do so you can get more people involved and make more sales.
- Change your strategy based on how your metrics compare (open rates, click-through rates, etc.) to the average and standards in your industry.
Let’s dive into the key metrics and insights by industry and region.
Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry
(you can make a comparison or use images from the industry as well )
1. Real Estate
- Open Rate: 40.00%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.14%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 3.47%
- Conversion Rate: 1.5-2.5%
- Bounce Rate: <1.0%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.06%
Real estate professionals succeed with property listings, virtual tour invitations, and market updates. Clear calls-to-action and localized content are essential for better engagement.
2. E-commerce
- Open Rate: 31.08%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.19%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 4.55%
- Conversion Rate: 1.5-2.0%
- Bounce Rate: <1.0%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.13%
E-commerce brands excel with personalized product recommendations, cart abandonment reminders, and seasonal promotions. Segmentation and AI-driven personalization are key drivers for higher engagement.
3. Consultants
- Open Rate: 45.74%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.93%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 4.88%
- Conversion Rate: 2-3%
- Bounce Rate: <0.8%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.05%
Consultants benefit from sharing thought leadership content, case studies, and personalized offers for their services. Educational content and a strong value proposition drive conversions.
4. Healthcare
- Open Rate: 44.60%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.75%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 4.64%
- Conversion Rate: 1-2%
- Bounce Rate: <0.8%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.11%
With privacy being a critical factor, healthcare providers see success with HIPAA-compliant educational campaigns, appointment reminders, and wellness tips.
5. Business and Finance
- Open Rate: 43.26%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.63%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 4.36%
- Conversion Rate: 2.5-4.0%
- Bounce Rate: <0.7%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.03%
Financial services thrive with newsletters covering market trends, investment tips, and updates about financial products. Trust and credibility are key drivers of email engagement.
6. Travel and Tourism
- Open Rate: 22.57%
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): 0.77%
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): 3.94%
- Conversion Rate: 2-3%
- Bounce Rate: <1.0%
- Unsubscribe Rate: 0.00%
Travel brands engage audiences with personalized trip suggestions, exclusive deals, and destination guides. High-quality visuals and timely offers are crucial for boosting click-through rates.
Email Marketing Benchmarks by Major Industries
How to Improve Email Success Metrics Today
Whether your current metrics are falling below industry standards or you want to outshine the competition, here are 4 ways to start improving your email success metrics right now:
1. Increase Email Open Rate
- Personalize subject lines to make them more engaging.
- Experiment with A/B testing different subject line variations (length, tone, CTA).
- Add a preheader that gives a compelling reason to open.
- Test different sender names and combinations with multivariate testing.
- Optimize send times to ensure emails land when recipients are most likely to engage.
- Segment your email list to deliver more relevant content.
- Clean up inactive subscribers to improve deliverability.
2. Increase Email Clicks
- Add more clickable links, such as blog posts, articles, or resource libraries.
- Use interactive elements like surveys, quizzes, and product boxes.
- Include strong calls-to-action (CTAs) to encourage clicks.
- Optimize the placement and design of buttons and links.
- Use dynamic content to deliver relevant offers to each audience segment.
- Run A/B tests to find the best-performing email content and design.
3. Decrease Unsubscribes
- Use double opt-in to ensure only engaged subscribers join your list.
- Stick to a consistent sending schedule to build a relationship with readers.
- Regularly validate your email list to remove invalid addresses.
- Ensure email content matches the expectations set by the subject line.
- Tailor your email content to align with subscriber interests.
4. Monitor and Refine Your Metrics
- Analyze email analytics to identify high-performing campaigns.
- Refine future emails based on past engagement trends.
- Use automation tools to deliver emails at optimal times for each recipient.
Key Takeaways for 2025
- Personalization is Non-Negotiable : Emails tailored to user behavior and preferences drive higher open and click-through rates.
- Mobile-First Design: With over 50% of emails opened on mobile devices, optimizing for mobile is crucial.
- Data Privacy Compliance: Ensure your campaigns comply with GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and other regulations.
- AI-Powered Insights: Use AI tools to refine targeting, improve segmentation, and predict customer behavior.
- Consistency is Key: Regularly sending well-crafted emails ensures your audience stays engaged.
How to Use These Benchmarks
To improve your email marketing performance:
- Compare your metrics with the industry and region benchmarks provided.
- Identify areas for improvement (e.g., low open rates or high bounce rates).
- Implement best practices like A/B testing, segmentation, and compelling subject lines.
By keeping these benchmarks in mind, you can create data-driven strategies that deliver consistent results and help you stay ahead of the competition in 2025.
