The average email open rate rose to 27.4% in Q4, a slight increase from 27.2% in Q3, and a significant 10.5% gain from Q4 2011′s 24.8%, according to a new report from Epsilon. But click rates continued to lag, unchanged from Q3′s 4.5%, but down 13.5 from Q4 2011′s 5.2%. A recent report from Experian CheetahMail also found open and click rates to be moving in opposite directions.
Further data from the Epsilon report reveals that triggered emails, deployed as a result of an action, such as Welcome or Abandoned Shopping Cart – continued to vastly outperform business as usual (BAU) emails. Open rates for triggered emails stood at an average of 46.7% in Q4, down from 47.7% in Q2, but still 70.5% higher than the BAU rate. Click rates on triggered emails dropped for the 5th consecutive quarter, to 9%, far lower than Q4 2011′s rate (11.5%). Even so, the average click rate for triggered emails was more than double the rate for BAU emails. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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