2021 Email Stats to Stay on Top of Your Inbox

Email is continuing to evolve despite many claiming it would die. 

In this article, you are going to learn some of the most interesting and insightful email statistics that reveal how impactful email is for billions of people around the world. The best part of this email statistics article is that it is composed of the latest publicly available stats on email and your inbox. After all, no one is interested in reading an email stat from 2010.

Read on to learn more about the email industry, email usage statistics, the future of email use, and much more.

Here is a Summary of Key Email Facts:

Email Usage and Clients Stats

• There are currently over 4.03 billion email users worldwide. (Source).
• Over 319.6 billion emails are sent every single day. (Source).
• 43% of all emails are opened on mobile (Source).
• 93.2% of all email opens on mobile happen on Apple devices (iPhones and iPads) (Source).
• The average email open rate across all industries is 19.8% (Source).
• The average worker spends 9.5 hours per week on emails (Source).
• More than 40% of email users claim that at any time during the day they have more than  50 unread emails in their inbox. (Source).
• Nearly 78% of emails received are unimportant or not urgent (Source).
• 61% of millennials check their email in bed (Source).
• Millennials are more than 3x likely to check their emails while driving than GenXers and Baby Boomers (Source).
• 60% of Gen Z think email is the most personal channel to communicate with larger brands; compared to  64% of Millenials, 72% of Generation X, and 74% of Baby Boomers (Source).

Email Spam Stats

• As of March 2021, 45.1% of all email traffic was SPAM. (Source)
• In 73% of cases, identity theft is the goal of spam mail (Source).

Email Marketing Stats

• Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns put out by marketers is not properly optimized for easy viewing on mobile devices. (Source). This is a missed opportunity because mobile-responsive email design boosts unique mobile clicks by an average of 15%. (Source).
• 90% of marketers primarily measure email engagement as the top metric for their campaign (Source) and 85% of them regularly use email marketing software (Source).
• Roughly 85% of marketers claim they work with some type of email marketing software. It’s the indispensable tool in their arsenal that helps them with automation, bulk email sending, tracking, and engaging potential leads (Source).
• 45% of all internet users never open emails from unknown addresses. (Source). But 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email from a brand they just subscribed to (Source).

COVID-19 Pandemic Stats

• During the Corona pandemic, people want to hear from brands and how they’re handling the crisis. The average email open rate is up by 16% (Source).
• 77.5% of businesses small and large claim that their email open rate improved since the pandemic hit (Source).
• During the COVID crisis, large businesses and brands have seen an overall increase in email engagement, but the real winners are small businesses that experienced a drastic rise in engagement. This implies consumers want to hear more from local shops and stores. (Source).
  
  
  

Email Clients Statistics

• Apple iPhone is the king as its native email client claims 47.1% of the email client market share. Gmail comes in a respectable second place with an 18.6% market share and outlook coming in at 9.1% (Source)
• Before COVID Apple iPhone only had a 27.6% market share, second to Gmail’s 27.8%! (Source)
• Mobile optimized emails are critical as 43 % of email opens are happening on our smartphones. This is a decent increase as pre-COVID, smartphones made up 41% of all email opens. (Source)
• Subtracting 43% from 100% leaves 57% of email opens on the table. This is divided across 36.1% for webmail clients, 19.4% for desktop clients, and 1.5% for “Other”. (Source).
• When it comes to webmail, Gmail dominates with 75% market ownership followed by Yahoo Mail at 14.8%, Outlook by 2.4% and Other by 7.8% email opens (Source).
• Things are different on mobile. There Apple reigns supreme with 93.2% of all email opens happening on iPhones and iPads. Google Android accounts for 3.5% of email opens and others for 3.3% (Source).
• As for desktop email usage, Apple Mail holds 58.9% of the market share, followed by Outlook with 40% and Other with 0.2% (Source).

Email Usage and InMoat Trends 

Get the latest and updated stats showing you how users use email.

• Over 319.6 Billion emails are sent every single day. that’s nearly 222 million emails sent per minute and about 3.7million emails sent every second!
• The global e-mail marketing market is growing fast and is projected to grow from $7.5 billion in 2020 to $117.9 billion by 2027 (Source).
• Email is widespread, but not everyone uses it. There are almost 8 billion people on the planet, and only ~5.6 billion email accounts (Source).
• The average email open rate across all industries is 19.8%. The average click-through rate is 11.3%, and the average bounce rate is 9.4% (Source).
• In 2020 78% of marketers claimed email is important to their company’s overall success, compared to just 71% in 2019. (Source)
• Brands that A/B test their email campaigns generate an ROI of 48:1 (Source).
• 32% of brands are planning to experiment with interactive content in their emails, while 23% of brands have already adopted that practice in their email campaigns (Source).
• Nearly 78% of emails received are unimportant or not urgent (Source). That means only 22% of emails received are important, urgent, or considered a priority.
• Over 15% of incoming emails are from important contacts, such as coworkers, clients, or friends. (Source).

• When it comes to the types of important emails InMoat users receive, roughly 26% are payment-related such as invoices, receipts, and bills. (Source).
• Over 16% of important emails received by InMoat users are calendar invites. (Source).
• Personal Finances such as bank statements, tax returns, and pay stubs are top of mind for InMoat users as they make up nearly 15% of prioritized emails. (Source).
• InMoat users are eager to prioritize their online shopping with over 16% of prioritized emails related to shipping and tracking information. (Source).
  
  

SPAM and Unwanted Email

“Email” and “spam” are synonyms at this point and users are bombarded and dead tired of unwanted mail.

• As of March 2021, 45.1% of all email traffic was SPAM. Thankfully SPAM has been decreasing over time. (Source)
• 23.52% of global SPAM emails originated from Russia. Germany and the USA rounded out the top three sources for global SPAM with 11.01% and 10.85% of global spam originating from them. (Source)
• Advertisement emails have their role in the inbox and they may be genuinely helpful for someone looking to buy, but in general, they’re annoying, irrelevant to the receiver, and nearly always perceived as spam. Unwanted advertising makes up 36% of the world’s spam which means the average inbox is inundated with it (Source).
• Adult-related content accounts for 31.7% of all spam messages, and the third place goes to financial-related content at 26.5% (Source).
• For every 12.5 million emails sent, the spammer receives one reply. And that is one reply too many (Source).
• Scams and Frauds account for only 2.5% of all spam emails. In 73% of cases, identity theft is the goal. (Source)
  
  

Mobile Marketing Statistics

The world’s population is using mobile phones more than ever, and it’s also heavily affected how people view their mail.

• Almost 55% of global internet traffic comes from mobile devices, excluding tablet devices. (Source).
• Apple’s iPhone native email app owns the biggest market share, with the distant second being Gmail (Source).
• Even though most people primarily check their mail on their iPhone devices, Gmail is still the most widely used email service, with 1.5 billion+ users (Source).
• Mobile-responsive email design boosts unique mobile clicks by an average of 15%. (Source).
• 9.3% of all email clicks originate from tablets, rather than computers or smartphones (Source).
• Email mobile-friendliness is a staple and the second most used marketing tactic for most marketers wishing to boost their performance, open rates, and engagement (Source).
• Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns put out by marketers is not properly optimized for easy viewing on mobile devices. (Source).

B2B Email Marketing Statistics

Businesses use email to attract other business owners to their tools, software, and services. If you use email to get more business, you better read this section carefully, because the stats below will tell you how to tailor your strategy for the maximum success of every future campaign.

• 81% of B2B marketers claim email newsletters are their most used form of content marketing. (Source).
• 31% of B2B marketers claim email newsletters are the most effective way to nurture leads (Source).
• 87% of B2B marketers claim email is their top free organic distribution channel (Source).
• 16% of all sent emails never find their way into the intended recipient’s inbox (Source).
• B2B companies blast an email marketing campaign on average every 25 days. (Source).
• 90% of marketers claim email engagement is the top metric they monitor to optimally measure their content’s performance (Source).
• Roughly 85% of marketers claim they work with email marketing software. It’s the second most-used technology that facilitates bulk email sending, tracking, and engaging potential leads (Source).

B2C Email Marketing Statistics

How do consumers respond to campaigns sent by businesses and brands? How should brands adapt to get more opens and higher engagement?

• 45% of all internet users never open emails from unknown addresses. (Source).
• Provided that you don’t send more than five newsletters a week, the ones you do send out will get higher open and click rates (Source).
• 60% of e-commerce, retail, and consumer goods and services companies personalize their email campaigns based on past purchases (Source). 
• 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email. Compared to other types of email sent this is between 4x and 10x higher CTR than with other types of mail (Source).
• 22% of all email campaigns get opened within the first hour of being sent (Source).

Email Marketing Demographics 2021

• 58% of users check email first thing in the morning, with an astounding 99% checking their inbox every day (Source).
• More than 40% of consumers claim that at any time during the day they have more than  50 unread emails in their inboxes (Source).
• Emails sent by independent writers, artists, and performers boast the highest, 34.4% open rate. This open rate is close, followed by education (34.1%) and tourism and travel (32.6%) (Source).
• The highest email click-through rate on average goes to the Consulting services industry at 25%; the second-best industry is Administrative and Business Support services which have 20% CTR; and Home and Building services come in third with a nearly 19% CTR (Source).
• The average bounce rate for all industries is 9%, however, 26% of all retail emails bounce, which is significantly higher than the average. (Source).
• 20% of e-commerce, retail, and consumer services and goods companies are personalizing emails based on ethnicity, race, and gender, versus only 11% in 2019 (Source).
• 67% of Generation Z scans their inbox on their mobile,  versus only 59% of millennials (Source).
• 60% of Gen Z think email is the most personal channel to communicate with larger brands; compared to  64% of Millenials, 72% of Generation X, and 74% of Baby Boomers (Source).

How The COVID-19 Pandemic Influenced Email Usage

COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by storm and has changed how we live our day-to-day lives. It also changed our email behavior.

• During the Corona pandemic, people want to hear from brands and how they’re handling the crisis. The average email open rate has risen sharply compared to the pre-pandemic period (+16%) (Source).
• 55.5% of businesses have increased the volume of emails sent to their subscribers, while 14.9% have said they’ve emailed them less (Source).
• 78.5% of users said they wanted to hear from their favorite brands at least once per week, while 51.9% want to hear from them more than once per week (Source).
• The best days to send emails during the pandemic are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (Source).
• 77.5% of businesses claim that their email open rate improved since the pandemic hit. (Source).
• During the COVID outbreak, small businesses saw a huge rise in engagement vs larger corporations as consumers looked to connect with local stores. (Source).
• Essential industries like Healthcare, Government, Financial, and nonprofits are consistently seeing more opens and lower than average unsubscribe rates. This is attributed to the fact users need to stay in the loop on what is going on with the pandemic and how best to respond (Source).
• The government industry sent 25% more emails in 2020 compared to 2019 and recorded an average of 41.5% open rate throughout the year (Source).
• The media and publishing industry is having a surge in open rate (from 16% to 19%) and a moderate CTR boost, going from 22% to 23% (Source).
• Nonprofits have been hurt by COVID-19 a lot, but their email engagement is thriving and appears super healthy. During the pandemic, they’ve sent 40% more emails, got 17% more opens, and won 11.5% more clicks than average. (Source).
• With travel restrictions in place, the Travel and Hospitality industry took a hit on email engagement with a 3.7% decrease in volume but 3% increase in open rate. (Source)
• As expected, the healthcare industry saw a rise in both the email send rate (36%) and email open rate (12%) but surprisingly, CTR remains level with the one from the previous year. It neither increased nor decreased (Source).
  

Conclusion

Email is continuing to evolve, and isn't going anywhere. In fact, COVID-19 has increased our reliance on email in order to stay connected.

InMoat keeps your inbox organized and prioritized through the use of smart filtering technology. If you want to stay ahead of the email curve, sign up for InMoat today. It’s Free!

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