A new marketing report released this week reveals that while open and click rates declined slightly in the last half (H2) of 2005, several industries earned higher click rates than in the first half of the year.

The report details email marketing performance by industry based on over 200 million messages sent by a sampling of over 3,500 MailerMailer customers between July 1 and December 31, 2005. In addition, it shows that bounce rates held steady or continued to fall - signaling improved delivery.

Email Marketing Metrics:

• Industries that received the largest increase in click rates from the first half (H1) of the year were: Medical, Religious, and Real Estate.
• The unique open rate for emails sent by all industries in H2 was 19.81%, compared to 21.77% for those sent in the first half of the year.
• The average click rate for email messages sent by all industries in H2 2005 was 3.30% - down from 3.59% for ones sent in H1.
• As in H1, the industries that earned the highest open rates in H2 2005 were Government, Religious, and Banking.
• Subscribers clicked more often on email campaigns sent by organizations in the Retail, Banking, and Computing industries.
• Unique open rates peaked one hour after delivery with 10.8% of the recipients who would eventually open an email opening it by then.
• Average bounce rates for a customer's first five mailings fell from 7.55% in the first half of the year to 5.32% in H2. For subsequent emails, the bounce rate remained virtually unchanged at 1.91% in H2.

The Email Marketing Metrics Report includes open and click rates by industry; bounce/delivery trends; open and click rates by day; and the effect of personalization on open and click rates. These metrics can serve as benchmarks for email marketers.

Download the free Email Marketing Metrics Report.