Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools in digital marketing when it comes to building relationships, increasing engagement and generating sales.
But while sending campaigns and automated flows is one thing, assessing whether they actually perform as intended is something else entirely.
This is where benchmarking becomes relevant.
Benchmarking works as a structured and data-driven tool that allows you to evaluate and compare your email performance with everything from industry standards to your own historical results.
Let’s take a closer look at what benchmarking in email marketing entails, why it matters and how you can work with it in practice.
What is benchmarking in email marketing?
Benchmarking is about comparing your email results with relevant reference points.
These can include:
- Industry averages
- Competitors (if data is available)
- Other companies with similar audiences
- Your own previous campaigns or flows
The purpose is to gain a more nuanced understanding of how well your emails perform, not only in isolation but also in relation to what can reasonably be expected.
Benchmarking therefore provides a more realistic picture of the effectiveness of your email efforts. It also helps you identify opportunities for improvement and prioritise your optimisation efforts in the right areas.
Why benchmarking is important
Although many companies measure their email performance, they often lack the necessary context to understand what the numbers actually mean.
Without a comparison, it becomes difficult to determine whether an open rate of 25% is strong or whether a click rate of 3% is actually below average.
This is where benchmarking acts as a tool that puts your results into perspective and creates concrete insights.
1. Provide a realistic frame of reference
Raw numbers rarely give a true picture. A click rate of 3% can be excellent in some industries but below average in others.
By benchmarking against industry standards or historical data you can quickly see where your campaigns are positioned.
It helps you set goals, evaluate performance and understand whether your results are satisfactory or require action.
2. Reveal strengths and weaknesses in communication
Benchmarking allows you to identify where your emails perform well and where there is room for improvement.
For example, your subject lines may generate high open rates while your click rate drops, which may indicate that the content does not live up to expectations.
Or certain segments may respond far better than others, opening up for more targeted optimisation.
3. Prioritise resources
When you know which areas are lagging behind, you can allocate resources more effectively.
Instead of changing your entire strategy, you can focus your efforts where they will have the greatest impact, such as improving CTAs, refining segmentation or adjusting timing.
This makes optimisation more targeted and cost efficient.
4. Evaluate development over time
Benchmarking is not only a snapshot.
By continuously comparing with previous campaigns, you can see whether your emails are improving or stagnating.
This allows you to adjust your strategy proactively rather than reacting only when results start to decline.
5. Strengthen data-driven decision-making
Finally, benchmarking makes it easier to make decisions based on facts rather than gut feeling.
It provides a concrete foundation for optimising subject lines, design, timing, segmentation and automation.
With clear benchmarks, you can document what works and what needs adjustment, strengthening both performance and internal credibility.
The most important KPIs to benchmark
When working with benchmarking, it is important to focus on the KPIs that best reflect your goals.
These are the most essential metrics:
Open rate
Indicates how well your subject lines and sender names work.
A low open rate may be caused by:
- Uninteresting subject lines
- Poor list hygiene
- Too low sending frequency
- Too high sending frequency
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
One of the most important indicators of relevance and engagement.
A low CTR may show that the content does not match expectations or that call-to-actions are too hidden.
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
Shows how many of those who opened actually interacted.
It is particularly useful when evaluating content quality rather than subject lines.
Unsubscribe Rate
Indicates whether your recipients find your emails relevant and welcome.
Bounce rate
A technical KPI related to delivery quality. A high bounce rate may signal issues with list hygiene or data quality.
Conversion rate
Measures how many recipients carried out the desired action, such as a purchase, sign-up or download.
How to gather data for benchmarking
To benchmark your email campaigns effectively, it is essential to have access to valid and comparable data.
One of the most common sources is industry reports published annually by many email platforms.
Platforms such as Mailchimp and HubSpot often provide detailed benchmarks that can serve as reference points and help you understand how your results compare to the rest of the industry.
Alongside external sources, your own historical data is invaluable.
Previous campaigns typically reflect your audience’s behaviour and therefore offer a more accurate picture of what works for you.
If you work with multiple segments, countries or types of campaigns, comparing results internally can also be useful.
This gives insight into which segments perform well and where there is potential for improvement.
It is also important to distinguish between campaign data and flow data.
Emails sent as part of automated flows often perform significantly better than standalone campaigns.
If you mix them, your benchmarks may become skewed and give a misleading impression of your overall performance.
By collecting data systematically across these sources, you create a solid foundation for comparing, analysing and optimising your email campaigns.
Typical uses of benchmarking in email marketing
Benchmarking is more than an analytical tool. It is also a practical management tool that helps marketing teams make better decisions and optimise their email efforts.
1.Evaluation of campaigns
Benchmarking is essential for evaluating your campaigns after sending. It allows you to identify which elements perform best, such as subject lines, call-to-actions, timing or content type.
By comparing your results with previous campaigns or industry standards, you can easily see your strengths and the areas that require adjustment.
This allows you to learn from every campaign and continuously improve future mailings.
2. Optimisation of automated flows
Automated flows such as welcome series, onboarding and reactivation emails often generate the highest value in email marketing.
Here, benchmarking is crucial because flows typically perform better than standalone campaigns but only if they are optimised continuously.
By tracking performance over time, you can identify which steps generate the highest engagement and where users drop off.
This insight allows you to adjust timing, content and segmentation to keep flows relevant and engaging.
3. Improving segmentation
Segmentation is the core of effective email marketing, but it can be challenging to determine whether your segments respond differently.
Benchmarking helps uncover performance across segments.
If one segment consistently underperforms, you can quickly identify the issue and adapt content, offers or frequency for that segment.
This ensures more efficient resource use and relevant communication for each audience.
4. A/B testing
Benchmarking provides a clear baseline, making A/B tests more precise and actionable.
When testing new subject lines, layouts, images or CTAs, benchmark data helps you measure improvements relative to the starting point.
This makes it easier to determine what actually works and supports systematic long-term optimisation.
5. Strategic decision-making
Beyond daily optimisation, benchmarking can support strategic decisions.
If you are considering increasing your sending frequency, redesigning your emails, dividing lists into more targeted segments or investing in new content formats, solid benchmarks reduce risk and maximise ROI.
Benchmarking helps you prioritise resources, set realistic goals and plan long-term strategies for your email marketing.
Achieving an effective email strategy
Benchmarking is one of the most valuable tools when working seriously with email marketing.
It provides the essential context needed to understand your results, identify opportunities for improvement and make data-driven decisions that strengthen both performance and customer loyalty.
Whether you focus on campaigns, automated flows or segmentation, benchmarking can help you create a clearer, more targeted and ultimately more effective email strategy.
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