Survey: Email Engagement Rises When Marketing Email Volume Dips

Marketers who send fewer emails may actually see more engagement, according to new research from Yes Lifecycle Marketing.

Recently, the company conducted its “Q1 Email Benchmark Report 2018” to gauge how active email recipients are in correlation with marketing efforts. Statistics showed that the average number of emails sent per engaged subscriber declined 29.3 percent from Q4 2017 to Q1 2018. However, the average open rate increased by 5.8 percent, while the average unique click rate rose by 12.1 percent. The total click rate increased by 19.4 percent quarter-over-quarter.

The statistics suggest that fewer emails result in less inbox clutter for recipients, giving them more opportunity to click and engage with messages, according to the authors of the report.

“If marketers can find the sweet spot of email volume and frequency, they’ll set themselves up to maximize engagement and ultimately ROI,” wrote the researchers. “Aside from monitoring engagement rates over time to determine the best balance, marketers can use preference centers to ask subscribers to identify their own email frequency sweet spot.”

Marketers Eye Improvements to Email Engagement

As marketers make changes to the volume of emails they are sending, previous research shows that they still consistently want to see more engagement.

Ascend2 recently conducted the “Email Marketing Engagement” survey, which found that for most marketers (55 percent), the top priority remains to improve email engagement. This was followed by increasing sales revenue (48 percent) and improving the quality of leads (45 percent).

In terms of achieving these top objectives, the majority of respondents (79 percent) indicated they have been at least “somewhat successful.” One-third considered their efforts “best-in-class.”