Average Email Open Rates By Industry (2024 Data)
Ever wonder if your email open rates match what’s typical of your industry? Or maybe you’re simply curious about average rates experienced by email marketers across all industries.
In this post, we list average email open rates from two different sources and arranged by industry. We also cover how to improve open rates.
Average email open rates by industry
Key takeaways:
- The average email open rate for all industries is 29.49%.
- The medical, dental and healthcare industry has the highest average email open rate at 34.01%.
- The games industry has the lowest average email open rate at 25.49%.
We’re using two sources for the majority of these statistics: Mailchimp and MailerLite.
Mailchimp has a much larger user base, and therefore, a larger pool of data to analyze. However, their benchmarks are from 2019 whereas MailerLite’s are from 2022.
Mailchimp analyzed data from 45 industries and only included data from email campaigns that were sent to at least 1,000 subscribers.
MailerLite analyzed 52 industries and only included data from campaigns that were sent to at least 10 subscribers.
How are email open rates calculated?
An open rate is an email marketing metric that depicts how many of your subscribers opened an email you sent versus the number of subscribers you sent it to.
This is the official formula: open rate = number of emails opened/number of emails sent x 100.
In other words, take the number of subscribers who opened your email and divide it by the number of subscribers you sent it to.
Then, turn that number into a percentage by multiplying it by 100. The result is your open rate.
So, if you sent an email marketing campaign to 3,000 subscribers and 671 subscribers opened it, you would enter 671 ÷ 3,000 into your calculator, which equals 0.2237.
Then, enter 0.2237 x 100 into your calculator to get your open rate, which is 22.37% in this example.
What is the average email open rate?
According to Mailchimp, the average email open rate across all industries is 21.33%.
According to MailerLite’s data, the average open rate for all industries is 37.65%.
If we take both pools of data into consideration, the average open rate for all industries is 29.49%.
Average email open rates by industry
Here are the average email open rates by industry, according to Mailchimp and MailerLite:
| Mailchimp (2019) | MailerLite (2022) | Combined Average | |
| Agriculture and Food Services | 23.31% | 42.90% | 33.11% |
| Animal Care and Veterinary | N/A | 45.85% | N/A |
| Architecture and Construction | 22.51% | 39.82% | 31.17% |
| Artist | N/A | 44.88% | N/A |
| Art Gallery and Museum | N/A | 45.69% | N/A |
| Arts and Artists | 26.27% | 37.23% | 31.75% |
| Automotive | N/A | 42.71% | N/A |
| Author | N/A | 33.73% | N/A |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 16.65% | 39.89% | 28.27% |
| Blogger | N/A | 42.23% | N/A |
| Business and Finance | 21.56% | 36.49% | 29.03% |
| Coaching | N/A | 38.27% | N/A |
| Computers and Electronics | 19.29% | 39.98% | 29.64% |
| Construction | 21.77% | 33.85% | 27.81% |
| Consulting | 20.13% | 36.89% | 28.51% |
| Creative Services/Agency | 21.39% | 39.98% | 30.69% |
| Daily Deals/Coupons | 15.06% | N/A | N/A |
| Ecommerce | 15.68% | 36.59% | 26.14 |
| Educational Institution | N/A | 35.43% | N/A |
| Education and Training | 23.42% | 37.81% | 30.62% |
| Entertainment and Events | 20.51% | 36.16% | 28.34% |
| Finance | N/A | 41.44% | N/A |
| Gambling | 21.62% | N/A | N/A |
| Games | 21.10% | 29.88% | 25.49% |
| Government | 28.77% | 46.30% | 37.54% |
| Health and Fitness | 21.48% | 41.23% | 31.36% |
| Higher Education | N/A | 44.74% | N/A |
| Hobbies | 27.74% | 36.52% | 32.13% |
| Home and Garden | 21.60% | 38.26% | 29.93% |
| Information Technology (IT) | N/A | 33.53% | N/A |
| Insurance | 21.36% | 39.32% | 30.34% |
| Legal | 22.00% | 39.26% | 30.63% |
| Manufacturing | 19.82% | 41.07% | 30.45% |
| Marketing and Advertising | 17.38% | 38.26% | 27.82% |
| Media | N/A | 40.67% | N/A |
| Media and Publishing | 22.15% | 33.35% | 27.75% |
| Medical, Dental and Healthcare | 21.72% | 46.29% | 34.01% |
| Mobile | 19.29% | N/A | N/A |
| Music and Musicians | 21.88% | 38.98% | 30.43% |
| Non-Profit | 25.17% | 42.43% | 33.8% |
| Online Courses and Coaching | N/A | 33.84% | N/A |
| Pharmaceuticals | 18.58% | N/A | N/A |
| Photo and Video | 23.24% | 42.53% | 32.89% |
| Politics | 22.94% | 39.90% | 31.42% |
| Professional Services | 21.94% | N/A | N/A |
| Public Relations | 21.02% | 35.89% | 28.46% |
| Publishing Company | N/A | 40.85% | N/A |
| Real Estate | 19.17% | 41.59% | 30.38% |
| Recruitment and Staffing | 21.14% | 44.25% | 32.70% |
| Religion | 27.62% | 41.19% | 34.41% |
| Restaurant | 19.77% | 40.88% | 30.33% |
| Restaurant and Venue | 20.39% | N/A | N/A |
| Retail | 18.39% | 40.56% | 29.48% |
| Social Networks and Online Communities | 21.06% | N/A | N/A |
| Software and Web App | 21.29% | 39.77% | 30.53% |
| Sports | 24.57% | 39.29% | 31.93% |
| Telecommunications | 20.92% | 39.13% | 30.03% |
| Travel and Transportation | 20.44% | 39.36% | 29.90% |
| Vitamin Supplements | 15.03% | N/A | N/A |
| Other | 22.71% | 36.26% | 29.49% |
Why is email open rate important?
Email open rate is one of the most important email marketing benchmarks you can keep track of.
It’s a huge indicator of how engaged your audience is with your content.
You may provide free content in every blog post or video you publish, but at some point, you will need to sell something to your audience.
When you do, you’ll want to be sure they’re interested in what you have to promote. Your average email open rate can do just that.
How to find your average email open rate
The first place to look for your average email open rate is your email marketing platform’s dashboard. They likely have a stats/analytics/reports page you can view to see what your average open rate is.
If you can’t find it on your own, try Googling “[email marketing platform name] how to see average email open rate”, such as “convertkit how to see average email open rate”.
You can also ask your email marketing provider’s support staff where to find this information.
If your platform doesn’t have this information readily available, use your last 10 email marketing campaigns and the formula we mentioned above to uncover your average open rate on your own.
What does a high average email open rate mean?
According to Mailchimp and MailerLite’s aggregated data, the average email open rate for all industries is 29.49%.
If your average open rate is at or above this percentage, you have a high email open rate.
You can even refer to the table we provided to see if your open rate matches the industry average for your own niche.
With that said, what does it mean to have a high average email open rate?
A high email open rate means you’ve done exactly what all bloggers and influencers strive for: you found your target audience. You chose a niche, made relevant content for it and stuck with it.
Now, you have a highly-engaged audience that wants to see what you have to promote, and they will check it out when you do.
What does a low average email open rate mean?
If your average open rate is below 29%, you have a low average open rate.
This could mean a lot of different things. It could be as simple as your subject lines not being compelling enough to encourage clicks or as severe as you completely missing the mark in terms of what problems your audience needs solved the most.
How to improve your email open rates
Before you implement tweaks to your email list, consider whether or not you’ve truly found your target audience and whether or not you’ve discovered their biggest pain points.
If you’re certain your content aligns with what they’re looking for, try these tips to improve your email open rates.
We have a dedicated post on the subject. which includes the following tips:
- Switching to an email marketing service provider with a better reputation for deliverability.
- Removing fake and inactive email accounts from your email list.
- Using double opt-in methods when promoting your email list.
- Sending your emails on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when subscribers are most likely to open them.
- Using a recognizable sender name, such as the name of your blog.
- Writing better subject lines and using personalized subject lines. You should also optimize your subject line for mobile devices by making it shorter.
You should also authenticate your email address with SPF, DKIM and DMARC protocols to improve deliverability.
Final thoughts
That concludes our post on average email open rates and how you can improve your own.
The statistics in this post prove how open rates differ from industry to industry and even email marketing service to email marketing surface.
To improve your own open rates, craft compelling subject lines, improve email deliverability and more.
Many of the tips we provided will also improve your click-through rates. This is good as click-through rate is just as important as open rate when it comes to running successful email campaigns.
Related reading: The Best Email Newsletter Software Compared.
