What Are the Average Open and Click-Through Rates for Newsletters? A Practical Guide to EC Benchmarks and Improvement Methods

For e-commerce businesses, an email open rate of 30-40% and a click-through rate of 1-2% serve as general benchmarks. However, it's important to note that this open rate includes mechanical open counts due to Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), meaning the actual proportion of people who opened the email is likely lower. This article, based on Yulie's practical experience in CRM operations support for Shopify x Klaviyo, explains the benchmark email metrics for e-commerce, how to interpret them correctly, and specific measures to actually improve open and click-through rates.

Average Open and Click-Through Rates for Newsletters (E-commerce Benchmarks)

First, let's summarize the benchmark figures for key metrics. These figures are based on trends observed among small to medium-sized Japanese e-commerce businesses supported by Yulie and may vary depending on the industry, list quality, and content. Please use these as a reference to see "how they compare to your company's past figures" rather than simply "whether they exceed the average."

Metric	Benchmark	Notes
Open Rate	30-40%	Includes inflated numbers due to MPP. Actual opens are lower.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)	1-2%	Ratio of clicks to total emails sent. One of the most important metrics directly linked to sales.
CTOR (Click-to-Open Rate)	5-10%	Ratio of clicks to opens. A metric for content quality.
Conversion Rate	0.1-0.5%	Ratio of purchases to total emails sent. Varies greatly depending on product price.
Unsubscribe Rate	Less than 0.3%	If deliveries consistently exceed 0.5%, frequency/content needs review.
Bounce Rate	Less than 1%	Ratio of invalid addresses. High rates indicate problems with list hygiene.
Spam Complaint Rate	Less than 0.1%	Gmail guidelines consider 0.3% a danger zone.

Campaigns and Flows (Automated Emails) Have Vastly Different Baselines

The table above assumes benchmarks for mass campaign emails. Automated emails (flows), which are triggered by customer actions, achieve much higher rates because they are delivered at a time of high recipient interest. As a benchmark, welcome emails sent immediately after registration can achieve open rates of 50-60%, while abandoned cart emails can see open rates of 40-50% and click-through rates of 5-10%. Mixing campaign and flow metrics to calculate an average will distort the reality, so always evaluate them separately. Representative examples of flows are explained in the Welcome Email Series Design Guide and the Abandoned Cart Email Practical Guide.

Apple MPP Inflates Open Rates

The impact of Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is an unavoidable factor when interpreting open rates. Since iOS 15 in autumn 2021, Apple's Mail app has introduced a mechanism where Apple's servers pre-fetch images within emails (including pixels for open tracking), regardless of whether the user actually opens the email. Since open rates are measured by the loading of these pixels, recipients with MPP enabled are counted as "opened even if they didn't actually open it."

Given iPhone's high market share in Japan and the large number of users of the official Apple Mail app, this impact cannot be ignored. Our experience suggests that even if the displayed open rate is 40%, the actual proportion of people who opened it could easily be in the 20s. The practical conclusions from this are as follows:

• Do not compare absolute open rates with other companies: The extent of inflation varies depending on the proportion of Apple users in your list, so comparisons with other companies or "industry averages" are largely meaningless.
• Use open rates for relative comparisons within your company: As long as you are sending to the same list, the degree of inflation is generally constant, so it is still effective for comparing subject line A and subject line B, or for observing increases and decreases over time.
• Focus on click-through rates and sales as key KPIs: Clicks are proactive actions by recipients and are not affected by MPP. It is safer to set click-through rate, CTOR, and sales from email as the goal metrics for improvement activities.

Three Underlying Factors Affecting Open and Click-Through Rates

Before making superficial improvements like subject lines, you need to understand the three factors that determine the baseline of your metrics.

List Quality (Acquisition Channel)

The response to the same email can vary by several times between a list gathered through a giveaway campaign and a list of product purchasers or people who registered out of interest in the brand. If your open rates are low, it's faster to question "who you're sending to" before trying to refine the email content. Even when offering coupons for acquisition, gathering lists through channels that indicate brand interest (e.g., at the time of purchase completion, during content browsing) can help maintain quality.

Segmentation and Send Frequency

Repeatedly sending mass emails to your entire list means continuously sending to unresponsive segments, which will cause your average rates to decline. Simply targeting an "active segment" that has opened, clicked, or purchased within the last 90-180 days can easily increase open rates by more than 10 percentage points. For frequency, a baseline of 1-2 times per week is practical, with additional emails layered only for highly responsive segments.

Deliverability (Avoiding Spam Filters)

If emails don't even reach the inbox, they can't be opened. Setting up sender domain authentication like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC has become a de facto requirement due to stricter guidelines from Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. If not configured, complete the authentication setup before attempting to improve open rates. Additionally, ceasing to send to addresses that have been unresponsive for a long time is crucial for protecting your sender reputation.

How to Improve Open Rates

Subject Line: Determined by Specificity and "Personalization"

The decision to open an email is largely made based on the subject line and sender name in the inbox. Subject lines that include specific information and deadlines, such as "【3 days left】Popular 〇〇 is back in stock," tend to elicit a better response than abstract ones like "New Product Announcement." Aim for around 20 characters, which won't be cut off on smartphones, and place the key information at the beginning. Designing the preheader (supplementary text displayed below the subject line) as a continuation of the subject line can also impact open rates for the same content.

Sender Name: Clearly State Your Brand Name

If the sender name is just "info" or a personal name, people won't know who the email is from and won't open it. Use your brand name as a default, and consider testing variations like "〇〇 (Brand Name) Staff △△" to add a human touch.

Send Timing: Align with Your Customers' Daily Schedule

Generally, weekdays between 7-9 AM, around noon, and 8-10 PM tend to be times when you can get a good response, but the optimal solution varies depending on the product and customer segment. It's more reliable to test the same content on different days and times a few times to understand your own list's trends than to follow general advice.

List Cleaning: Deciding Not to Send Increases Averages

For addresses that have been unresponsive for more than 180 days, send a re-engagement email (asking "Do you still want to receive emails?"). If there's still no response, remove them from your mailing list. While this reduces the number of subscribers, it improves both open rates and deliverability, and also lowers sending costs.

How to Improve Click-Through Rates

Designing the First View and CTA

Whether an email recipient continues reading after opening depends on the initial screen. Place "what the email is about" and the main CTA (button) in the first view, structuring it so that actions can be taken without scrolling. For CTA wording, phrases like "See the re-stocked 〇〇" that explain what happens after clicking tend to generate a better response than vague ones like "Learn more."

Limit to One Message Per Email

If you cram new products, sales, and articles into one email, it becomes harder for any link to be clicked. If you have multiple things to convey, either split them into separate emails or decide on one clear main subject and relegate the others to supporting roles. This principle alone often improves CTOR.

Segment-Specific Targeting

Varying your appeals based on purchase history, purchase categories, and browsing history can significantly change click-through rates for the same product. Segmented sending integrated with Shopify purchase data is a strong suit of tools like Klaviyo. For an overview of the tool, see the article explaining what Klaviyo is, and for differences from other email sending methods, see the comparison of newsletter apps for Shopify.

Metrics to Watch Beyond Open Rate

Considering the impact of MPP, we recommend prioritizing email marketing evaluation metrics in the following order:

1. Sales via Email: The ultimate goal itself. Always link sales contributions to each email and flow.
2. Click-Through Rate & CTOR: Proactive recipient actions and KPIs for improvement that are not affected by MPP.
3. List Health: Unsubscribe rate, bounce rate, and spam complaint rate. Metrics that protect your long-term sending infrastructure.
4. Open Rate: Use this only for relative comparisons within your company (subject line testing, temporal changes).

For a comparison with LINE, another CRM channel, and its role division, please refer to the Email and LINE Usage Guide. It's crucial here too not to choose a channel based solely on its high open rate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an open rate exceeding 70% normal?

High rates are certainly possible for flow emails (such as welcome emails), but if regular campaign emails consistently exceed 70%, it's highly likely that the inflation due to MPP is significant. Instead of just being happy with the number, check if the click-through rate and sales are also strong.

What should I check if my open rate suddenly drops?

First, suspect deliverability. Systematically check SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings, any sudden increases in bounce or spam complaint rates, and whether opens to Gmail specifically have dropped (a sign of going to the promotions tab or being marked as spam). In practice, infrastructure issues often outweigh content issues.

What should I do first to quickly improve my click-through rate?

The three most effective immediate actions are: narrowing the target audience to an active segment, placing the main CTA in the first view, and focusing on a single main message per email. While subject line improvements impact open rates, click-through rates are determined by the internal structure of the email and segmentation.

Will increasing send frequency lower open rates?

If you increase the frequency of sending the same content to the same entire list, yes, it will likely decrease. On the other hand, if you vary the content for different segments, you can often maintain engagement even with increased frequency. The fundamental issue is not frequency itself, but "are you sending the same appeal to the same person repeatedly?"

Since LINE has a higher open rate, can I stop sending newsletters?

It's not recommended to make decisions based solely on open rates. Email has low sending costs and excels in automation scenarios and sales tracking, so its role differs from LINE. The characteristics of both channels and how to design their combined use are summarized in the Email and LINE Usage Guide.

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Yulie is a CRM operations support team specializing in Shopify x Klaviyo. As a Klaviyo certified partner, we provide comprehensive support from setting up accurate measurement environments for delivery metrics to implementing flows and monthly improvement operations. If you would like your company's newsletter metrics diagnosed, please feel free to contact us for a free consultation.