What kind of open rates should companies like yours expect? How many bounces are too many? What’s an acceptable abuse complaint rate? Our customers often ask questions like these.
MailChimp sends more than 90 million emails a day for more than a million users. 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 actually reported their industry) and calculated average unique open rates, average unique click rates, average unique soft bounces, average unique hard bounces, and average unique abuse complaint rate by industry.
These stats aren’t pulled from a survey of giant corporations with million-dollar marketing budgets and dedicated email-marketing teams. More than 70 percent of our customers have between one and 10 employees, and they’re design-it-yourselfers. If you run a small organization and do your own email marketing, here’s your apples-to-apples comparison with others in your industry.
| Type of Company | Open Rate | Click Rate | Soft Bounce Rate | Hard Bounce Rate | Abuse Complaint Rate | Unsubscribe Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food Services | 23.94% | 4.85% | 0.97% | 2.06% | 0.10% | 0.38% |
| Arts and Artists | 17.53% | 3.54% | 1.58% | 2.54% | 0.08% | 0.25% |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 14.94% | 2.65% | 0.71% | 1.54% | 0.09% | 0.28% |
| Business and Finance | 15.47% | 2.77% | 2.10% | 1.57% | 0.04% | 0.21% |
| Computers and Electronics | 15.51% | 2.97% | 1.12% | 1.71% | 0.08% | 0.30% |
| Construction | 28.70% | 8.01% | 4.51% | 5.81% | 0.11% | 0.35% |
| Consulting | 16.32% | 3.30% | 2.50% | 2.39% | 0.03% | 0.25% |
| Creative Services/Agency | 24.64% | 3.08% | 1.34% | 2.05% | 0.06% | 0.25% |
| eCommerce | 14.98% | 3.36% | 0.74% | 0.88% | 0.08% | 0.25% |
| Education and Training | 16.64% | 3.41% | 1.42% | 2.09% | 0.06% | 0.20% |
| Entertainment and Events | 16.09% | 2.98% | 0.85% | 1.55% | 0.08% | 0.19% |
| Government | 25.66% | 5.37% | 0.86% | 0.89% | 0.04% | 0.20% |
| Health and Fitness | 20.96% | 5.73% | 3.14% | 6.30% | 0.06% | 0.30% |
| Hobbies | 18.45% | 4.33% | 1.13% | 2.08% | 0.12% | 0.40% |
| Home and Garden | 28.20% | 4.38% | 2.93% | 2.68% | 0.02% | 0.41% |
| Insurance | 20.91% | 3.03% | 2.37% | 4.15% | 0.10% | 0.30% |
| Legal | 17.34% | 2.49% | 0.79% | 0.89% | 0.02% | 0.12% |
| Marketing and Advertising | 18.79% | 4.13% | 1.39% | 2.50% | 0.08% | 0.23% |
| Media and Publishing | 18.43% | 3.39% | 0.48% | 0.63% | 0.03% | 0.11% |
| Medical, Dental, and Healthcare | 13.76% | 2.59% | 2.18% | 4.09% | 0.06% | 0.18% |
| Music and Musicians | 13.95% | 2.43% | 0.68% | 1.07% | 0.06% | 0.18% |
| Non-Profit | 20.43% | 3.54% | 1.13% | 1.51% | 0.05% | 0.17% |
| Other | 33.52% | 10.90% | 0.83% | 1.66% | 0.09% | 0.40% |
| Photo and Video | 28.93% | 5.70% | 0.99% | 1.34% | 0.07% | 0.26% |
| Politics | 13.72% | 2.58% | 0.49% | 0.78% | 0.07% | 0.15% |
| Professional Services | 19.77% | 3.71% | 2.55% | 3.57% | 0.08% | 0.45% |
| Public Relations | 14.81% | 1.12% | 2.07% | 2.28% | 0.03% | 0.16% |
| Real Estate | 18.48% | 3.44% | 1.18% | 1.67% | 0.06% | 0.25% |
| Recruitment and Staffing | 15.31% | 3.35% | 1.37% | 1.75% | 0.07% | 0.31% |
| Religion | 23.04% | 3.24% | 0.52% | 0.68% | 0.05% | 0.15% |
| Restaurant | 20.07% | 2.41% | 0.70% | 1.11% | 0.09% | 0.30% |
| Retail | 17.80% | 3.54% | 0.61% | 1.00% | 0.08% | 0.24% |
| Social Networks and Online Communities | 22.37% | 2.85% | 6.94% | 5.44% | 0.11% | 0.74% |
| Software and Web App | 15.57% | 2.49% | 1.88% | 3.06% | 0.11% | 0.39% |
| Sports | 19.54% | 4.77% | 0.86% | 1.53% | 0.08% | 0.24% |
| Telecommunications | 21.20% | 3.22% | 1.60% | 2.85% | 0.10% | 0.41% |
| Travel and Transportation | 14.50% | 2.71% | 0.84% | 0.83% | 0.05% | 0.17% |
These stats are automatically included in your MailChimp reports.
Here are some useful tips from the MailChimp Resource Center that’ll help you improve your campaign performance: