Email Delivery Report Finds 21% Of Marketing Emails Fail To Reach Consumer Inboxes

Return Path found that email deliverability rates have dropped from 83% last year to 79% in 2015.

Chat with MarTechBot

email-atsign2-ss-1920
Global email marketing delivery rates have declined since last year, dropping from 83 percent in 2014 to 79 percent this year.

“This means for every five emails sent, one never reached the intended recipient,” claims Return Path. “Instead, it’s either sent to a spam folder or goes missing — most likely blocked by the mailbox provider.”

[pullquote]For every five emails sent, one never reaches the intended recipient.[/pullquote]

According to the email deliverability study conducted by Return Path, delivery rates are even lower in the US, with email marketers reaching subscriber inboxes 76 percent of the time — more than a 10-percent drop from last year, when inbox placement for the US was at 87 percent.

Analyzing 357 million marketing emails sent by recognized brands to subscribers across the globe, Return Path said its findings are based on more than 150 mailbox providers from North America, South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions.

Email delivery rates for a number of industries performed better than the global average of 79 percent, with apparel, automotive, food and beverage, health and beauty and retail all generating more than 90 percent deliverability.

The technology industry was the lowest performer, achieving a lackluster 45 percent.

Email Deliverability Rates by Industry

Email deliverability by industry

The study also broke down deliverability rates by region to find that Brazil saw the most significant improvement, up 14 percent over last year, but still below the global average.

In Europe, the UK, Germany and Italy all saw higher deliverability rates when compared to the global average, while Spain and France fell below the global average.

Europe’s Email Deliverability Rates

Email deliverability europe

“The inbox is becoming harder to reach partly because mailbox providers are applying increasingly sophisticated algorithms to understand what content their users truly value,” says Return Path President George Bilbrey.

The full report can be found here: Return Path Email Deliverability 2015 Benchmark Report.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

Get the must-read newsletter for marketers.