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What are the latest email marketing benchmarks for Australian businesses?
By keeping track of your email marketing performance, particularly against email marketing benchmarks, you can work your way to a more engaged and profitable email list.
If you want to know what email marketing benchmarks you should be measuring up against then keep scrolling my friend, we’ve got you covered!
Email marketing benchmarks by region
The average open rate in Australia is 22.4%
What is an email open rate?
The percentage of subscribers on your mailing list who received your email and hit *open sesame* – be it for a few seconds or minutes.
Thanks to recent iOS updates, open rates have become a somewhat unreliable email marketing metric.
This is because Apple Mail customers are able to disable the tracking that determines when they open emails. Because of this, open rates aren’t as insightful of a metric as they used to be.
Instead, I recommend making your click rate and conversion rate your key email marketing metrics to watch.
How to improve your email open rates
People will generally open an email for one of these three reasons:
- Because of who sent it
- Because of a compelling/interesting subject line
- Because of what you’re offering them
Keeping this in mind, you can play around with:
- The sender name you use. If your sender name is your business name, you could try using your own name (if you’re the business owner that is). This can make the email feel more like a personal message than a sales opportunity.
- Your subject line. You can test these variables and see what gets a better response from your audience:
- Using emojis (they’re fun, striking and get the point across)
- Making the copy longer/shorter (the golden rule here is to use between 6 – 10 words to convey your message)
- Asking a question or making a bold statement
- Try personalising your subject line with the recipient’s name
To learn more about testing your emails, check out: How to A/B test your emails (and why you should).
- Following your subject line is your preheader text. I like to use this section as a bit of a blurb for what’s to come — it looks more professional and is way more attention-grabbing than a run-on email preview.
- Your email open rate could be low because you haven’t found the optimal sending time for your audience yet. Experiment with what days/times you’re sending content — the results might shock you.
Want to learn more about sending your marketing emails at the right time? Read this blog: When’s the best time to send email marketing in Australia?
The average click-to-open rate (CTOR) in Australia is 13.4%
What is email click-to-open rate?
This is the percentage of people who clicked on a link after opening your email.
For instance: 500 people were sent your email but only 200 people opened it. Of those 200 people, 20 clicked on a link in your email. Your CTOR would be 10% because 20 divided by 200 x 100 = 10.
However, just like open rates are now an unreliable metric thanks to Apple privacy, so is your CTOR. Instead, I recommend prioritising your CTR (click-through rate) as an email benchmark to watch — we’ll explain this metric next.
The average click-through rate (CTR) in Australia is 3%
What is email click-through rate?
CTR is pretty similar to CTOR — you’re still measuring how many people clicked a link in your email. The difference is you’re measuring the rate of link clicks by all the subscribers you sent a campaign to, not just the ones who opened your email.
For instance: 500 people were sent your email and 50 people clicked a link. Your CTR would be 10% because 50 divided by 500 x 100 = 10.
How to improve your email click-through rate
- Streamline how many CTA (call to actions) you include. If you’re asking your reader to do multiple things, chances are they’ll do none of them. Direct their attention. Make it simple.
- Make your emails short and snappy. If you want to speak more deeply on a certain topic, direct your readers to a blog post. The ones who are interested will follow.
- Include a strong visual that communicates your message — your readers will get the gist faster (plus, visuals break up blocky/boring text).
- Optimise your email for mobile. All the cool kids are reading emails on their phones these days — make sure your email reads well across multiple devices.
- You could also experiment with your CTA button colours and see what attracts attention.
Your email bounce rate should sit under 2%
What is email bounce rate?
Email bounce rate is the percentage of people that couldn’t receive your email. This could be because the email address provided was fake, the address isn’t active anymore, or the recipient’s inbox is full, amongst other things.
How to improve your email bounce rate
- Believe it or not, there is a difference between types of ‘bounces’. You have hard bounces, or, you can have soft bounces. A hard bounce is from something permanent like a fake address. A soft bounce is a temporary problem that can be solved.
- You could go the route of requiring a double opt-in. What does that mean? Once someone has signed up to receive your emails, they’ll be sent another email to verify their email address. Once their email is verified, they get added to the list.
- Send emails from a reputable email marketing platform. Sending mass emails from a Gmail or Yahoo account will get you zapped by spam filters and likely end up disabling your email address, too.
- Do a sweep of your mailing list regularly and check to see which email addresses are a repeat problem.
To learn more about looking after your email reputation, read 7 ways to avoid looking like spam.
The average email unsubscribe rate in Australia is 0.3%
What is email unsubscribe rate?
Of the total number of subscribers you emailed, the percentage of people who opted out.
How to improve your email unsubscribe rate
First of all, I want to say that unsubscribe rates generally get a bad wrap! Having a healthy trickle (keyword: HEALTHY) of people unsubbing is a good thing.
It means they’re not vibing with your content and aren’t going to be the brand ambassador you need. And that’s fine! It’s better to know now and focus on building relationships with people who gel with your business.
In saying that — if your unsubscribe rates are continuously high, there could be another reason for it that you need to get on top of pronto!
- Assess if you’re sending too many email campaigns, or not enough. Subscribers could be feeling overwhelmed by your emails, or they could be forgetting about your business altogether. When you do show up in their inbox again, they don’t know who you are or they roll their eyes and sigh. Unsub!
- It’s important to set your subscribers’ expectations from the start. When they join your list, tell them when they’ll be hearing from you and what content they’ll be receiving. If you set expectations from the get-go, it’s generally pretty hard to disappoint.
- Ask for feedback from your subscribers! The best way to figure out what the problem is is by asking the person directly. If someone’s unsubbed, make sure you ask them why with a quick survey.
For a guide to feedback emails, check out: Feedback emails: The good, the bad & the ugly.
- Get fancy and segment your mailing list by interests. If someone receives content that isn’t relevant to their needs at the time, then of course they’re not going to stick around for more.
