Ecommerce email benchmarks by industry

Collect zero-party data––and actually use it

“Dynamic content within email marketing campaigns and flows can be extremely powerful when done well. Focus on specific messaging that aligns with a particular group of users’ interests. How do you get there? Surveys, quizzes, etc. As buzzwordy as it sounds, zero-party data is the key to unlocking the potential of your email and text marketing program.” —Ben Zettler, digital marketing & ecommerce consultant, Ben Zettler Digital

“Personalize your emails. You want to personalize your emails the best you can with the data you have. Personalization will help your user experience stay relevant and keep them coming back for more.” —Tennessee Allgood, lifecycle marketing senior manager, Stak Agency

Make your emails conversational––and you’ll stay out of spam, too

“The reply email is often overlooked. Ask people to reply to 1) engage in a poll, 2) be put on an early access list for a product launch, or 3) answer a question that helps with list segmentation. Just ask people to share and engage beyond opening and clicking.” —Christopher Maroney-Petitt at Ecom Growers

“Use email as a 2-way communication channel with customers. It’s grossly underused, but it has innumerable benefits if executed well for engagement rates, email deliverability, and sales.” —Adam Kitchen, CEO, Magnet Monster

“Use proactive 1-to-1 outreach for your high-value VIP customers. No frills in the design templates, these simple text-based emails or SMS messages build real human connections with customers. Despite the simple design, the experience feels premium and has been shown to increase engagement rate, upsell, and cross-sell.”—Eli Mitchell, director of partnerships at Lexer

A/B test everything––send times, number of emails, CTAs, SMS vs. email, and more

“A/B testing send times is one of the most underrated strategies I see with brands. Just by testing morning sends vs. night sends––or day of the week––you might see an extraordinary difference in conversions.”—Brandon Matis, owner at Luxor Marketing

“A missed opportunity for many brands is to A/B test key flow messages with both an email and an SMS version. Oftentimes, one channel performs differently depending on the brand and where the customer is in their journey.”—Ryan O’Connor, director of growth, SmartBug Media

“Approach your email strategy from a mobile-first perspective. The large majority of emails that brands send are opened on smartphones instead of a computer or laptop. When testing your email design, make sure it looks great on mobile devices in addition to the standard desktop layout.”—Ashley Ismailovski, CRO operations manager, SmartSites

“Increasing cadence––such as adding a lot of resends––can quickly cause list fatigue and drive subscribers away. Focusing on inactive segments––long-term unengaged contacts––often results in low performance and can unleash email deliverability issues. While it’s a good idea to have a re-engagement strategy in place, suddenly emailing a large group of inactive contacts can create spikes in email bounce rate, including hard bounces and complaints, and can even lead to blocklisting. The recommendation here is to be cautious, and ask yourself if the efforts invested in re-engaging inactive segments could instead be automated, and energy reinvested in list growth––therefore focusing on the future, not the past.”—Ananda Farge, senior strategist, CRM and email, Tinuiti

Don’t ignore customer data and signals––change how you communicate, instead

“If an email recipient hasn’t opened an email in a month, don’t continue to send the same content at the same cadence to them. Reach out in a different way. Ask for a preferences update, or offer a discount. If a subscriber opens every email and never clicks, that’s an opportunity for a different type of outreach.”—Abby Siciliano, email expert and director business development, Tinuiti

“Don’t simply point customers to a product page. Point them to an experience with relevant content. The typical experience of ‘clicking around a catalog from an email’ really hasn’t changed that much in the past 30 years. Use email marketing to direct customers to a more interactive experience, whether it’s through a livestream event, 1:1 video co-shopping, or a metaverse implementation.”—Brittany Rycroft, director of marketing, GhostRetail

Email marketing automations are powerful––and still underutilized

“Explore having some fun with your automated emails. Use your abandoned carts, email confirmation and more as an extra reinforcement of your brand. It’s small, but when merchants do it well, it shines.”—Darin Lynch, founder and CEO, Irish Titan

“If you have the capabilities, it is a great idea to get your browse and cart abandon content in your regular marketing sends or triggers for that particular audience. If someone has something in their cart and you remind them in your other promotional sends or automations, that could be the deciding factor to push them to convert.”—Christine Watson, director of CRM and email, Tinuiti

“Your transactional emails are an unsung place to get the flywheel going for your next sale. Email open rates of order confirmations, shipping confirmations, and other account-related messages are as high as 60%. Yet, most marketers are missing out on a golden opportunity to spotlight other items a shopper may be interested in based on what they’ve just bought. Insert personalized product recommendations that update when the email is opened, not sent, to re-engage this captive audience for more sales.”—Sharon Goldstein, CEO, LimeSpot

Back in stock flows aren’t as common as you think they are––and they work!

“The most underused email marketing strategy I tend to see in my agency is implementing a back-in-stock flow. Klaviyo makes this very easy to do via email marketing automation, but because it requires a little code, I think many online business owners shy away from it. But the back-in-stock flow can generate the most revenue per recipient out of all email flows, including a welcome series or abandoned cart series, which is why it is so important to implement.”—Toccara Karizma, CEO, Karizma Marketing

Don’t overlook post-promotion campaigns––or you’ll leave money on the table

“Send sweep-up email campaigns after a promotion ends by pulling a segment of anyone who was on your site during the promotion but didn’t place an order. Send them an extended code for 24 hours.”—Hannah Spicer, Director, Hannah Spicer Consulting

Pop-ups should be personalized, too––and not just top of funnel

“Use pop-ups for more than just incentivizing people to join your email list. You can create popups for certain segments of your list—for example, if someone has bought 3+ times, you could have a pop-up offering them a special gift since you know they are a valuable customer. Also, align your overall marketing plan with your SMS and email marketing strategy, and use similar creative across ads, email, and your website to give a consistent user experience.”—Katherine Burlock, CLV strategist, &BAM

These email recommendations and tips should not be relied on as legal advice. Klaviyo encourages you to work with your legal counsel to make sure your campaigns are compliant with all applicable laws.