Email Marketing Benchmarks You Should Know in 2026: Real Data from Promodo

In this guide, Promodo’s retention marketing team gathered key email marketing benchmarks and insights to help you understand how your email performance compares to real market trends.
‍

More businesses are starting to work more deeply on their communication strategies with users—using more advanced segmentation and personalization, and involving AI to generate content based on user data, behavior, and preferences.

As a result, channel performance is improving, while time and resources are being optimized and freed up for testing new tools.

- Vladyslav Loboda, Email Marketing Team Lead at Promodo

Email Marketing Open Rate Benchmark

Promodo’s data shows that trigger emails generally deliver higher open rates across most niches due to better timing and relevance. Cosmetics, insurance, tourism, and tools show some of the strongest results, while for categories like electronics, auto parts, or pet supplies, even 20-25% is already considered a solid benchmark.
‍

The performance gap is influenced not only by the niche itself but also by the quality of the subscriber base, the level of segmentation, and the product and offers behind the campaign. That’s why, even within the same industry, email marketing can drive strong results or have almost no impact if the strategy is weak.

- Vladyslav Loboda, Email Marketing Team Lead at Promodo

These benchmarks are achievable in practice. In our work with FREETOUR, promo email open rates increased by 50%, email revenue grew by 85%, and 400K users were re-engaged.
‍

+50% increase in promotional Open Rate

Promodo's email marketing case study

Read

Click Rate (CR) Benchmarks

The benchmarks below show how much email performance varies by niche and email type.

Trigger emails consistently outperform promotional campaigns. They’re tied to user actions and sent at the right moment, so they usually drive higher engagement and conversion rates.

The gap is especially evident in industries such as tourism, jewelry, tools, and cosmetics. Meanwhile, broader, more competitive niches like fashion or electronics tend to have lower overall conversion rates.
‍

‍

A Promodo case study shows that adding gamification to emails can significantly increase CTR. See how we used an interactive format instead of a standard promotional email, resulting in higher engagement and more clicks.
‍

Increasing CTR Through Email Gamification

Email Marketing Case Study

Read

CTOR (Click-to-Open Rate) Benchmarks

CTOR benchmarks can vary significantly by niche and email type. Industries such as tourism, marketplaces, jewelry, and tires have some of the highest engagement rates. Broader and more competitive niches like fashion, electronics, and auto parts usually have lower benchmarks.
‍

Conversion Rate Benchmarks

Conversion rate benchmarks depend not only on the email itself, but also on the product, price, buying cycle, and audience behavior.

Our data shows that niches like tools, cosmetics, and jewelry tend to have stronger benchmarks. Industries with longer decision-making processes or greater competition often see lower averages.
‍

Channel Share Benchmarks

Channel share benchmarks vary widely by niche because customer behavior and purchase frequency differ across industries.

Brands with repeat purchases, such as pet supplies, books, jewelry, and cosmetics, usually capture a larger share of revenue from email. Meanwhile, industries with less frequent purchases, such as tourism or insurance, tend to have lower benchmarks.
‍

How to Set Your Own Benchmarks?

You can define your own benchmarks only over time.

If you’re just starting with email campaigns, it’s better to rely on average metrics in your niche and look at competitors.

Once your email campaigns have been running for 6 months, a year, or longer, you can start defining your own benchmarks based on the condition and activity of your audience, as well as specific factors like your product, market, and even audience mindset.
‍

Every subscriber base and every product is unique, so competitor benchmarks can point in a direction, but that doesn’t mean everyone will get the same results. Next year, it may be you who sets the new benchmarks.

- Vladyslav Loboda, Email Marketing Team Lead at Promodo

Build an Email Strategy That Performs

More targeted communication with smaller audience segments, based on user behavior or personal data, and supported by relevant content, will almost always deliver better results.

At the same time, for this approach to work efficiently, each segment should include at least a few hundred users—ideally, a few thousand or more. Otherwise, spending time on campaigns for audiences of just 50–100 users is often not cost-effective.

It’s also important to remember that subscriber base growth starts with high-quality website traffic. The more relevant traffic you attract, the stronger your email marketing potential becomes.

And one more thing: never buy subscriber lists or scrape contacts. Besides the legal risks, these audiences are rarely engaged and usually hurt your long-term email performance.
‍

Ready to set the benchmark others will follow?

Ready to set the benchmark others will follow?

Contact