How many people are opening your marketing emails?

For 100 companies in nine different industries email open rates declined to an average of 17 percent last year, down from 26 percent in 2009.

That’s according to info from the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010, which tracked about 3 billion emails from those companies.

The researchers behind the index point acknowledges that “changing patterns in use of text and imagery that records open activity is having an impact on open rates, without necessarily having an impact on response.”

The industries tracked by the study are automotive, travel/hospitality, technology, retail, pharmaceutical, insurance, government, financial, and entertainment. The industry with the highest open rate is pharmaceutical. Lowest open rate go to tech.



Meanwhile, delivery rates increased 2 percent last year, up to 95 percent. Click rates held steady at 3 percent. Unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32 percent to 0.19 percent, while bounce rates declined from 7 percent to 5 percent.

So, what does it all mean? Jeannine Falcone, managing director of The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks, explained in an appropriately juicy press release:

“Email-based communications—marketing, transactions, newsletters—are healthy and growing and, based on performance metrics, showing a higher level of professionalism in their execution.”

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