Are there industry benchmarks for email deliverability KPIs?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 6 Aug 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
9 min read
The question of whether industry benchmarks for email deliverability KPIs truly exist, and how useful they are, comes up frequently. It's a natural inclination to want to compare your performance against others, especially when seeking to demonstrate success to stakeholders or investors. After all, if everyone else is achieving a certain metric, shouldn't you be too, or ideally, doing even better?
However, the reality is a bit more nuanced than simply checking a chart. While various sources compile and publish average metrics across industries, these numbers often present a simplified view. True email deliverability and campaign success depend on a multitude of factors specific to your sending practices, audience, and industry, making a direct, apples-to-apples comparison quite challenging.
The value of published email marketing benchmarks
Many email marketing platforms and research firms release reports detailing average email performance metrics such as open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and bounce rates. These can be found from reputable sources like Mailchimp's email marketing benchmarks or Klaviyo's industry performance data. These reports often break down averages by industry, offering some context for your own campaigns. For instance, the education sector might see different open rates than e-commerce.
However, it's crucial to understand that these aggregated numbers, while informative, don't always reflect the full picture of email deliverability. They often focus on engagement metrics, which are outcomes of deliverability, rather than direct measures of whether your email reached the inbox in the first place. A high open rate might look good, but if a significant portion of your list is hard bouncing or your emails are landing in the spam folder, those metrics can be deceptive.
For true deliverability, the most critical KPI is the inbox placement rate. This metric indicates the percentage of your emails that successfully land in the recipient's primary inbox, not just a promotions tab or, worse, the spam folder. Unfortunately, detailed industry-specific benchmarks for inbox placement rate are less commonly published due to the proprietary nature of this data and the complexity of measuring it accurately across different mailbox providers. To understand what constitutes a good deliverability rate for your specific context, you typically need to look at your own historical performance.
Understanding common deliverability KPIs
While hard deliverability benchmarks are scarce, we can look at some commonly tracked KPIs and their typical ranges, keeping in mind that these are averages and can vary wildly by list quality, industry, and sending frequency.
Open Rate: This is the percentage of recipients who open your email. Industry averages often range from 20-40%, but transactional emails or highly engaged niche audiences can see much higher rates, while promotional emails to less engaged lists might be lower. It's a key indicator of subject line effectiveness and sender reputation, but remember, it doesn't account for emails that never hit the inbox. You can learn more about benchmarks for open, click, and complaint rates.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): This measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link inside your email. A typical CTR might be 2-5%, but again, context matters greatly. A high CTR indicates relevant content and strong calls to action.
Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of emails that couldn't be delivered. It's crucial to distinguish between hard bounces (permanent delivery failures) and soft bounces (temporary issues). A healthy bounce rate for hard bounces should be under 0.5-1%. High bounce rates, especially hard bounces, signal a poor quality list and can significantly harm your domain reputation.
Complaint Rate: This refers to the percentage of recipients who mark your email as spam. This rate should ideally be as low as possible, certainly below 0.1-0.2%. High complaint rates are a major red flag for mailbox providers and can lead to emails being blocklisted or sent directly to spam.
Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who opt out of your emails. While a high unsubscribe rate can indicate content fatigue or irrelevance, it's generally healthier than a high complaint rate, as it suggests users are opting out gracefully rather than marking you as spam.
These KPIs provide insights into engagement and list health. For more advanced KPIs to monitor deliverability trends, focusing on metrics like sender reputation, blocklist status (or blacklist status), and DMARC compliance will offer a more direct view of your deliverability health.
Why relying on broad industry benchmarks is tricky
While general benchmarks offer a loose sense of industry performance, they don't account for the unique characteristics of your email program. Factors like your audience's behavior, the type of emails you send (transactional vs. promotional), your email sending volume, and your list acquisition methods all play a significant role. For example, a transactional email confirming an order will naturally have a much higher open rate than a weekly newsletter.
More importantly, deliverability is heavily influenced by your sender reputation, which is built over time based on adherence to best practices, consistent authentication (like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM), and avoiding spam triggers. These are not typically reflected in high-level industry benchmark reports. When your emails are going to spam, it's rarely because you're below an industry average in opens, but rather due to a fundamental breakdown in trust or technical configuration.
Misleading metrics
Focusing solely on general marketing benchmarks like overall open or click rates can be misleading for deliverability. These metrics can be artificially inflated or deflated and don't directly tell you if your emails are reaching the inbox, or worse, if you're on a blocklist (or blacklist).
High vanity metrics: An apparently high open rate might hide the fact that a large segment of your list isn't receiving emails at all.
Industry generalization: Averages don't account for the specifics of your audience or email content, which heavily influence engagement.
No insight into issues: They don't highlight critical problems like being blacklisted, sender reputation hits, or technical authentication failures.
While looking at broad benchmarks can provide some initial context, they shouldn't be the sole focus of your email deliverability strategy. The real work lies in understanding your own unique sending environment and continually optimizing it. This is where a focus on your email deliverability issues and internal performance indicators becomes paramount.
Prioritizing internal KPIs and best practices
Instead of chasing elusive industry benchmarks, focus on establishing your own baseline. Track your key performance indicators consistently over time, looking for trends and anomalies specific to your email program. Are your open rates consistently declining for a certain segment? Is your bounce rate spiking after a recent list import? These internal trends provide far more actionable insights than a general industry average.
Implement robust email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These are foundational to sender reputation and inbox placement. Monitor your DMARC reports regularly to ensure your emails are being authenticated correctly and to identify any potential issues that could affect deliverability. Similarly, keeping an eye on your blocklist (or blacklist) status is essential, as being listed can severely impact your ability to reach the inbox.
Optimizing deliverability
To truly improve your email deliverability and ensure your messages consistently reach the inbox, focus on these actionable strategies, rather than just chasing external benchmarks:
Maintain list hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive subscribers, hard bounces, and known spam traps.
Segment your audience: Send targeted, relevant content to specific segments to boost engagement and reduce complaints.
Monitor engagement closely: Pay attention to your email engagement thresholds and adjust your strategy if engagement dips.
Warm up new IPs/domains: If you're using dedicated sending infrastructure, gradually increase your sending volume to build a positive reputation.
Ultimately, a truly healthy email program doesn't just meet industry averages, it consistently improves its own performance. By focusing on your internal KPIs and adhering to email deliverability best practices, you'll ensure your messages consistently reach your audience, which is far more valuable than any static benchmark.
The path to better email deliverability
While industry benchmarks can offer a general overview, they should be used as a loose guide, not a strict rulebook. Your most valuable data points for email deliverability KPIs are your own historical trends and specific audience engagement. Focus on continuous improvement, robust authentication, and maintaining a clean, engaged list. This proactive approach will yield far better results than simply comparing yourself to broad averages. By understanding the intricacies of your own email program, you can consistently optimize for superior inbox placement and engagement.
True success in email marketing is about delivering relevant content to an engaged audience, ensuring your messages arrive in the inbox consistently. This is a dynamic process that requires ongoing monitoring and adaptation, not just a one-time check against a static industry benchmark.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Actively monitor your own campaign performance and historical trends, as this internal data is more accurate and actionable than general benchmarks.
Focus on improving sender reputation through consistent authentication and positive engagement from your subscribers.
Segment your audience and personalize content to improve relevance, which naturally boosts engagement metrics.
Common pitfalls
Over-relying on vanity metrics like high open rates, which may mask underlying deliverability issues or poor inbox placement.
Comparing your email program to broad industry averages without considering your specific audience, content, or sending volume.
Neglecting technical fundamentals like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, which are critical for building sender trust.
Expert tips
Your best benchmark is always your own historical performance. Consistent improvement, even incremental, is more valuable than hitting an arbitrary industry average.
Different mailbox providers and industries will have vastly different tolerance levels. What works for one audience may not work for another.
If stakeholders demand benchmarks, use them to illustrate potential, but always emphasize the importance of internal optimization and audience-specific strategies.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says that while benchmarks are out there, they find their necessity questionable for direct improvement. There's always room for improvement in campaign performance regardless of where one stands against an average.
July 12, 2025 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks confirms that reports showing average metrics per industry exist. The primary goal for their client using these benchmarks is to demonstrate above-average deliverability to partners and investors, to gain their support.
July 12, 2025 - Email Geeks
Final thoughts on benchmarks
While industry benchmarks for email marketing KPIs do exist and can offer a general reference point, they are not the definitive measure of email deliverability success. True deliverability relies on a complex interplay of technical configurations, sender reputation, list hygiene, and content relevance. Focusing on your unique email program, consistent internal monitoring, and adherence to best practices will always be more effective than chasing external averages.
By understanding the nuances of your own performance and continuously optimizing your sending strategy, you can achieve and maintain excellent inbox placement, ensuring your messages consistently reach their intended recipients.
