Email marketing benchmarks: What good looks like in 2026

Omnisend analyzed more than 20 billion campaign emails and 470 million automated email sends across 27,000+ brands to see how ecommerce email performed in 2025.

We’ll cover the numbers ecommerce brands should watch in 2026: opens, clicks, CTOR, conversions, unsubscribes, deliverability, industry trends, and how automations compare with regular campaigns.

For the full dataset, channel insights, and ecommerce trends behind these numbers, read Omnisend’s 2026 ecommerce marketing report.

We’ll start with the headline benchmarks across all campaign emails, then look at how each metric changes by industry and email type.

Email marketing benchmarks at a glance

All figures below are from Omnisend’s 2025 email dataset, which covers more than 20 billion campaign emails sent by 27,000+ brands.

These are cross-industry campaign averages, so use them as a starting point rather than a strict target for every brand. A strong apparel campaign, for example, may look different from a strong finance, food and drink, or travel campaign because audience intent and purchase cycles vary by industry.

The sections below break each email marketing benchmark down by industry and compare standard campaign sends with automated email sequences. For a deeper look at what each number means, read our guide to email marketing metrics.

You can also check your own performance against current ecommerce benchmarks with Omnisend’s email benchmark calculator. Add your open rate, CTR, conversion rate, and revenue data to see how your emails compare and where there’s room to improve.

Email open rate benchmarks by industry

The average email open rate across industries was 30.22% in Omnisend’s 2025 dataset. This number needs a little context: since 2021, Apple Mail’s Mail Privacy Protection has been able to preload tracking pixels, which can make some emails appear opened before a subscriber reads them.

Email open rate gives you the first clue. CTR and CTOR add the next layer by showing whether the email content, offer, and call to action earned a click.

A high open rate can look impressive on the surface, but it doesn’t always point to stronger email performance. Wedding brands had the highest open rate at 52.43%, yet their conversion rate was only 0.04%. Games had a lower open rate at 36.85%, but a much higher conversion rate of 0.19%.

That gap is why open rate should only be the starting point. Clicks and conversions give the stronger read on campaign performance.

Email click rate benchmarks by industry

CTR has become a clearer engagement signal since Apple MPP changed the way open tracking works. Every click indicates that a subscriber clicked a link, button, product, or offer within the email.

CTR tells you how many delivered emails led to a click. Click-to-open rate, or CTOR, narrows the view to opened emails and shows how well the message encouraged action.

The B2B-heavy categories stand out. Business & Industrial reached a 5.12% CTOR, Finance reached 4.89%, and Internet led the table at 6.98%.

Lower open rates didn’t hold these industries back. Once subscribers opened, they clicked at some of the highest rates in the dataset.

Email conversion rate benchmarks by industry

Conversion rates vary more sharply by industry than opens or clicks. The table also shows a few counterintuitive patterns: categories with strong open rates can still sit near the bottom for conversions, while lower-open categories can produce stronger revenue outcomes.

That makes conversion rate one of the most useful benchmarks to pair with email marketing ROI, especially when assessing whether campaigns are driving sales rather than surface-level engagement.

Games led all industries with a 0.19% conversion rate, despite a lower open rate than Wedding, Holidays & Seasonal, and Travel. Smoking & Vaping followed at 0.18%, while Finance reached 0.17% after posting one of the lowest open rates in the previous section.

That pattern points to stronger purchase intent. A smaller share of the audience may open, but the people who do are more likely to click, compare, and buy. Internet showed a similar intent-driven pattern in click engagement, although its conversion rate isn’t included in this conversion table.

The lower end of the table includes several major retail categories. Apparel converted at 0.05%, and both Home & Garden and Consumer Electronics converted at 0.04%. These shoppers often need more time to compare products and prices, so campaigns tend to perform better when they’re supported by browse, cart, and product-based automations.

Automated email benchmarks vs. campaign sends

Automated emails generated $3.41 per email sent in 2025, compared with $0.155 for campaign emails. That’s a 22x difference in revenue per email.

The conversion gap was just as wide. Automated emails converted at 1.49%, while campaign emails converted at 0.08%, making automations approximately 19x higher for conversions.

Automations perform better because they reach subscribers at specific moments: after they join a list, browse a product, abandon a cart, place an order, or wait for an item to return. Timing and intent do much of the heavy lifting.

The same principles behind the best email marketing campaigns still apply: strong offers, clear copy, relevant products, and a focused call to action. Automations add behavior-based timing on top of that.

Key standouts from the automation data:

• Product back in stock had the highest revenue per email at $9.14 and the highest conversion rate at 6.72%. Only 0.6% of brands in the dataset used this automation in 2025, which leaves a clear opportunity gap for stores with products that sell out and return later
• Shipping confirmation had the highest open rate of any email type in the dataset at 62.67%. Its 16.01% CTR shows strong customer intent around tracking orders and checking delivery updates
• Welcome emails generated $6.16 per email with a 35.53% open rate. New subscribers tend to have high purchase intent when they first join, so that a strong welcome flow can turn early attention into revenue
• Abandoned cart was the most widely used high-value automation, used by 22.5% of brands with automations active by year-end. It generated a steady $3.59 per email
• Customer reactivation had the lowest revenue per email at $0.51 and the lowest conversion rate at 0.54%. Its main value is list health: bringing inactive subscribers back, identifying low-intent contacts, and keeping future sends cleaner

Email unsubscribe rate benchmarks

The overall campaign unsubscribe rate was 0.20%, while automated emails had a higher unsubscribe rate of 0.59%.

That higher automation rate is expected. Automated sequences often reach subscribers early in the customer relationship, before they’re familiar with the brand, its offers, and its sending rhythm. This makes the unsubscribe rate a useful signal for checking whether your timing, frequency, and message relevance align with subscriber expectations.

Transactional automations sit near the bottom of the unsubscribe range. Shipping confirmation emails had a 0.30% unsubscribe rate, while order confirmation emails had a 0.36% unsubscribe rate. These emails are expected, useful, and tied directly to a purchase the customer has already made.

The higher end of the table tells a different story:

• Cross-sell emails had the highest unsubscribe rate at 0.89%. These emails work best when the recommended products closely match the customer’s purchase history or browsing behavior
• Welcome emails reached 0.87%. New subscribers are still deciding how much they want to hear from the brand, so early emails need a clear purpose and a careful sending pace
• Order follow-up emails reached 0.86%. Follow-ups can be valuable, but frequency and timing play a big role after a customer has already completed a purchase

A rising unsubscribe rate can signal that subscribers are receiving too many messages, seeing offers that feel too broad, or getting emails at the wrong stage of the customer journey. That’s why unsubscribe benchmarks should be reviewed alongside clicks, conversions, and revenue per email.

Why tracking email benchmarks matters

Benchmarks help turn reporting from a weekly recap into a clearer action plan. If your open rate trails the industry average, subject lines, sender reputation, list quality, or deliverability may need attention. If opens look strong but CTR is low, the issue may sit inside the email: offer, layout, product selection, call to action, or audience fit.

They also give your team context over time. A 0.08% campaign conversion rate may look small in isolation, but in this dataset, it’s the overall campaign average. The bigger question is how your own numbers move month by month and which changes affect revenue, clicks, conversions, and unsubscribes.

The automation gap shows how much timing and relevance can change performance. Automated emails generated 22x more revenue per email than campaign sends in 2025, which points to the value of well-timed messages triggered by subscriber behavior.

Tracking these numbers also helps catch email marketing mistakes before they become bigger performance problems. Weak clicks, rising unsubscribes, or flat conversion rates can all point to gaps in segmentation, cadence, offer strategy, or the broader email marketing setup.

Omnisend brings campaign, automation, revenue, and audience metrics into one place, so ecommerce brands can track performance and improve the emails that drive sales.