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Are you aiming to ensure that your email marketing campaigns remain engaging, impactful, and profitable in 2024? The newly released 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks Report has all the insights you need to refine your strategy and get ahead. The report analyzes over 4 billion emails sent by various brands throughout 2023, providing a wealth of valuable data and trends across different types of email campaigns. This data offers a roadmap to help marketers and businesses optimize their efforts for better open rates, click-through rates, and overall engagement.
This comprehensive guide will take you through the report’s key findings, with explanations on how they apply to your business. By the end of this, you’ll be equipped with actionable steps to enhance your email marketing campaigns and keep your audience engaged throughout the year.
The Power of Automated Emails: A Key Opportunity for 2024
Email automation has long been a cornerstone of effective email marketing, and its importance is only growing in 2024. Automating your email campaigns not only improves efficiency but also helps you stay consistent in delivering messages to your audience at the right time. The data from the report shows that automated emails perform exceptionally well, leading to increased engagement and conversions.
Here’s a snapshot of how different types of automated campaigns performed:
| Message Type | Average Open Rate | Average Click-Through Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome Email | 83.63% | 16.6% |
| Triggered Email | 45.38% | 5.02% |
| Autoresponder | 51.05% | 5.59% |
| RSS | 56.75% | 10.57% |
| Webinar Invite | 28.89% | 2.86% |
| Webinar Reminder | ||
| – Sent at Start Time | 72.88% | 15.98% |
| – Sent 5 Mins Before | 85.43% | 23.15% |
| – Sent 30 Mins Before | 83.03% | 21.58% |
| – Sent 1 Hour Before | 105.84% | 28.66% |
| – Sent 1 Day Before | 106.52% | 14.64% |
Why This Matters:
The numbers clearly show that welcome emails have the highest open rate at over 83%, while webinar reminders sent closer to the event’s start time also perform exceedingly well, with open rates reaching as high as 106%. These statistics emphasize the importance of using automation for time-sensitive emails, as well as initial touchpoints like welcome messages.
But there’s more to email automation than high open and click-through rates. Automating your email campaigns can also improve your email deliverability—the likelihood that your emails will land in your recipients’ inboxes rather than their spam folders. This improvement in inbox placement is a crucial benefit for businesses trying to maintain or improve their sender reputation.
What You Should Do:
- Start Automating: If you haven’t yet embraced automation, 2024 is the time to do so. You can begin by automating some of the most basic but important types of emails, such as:
- Welcome emails for new subscribers.
- Abandoned cart reminders for eCommerce businesses. Even if automation feels intimidating, think of it as a series of “if-this-then-that” blocks. Start with the repetitive parts of your marketing strategy, like welcoming new subscribers or following up with customers after a purchase, and gradually expand to more complex workflows.
- Segment Your Audience: Use segmentation in your automated emails to make sure you’re delivering the right message to the right people at the right time. For example, trigger emails based on user actions like signups, downloads, or purchases to ensure high relevance.
Timing is Everything: When to Send Emails in 2024
The eternal question that marketers keep asking is, “When is the best time to send emails?” While there’s no universal answer, the 2024 benchmark data provides some valuable clues. According to the findings, the best time to send emails for maximum engagement falls into two time slots: early in the morning (4–6 AM) and later in the afternoon (5–7 PM).
Why do these time frames work? It aligns with natural human behavior. In the early morning, many people check their emails at the start of their workday, while in the late afternoon, they often look for any remaining tasks or opportunities before winding down. This pattern helps explain the higher engagement during these periods.
Notable Trends:
- Emails sent during these time slots showed higher open rates and click-through rates (CTR).
- Interestingly, marketers who experimented with sending emails at unconventional times, like 10 AM, noticed an uptick in their click-to-open rate (CTOR), suggesting that breaking away from the norm can sometimes be beneficial.
In terms of days of the week, engagement remains fairly stable throughout the workweek, with Tuesday and Thursday standing out as the best days for click-through rates. These midweek days might be the sweet spot for sending out important communications.
What You Should Do:
- Leverage Early and Late Time Slots: If you want to maximize engagement, consider sending your emails between 4–6 AM or 5–7 PM. Subscribers tend to engage with content most during these windows.
- Experiment With Other Times: Don’t restrict yourself to the typical time frames. Test different times, like mid-morning, to see how they affect your CTOR and overall engagement.
- Consider Time Zones: If you have a global audience, using tools that automatically adjust your email send times based on time zones (such as Time Travel) can make a big difference. In fact, emails sent using these tools observed an exceptionally high CTR of 9.76%, far above the average.
High Season, High Engagement: Boosting Email Volume During Q4
As the holiday season approaches in Q4, many email marketers worry about email fatigue. The fear is that sending too many emails during the high-sales period will overwhelm subscribers, lead to more opt-outs, and hurt your overall engagement rates. While these concerns are valid, the data suggests otherwise.
In fact, the fourth quarter of the year—especially November and December—sees some of the highest email engagement rates. Even though the volume of emails being sent goes up, the average open rates (OR) and click-through rates (CTR) increase during this time.
Here’s what the data shows for the high-sales months:
- November: 44.8% OR, 4.67% CTR
- December: 41.23% OR, 4.72% CTR
This indicates that despite more emails in people’s inboxes, audiences are in a shopping mindset and are more open to receiving promotional content. They’re actively looking for the best deals, holiday gift ideas, and time-sensitive offers.
What You Should Do:
- Increase Your Email Frequency Gradually: Instead of hesitating to send more emails during the holiday season, consider ramping up your email frequency. However, do this gradually over a few weeks to allow your audience to adjust and avoid overwhelming them.
- Clean Your Email List: Before increasing your email frequency, run a re-engagement campaign to target inactive subscribers. Clean your email list by removing contacts who haven’t engaged in a long time. This will help prevent deliverability issues and ensure your messages are reaching a more engaged audience.
The Long Game: Avoid Quick-Fix Tactics in 2024
Many marketers are tempted to use “quick-win” tactics to boost engagement, especially when it comes to subject lines. You’ve probably heard advice like adding an emoji, personalizing the subject line, or including a number to boost open rates. However, the data suggests that these shortcuts don’t guarantee results.
While tactics like personalization and emojis can be helpful, they’re not a magic bullet. In fact, many marketers who overuse these strategies may see diminishing returns, especially if they don’t align with their audience’s preferences or the email’s content.
What You Should Do:
- Focus on Relevance: Instead of trying to “hack” email engagement with emojis or trendy phrases, focus on delivering relevant content that matches the needs and expectations of your audience. For example:
- For eCommerce businesses, consider personalized product recommendations or abandoned cart reminders.
- For B2B, think about content recommendations or follow-up emails after a webinar.
- Build Trust Over Time: Email marketing is a long-term game. It’s about earning your recipients’ trust and delivering consistent, valuable content that delights them. If you fulfill the promises you made during signup, your subscribers will remain engaged without the need for shortcuts.
Understanding Context: The Key to Better Email Performance
One of the most important insights from the report is that email performance metrics vary based on several factors, such as:
- Your geographic location
- The industry you’re in
- The size of your email list
- Where your audience lives
- The type of content you promote
- How often you send emails
This means that benchmarks from other companies might not
align perfectly with your own results. What’s essential is that you analyze your own data and use these benchmarks as a guide for improvement rather than a strict comparison.
What You Should Do:
- Analyze Your Own Data: While industry benchmarks are helpful, your own data is even more crucial for refining your strategy. Make sure to continuously monitor your performance and test different elements like subject lines, timing, and content.
- Use Benchmarks as a Guide: Compare your results to the benchmark data but remember that your industry, audience, and email list are unique. The most important thing is continuous A/B testing and optimization.
The Road Ahead for 2024: What to Expect
As we move through 2024, email marketing is expected to evolve further. New rules from Google, Yahoo, and Apple are shifting the landscape of email authentication and privacy. These changes will likely affect deliverability, forcing marketers to rethink how they manage their email lists, authenticate emails, and engage with subscribers.
Beyond just authentication, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) will play an even more significant role in personalizing and automating email content. AI-driven subject lines, predictive send times, and dynamic content blocks will become more widely adopted.
What You Should Do:
- Stay Compliant: Keep an eye on new email authentication standards, such as DMARC, DKIM, and SPF, to maintain high deliverability rates.
- Explore AI Tools: Look into AI-powered email tools that can help you deliver even more personalized and timely content to your subscribers. Whether it’s for generating subject lines or predicting optimal send times, AI can significantly improve your campaigns.
Conclusion: Preparing for 2024
Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for engaging and converting audiences, but it’s constantly evolving. The 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks Report highlights that while tactics and trends shift, the fundamentals—like relevance, timing, and automation—continue to drive success.
By applying the insights from this report, you’ll be better positioned to run effective, engaging email campaigns throughout 2024. Whether it’s optimizing your send times, leveraging automation, or focusing on content that adds value to your audience, your success depends on a commitment to continuous improvement.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive tool to help you implement these strategies, consider trying platforms like GetResponse, which offers a 30-day free trial and provides a full suite of email marketing, automation, and personalization tools. With the right platform and the right strategy, you’ll be able to grow your audience, increase engagement, and drive more conversions in the year ahead.
