What’s a realistic benchmark for open rates by industry?
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Before 2021, industry benchmarks meant something concrete. After Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) launched, they became much harder to trust. Understanding which era's numbers you're looking at matters.
Pre-MPP benchmarks (treat these as historical context): Typical open rates ranged roughly 15-30% for marketing email, with variation by industry. E-commerce was often around 15-20%. B2B and professional services ran 20-28%. Newsletters and media tended higher at 25-35% for engaged lists. Below 15% was a signal of list health problems.
Post-MPP reported rates: After Apple Mail started pre-loading tracking pixels in 2021, reported open rates jumped by 5-20 percentage points for many senders. It's now common to see reported rates of 40-60% in industries that were historically at 20-30%. These numbers include significant MPP inflation and don't reflect actual human opens.
What to benchmark against instead: Compare your own historical trends rather than industry averages. If your rate was 30% in 2020 and it's 50% now, the 20-point jump is likely MPP inflation, not a real improvement. Focus on click rate (typically 2-5% for healthy marketing lists) and click-to-open rate (CTOR, usually 10-20% for engaged audiences) as more reliable cross-sender comparisons.
The honest answer is that open rate benchmarks are less useful than they used to be. Click-based engagement metrics are now a much better cross-industry comparison. If you're trying to understand how your program stacks up, consistent methodology within your own data matters more than industry averages.
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