First Ever Independent International Email Marketing Benchmark Report

Are you looking to boost your email deliverability or step up your email marketing in 2023? As the data and marketing industry continues to evolve, the Global Data & Marketing Alliance (GDMA) and the Dutch Association for data & marketing (DDMA) have come together with leading ESPs and supported by the UK Data & Marketing Associations Email Council (DMA UK) to create the first-ever International Email Benchmark.

This benchmark will act as an independent measurement of current email practices and help strengthen email’s position as a core channel. The benchmark delves into three key international email trends and provides practical insights on how to handle them. First, AI-driven content and creation is becoming more widely available. While this technology can provide significant benefits, it also raises questions about whether creative professionals need to fear AI taking over their roles.

The GDMA International Email Benchmark includes recommendations on how to handle this trend. Second, email is becoming increasingly important in a privacy-first world. As regulations around data protection become more stringent, organisations must ensure that they are compliant with all applicable laws while still leveraging email to its fullest potential.

Finally, AI and BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) are increasingly being used to improve deliverability. This technology can be used to optimise emails for better engagement rates and improved customer experience. Organisations should consider leveraging the GDMA International Email Benchmark to measure their own email practices against the current state of the field and make adjustments where necessary in order to stay competitive.

This benchmark provides an independent baseline measurement of the current state of the range within the field, against which organisations can measure their own email practises. In order to understand email deliverability trends, it is important to look at current and future trends, as well as how they impact this field.

Three major international email trends have been identified: AI driven content & creation, email winning in a privacy-first world, and the advent of AI & BIMI for improving email deliverability.

AI is making a footprint on many aspects in our world, including email marketing and deliverability. ESPs have been using automated tools such as spam score checkers and A/B testing for a while now.

But with AI, there are more opportunities for senders to optimise their content and increase chances of recipients engaging with their emails. AI can help write personalised subject lines, create images matching with content written and determine when recipients want to receive content. However, there is also a downside when it comes to using AI in order to improve deliverability.

Some AI applications enable new senders to warm up their domains by sending dummy content and receiving automated Opens and Clicks from thousands of inboxes among various email providers (e.g., Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo).

This practice can lead to bigger problems like IP/domain blocks and drastically different engagement when real content is sent out. Overall, organisations should take these trends into account when looking at their own email practises in order to ensure maximum success in terms of deliverability. With the International Email Benchmark, organisations now have an independent international baseline to measure their practises against.

In recent years, national email benchmarks have been released by DMAs across the world, including our own Dutch DDMA benchmark. The email benchmarks have proven to be an invaluable tool for Email Service Providers for many years. But as the world of email marketing is changing and advertisers and brands are increasingly reaching their customers cross-border, there is a growing demand for a baseline measurement on an international level. That is why we reached out to the GDMA, and together we’ve established a unique collaboration with Email Service Providers from all over the world. And it has paid off! The very-first International Email Benchmark is a fact, and we plan on doing more in the upcoming years, continuously providing agencies, brands and ESPs with up-to-date trends and figures.

Said Diana Janssen, Director DDMA

Download the benchmark report here. (PDF)