There are a lot of numbers in MailChimp's free reports, but you might be wondering how your email-marketing stats compare to others in the same industry. What kind of open rates should companies like yours expect? How many bounces are too many? What’s an acceptable abuse complaint rate? The more context, the better.
MailChimp sends billions of emails a month for more than two million users. Needless to say, we track a lot of data. So we scanned hundreds of millions of emails delivered by our system (where campaign tracking was activated, and where users reported their industry) and calculated the average unique open rates, average unique click rates, average unique soft bounces, average unique hard bounces, and average unique abuse complaint rate by industry.
We only tracked campaigns that went to at least 1000 subscribers, but these stats aren’t pulled from a survey of giant corporations with million-dollar marketing budgets and dedicated email-marketing teams. Our customers range from one-person startups to Fortune 500 companies, so the whole spectrum is represented in this data. Here’s your apples-to-apples comparison with others in your industry.
| Industry | Open | Click | Soft Bounce | Hard Bounce | Abuse | Unsub |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food Services | 45.4% | 4.5% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.058% | 0.268% |
| Architecture and Construction | 43.8% | 5.2% | 1.4% | 1.1% | 0.038% | 0.222% |
| Arts and Artists | 43.1% | 3.4% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.047% | 0.237% |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 32.7% | 3.6% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.068% | 0.295% |
| Business and Finance | 32.6% | 3.1% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 0.041% | 0.198% |
| Computers and Electronics | 32.4% | 2.7% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.041% | 0.202% |
| Construction | 36.5% | 2.7% | 2.2% | 2.0% | 0.083% | 0.395% |
| Consulting | 37.1% | 3.4% | 1.6% | 1.3% | 0.038% | 0.271% |
| Creative Services/Agency | 41.9% | 3.5% | 1.1% | 1.1% | 0.045% | 0.253% |
| Daily Deals/E-Coupons | 19.3% | 1.9% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.019% | 0.086% |
| eCommerce | 22.2% | 2.9% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.026% | 0.118% |
| Education and Training | 36.1% | 3.4% | 0.9% | 0.7% | 0.036% | 0.171% |
| Entertainment and Events | 25.4% | 2.1% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.040% | 0.175% |
| Gambling | 25.1% | 1.3% | 0.6% | 1.0% | 0.072% | 0.128% |
| Games | 21.6% | 2.5% | 0.6% | 1.0% | 0.066% | 0.175% |
| Government | 45.8% | 3.6% | 0.9% | 0.7% | 0.033% | 0.139% |
| Health and Fitness | 32.2% | 3.3% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.060% | 0.263% |
| Hobbies | 37.5% | 5.0% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.045% | 0.186% |
| Home and Garden | 38.7% | 4.8% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.051% | 0.234% |
| Insurance | 43.7% | 2.8% | 1.4% | 1.3% | 0.058% | 0.198% |
| Legal | 38.3% | 3.6% | 1.0% | 0.8% | 0.032% | 0.152% |
| Manufacturing | 48.1% | 4.1% | 2.2% | 1.9% | 0.078% | 0.415% |
| Marketing and Advertising | 21.7% | 2.1% | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.034% | 0.153% |
| Media and Publishing | 30.9% | 4.4% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.018% | 0.090% |
| Medical, Dental, and Healthcare | 30.9% | 3.1% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.056% | 0.174% |
| Mobile | 36.8% | 2.9% | 0.9% | 1.3% | 0.073% | 0.388% |
| Music and Musicians | 30.0% | 2.6% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.035% | 0.181% |
| Non-Profit | 46.7% | 3.6% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.040% | 0.175% |
| Other | 33.2% | 3.4% | 1.0% | 0.8% | 0.040% | 0.202% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 36.7% | 3.7% | 1.6% | 1.7% | 0.070% | 0.286% |
| Photo and Video | 48.1% | 5.5% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.046% | 0.269% |
| Politics | 36.7% | 3.9% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.058% | 0.180% |
| Professional Services | 39.0% | 3.2% | 1.4% | 1.2% | 0.047% | 0.283% |
| Public Relations | 35.5% | 1.9% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.025% | 0.173% |
| Real Estate | 37.2% | 3.1% | 1.1% | 1.0% | 0.070% | 0.275% |
| Recruitment and Staffing | 23.1% | 4.5% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.039% | 0.179% |
| Religion | 48.6% | 3.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.028% | 0.107% |
| Restaurant | 33.0% | 1.4% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.046% | 0.251% |
| Restaurant and Venue | 37.8% | 2.2% | 1.0% | 1.0% | 0.059% | 0.353% |
| Retail | 31.0% | 3.4% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.044% | 0.214% |
| Social Networks and Online Communities | 25.0% | 3.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.032% | 0.160% |
| Software and Web App | 32.6% | 2.7% | 1.3% | 1.2% | 0.058% | 0.342% |
| Sports | 35.8% | 3.4% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.035% | 0.190% |
| Telecommunications | 32.5% | 2.8% | 1.3% | 1.2% | 0.051% | 0.204% |
| Travel and Transportation | 27.7% | 2.8% | 0.7% | 0.6% | 0.046% | 0.202% |
| Vitamin supplements | 26.5% | 2.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.078% | 0.268% |
Looking for an archive of this study? Here's the 2010 version.