eCommerce Email Marketing Statistics

1. Subject lines convince 50% of users to open emails. [source]

This is just another indicator that first impressions are extremely important! Make sure your subject line tells customers what’s in store for them in your email message. If you’re having a sale or promoting a new product, make sure to say so right away, as this may entice customers to open your email. Getting through that first step is key! 

For DermWarehouse, anytime we’re running a sale or promoting a new product, we make sure to mention it right away. Here are some examples of our recent subject lines, with our open rates:

• 20% Off Spring Warehouse Sale (37.4% open rate)
• New from Allies of Skin: Molecular Barrier Recovery Cream Balm (38.3% open rate)
• March Parks Picks Subscription Box is Here! (38.2% open rate)
• Free Gift from ClarityRx & DermWarehouse (37.4% open rate)
• New from Neova: PreJuvenation Line! (24.5% open rate)
  • This last subject line didn’t do as well for us. It may have been because our customers weren’t as excited about this particular brand or because we weren’t specific enough about what the products were in the headline.

2. In 2022 alone, 333.2 billion emails are expected to be sent and received each day. [source]

This stat is important for a couple of reasons. First, it proves just how big email marketing is. And it’s growing. If you don’t have a solid email marketing strategy in place, it’s time to step up your game.

Second, as important as email marketing is and regardless of the great ROI you can have with it, the sheer volume of emails sent and received daily goes to show you that you’re competing with many others for your customers’ email inbox space and attention. Creating a great email marketing strategy is essential, however, it’s important to also be diversified in your marketing strategy so that you can reach your customers even if they aren’t checking every email in their inbox. 

Learn More: Text Message & SMS Marketing Tips for eCommerce Brands 

3. For every $1 you spend on emails marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. [source]

This is a staggering statistic. Every time I re-read that sentence, it blows my mind. What an amazing return on investment. If you’re running Google ads for your business, you’ll be lucky to get a 2 or 3 to 1 return (which means that for every $1 you spend, your return is $2 or $3). 

You’re spending money on ads to drive potential customers to your website. Once you spend that money, it’s SO important to have an email marketing strategy in place so you can work your email lists and create return and repeat customers, or capture those who dropped off of your site without placing an order. 

Learn More: How to Set Up a Successful Abandoned Cart Flow

4. Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. [source]

There’s so much you can do with email marketing. If you don’t have a strategy in place for this yet for your eCommerce business, you can start out really simple and see a huge return. If you’re already pretty savvy when it comes to your email marketing strategy, it’s exciting that there’s always more you can do.

When we’re talking about segmented campaigns, we’re referring to campaigns that are being sent to specific groups of people. You could have a segment for people who purchased in the last 30 days that you send an upsell email to, recommending related products. You can have a segment of people who have visited your site within the last 30 days but haven’t purchased anything. You can have another segment for people who have purchased a certain brand or product type. You would email them with updates specific to their favorite brand or a product type they love. The possibilities are really endless. The more targeted your emails are, the more likely your customers will be to open your email, click on a link and then hopefully make a purchase. 

When we started with email marketing for DermWarehouse, our strategy was extremely simple. We’d send 2 email blasts per month to all of our customers, promoting a sale. We’d generate a ton of sales on those days each month, but then we relied on our ads to bring in our sales every other day. 

As we grew our email list and our customer base, we started to get more creative, sending different campaigns to certain segments based on their buying behavior. Now we have sales and revenue coming in almost daily for different email campaigns that we’re sending out! 

5. The average email open rate for eCommerce is 15.68% and the average click rate is 2.01%. [source]

These are important benchmarks to keep in mind to help you gauge the success of your campaigns. You can also use the above link to check out benchmarks across all industries. 

If your open and click rates are lower than what you see above, it’s a good indicator that there’s some work that can be done to enhance your campaigns. Even if you’re right on par, look at what optimizations you can make to increase your open rates. Play around with different headlines, different promotion types and even different imagery to see what works best.

6. Mondays see the highest email open rates (22%), compared to the lowest open rates, which fall on Saturdays and Sundays (20%). [source]

This is more great information to keep in mind when you’re putting together your email marketing calendar. Weekdays tend to fare better than weekends, which makes perfect sense. People are more likely to be on their computers (or phones) when they’re at work.

I used to love sending out email  blasts on Sunday nights, figuring people were at home, browsing on their phone and wanting to shop. We started experimenting with different days and I learned really quickly that sending emails during the week tends to work best.

7. 60% of consumers say they’ve made a purchase as the result of a marketing email they received. Contrast that with the 12.5% of consumers who say they’d consider using the ‘buy’ button on social media. [source]

It’s really no contest here that email marketing is more likely to drive sales than social media marketing. Social media gets so much buzz and companies invest so much time and resources into this. The data proves that email is where your time and effort should be going.

8. Welcome emails enjoy an open rate of 82%. [source]

People love welcome emails! Many times welcome emails include some sort of special offer or code, welcoming your customers to your site. It’s no surprise that these receive such a high open rate! Make sure you have a welcome email automation set up so that any time a customer enters in your list, they receive an email with some juicy content! 

First impressions are important, so your welcome email can help set the tone for what’s to come for your customers. They may decide on the spot whether your emails are worth staying subscribed to just by what you have to say in the welcome email, or on the other hand, they may choose to click that unsubscribe button right away. Think about the emails that you receive on a daily basis and what makes you stay subscribed to a company vs. not. Chances are you act like many of your customers do and you can gauge what content might work based on this.

9. 49% of consumers reported that they’d like to receive weekly promotional emails from their favorite brands. [source]

There ya have it. Your customers want to get emails from you and know what promotions you have going on. Don’t keep your audience waiting! 

We started sending out a weekly email blast to our customers that we call “Skinsights.” This email covers everything new going on at our warehouse from new product launches to promotions to price increases to staff picks and more. Our customers love getting this weekly update from us and it’s great for us to make sure those who want to be informed are.

10. Including videos in your email content can increase your click rates up to 300%. [source]

Getting personal in your emails is a great way to engage with customers and get them to know you, your business, and your products better. Utilizing video to introduce your team members, give product recommendations, or even read customer reviews will increase your click rates and give your customers amazing content that they keep coming back for.

During the beginning of COVID, I started recording weekly videos that I would send out to our customers via email. Each week the message changed, but this helped my customers get to know me and made them feel like they were connecting with me (especially during a time where human connection was harder to come by). I loved recording these videos and speaking to our customers!

In Closing

Email marketing is an extremely powerful tool, as evidenced by the statistics mentioned above. Regardless of the size of your email list or how long you’ve been in business, you can utilize email marketing to drive more sales. Whether you’re just starting out or already have a robust email marketing strategy in place, utilizing email marketing can yield a huge ROI!