Users treat emails like ads
Users engage with email much as they engage with paid advertising.
Across ads, email, SMS, and push, what fraction of the time does a given impression tempt a user to click through to a product’s website or app? Answering this question will tell us the degree to which users pay attention to or discount any of these communication formats.
Check out the below benchmarks for clickthroughs to an app / website:
| Channel | CTR | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Google Display Network | 0.5% - 1% | Wordstream |
| Facebook Ads | 0.5% - 1.5% | Instapage |
| Email (inbox → website) | 1% - 5% | Mailchimp |
| Adwords | 2% - 6% | Wordstream |
| Push Notifications | 12% - 40% | Andrew Chen |
| SMS Links | 30% - 40% | Tatango |
Adwords impressions and emails see comparable clickthrough rates across industries, in the 1% - 6% range. Similarly, the worst email campaigns perform about as well as the best ads on display advertising networks. Given the commercial nature of many email campaigns, it’s not surprising that users respond to them as if they were ads.
In contrast, SMS and push notifications typically see engagement rates that are as much as 8X higher than email; these channels are usually reserved for urgent or highly valued notifications (e.g., a message from a friend) and are simply louder pings. Therefore, it shouldn’t be too surprising that users pay attention to them more.