Email marketing statistics change as quickly as your Insta feed.
However, through industry benchmarks eCommerce stores can understand how their email marketing performs.
In this article, we’ve compiled statistics to give you a big picture of email marketing performance.
Revenue & traffic through email marketing
Email revenue is forecasted to reach 10.89 billion dollars. (Statista)
Email marketing generates an average of $40 for every $1 spent which is an ROI of 3900%. (Omnisend)
Email marketing campaigns account for 9% of the total traffic on eCommerce websites. (Statista)
96% of the top 1,000 online retailers agree that email marketing gives them the best return on investment. (Digital Commerce 360)
eCommerce emails have one of the highest deliverability rates of 96%. (Netcore Cloud)
61.1% of marketing email open rates are higher than 20% worldwide. (Statista)
Read more:
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Discounts & promotions in emails
75% of consumers say they like to receive emails on discounts and offers. (DMA)
Product awareness/promotion is the key objective of email marketing campaigns. (Statista)
Read more:
30 Amazing eCommerce Email Templates (from 6 industries)
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Visuals in email marketing
68% of millennials use and like seeing emojis, GIFs, and stickers in their emails (Inc.com)
Attaching a product video in an email can lead to a 200-300% increase in CTR. (Forrester)
Read more:
Email A/B Testing: Elements to Test + Mistakes to Avoid
25 Product Launch Email Examples That Drove Massive Sales (+ Templates)
Target audiences in email marketing
12% of U.S. consumers are very likely to purchase a product after receiving an email newsletter. (Statista)
Millennials in the US are the most popular target audience for email marketing. (Statista)
17% of U.S. baby boomers are unlikely to purchase a product after receiving an email newsletter. (Statista)
Read more:
7 Surefire Ways To Grow Your Email List In 2024
Automation & testing in email marketing
65% of marketers use automated email marketing worldwide. (Statista)
Testing your emails leads to higher ROI. (Hubspot)
Read more:
How to Increase Email Marketing ROI (Updated 2024)
20 High-Converting Examples Of Automated Emails
Email Marketing Ideas For eCommerce That Nobody’s Talking About
Mobile email marketing
Mobile-friendly email is the 2nd most popular strategy email marketers use to boost performance. (Hubspot)
88% of smartphone users check their Inboxes on their phones. (Hubspot)
81% of all email opens now occur on mobile. (Campaign Monitor)
73% of brands prioritize mobile device optimization when creating email marketing campaigns. (Hubspot)
Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns is not optimized for mobile devices. (SuperOffice)
Launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile clicks by 15%. (MailChimp)
67% of Generation Z scans their inbox on mobile. (Bluecore)
Read more:
25 Easy-To-Copy Confirmation Email Templates (+ Best Practices & FAQs)
Holiday promotional emails
77% of Black Friday emails produce a significant return on investment. (Pathwire)
Email is responsible for 20% of online holiday site visits. (Techcrunch)
Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined are predicted to generate over $10 billion in sales. (Adobe)
Consumers who purchase products through email will likely spend 138% more than those who don’t receive email offers. (CampaignMonitor)
During the holiday season, 47% of online sales were transacted via smartphones. (Adobe)
Read more:
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Email Deliverability Statistics
The average inbox placement rates were 85%. (Validity.com)
While anything above 89% is great, between 83 to 88% is satisfactory.
15.2% of emails fail to make it to the inbox. (Validity.com)
The global inbox placement rates by countries as per the Email Deliverability Benchmark Study are as follows:
- US – 84.6%
- Canada – 90%
- Brazil – 86.9%
- China – 92.7%
- Australia – 89.7%
- Germany – 97.8%
- UK – 89.8%
- France – 88.7%
- India – 69.8%
What are the different types of eCommerce emails?
There are several different types of email marketing strategies implemented by eCommerce stores.
Here are some statistics to show how these emails perform across industries.
1. Welcome Emails
Welcome emails generate 320% more revenue than any other campaign. (Invesp)
Welcome emails have a 91.43% open rate. (Hive.co)
Welcome emails can create an 86% lift in unique open rates. (Entrepreneur)
Welcome email read rates are 42% higher than the average email. (Campaign Monitor)
Welcome emails have on average 4x the open rate and 5x the click-through rate of a standard email marketing campaign. (InboxArmy)
84% of B2C welcome emails successfully reach inboxes worldwide and have a 23% read rate. (Statista)
Welcome emails with offers can boost revenue by 30% per email, compared to welcome emails without offers. (Invesp)
Welcome emails see more than 3x the transactions and revenue per email over regular promotional emails. (InboxArmy)
74% of consumers expect a welcome email as soon as they subscribe. (WordStream)
New leads are most engaged within 48 hours of subscribing. (VerticalResponse)
Read more:
Welcome Emails Inspiration: 15 Best eCommerce Examples
18 Welcome Email best Practices To Drive More Sales
2. Personalized Emails
Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. (Campaign Monitor)
74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. (eConsultancy)
Personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%. (Aberdeen)
Personalized emails have been shown to deliver 6x higher transactional rates than non-personalized emails. (MarketingProfs)
Relevant emails drive 18x more revenue than broadcast emails. (Emma)
Personalized email marketing generates a median ROI of 122%. (eMarketer)
On the other hand, product replenishment emails enjoy 53.6% click-to-open rates, the highest in eCommerce email marketing strategies.
Read more:
20 Email Personalization Templates (Examples From Great Brands)
Turn Boring Transactional Emails Into Cash Cows: 10 Proven Ideas
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3. Cart Abandonment & Recovery Emails
Shopping cart abandonment emails have an open rate of a whopping 44.76% (Barlliance)
Cart abandonment emails have a 23.33% click-through rate. (SaleCycle)
Cart abandonment emails to boost sales by 4.43% across all eCommerce industries. (Sale Cycle)
Only 50% of the top 100 eCommerce businesses send cart abandonment emails. (Iterable)
Email campaigns with three cart abandonment emails generated $24.9 million compared to $3.8 million for those who only sent one email. (Klaviyo)
Browse abandonment emails have been known to get 50.5% higher click-through rates than traditional emails.
Search abandonment is the not-so-secret reason why eCommerce brands lose revenue, as much as $300 billion annually.
Read more:
27 Powerful Ways To Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment (w/Examples)
Why your Browse Abandonment Emails Don't Work (& Winning Examples)
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4. Stock Alert Emails
Most eCommerce brands see an open rate of around 65.32% on stock alert emails. (Barlliance)
Back-in-stock alert emails achieve a massive 22.45% average conversion rate. (MarketingSherpa)
Read more:
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5. Post-Purchase Emails
Post-purchase emails enjoy a 217% higher open rate than traditional emails.
Post-purchase emails have seen a 6.4% click-through rate.
Read more:
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6. Referral Emails
The global average referral rate stands at 2.35%. (Referral Rock)
Referral Marketing generates 3-5x higher revenue compared to other channels. (Annex Cloud)
20,000 email addresses—the number a referral marketing program can collect. (Annex Cloud)
49% of US customers are introduced to a brand by friends and family. (Miller n.d)
Email referrals have a 17% conversion rate as compared to verbal which tops the list at 32%. (Score)
Referred customers help you gain a 25% higher profit margin. (Annex Cloud)
Customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate. (Deloitte)
Read more:
eCommerce Referral Email: 10 Examples That Really Work
7. Upsell Emails
Upsell emails boast impressive numbers—an open rate of 61.7%, a click-through rate of 9.7% , and a conversion rate of 9.16%. (Salecycle)
Customers who buy products through email spend 138% more than those who don’t receive emails. (Benchmark One)
10 to 30% of eCommerce revenue is generated from product recommendations via upselling. (Forrester)
91% of customers prefer buying from brands that recognize them and offer relevant product recommendations and offers. (Accenture)
Read more:
eCommerce Upsell Emails: High-converting Examples (+ Templates)
8. Re-engagement Emails
45% of subscribers who received a re-engagement email read the successive emails.
There’s a catch—only 24% of inactive customers read re-engagement emails.
Interestingly, 28.3% of email marketers send re-engagement emails as a part of their email list cleaning strategy. (Mailjet)
48.4% of marketers send re-engagement email campaigns to woo inactive subscribers. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
The average open rate for re-engagement email campaigns is 10%.
Read more:
Re-engagement Email Examples That (Actually) Win Back Subscribers
9. Winback Emails
Win back emails have an average conversion rate of 10.34%.
The open rate for Win back emails is 29% — higher than the average open rate email benchmark of 21.5%.
Winback emails have a staggering conversion rate of 460% as compared to other promotional emails.
Automated winback emails see an average open rate of 42.51%, a click-through rate of 18.27%, and a conversion rate of 10.34%.
Winback email subject lines related to It’s been a while see an average open rate of 27%.
Winback email subject lines related to We miss you experience an average open rate of 24%.
Winback email subject lines parallel to Discount see an average open rate of 20%.
12% of customers who receive winback emails read them conveying the effectiveness of winback emails. (Return Path Study)
Read more:
11 High-Converting Win Back Email Examples (+ Templates)
Frequently Asked Questions about eCommerce Email Marketing
1. Is email marketing effective for eCommerce?
Email marketing is dead.
We have all heard it from different marketers.
But email marketing is highly effective for eCommerce businesses.
Here are some reasons why email marketing is effective for eCommerce stores:
- Personalized communication: Stores can send customized messages tailored to specific customer preferences, purchase history, or demographics
- Customer relationships: Online stores can send regular updates, newsletters, and exclusive offers to encourage repeat purchases and increase customer lifetime value
- Targeted promotions and offers: Stores can analyze customer data and behavior to drive immediate sales and increase overall revenue
- Retargeting: Tracking user behavior, such as abandoned carts to set up automated cart recovery campaigns
- Cost-effective: The cost of sending emails is relatively low. Email marketing platforms provide robust analytics and tracking capabilities, allowing businesses to measure the performance of their campaigns, and track open rates, click-through rates, and conversions
2. How to build effective eCommerce email marketing strategies?
Here’s a list of steps and best practices on how to build effective eCommerce email marketing strategies:
Step 1 - Define your goals
Outline your objectives for email marketing. Are you aiming to increase sales, drive website traffic, reduce cart abandonment, or improve customer retention? Establishing specific goals will help you tailor your strategies accordingly.
Step 2 - Build a quality email list
Use opt-in forms on your website, leverage social media, offer incentives like exclusive discounts or content, and consider partnering with complementary businesses to expand your reach.
Step 3 - Segment your audience
Divide your email list into segments based on purchase history, browsing behavior, demographics, or engagement level. This allows stores to send more targeted and relevant emails that resonate with specific customer groups, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Step 4 - Personalize your emails
Use the customer data you have collected to personalize your email content. Address recipients by their names, recommend products based on their purchase history or send personalized offers.
Step 5 - Craft compelling subject lines
Use concise, action-oriented language, create a sense of urgency or exclusivity, and A/B test different subject lines to determine what works best for your audience.
Step 6 - Create engaging email content
Use a mix of product updates, informative content, educational resources, promotions, and customer testimonials to keep your subscribers engaged. Consider using images, videos, and clear call-to-action buttons to encourage click-throughs.
Step 7 - Automate email workflows
Utilize automation tools to set up email workflows that trigger based on specific actions or events. For example, you can automate welcome emails for new subscribers, abandoned cart reminders, or post-purchase follow-ups. Automation saves time, ensures timely communication, and helps nurture customer relationships.
Step 8 - Test and optimize
Use A/B testing to compare different variations and analyze the results to refine your strategies. Regularly review email analytics to understand open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and other relevant metrics to identify areas for improvement.
Step 9 - Maintain a consistent schedule
Be consistent with your email sending frequency, but avoid overwhelming your subscribers with excessive emails. Find a balance that keeps your brand visible without causing email fatigue. Pay attention to unsubscribe rates and engagement metrics to gauge the optimal sending frequency for your audience.
Step 10 - Monitor deliverability and compliance
Ensure your emails reach the recipients' inboxes by following email deliverability best practices. Use reputable email service providers, authenticate your emails with SPF and DKIM, keep your email list clean, and comply with anti-spam regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act or GDPR, depending on your target audience and location.
3. What is the difference between email deliverability and delivery?
Email delivery tells you if your recipient’s server receives your mail. It measures the percentage of emails that didn’t bounce including the ones that ended up in the spam box.
Email deliverability, in contrast, measures how many emails were delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes without landing in their spam. The key thing to remember—emails must reach the primary tab of the subscribers’ inbox.
Related reading:
What is a Good Open Rate for eCommerce Emails?
17 Proven Ideas to Improve Email Marketing Conversion Rate (+ Examples)
eCommerce Email Design: 25 Beautiful Examples (& Why They Drive Sales)
eCommerce email marketing: The complete guide
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