Email Marketing Benchmarks

Average Unique Open, Click, Bounce, and Abuse Complaint Rates By Industry

Updated: December 2012

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.

Sample information:

  • 669,419,234 sends
  • 65,536 campaigns

Average Email Campaign Stats of MailChimp Customers by 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.

Tips for Improving Your Stats

  1. When it comes to subject lines, boring works best. When you write your subject line, don’t sell what’s inside—tell what's inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines
  2. If you want people to open your emails, you have to get past their spam filters first. Avoid using spammy keywords and phrases, and avoid using ALL CAPS or too many exclamation points!!! The best way to avoid spam filters is to learn how they work.
  3. Too many hard bounces is a sign of an old, stale list. People change email addresses every few months. Make sure you keep in touch with your subscribers regularly (at least once a quarter), so they can stay on your list.
  4. Soft bounces usually mean the recipient is “temporarily unavailable.” Maybe they’re on vacation, or their mailbox is full. You can keep those emails and try them again later, but MailChimp auto-cleans soft bounces after five failed campaigns.
  5. Hard bounces mean an email address failed. Maybe it no longer exists, or maybe someone made a typo when they subscribed to a list. Hard bounces can also be due to a spam filter—if you see an abnormally high number of bounces after a campaign, read your bounceback records for any messages or clues from spam filters. Here’s how to do that in MailChimp.
  6. Abuse complaints happen when recipients click the “This is spam” button in their email programs. That usually means they don’t remember you. Make sure your “From” and “Subject” lines contain your company name, so your subscribers will instantly recognize you. Here are a few more tips for preventing spam complaints.