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Conversion rate is not just a regular email marketing KPI; it directly impacts your sales and revenue.
One-third of marketers say that low conversion rates are their biggest problem in email marketing, and if you're one of them, you're in the right place.
We'll show you precisely how to calculate your email conversion rate, along with the best conversion rate optimization tips.
If you've been wondering whether your conversion rate is good or bad and how you compare with other industry peers, we've got you covered, too. We've gathered the average email conversion rate from different industries.
Keep reading to discover more.
What is an email conversion rate?
An email conversion rate is a metric showing the percentage of recipients who have taken a desired action after receiving our email campaign.
The action usually refers to purchasing or ordering a product or service. However, depending on your call to action, it can also refer to other things, such as signing up for a free webinar or waiting list, filling out a registration form, clicking on a specific link etc.
An email conversion rate can show how effective your email campaign was in persuading recipients to take some action, but it's also related to the campaign's relevance and engagement.
How to calculate email conversion rate
Here's a simple formula for calculating the conversion rate:
(Number of recipients who took the desired action / Number of delivered emails) x 100
Let's illustrate this with an example. Imagine that you're running an email marketing campaign promoting a new product. You sent the email campaign to your 1,000 subscribers, but you see that only 970 emails were delivered.
Out of those 970 emails, 50 recipients made a purchase in response to the email.
Divide 50 by 970, and then multiply the result by 100. There you have it! Your conversion rate is 5.15%, which is actually pretty good!
Average email conversion rate
Multiple surveys have shown that average email conversion rates typically range from 1% to 5%, depending on the industry.
However, one study calculated average email conversion rates across different industries. Here are the results:
- Real estate: 1.4%
- B2B eCommerce: 2.2%
- B2B tech: 2.4%
- Legal: 4.5%
- Travel: 4.7%
- Healthcare: 5%
- Professional services: 5.1%
- B2B services: 5.7%
- Finance: 5.8%
What is a good email conversion rate?
As you have seen, a good conversion rate can vary depending on the industry, audience, campaign type and size of your list.
However, for most industries, anything between 2% and 5% is considered a satisfactory conversion rate.
In the next section, we'll cover all the factors affecting email conversion rates and give you some actionable tips on improving them.
How to increase your email marketing conversion rate
Here are the twelve elements you should pay attention to.
Email analytics
While your email service providers can help you with some basic metrics, you need a dedicated email analytics tool if you want to dig deeper and discover why some email campaigns aren't performing well and optimize their conversion rates.
SEINō is among the best email analytics tools on the market, as it provides you with accurate, near-real-time insights into your campaign performance.
With our tool, you can track not only your conversion rate but also other transactional metrics, such as:
- Total revenue
- Revenue per email sent
- Number of transactions
- Average order value
You can set specific targets for all email metrics, which helps you monitor your progress and reach your goals.
Ever wondered which campaigns perform the best?
With SEINō's advanced benchmarking feature, you can analyze and compare multiple campaigns in the same email marketing report, not only discovering which ones have the highest conversions but also implementing their best elements into your next email marketing campaign.
We also have many integrations: SEINō integrates with many email marketing tools such as Deployteq, Selligent, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Mailchimp and Klaviyo, and you can also connect it with Google Analytics email reports.
Segmentation and personalization
Segmenting your audience based on demographics, preferences or behavior allows you to send highly relevant emails that resonate with each group.
Personalization takes it one step further by customizing emails and adding specific details such as names or personalized recommendations based on past interactions or purchase history.
While most email marketing tools allow you to segment your audience manually based on different criteria, SEINō does it automatically.
Our algorithms analyze user behavior, notice patterns and predict future trends, risks and opportunities.
For example, if a subscriber suddenly stops engaging with your content and no longer opens your emails, we might segment them to “At Risk" so that you know you need to re-engage them in order to keep them.
Another example: someone adds a product to their cart but doesn't complete the transaction, and we add them to the "Promising" segment so that you can target them with special offers, which usually have very high conversion rates.
Check out the picture below to understand how we color-code different segments.
Other advanced metrics that make SEINō stand out from similar tools are:
- Click frequency
- Days since the last click
- Days in database
- Days between clicks
A/B testing
Testing is the key to discovering campaigns and elements that drive the highest conversion rates. A/B testing consists of sending two variations of an email campaign to segments of your audience to identify which one performs better.
You can test different elements of your marketing campaign, such as subject lines, visuals, CTAs and more.
Apart from that, SEINō allows you to send the same email marketing campaign to two different markets or audiences and compare how they react to it.
List cleaning
Don't be afraid to remove inactive subscribers, as it will improve your conversion rate and all other metrics, allowing you to get more accurate insights.
Keeping only highly engaged subscribers is a positive signal that can increase your deliverability rate and sender reputation.
But who is considered as an inactive subscriber?
It may vary depending on your industry, business model and how often you send emails. However, subscribers are usually considered inactive if they haven't opened or clicked any of your emails in the last 3-6 months.
You don't have to remove them immediately. You can first target them with a re-engagement campaign, keeping those who open and engage with some of your emails and removing those who don't.
Compelling subject lines
To improve your conversion rate, you must first get more people to open your email campaigns. That's why you must also work on increasing your open rates.
And how do you do that if not through creating irresistible subject lines, especially knowing that almost 70% of marketers consider them to be the crucial factor for open rates? Here are some quick tips:
1. Spark curiosity
Instead of using generic subject lines, why don't you tease your audience without giving away too much, prompting them to open the email if they want to see the rest?
2. Create a sense of urgency or exclusivity
Try using power words like "limited-time offer" and "exclusive access" to create a sense of urgency. (More on creating a sense of urgency below!)
3. Personalize subject lines
You can experiment with adding your subscribers' names to subject lines, for example: "A Special gift for John".
4. Add numbers
The fastest way to make your subject line more interesting is to add numbers or percentages because it's making it more specific.
Valuable email content
Engaging your email subscribers starts way before sending them a marketing campaign with your offer. You first have to warm up and nurture your leads by providing them with valuable content that offers solutions to their pain points.
You shouldn't skip this step as it's the only way to build trust, form strong, lasting relationships with your audience and turn them into loyal customers over time.
As Gary Vee famously said, you first have to give, give, give and only then to ask something from your audience.
Source: Pinterest.com
So, here are some examples of content you can send in this phase:
- Educational content: ebooks, tutorials, how-to guides and other free resources
- Interactive content: quizzes, surveys and online games to engage your subscribers
- Invitation to online events: you can create free webinars reserved only for your subscribers
- Exclusive offers: early access, special discounts, promotions and bonuses reserved only for your email subscribers
Powerful CTAs
You can try out different calls to action and use A/B testing to see which ones convert better than others. Here are some proven tips:
1. Use action-oriented verbs
Use verbs that prompt immediate action, such as "Try now", "Start", "Discover", "Unlock" and similar.
2. Focus on benefits
Instead of inviting your audience to purchase your products, you can mention things they're getting from you. For example: "Boost your productivity", "Transform your team collaboration", "Unleash your creative potential" etc.
3. Add value
If you have a discount or special offer, don't forget to mention that in CTA as well. Your CTA could be: "Save 20%", "Unlock 30% off today", "Enjoy your special 10% off" etc.
4. Play with FOMO
The fear of missing out is real. Here's how you can use it in your call to action: "Don't miss out!", "Get it before it vanishes!" etc.
Social proof and reviews
Adding customer testimonials and reviews is a great way to build trust and increase your conversion rates as a result.
You can add screenshots of your customers' messages and comments directly into emails without editing them because real, genuine conversations can often be better social proof than curated testimonials.
Of course, you can also add logos of the companies you've worked with, leverage any partnerships with industry experts or influencers and mention the total number of clients you've worked with.
Sense of urgency
Creating a sense of urgency in your email marketing campaigns is one of the best ways to get your subscribers to take the desired action immediately. You can use time-limited offers and exclusive deals to create a sense of FOMO and motivate them to act before it's too late.
You can incorporate a sense of urgency into different elements of your email campaign, such as:
- Subject line: using the words like "Limited time" or "Ending soon"
- Preview text: you can go into more detail and explain the urgency mentioned in the subject line
- Time-sensitive offers: you can add limited offers, promotions and discounts in the email body
- Countdown timer: you can add a dynamic countdown timer that shows the time left in the real time
- Scarcity: you can mention limited stock or availability and urge subscribers to make a purchase before it runs out
- Call to action: using words like "Act now" or "Don't miss out"
Feel free to play with these elements, but be careful not to overdo it. Overusing the sense of urgency may ruin its effectiveness and authenticity, as people will start wondering whether that offer is really limited, after all.
Mobile-friendliness
Knowing that 95.8% of global users today access the internet via mobile phones, it's obvious you should optimize your email campaigns for mobile devices.
Here's what that means:
- Responsive design: If you're using email marketing software, choose a responsive template that can adapt to different screen sizes. We also suggest a single-column layout to avoid horizontal scrolling.
- Clear font: Avoid cursive and complicated fonts and instead choose a font based on how easy it is to read. Make sure that the letters are big enough without the need for zooming.
- Simplicity: Use short paragraphs, bullet points and a lot of subheadings to make your text easier to read on a smaller screen.
- Preview text: Preview text is more visible on mobile devices than desktops, so use this chance to provide a glimpse of your email's content and capture their attention.
- Loading time optimization: Avoid using templates full of heavy graphics and compress your images to reduce the loading time.
Email drip campaigns
Drip campaigns are a series of automated pre-written emails sent after a recipient takes a specific action, for example, signs up for your newsletter, attends an event, buys a product etc.
Creating automated email campaigns for different triggers may seem time-consuming, but you can expect substantial payoff as you'll be able to use them for a long time.
They help you build a stronger relationship with your customers through frequent communication and provide them with all the details about your product or service. Also, they allow you to mention your offer multiple times, as we know that most people need to see an offer more times before they consider purchasing it.
Here are the most common types of drip campaigns you should consider creating:
- Wellcome sequence
- Onboarding sequence
- Product launch sequence
- Lead nurturing sequence
- Educational series
- Abandoned cart sequence
- Re-engagement campaigns
Email frequency balance
It's essential to find that sweet spot that allows you to stay top-of-mind without overwhelming and annoying your audience and risking that they either unsubscribe or stop opening your emails.
It's hard to say how often you should send emails, as it depends on numerous factors such as your industry, campaign type, audience expectations and preferences.
Automated drip campaigns can be sent more frequently, sometimes even daily, but they last a limited amount of time, usually no longer than a couple of weeks.
When we're talking about regular newsletters, most companies send them once or twice a week, but you can do more if you notice high engagement and positive reactions from the audience.
Ideally, you should be able to segment your audience and send them campaigns according to their preferences, which SEINō can help you discover.
Interested in learning more? Read our post on email click-through rate!
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many things that can help you improve email conversion rates, but it's essential to track every change you make so that you know what actually works.
SEINō is a new-generation email analytics tool that allows you to track and optimize your email campaigns in real time.
Thanks to advanced segmentation, we automatically organize your audience into groups so that you can send them highly relevant content that will bring a high conversion rate and ROI.
And the best part is that our tool boosts your productivity by 90%, eliminating the need for manual work.
Book a free demo and get insights to improve your conversion rate instantly!
Email conversion rate: FAQ
What is a good conversion rate for email? It depends on many factors, such as industry and size of your list, but generally, anything between 2% and 5% is considered a good email conversion rate.
What is a good conversion rate for email signup? Knowing that the average email signup rate goes from 2% to 5%, anything above 5% can be considered an excellent conversion rate.
What is the email capture conversion rate? Email capture conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who sign up for your newsletter or complete an opt-in form.
What is a good conversion rate for cold email? Cold emails generally have a lower conversion rate than other types of campaigns. While there are no official stats, some resources claim that the average conversion rate for cold emails is only 1%, meaning that you can consider your cold outreach successful if you get more responses than that.
What is the average email conversion rate for eCommerce? Unfortunately, there's no official statistic on a worldwide or even national level. Different resources show different data from 0.08% to 2.2%.
