A study recently conducted by MailerMailer showed that the average marketing e-mail open rate fell to 13.20 percent in the first six months of 2008.
This figure was 13.98 percent in the second half of 2007 and 16.11 percent in the first half of 2007.
Banking/finance, religious/spiritual, government and telecommunications marketing e-mails bucked the trend and had higher open rates.
Click rates fell also, from 3.18 percent in the first half of 2007 to 2.73 percent in the first half of 2008.
E-mails with subject lines of less than 35 characters had an average open rate of 19.6 percent and an average click rate of 3.1 percent.
Those with subject lines of 35 or more characters had an average open rate of 14.8 percent and an average click rate of 1.9 percent.
MailerMailer also indicates that e-mails sent on Sundays get the highest open rates.
The company’s latest metrics report also indicates that almost one-third of e-mail opens happen within the first two hours of their being sent, which is probably the result of the increasing number of mobile devices that enable users to view their e-mail.
In spite of the decline in open and click rates, e-mail remains a strong tool for marketers. It ranks second to paid search as the best medium to drive high volumes of sales, according to 241 merchants surveyed by E-Consultancy and R.O.EYE.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006733
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631648
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