If you want to increase the effectiveness of your email campaigns, you need to consider increasing the frequency of your messages. After all, two emails are better than one. However, sending more emails is not a recipe for long-term success. After all, frequency is a carefully chosen balance between very rarely and very often.
Optimal frequency of email newsletters
You might think that sending more messages would require more effort, and perhaps result in more subscribers unsubscribing. The question is, how often is too often?
The Get Response Email Marketing Benchmarks report provides the latest data to help you determine the optimal frequency for best results.
I recently calculated the optimal email frequency using data from Return Path. The company published the results, analyzing fashion companies and a total of 199 million emails. It turned out that the ideal email frequency is 6.21 emails per week .
Get Response’s latest report shows the average open and click-through rates for Belarus Email Database frequencies ranging from 1 to 15 emails per week.
Data from the Get Response report showing the relationship between mailing frequency and key performance indicators
What is the purpose of email newsletters?
In most cases, the goal is to click and follow the link. That is, the user must go to the site in order to continue their journey, and turn communication into conversion. An increase in income from mailing will occur when the number of transitions to the site per month increases to the maximum.
Notice the difference? We take into account the number of visits per month , not from a separate campaign. The difference is subtle, but fundamentally important.
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have 100,000 subscribers in your database. Over the course of a month, you created 4 campaigns and the open rate was 4.88%, meaning the number of clicks to your site was 19,520 (4 x 100,000 x 4.88%).
Now let’s increase the number of campaigns to 8. The Get Response report shows that the CTR will decrease to 3.53%. The number of clicks to the site will be 28,240 (8 x 100,000 x 3.53%) per month. (In this article , we explain how to calculate the CTR).
With the increase in the number of email newsletters, the number of clicks to the site also increased from 19,520 to 28,240 per month, i.e. efficiency increased by 44%.
What about unsubscribes?
As the frequency of sending increases, the unsubscribe rate of a particular campaign usually does not increase. However, the number of users who unsubscribe during the month increases.
Sounds contradictory? No.
Let’s assume that 200 subscribers unsubscribe during one campaign. The number does not change, i.e. 200 people/campaign, but the number of mailings increases.
If you create 4 campaigns per month, then 800 contacts will unsubscribe from the mailing list during the month. If you send 8 mailings, then 1,600 people will unsubscribe from receiving messages.
Explain it this way: the more newsletters you send, the more likely users are to click through to your site. At the same time, the risk of a larger group of subscribers opting out of the newsletter increases.
An additional threat is the so-called “opaque churn,” i.e. the number of subscribers who are in the database but do not open mailings very often or do not read messages at all.
The Get Response report clearly shows this: as the frequency of Buy Email Database List increases, the response rate decreases.
The perfect combination
The optimal frequency of email distribution is to achieve the maximum number of clicks on the site over a long period, taking into account:
decrease in click-through rate, which is shown in the report;
a decrease in the number of subscribers, which will affect the effectiveness of campaigns in the future.
The table below shows the average number of clicks per user per site over a 3 year period, taking into account the weekly number of mailings.
Graph showing the relationship between email sending frequency and website visits
When comparing the number of mailings, you can see that the efficiency rate will change insignificantly with 5, 6 and 7 messages per week.
You may recall that we have already looked at the relationship between frequency, effort, and churn. With that in mind, the optimal frequency is 5-7 emails per week.
What about the short term? Below is the same analysis, but the results of the optimization we performed only over a 3 month period.
Graph showing the relationship between email frequency and website visits over a short period of time
If you only want to optimize your campaign for 3 months, the answer practically screams “red flag”. Send as many messages as possible. In this situation, the number of unsubscribes is not critical in the short term.
However, this approach will negatively impact long-term results and I do not recommend it.
The “non-toxic” base is growing faster
User churn due to unsubscribes and bounces means that no matter how often you send out emails, your subscriber base will shrink over time.
Unlike the number of users who unsubscribe, the number of invalid email addresses and bounce rate are not affected by email frequency.
I don’t recommend trying to reduce unsubscribes by placing a small-font link in a distant footer. Research shows that this approach usually backfires.
Every year, the subscriber base decreases by 20-40% due to unsubscribes and refusals. That is why one of the key tasks is to increase the subscriber base . You simply need new contacts to restore the base.
6 emails weekly – is this the optimal amount for everyone?
According to the data, on average 5-6 emails per week is the optimal solution . However, this frequency will not suit every brand.
The answer to the question: “How often should I send out an Mailing Data newsletter?” depends on the type of product and service you offer:
“stress” purchase: auto repair, essential products and services
essential products/services: insurance policy, cosmetic products, etc.;
impulse purchases and items of desire: vacations, gadgets, hobby items.
If you sell products that users buy on the spur of the moment, it is recommended to send messages more frequently than in the case of “stress” purchases.
A subscriber might enjoy browsing fashion or travel deals even if they have no intention of making a purchase. They might browse out of curiosity or a desire to keep up with major trends.
Moreover, this does not concern car insurance. Only a few will want to be interested in this issue, and perhaps only on the eve of the contract renewal.
Every brand, offer, and audience is unique, so each company will have its own optimal frequency.
It is recommended to send 1-5 messages per week if you sell impulse items; 1-2 messages if they are essential items; and for “stressed” ones – several times per quarter.
Mailing frequency and relevance
You may be thinking that you should focus on sending relevant content rather than just more emails.
My answer: both elements are important. Frequency of mailings must be combined with relevance. If you take care of the quality of the content and engage your subscribers, you can increase the frequency of mailings without the negative effects I mentioned earlier.
The top 200 email marketers not only increased frequency, but also improved open rates through strategies that included:
targeted trigger mailings sent at the most appropriate moment
Choosing the optimal frequency of email distribution greatly affects the results. When was the last time you analyzed how often you send newsletters? Organizing frequent email distributions correctly is a more difficult task than sending infrequent emails. But, if you only want to, it is perfectly manageable. Improve your skills in creating engaging content, and you will easily be able to send emails as often as you want.
