New email delivery survey shows surprisingly poor inbox delivery
Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Return Path H1 2011 worldwide Email delivery review, Sept 2011
Although the delivery rate provided by email marketing tools is the percentage of emails that didn’t bounce.
According to Tim Watson If you are emailing at least weekly to each email address on your customer base and you have good list hygiene practices in place then your delivery rate should be over 98%, that is less than 2% of emails sent are bounced.
But, and it’s a big but, delivery rate isn’t the same as inbox delivery and this survey shows how real inbox delivery is much lower – around 81% on average – this is really “money you’re leaving on the table”, so it shows why email delivery is worth taking seriously.
The recent survey shows that just over 3/4 emails get through to the inbox with a fair proportion in the spam folder:
If we take a look at the picture in Europe, then the picture is better, with relatively few c6% are in the spam filters on average, but still less than 90% delivery overall:
Marketing implications of survey results
Ask your email service provider what your real email inbox delivery rate is and how they will improve it. If you haven’t seen them, I recommend taking a look at Tim Watson’s in-depth posts that give a good introduction to managing inbox delivery.