Email Deliverability Benchmarks by Industry: Open Rates, Bounce Rates and Engagement Data
By Email ExtractorPublished 5 min read
On this page
Why Industry Benchmarks Matter
Email performance varies dramatically across industries. Comparing your metrics to an overall average hides whether you are actually performing well for your sector. A 15% open rate might be strong for daily deal emails but weak for a professional association newsletter.
Benchmarks help you:
Set realistic targets for your specific industry
Identify genuine problems vs normal performance
Justify investment in deliverability improvements with industry-specific data
Spot anomalies that indicate technical issues (a sudden drop below industry averages signals a problem, not just a bad campaign)
Industry Benchmarks
Email marketing benchmarks by industry
Industry
Average open rate
Average click rate
Average bounce rate
Average unsubscribe rate
Average complaint rate
Agriculture and food
23-28%
2.5-3.5%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Architecture and construction
22-27%
2.5-3.5%
1.0-2.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Arts and entertainment
20-25%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.04%
Automotive
18-23%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Education
25-35%
3.0-4.5%
0.5-1.0%
0.1-0.3%
0.01-0.03%
Financial services
20-27%
2.5-3.5%
0.5-1.5%
0.1-0.3%
0.02-0.04%
Fitness and wellness
20-25%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.3-0.5%
0.02-0.05%
Government and politics
25-30%
2.5-4.0%
0.5-1.0%
0.1-0.2%
0.01-0.03%
Healthcare
22-28%
2.5-3.5%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.3%
0.02-0.04%
Hospitality and travel
18-24%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Insurance
20-25%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.3%
0.02-0.04%
Legal
22-28%
2.5-3.5%
0.5-1.5%
0.1-0.3%
0.01-0.03%
Manufacturing
20-25%
2.0-3.0%
1.0-2.0%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Media and publishing
20-25%
3.0-5.0%
0.2-0.8%
0.1-0.3%
0.01-0.03%
Nonprofits
25-30%
3.0-4.0%
0.5-1.0%
0.1-0.2%
0.01-0.02%
Professional services
22-28%
2.5-3.5%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.3%
0.02-0.04%
Real estate
20-25%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
Retail and e-commerce
15-22%
2.0-3.5%
0.3-1.0%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.05%
SaaS and technology
18-25%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.4%
0.02-0.04%
Telecommunications
18-22%
2.0-3.0%
0.5-1.5%
0.2-0.3%
0.02-0.04%
Why some industries perform better
High-performing industries
Why
Low-performing industries
Why
Education
Captive audience (students, parents); high relevance
Retail / e-commerce
High volume; promotional fatigue; many competitors
Nonprofits
Emotional connection; donor relationship
Daily deals
Over-sending; price-only relationship
Government
Official communications; high importance
Telecommunications
Low engagement; transactional relationship
Professional associations
Member value; niche content
Insurance
Low-interest category; infrequent need
Deliverability Metrics Explained
What each metric tells you
Metric
What it measures
Healthy range
Warning sign
Critical
Delivery rate
Emails accepted by receiving server
Over 97%
95-97%
Under 95%
Open rate
Recipients who opened the email
Industry-dependent (see table)
5+ pp below industry average
Under 10%
Click rate
Recipients who clicked a link
Industry-dependent (see table)
1+ pp below industry average
Under 0.5%
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
Clicks / opens (content effectiveness)
10-20%
Under 8%
Under 5%
Bounce rate (hard)
Permanent delivery failures
Under 0.5%
0.5-2%
Over 2%
Bounce rate (soft)
Temporary delivery failures
Under 2%
2-5%
Over 5%
Unsubscribe rate
Recipients who opted out
Under 0.5%
0.5-1%
Over 1%
Spam complaint rate
Recipients who marked as spam
Under 0.1%
0.1-0.3%
Over 0.3%
List growth rate
Net new subscribers minus unsubscribes
Positive
Flat
Negative
Open rate measurement changes
Factor
Impact on open rate reporting
What to do
Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
Inflates open rates by pre-loading tracking pixels; up to 50% of opens may be machine-generated
Focus on click rate and conversion as primary metrics
Gmail image proxy
Google caches tracking pixels; may affect open tracking accuracy
Cross-reference with click data
Dark mode
Some clients block images by default; tracking pixel may not load
Consider text-based engagement signals
Corporate email filters
Some filters strip tracking pixels
Look at click and reply data for B2B
Improving Deliverability by Industry
E-commerce and retail
Challenge
Solution
High sending volume leads to inbox fatigue
Segment by engagement; reduce frequency for low-engagement subscribers
Promotional content triggers spam filters
Balance promotional with editorial content; use clear value propositions
Seasonal sending spikes affect reputation
Gradually increase volume before peak seasons; maintain consistent sender reputation
High unsubscribe rates
Preference centre; frequency options; better targeting
B2B / SaaS
Challenge
Solution
Corporate email filters are aggressive
Authenticate (SPF, DKIM, DMARC); warm up new domains; avoid spam trigger words
The single biggest factor in email deliverability across all industries is list quality. Before running any email campaign, upload your email lists to Email Extractor to extract and deduplicate email addresses from your various sources (CRM exports, event sign-ups, imported lists, scraped data). Removing duplicates prevents sending the same email twice to a recipient, which increases complaint rates. After deduplication, run the list through a verification service to remove invalid addresses before sending.
