Twilio SendGrid Fourth Annual Global Email Benchmark and Engagement Study Reveals Shift in Brand Sending Patterns and Changing Consumer Preferences

By STS News Desk On Dec 18, 2019

Brands Send More Email As Consumers Grow More Selective about Opening Messages

Insights from the Study Reveal How Brands Can Adjust their Approach and Drive More Engagement & Revenue from their Campaigns

Twilio , the leading cloud communications platform, announced the results of the fourth annual Twilio SendGrid Email Benchmark and Engagement Study conducted to analyze the email sending patterns of brands and the engagement preferences of consumer recipients. The study includes recommendations for how senders can improve their email programs by carefully considering the critical elements that impact a recipient’s decision to open a message and click on the embedded links.

The study analyzed sending and engagement data from more than 80,000 global Twilio SendGrid customers who send more than 60 billion emails each month. Twilio SendGrid also performed entirely new research for this year’s study, which included both a qualitative ethnographic study of 40 participants from the United States and the United Kingdom, and a quantitative online survey of 1,600 participants from the US and the UK.

“As reflected in Twilio’s research published earlier this year, despite the prevalence and proliferation of new social channels, email and text messages remain the essential channels for brands to engage and connect with their customers,” said Len Shneyder, vice president of Industry Relations for Twilio SendGrid. “The expanded 2019 Email Engagement Study paints a more complete picture of how and why recipients engage with the email they receive, providing the insight brands need to properly resource, scale and refine their email campaigns in order to retain, engage and grow their businesses.”

Based on the report’s findings about effective email campaigns that drive engagement and growth, Twilio SendGrid recommends that brands:

Provide ways for recipients to either adjust how often they receive emails, or how often they receive certain types of emails. If a higher frequency cannot be avoided, consider sending shorter emails that only require a scroll or two to read on mobile or desktop devices; longer emails are acceptable, but these should be sent out less frequently.
Ensure that the brand is consistently positioned and represented across campaigns to reinforce familiarity in the inbox and in the mind of the recipient. Make sure email is properly authenticated so that messages aren’t going to spam and recipients see that messages are coming from the brand’s domain.
Get to know customers and ensure the content they receive is relevant to them. Tailor offers that reflect their past purchases, or anticipate their future needs based on what they have bought before. Consider sending customers a quick survey to learn more about their interests and to help increase the relevance and contextuality of emails.
Be clear and concise in subject headers, but descriptive enough to convey the main content of the email. Use urgency, but do so sparingly and only when action is required within the next 24-48 hours.
Use images to add a splash of color to emails, particularly if this results in using less text. You should use 1-3 images at most, so your email doesn’t look too cluttered or busy.
Consumers will check email on almost any device they own. Test your messages ahead of time and ensure they load properly across all inbox providers, browsers, and devices.

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