Email industry benchmarks and deliverability stats: Insights from 2024

Industry benchmarks: A snapshot of email performance in 2024

To understand how your email campaigns measure up, it can be helpful to benchmark your performance against industry standards. By analyzing key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates, you can gain insight into the effectiveness of your email strategy.

We’ve gone ahead and organized some of this data for you. Check out these key email metrics by industry averaged globally, based on Sinch Mailgun data collected throughout 2024:

These industry insights provide a starting point for assessing your strategy. Whether you’re in finance, ecommerce, or healthcare, understanding these benchmarks can help you see where your email program falls, and help you optimize your engagement and deliverability.

Like with real estate, sometimes email is all about location. Now that we’ve taken a look at some industry trends, let’s get a quick snapshot of how different regions perform with email overall.

Regional variations: Global email engagement in 2024

Email performance in 2024 showed a few variations in rates throughout regions:

Regardless of where you send, there seems to be a lot more synergy around when you send from a global perspective. When you’re planning your campaigns, especially heading into the holiday sending season, keep these days and times in mind for messaging.

Key send times: Maximizing engagement in 2024

Understanding when your audience is most likely to engage with your emails is crucial for optimizing your email marketing strategy. Our data from 2024 reveals clear patterns in email engagement throughout the week and day.

Daily engagement trends

Looking at the engagement distribution across the week, we can see some distinct patterns for both opens and clicks:

• Weekdays dominate: Monday through Friday consistently show higher engagement levels compared to weekends.

• Mid-week peak: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday typically see the highest engagement rates with a slight favor toward Tuesday.

• Weekend lull: Saturday and Sunday show noticeably lower engagement, with Sunday being the least active day. (Which we fully support.)

Hourly engagement insights

Drilling down into hourly engagement, we can identify some peak times for sending emails:

• Morning rush: A significant spike in both opens and clicks occurs in the early morning hours, typically peaking around 9-10 AM local time.

• Lunchtime boost: A secondary peak is often observed around 12-1 PM, likely corresponding to lunch breaks.

• Afternoon engagement: Another surge in activity is common in the mid-afternoon, usually between 2-4 PM.

• Evening wind-down: While engagement tapers off in the evening, there's sometimes a small uptick around 8-9 PM as people check emails before bed.

Key takeaways for optimal send times

Based on this data, here are some strategies to consider for your 2025 email campaigns:

• Target mid-week sends: Aim to send your most important emails Tuesday through Thursday for maximum engagement with Tuesday having the slight advantage.

• Morning primetime: Schedule emails to land in inboxes early morning, around 9-10 AM, to catch the first engagement wave of the day.

• Afternoon follow-ups: Consider sending follow-up emails or secondary campaigns in the mid-afternoon, around 2-4 PM.

• Test and optimize: While these trends provide a good starting point, it's crucial to test and refine timing based on your specific audience and industry.

Deliverability best practices that defined 2024

Throughout 2024, several key practices for maintaining strong email deliverability got a little limelight thanks to the announcement and enforcement of key sending requirements by Gmail and Yahoo. These requirements enforce authentication, spam complaint thresholds, and unsubscribe practices. 2024 reinforced key email best practices that every sender should prioritize. Here’s the advice from the pros.

Email authentication: Using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC – remains critical for securing your sender identity and protecting against spoofing.

Maintaining list hygiene: regularly remove inactive or invalid addresses to keep complaint and bounce rates low and your sender reputation intact.

One-click unsubscribe: Offering an easy, single click option for unsubscribes is now non-negotiable for bulk senders. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools also became essential for sender reputation monitoring, helping marketers maintain strong engagement and minimize complaints.

Looking ahead: Preparing your email strategy for 2025

As we move into 2025, the email landscape continues to evolve. While the benchmarks and practices from 2024 provide valuable insights, it's important to stay adaptable and forward-thinking.

Building a strong reputation, maintaining a clean and engaged subscriber list, and delivering relevant, high-quality content will remain fundamental to deliverability success in the coming year. However, we anticipate new challenges and opportunities as technology and user behaviors continue to change.

Key areas to watch in 2025 may include:

1. Advancements in AI and machine learning for email personalization and metrics

2. Evolving privacy regulations and their impact on data and sending

3. New authentication protocols and security measures

4. Changing user expectations around email interactivity and functionality

But don’t worry, we’ll tackle these topics as they evolve.