How Your Emails Compare to Industry Benchmarks—And How to Improve Performance

Imagine you’re stepping into a stadium. The scoreboard’s lit. The crowd’s buzzing. But you’ve got one problem: you don’t know the rules, and whether you should be cheering or not.

Email dashboards are the same way. Swirling numbers. Without context, how do you know if “good” is really good, or just plain terrible?

Benchmarks.

They’re your league averages. The baselines that show how the rest of the field is playing, and whether you’re ahead of the pack or trailing badly.

In this guide, we’ll break down the latest email marketing industry benchmarks—what they are, why they matter, and how to use them to drive more opens, clicks, and revenue for your brand.

What Are the Main Email Industry Benchmarks?

Open Rate

Opens show you who saw the email—not who cared. The 2025 average sits at 38%, while the best brands pack the stands at 55%+. Automated flows (welcomes, carts, birthdays) draw even bigger crowds, averaging 49% and peaking above 65%.

Remember: Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens. Use them as a loose signal of visibility, not a measure of true engagement.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR tells you how many people clicked out of everyone who received the email. Campaign averages sit at 1.3% CTR, while the best strikers net 4.7%+. Flows again outperform with a 4.7% average.

• Few opens, healthy CTR? → Your subject lines need work to get people to open.
  
• Strong opens, weak CTR? → The crowd showed up, but no one’s invested—your content or targeting is off.

Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)

CTOR shows how effective your content is by dividing clicks by opens. Out of the people who did open, how many scored? The median is 5–6%.

• 10%+ = your subject line promise and email content are in sync.
  
• <4% = the ball’s in play, but your execution isn’t landing—time to rework creative and CTAs.

Conversion Rate

This is the scoreboard everyone cares about: did you win? Campaigns average 0.08% conversions; flows crush with 1.4%, and the elite crack 5%. If you’re missing here, don’t just blame the emails—the problem often lives on the landing page or checkout.

Deliverability & Unsubscribe

If your bounce or spam complaint rates climb, inbox providers penalize you fast. Healthy unsubscribe rates sit under 0.5%, with champions closer to 0.2%.

How Are These Email Industry Benchmarks Determined?

Every January, Klaviyo crunches billions of sends from 167,000+ ecommerce brands, slicing the data by vertical, list size, and geography. Out of that mountain of numbers, they report two key lines:

• The median — the “you’re normal” line. Half of brands are above, half below.
  
• The 90th percentile — the “you’re crushing it” line. This is what the top 10% are pulling off. 

Because the data is aggregated at the account level, both a boutique apparel shop and a global marketplace can see where they stack up against peers.