You’ve recently sent out your latest email newsletter to your customer list. For those of you marketers who are regularly measuring the effectiveness of your emails, what were the results? (BTW – For those of your marketers who aren’t measuring the effectiveness of your emails, I’d strongly recommend you jump on the tracking bandwagon ASAP). Do you think your open rate was good? What about the click-through rate? Could it have been better? How do you even know what is considered a good open rate? Or click-through rate?
To give you a sense of how your results compare with others in your industry, we’ve compiled the list* below:
| Business Type | Open Rate | Bounce Rate | Click-Through Rate |
| Accountant | 14.0% | 5.5% | 14.5% |
| Art Gallery | 21.9% | 6.0% | 10.6% |
| Association | 18.5% | 6.2% | 11.0% |
| Communications | 8.5% | 2.0% | 8.9% |
| Consultant | 13.6% | 8.0% | 12.0% |
| Crafts | 27.0% | 3.4% | 22.1% |
| Education and Services | 18.6% | 5.9% | 15.1% |
| Entertainment | 17.0% | 5.3% | 10.8% |
| Event Planning | 16.6% | 5.9% | 12.2% |
| Franchise | 19.3% | 5.9% | 12.5% |
| Government Agency | 23.0% | 6.5% | 14.7% |
| Hotel, Inn, B&B | 19.8% | 5.4% | 13.9% |
| Legal Services | 18.2% | 7.8% | 13.0% |
| Manufacturing & Distribution | 18.0% | 7.0% | 13.1% |
| Marketing/PR | 11.0% | 6.4% | 13.5% |
| Medical Services | 16.7% | 5.3% | 13.3% |
| Non-profit | 20.0% | 5.9% | 12.3% |
| Office Supplies | 16.5% | 1.9% | 9.4% |
| Personal Services | 18.0% | 7.6% | 12.6% |
| Products & Services | 16.0% | 6.4% | 12.2% |
| Professional Services | 15.4% | 6.6% | 13.0% |
| Publishing | 18.1% | 4.5% | 27.6% |
| Real Estate | 14.8% | 7.6% | 10.4% |
| Religious Organization | 22.4% | 4.6% | 9.8% |
| Restaurant/Bar/Catering | 18.4% | 6.0% | 6.6% |
| Retail | 17.7% | 4.3% | 15.7% |
| Salon/Spa | 15.0% | 6.9% | 7.0% |
| Sports & Recreation | 17.5% | 5.9% | 12.3% |
| Technology | 15.0% | 7.3% | 10.9% |
| Transportation | 18.9% | 5.1% | 13.8% |
| Travel & Tourism | 15.5% | 5.9% | 11.6% |
| Web Developer | 17.4% | 5.8% | 16.4% |
| Other | 17.7% | 5.4% | 17.8% |
*Source: Constant Contact, 2011
Next Post: How to improve your rates!
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Definitions:
Open rate: percentage of recipients to whom you sent an email that actually opened it.
Bounce rate: percentage of people to whom you sent an email that, in most cases, could not receve it.
Click-through rate: percentage of people who opened the email and clicked at least one link in the email.