More Open Rate Data from ExactTarget

E-mail open rates declined by 16.5% last year, dropping by an average of 1.8% per quarter, according to a study by ExactTarget.

But clickthrough rates remained steady, and even experienced a slight upturn during the last quarter. They hit 6.6% during that period, compared with 6% for the fourth quarter of 2004.

Open rates also hit their annual high during the fourth quarter—of 35.5%. But this represented a 7% decline from the prior year.

Why the declining open rates? They are largely due to image blocking, according to Morgan Stewart, author of the report.

The study also reveals that senders are generating more unique clicks for each tracked open.

“Organizations are doing a better job of designing their e-mails to drive click activity,” Stewart explained. “The importance of sender and subject lines is increasing because subscribers are using them to determine if they are going to get engaged with an e-mail.”

In addition, ExactTarget found that e-mails sent on Friday had the highest open rate for 14 months straight.

And Sunday, although it did poorly on open rates, generated the highest average click-through rate. The monthly average ranged from 4.9% in June to 8.3% in October.

“During the summer months, e-mail recipients are mostly likely spending the weekend outdoors away from their computers,” wrote Stewart, commenting on the seasonal shift. “In the winter, subscribers may spend more time indoors catching up on e-mail and/or preparing for the week ahead.”

Despite the high open rates on Fridays, most e-mail still goes out during mid-week. According to ExactTarget, 92% of e-mail volume and 96% of all campaigns are sent from Monday through Friday.

Only 14.3% of all e-mails are sent on Friday, compared 24.5% on Tuesdays.

The study is based on data collected from more than 4,000 organizations, 230,000 e-mail sends and 2.7 billion messages.