Billions of Emails: 5 Email Marketing Insights

Back in 2012, 144.8 billion emails were sent each day. And according to Radicati, that number has jumped up to 204.1 billion per day. Those are absolutely incredible numbers.

But more importantly, that’s a lot of data. Combing through billions of business emails has given us marketers a lot to think about. How should we be thinking about email in 2015? Let’s look at the stats to find out. Here are 5 key email marketing insights from 2014.

1. More people are opening emails on mobile

You probably know this already – but it’s worth reviewing. According to Litmus, desktop usage has dropped from 58% to 22% in less than 4 years, while mobile usage has gone up from a measly 8% to 48%. That’s a huge tilt towards mobile preference. (Webmail usage has remained mostly the same.)

 

Specifically, iPhone usage is way up, accounting for 27% of all email usage. In other words, over half of all mobile users check email on iPhones. It’s also the single biggest usage category, beating out Gmail by a whopping 10 percentage points. Outlook comes in at a wimpy 9%, and surprisingly Android phones are in 6th place with only 7% of all views.

And, amazingly, AOL is still alive at 1%.

 

2. Optimal time of day is what you’d expect

According to Mailchimp, what’s the best time of day to send emails? 10:30am.

The worst time? 3:30am.

Experts (and these 2014 Mailchimp charts) agree that it’s better to send emails when everyone is at work. After work, we’re all busy commuting or out and about, so views dip. Not exactly rocket science.

 

There isn’t much deviation across sectors, either.

3. Optimal day of week is exactly what you’d expect

Monday to Friday is best, with slight dips on Monday, hump day (Wednesday) and Friday. Somewhat surprisingly, Thursday wins gold with an 18% open rate, while Tuesday wins silver at around 17%.

4. Weekends aren’t as good as weekdays

Sorry to disappoint, but weekends are definitely worse than weekdays when it comes to getting your emails looked at. Despite what many marketers may believe, Saturday does not have any magical attributes.

But it should be noted that this isn’t true for all industries. In fact, a few select industries actually enjoy their highest open rates (~20%) on Saturday and Sunday.

Of course, if you’re not in ecommerce or selling arts, retail and hobby-related products, this doesn’t apply.

5. Online Services, eCommerce, Fashion, B2C Retail and Legal win

Lastly, when it comes to click-to-open rates, Public Sector emails win by a landslide with a 31.24% open rate.

In the private sector, the top 5 open rates are:

1. Online services – 21.16%
2. eCommerce -15.11%
3. Fashion – 14.93%
4. B2C Retail – 13.98%
5. Legal – 13.04%

Very surprisingly, of the 25 email types reviewed, Events finished dead last at 7.66%. Restaurants and hospitality didn’t fare much better at 8.75% (23rd place). No wonder Groupon clones are failing.

2014 email stats in a nutshell

• Mobile usage is way up and iPhones rule
• Best time to send emails is at 10:30am or during work
• Worst time to send emails is at 3:30am or when everyone’s sleeping
• Weekdays are definitely better than weekends (Tuesday and Thursday are best)
• Unless you’re in ecommerce, art, retail or hobbies
• Online services, ecommerce, fashion, B2C retail and legal emails are opened most
• Restaurant and event emails are opened much less often than you’d expect

Did anything surprise or catch you off guard? Let us know in the comments.

So, there you have it. This is what email marketing looked like in 2013-2014. Next week, we’ll take a look at what we can expect from email marketing in 2015.