Email Marketing Statistics 2026: Opens, Clicks, Automation
The median marketing email was opened 43.46% of the time in 2025 and clicked 2.09% of the time, across 3.6 million campaigns. The open figure is inflated: Apple accounts for 62% of tracked opens, and its Mail Privacy Protection marks emails as opened automatically. Unsubscribes more than doubled after Gmail made one-click unsubscribe standard. Automated emails such as abandoned cart and welcome messages are about 2% of sends but 30% of email revenue. Here are the email marketing statistics worth knowing in 2026, each sourced inline with the year noted.
Median open rate 43.46%, click rate 2.09%
The median marketing email open rate was 43.46% in 2025, up from 42.35% in 2024, across more than 3.6 million campaigns sent from 181,000 accounts between December 2024 and November 2025 (MailerLite, 2025).
The median click rate was 2.09%, and the click-to-open rate 6.81%, up from 5.63% (MailerLite, 2025).
The median unsubscribe rate was 0.22% in 2025, more than double 0.08% in 2024 (MailerLite, 2025). MailerLite attributes the jump largely to Gmail making one-click unsubscribe easier.
Apple is 62% of opens, so open rates overstate reading
Apple accounted for 62.26% of email opens in July 2026, Gmail for 27.03% and Outlook for 5.83%, measured across more than 1 billion opens by Litmus, which sells email testing software (Litmus, 2026).
Apple Mail Privacy Protection automatically marks emails as opened, so real open rates are lower than dashboards show (MailerLite, 2025). Litmus says it does not consider these reliable opens. Clicks and conversions are the more trustworthy measures.
Automated emails: 2% of sends, 30% of revenue
Automated emails such as abandoned cart, welcome and back-in-stock messages were 2% of email sends but drove 30% of email revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns, across 150,000 ecommerce brands and 27 billion emails (Omnisend, 2026).
Email open rates rose for the fifth year in a row while click rates declined, but click-to-conversion jumped 53% (Omnisend, 2026). Fewer people clicked, and those who did were far more likely to buy.
5% of ecommerce brands generated 57% of the growth in order volume in 2025, as orders grew 98% overall (Omnisend, 2026).
The bulk sender rules: authenticate, unsubscribe, stay under 0.3% spam
Since February 2024, Gmail has required all senders to keep spam rates reported in its Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, and those sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts must meet stricter requirements (Google, 2026).
Outlook.com now requires SPF, DKIM and DMARC from domains sending more than 5,000 emails a day, Microsoft announced in April 2025. Non-compliant messages go to Junk first and may eventually be rejected (Microsoft, 2025).
The widely quoted “$36 return for every $1 spent on email” is traced to its source in marketing statistics. Email volume and inbox overload numbers are in email statistics.
Answering the replies your campaigns create
The best-earning emails are the ones triggered by what a customer just did, and the most valuable responses to a campaign are the replies: a question about pricing, a request for a call, a customer with a problem. Carly is an AI assistant that works in your email and calendar. She reads the replies to your campaigns, answers the common questions in your voice, books calls with the people ready to talk and flags the rest for you. Carly connects to thousands of apps, so she works alongside your email platform and CRM.
For more, see the best AI email tools and cold email statistics.
FAQ
What is a good email open rate? The median across 3.6 million campaigns was 43.46% in 2025 (MailerLite, 2025). Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, so compare click rates too.
What is the average email click rate? 2.09% in 2025, with a click-to-open rate of 6.81% (MailerLite, 2025).
What is a normal unsubscribe rate? 0.22% per email in 2025, more than double 2024’s 0.08% after Gmail made unsubscribing easier (MailerLite, 2025).
Do automated emails perform better? Yes. Automated emails were 2% of ecommerce email sends but 30% of email revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns (Omnisend, 2026).
Related: Email Statistics · Marketing Statistics · Cold Email Statistics · Ecommerce Statistics · SMS Marketing Statistics
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