Is email as a marketing medium losing its sheen? For quite some time, email marketing has been one of the cheapest and most effective medium to catch up with customers. However,as a recent study from MailerMailer has shown, the average email open rates and email click through rates may be on the decline.

The study points out that email open rates were especially low in four industries – Entertainment (9.2%), Banking (8.2%), Marketing (7.4%) and Medical (7.3%). Click through rates, on the other hand have seen a drop of nearly 43% in the past one year. The study puts the average click through rate on emails at 1.6%.

Here is how the open rates have fared over the past few years

H2 2007 : 14%
H1 2008 : 13.2%
H2 2008 : 12.5%
H1 2009 : 12%
H2 2009 : 11.2%

Here is the correponding change in click through rates

H2 2007 : 2.9%
H1 2008 : 2.7%
H2 2008 : 2.8%
H1 2009 : 2.6%
H2 2009 : 1.6%

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