Be in the Know: 2018 Email Marketing Statistics You Should Know

Let’s talk email for a second…

As a business owner, you want to make sure your time, resources and money are being used wisely, right? Well, believe it or not, one of the tools you cannot afford to ignore is email marketing.

Now, you might wonder how email marketing can be valuable when there are so many other ways you reach your customers these days, but do not be fooled! Email matters!

Email marketing is so much more than just sending messages to inboxes. It is all about informing, engaging and retaining customers, new and old.

Sure, there are tons of articles about how you can improve and increase your email success, but what do the numbers say? Is it worth your time and efforts?

The answer is…yes!

To help you make the most out of your email marketing in 2018 and onward, let’s take a look at a compiled list of some of the most important email marketing statistics you need to know. With this information, you can take a look into 2o18 email marketing trends and use them to shape up your future email campaigns!

2018: Email Marketing Statistics to Consider

Before we dive into these email marketing statistics, here are a few helpful numbers to put these statistics in perspective: The world population is 7.7 billion and the internet has 4.1 billion users.

General Email Marketing Statistics

• Email marketing has an average ROI of 3,800%. In other words, for every dollar invested, the average return is $38.
• Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind colleague recommendations and industry thought leaders.
• In the US alone, more than 85% of adults send or read email.
• Women pay more attention to marketing emails than men do. In fact, women spend 7 minutes more a month on a smartphone checking emails compared to men.
• Spam accounts for 48.16% of email traffic worldwide.
• As of 2017, there are 3.7 billion global email users. This number is predicted to grow to 4.1 billion users by 2021.
• 86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes.
• 56% of brands using emoji in their email subject lines had a higher open rate.
• Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email (according to 10 email marketing studies).
• Only about 30% of US retail email list subscribers have actually made a purchase from the retailer whose email list they subscribed to.
• More than 50% of men and women agree that humor is acceptable in an email.
• On average, men open more emails than women.
• 80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention
• Men and women are equally likely to convert from an email opened on a desktop—but women are more likely to convert on a tablet and men are more likely to convert on a phone.
• 73% of millennials identify email as their preferred means of business communication.
• The number of email users in the US was projected to grow to 244.5 million by the end of 2017, and 254.7 million by 2020.
• 50% of Americans check their emails in bed and 18% while driving.
• Nearly 105 billion emails are sent each day. This number is expected to reach 246 billion before 2020.
• The use of emoji in email marketing messages increased by 775% from 2015 to 2016.
• The percentage of emails containing GIFs rose from 5.4% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2016.
• 49% of businesses use some form of email automation.
• Pet and animal services has the highest email open rate—people love their pets!
• 28% of consumers would like to receive promotional emails more than once per week. 38% would like emails to come even more frequently.
• 205 billion emails are sent every day and this number is expected to reach 246 billion by the end of 2019.
• Email marketing spending in the United States is projected to grow from $2.07 billion USD in 2014 to $3.07 billion USD in 2019.
• The most important goal of 54% (majority) of email marketing influencers is to increase the engagement rate of email marketing (Ascend2).
• Gmail has 1 billion active users worldwide.
• 42.3% of Americans say they sign up for email lists to get discounts and savings.
• 11.2% say they sign up for email lists because they like a brand.
• More than 50% US consumers subscribe to email from 6 or fewer brands.
• 57% of consumers break up with brands because of unnecessary spamming.
• In 2017, the top two spam content categories were healthcare and malware
• Over 75% of US consumers find advertising in email newsletters annoying.
• 66% of consumers unsubscribe from emails because they aren’t relevant.
• People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers.

Mobile and Social Media Email Marketing Statistics

• Mobile email will account for 20-75% of email opens, depending on your target audience.
• The Apple iPhone commands 31% of the email client market share, followed by Gmail at 22% as of May 2017 (calculations based on 1.29 billion opens).
• 45% of people redeem coupons via their mobile devices.
• Emails with social sharing buttons see a 158% increase in CTR.
• If your email is not optimized for mobile, 80% of users will delete it.
• Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share content on social media than leads who came through another channel.
• 72.9% of 18-24-year-olds use their phones to check email.
• When a prospect or customer who opens an email on a mobile device opens that same email again on another device, they are 65% more likely to click-through to your site/offering.
• 88% of smartphone users actively check email on their phones. This makes it more popular than any other app for both iPhones and Android devices.
• 23% of readers who open an email on a mobile device open it again later.
• Though the number of new Internet users is growing at less than 10% per year, the number of new smartphone subscribers is growing at a 20%+ rate.
• One out of every three clicks within an email occurs on a mobile device.
• You are 6x more likely to get a click from an email campaign than you are from a tweet.
• Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.
• Email subscribers are 3 times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources.
• 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer social media.
• A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook.
• Mobile users check their email three times more than non-mobile users.
• 52% of customers are less likely to engage with a company because of bad mobile experience.
• If your email is not optimized for mobile, 80% of users will delete it.
• 90% of emails reach the correct consumer’s inbox, but only 2% of Facebook followers see a business’s posts in their News Feeds.

 Email Marketing Strategy Statistics

• 64% of companies worldwide rate email marketing as the most effective marketing channel.
• Email list segmentation and personalized emailing were the most effective email strategies of 2017. In fact, segmented email marketing campaigns get 14.64% more email opens and 59.99% more clicks compared to non-segmented campaigns.
• Popular spam words to avoid include: Percent off, make money, collect, clearance, claim.
• As the number of images in an email increases, the click through rate of the email tends to decrease.
• Adding videos to your email can increase click rates by 300%.
• 11 a.m. EST has the highest click through rate for email sends.
• Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.
• Welcome emails are incredibly effective: on average, 320% more revenue is attributed to them on a per email basis than other promotional emails.
• 77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email (versus direct mail, text, phone, or social media).
• Using the word “Donate” in your subject line can reduce open rate by 50% or more.
• Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
• Sending 3 abandonment cart email results in 69% more orders than a single email.
• Only 39% of online retailers send personalized product recommendations via email. Yikes!
• 81% of online shoppers who receive emails based on previous shopping habits were at least somewhat likely to make a purchase as a result of targeted email.
• Including a call to action button instead of a text link can increase conversion rates by as much as 28%.
• Sending four emails in a month instead of one significantly increases the number of consumers opening more than one email.
• According to DMA, 25% of marketers have trouble getting content for their email marketing campaigns.
• 78% of consumers unsubscribe from emails because brands were sending too many emails.
• 1% American adults in a random survey said they purchased a product from a retail store after receiving an email about it.
• 85% of consumers sign up for marketing emails hoping for a reward.
• 73% of marketers do not intend to adopt influencer marketing, live video, chatbots, AI, or machine learning in the coming year.
• 74% of women prefer gender-neutral marketing messages.
• 54% of marketers say that increasing engagement rate is their top email marketing priority.

Now You Know!

Email marketing statistics offer important insights you can use to guide your content and retention strategies. By understanding these numbers and looking at your own email analytics, you can learn everything you need to manipulate and highlight effective marketing strategy around what your customers need in emails.

As a marketer, I can’t help but be excited for what is to come with email automation and technology! Hopefully this article has wet your whistle to learn more, but clearly, there are many opportunities for rapid growth in email marketing!

To add to the statistics, I wanted to share a forward-looking list of email marketing trends you should pay attention to:

• Interactivity
• Personalization and creating lifetime value for subscribers and customers
• Creating shorter and concise email content
• Improving email accessibility for subscribers with disabilities
• Sending more emails that are text only
• Improving your storytelling will help developing customer connection
• Omni-channel experiences
• Full funnel focus content
• Customer experience and authenticity

So, the future looks bright for email marketing but marketers must keep on their toes to get ahead of these coming trends! If you want more help in understanding effective email marketing be sure to read some more of our articles here or here!

If you need a little more hands-on help, I am more than happy to talk to you! Reach out to me here!

What do you think? What are you most excited for when it comes to the future of email marketing? Comment and share your excitement below!