North American Bounces, Complaints High, Opens Low: Study

E-mail bounce and complaint rates are relatively high in North America compared to the rest of the world, and the continent’s open rates are relatively low, according to a study by Implix.

The average open rate—an “open” is recorded when the receiving machine calls for graphics from the sender—of HTML messages sent by Implix’s clients in North America was 25.44%, according to the e-commerce software provider. Europe, South America and Africa all came in at higher than 33%, according to the study.

Australia had the lowest average HTML open rate, coming in at 19.51%, according to Implix.

North American click-through rates averaged 2.67%, according to Implix. This is just above Asian mailers, which averaged 2.44% click-through rates, according to Implix.

European mailers had the highest click-through rates, coming in at 4.07%, according to the study.

Meanwhile, the average bounce rate—e-mails returned because they were undeliverable for some reason—for North American mailers was 2.17%, compared to 1.44% in Asia, 1.04% in Europe and less than a percent in South America, Africa and Australia, according to Implix.

Also, the average spam-complaint rate for North American mailers was 0.12% compared to 0.06% in Australia, 0.07% in Europe and Asia, and 0.08% in Africa. South America slightly edged out North America for the top spot in the spam-complaint department with an average rate of 0.13%, according to Implix.

“Our study shows how serious the problems of e-mail fatigue and low engagement have become in North America,” said Simon Grabowski, CEO of Implix, in an e-mail exchange with this newsletter. “Fewer than one out of every three recipients opened and clicked on a link. And only one out of every eight subscribers who clicked on links did it twice.”

He added that e-mail marketers who want to continue to get their messages delivered and opened must begin focusing on engaging recipients.

“We need to remember that top ISPs have begun to introduce engagement metrics such as opens and clicks into their deliverability equations,” said Grabowski. “That means that unengaged recipients can cause e-mail campaigns to be blocked and automatically sent to spam folders. North American marketers have a lot of work to do in engaging their subscribers. “

He added: “Looking forward, we expect that behavioral targeting and list segmentation will continue to be the most important email marketing trend.”