Marketing email volume fell more than 20% in the first quarter of 2014 compared with the mailing-heavy fourth quarter of 2013, but both average open and unique click rates increased during the same period, according to a recent report from Yesmail.
Perhaps due to the lower volume and frequency of marketing emails in 1Q14, overall open rates increased 6% and overall unique click rates grew 8%.
Financial service companies had the highest average open rate (28%), and messages sent by insurance companies had the highest unique open rate (7.6%), according to the analysis of more than 5 billion emails deployed by enterprises in the first quarter of 2014.
Below, additional key findings from the report.
Mobile
- Hybrid viewership—recipients viewing the same email on desktop and mobile—dropped 12% quarter over quarter, with only 7.5% of all consumers in 1Q14 opening marketing emails on both mobile and desktop devices.
- Tablet events grew 4.5% quarter over quarter, accounting for 26.6% of all mobile email events in 1Q14.
- Emails using mobile-friendly responsive design had a 21% higher click-to-open rate (CTO) in 1Q14 compared with non-responsive ones (11.9% and 9.8%, respectively).
- 75% of all marketers did not send responsive emails most of the time in 1Q14, despite their effectiveness.
Purchase Behavior
- The number of purchases made via tablets as a proportion of all mobile orders grew 7% quarter over quarter (from 64% in 4Q13 to 69% in 1Q14).
- The number of smartphone orders decreased 13% in the quarter.
- Mobile orders overall fell 4% in 1Q14 compared with 4Q13.
About the research: The report was based on data from more than 5 billion emails deployed by enterprises in the first quarter of 2014.
