Not-for-profit email marketing stats
Prompted by a discussion on fundraising emails in the not-for-profit space. As you might expect, I went digging.
This is from the 2022 Benchmark report by Campaign Monitor. It’s a little out of date as they analysed messages sent over 2021, but I think it’s a decent starting point for your own analysis.
I thought it interesting that while email open rates are better than the average for nonprofits, after that everything gets distinctly middle of the road.
One word of caution on using Open Rates. Privacy settings in Apple’s Mail app have been causing problems due to the way it preloads images via an anonymous proxy before the user opens it. It triggers a signal to the data that the recipient has opened the message, even if they don’t. Along the way I’ve seen stats suggesting doubling or more of open rates by possible Apple users.
(This is a reversal of behaviour in apps like Gmail that don’t load images unless the user explicitly requests it)
I’ve generally ignored anything to do with open rates because of its unreliability as a metric, but I included it for completeness.
Along the way I compiled a bunch of other facts and stats from the non-profit sector on email, fundraising and behaviour. I may release it at a future date.
My name is Ross Hori
I'm a freelance writer, designer and photographer. By day I create articles, features and reports. At night I take photos and write fiction. Find out more.
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