DEEP DIVE

Newsletter benchmarks: What should your open rate, CTR, Unsub rate, CPA, and other metrics be?

One of the most common questions I get is…

“What are your benchmarks open rate, CTR, CPA, CPM, etc?”

I get it. You want to know where your metrics should be and how you compare to other newsletters.

I don’t have the perfect answer for everything. However, I have seen the data behind 50+ successful newsletters with 100k+ to 2M+ subscribers.

I also have strong opinions on the benchmarks your newsletter should target.

Here they are:

Note: This is my opinion of what your target benchmarks should be based on my work with 50+ newsletters. There are exceptions. These benchmarks aren’t appropriate for every newsletter or every situation.

Unique Open Rate

Here are my benchmarks for newsletter open rate:

• 20%+ open rate = Very bad

• 30%+ open rate = Bad

• 40%+ open rate = Okay

• 45%+ open rate = Good

• 50%+ open rate = Great

• 55%+ open rate = Excellent

• 60%+ open rate = World class

Aim for a “great” or better rating.

Note: I’m referring to the open rate of your email newsletters. Not marketing emails, which in many cases will be lower.

Open rate data is now unreliable due to Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), but it’s still a metric worth measuring and improving.

Unique Click Through Rate (CTR)

• <1% CTR = Very bad

• 1-2% CTR = Bad

• 2-3% CTR = Okay

• 3-4% CTR = Good

• 5-6% CTR = Great

• 7-10% CTR = Excellent

• 10%+ CTR = World class

Aim for a “great” or better rating.

Note: This refers to the unique click-to-unique open rate, often called “click-to-open rate.” It has become the most common way to measure CTR.

CTR is a tricky metric to benchmark because some newsletters include many links and calls to action (CTA), and some include very few or none at all.

If you’re a newsletter with very few links and CTA, I recommend you do 2 things:

• Take this benchmark with a grain of salt. Your newsletter will be on the lower end.

• Add more links and CTAs in your newsletter. Clicks are the most accurate way to measure engagement since most opens are now automated by Apple Mail privacy protection. Clicks will also help your deliverability. They send positive signals to email providers like Gmail.

Read my guide on Apple Mail privacy protection and what you should do about it.

Unique Ad Click Through Rate (Ad CTR)

This means the CTR of the advertisement in your newsletter.

• 0.25% Ad CTR = Very bad

• 0.50% Ad CTR = Bad

• 0.75% AdCTR = Okay

• 1% Ad CTR = Good

• 1.5% Ad CTR = Great

• 2% Ad CTR = Excellent

• 3% Ad CTR = World class

Aim for a “good” or better rating.

Read my guide on how to increase ad CTR and get more sponsor renewals.

Unsubscribe rate

This refers to the unsubscribe percentage from one newsletter sent. Not overall unsubscribe or churn.

• 1% = Very Bad

• 0.75% = Bad

• 0.50% = Okay

• 0.35% = Good

• 0.25% = Great

• 0.20% = Excellent

• 0.10% = World class

Weekly newsletters have a much higher unsubscribe rate than daily newsletters (5 or more sends per week).

• If you have a weekly newsletter, aim for “okay” or better.

• If you have a daily newsletter, aim for “great” or better.

Meta ad cost per subscriber (CPA)

B2C newsletters:

• $5 = Very Bad

• $4 = Bad

• $3 = Okay

• $2.50 = Good

• $2 = Great

• $1.50 = Excellent

• $1.00 = World class

B2B newsletters:

• $7 = Very Bad

• $6 = Bad

• $5 = Okay

• $4 = Good

• $3 = Great

• $2.50 = Excellent

• $2.00 = World class

This refers to the cost of acquiring a newsletter subscriber (email only) using a landing page on your website with meta ads targeting the US only.

This is one of the toughest things to benchmark because so many factors affect CPA and what’s acceptable.

A few factors are:

• Ad spend — As you spend more on Meta, you bid higher, and advertising costs generally go up. Some B2C newsletters are happy to pay $3-$5 per subscriber because they’re spending $200k-$500k per month on ads and acquiring 100,000+ subscribers per month.

• Total addressable market (TAM) — Some newsletters have a TAM of 100M people, while others may only have a TAM of 100,000 people. The smaller the TAM, the higher the cost to acquire them with ads.

• Subscriber LTV — If your average newsletter subscriber lifetime value is $100, you should be happy to spend $10 or more to acquire a subscriber. Some newsletters have an LTV of $50-$100 and are comfortable with relatively higher CPAs. But most newsletters have an LTV of $5-$25, and that’s why I recommend the benchmarks above.

• Payback period — If you’re comfortable with a longer payback period you can afford to acquire subscribers for more. If not, you have to work with a lower CPA. At GrowLetter, we’ve worked with clients who need to make back their ad spend on day one and need a <$1.25 CPA — and clients who are happy with a 90-day payback period and spend more per subscriber and add more subscribers overall. Everyone has different goals.

Read my guide on how to improve your Meta ad results and reduce CPA.

Welcome email engagement

Open rate:

• 30%+ open rate = Very bad

• 40%+ open rate = Bad

• 50%+ open rate = Okay

• 60%+ open rate = Good

• 70%+ open rate = Great

• 75%+ open rate = Excellent

• 80%+ open rate = World class

CTR:

• 1%+ CTR = Very bad

• 5%+ CTR Bad

• 7%+ CTR = Okay

• 10%+ CTR = Good

• 12%+ CTR = Great

• 15%+ CTR = Excellent

• 20%+ CTR = World class

There is always a correlation between welcome email engagement and overall email list engagement.

Your welcome email is the most important email you sent. It’s your first impression.

If you can improve your welcome email engagement, your overall email engagement with new subscribers will improve, too.

Read my guide on how to improve open rate and CTR with welcome emails.

Newsletter poll results

• <40% 5-star = Very Bad

• 40%+ 5-star = Bad

• 50%+ 5-star = Okay

• 60%+ 5-star = Good

• 70%+ 5-star = Great

• 80%+ 5-star = Excellent

• 90%+ 5-star = World class

Aim for a “great” or better rating.

Every newsletter should have a poll.

There's more to measuring your newsletter's success than open rate and CTR.

Polls collect your reader's rating and allow you to easily request testimonials.

Use the "5 star, 3 star, 1 star" format (shown below).

Don’t be upset if you don’t get a 70%+ “5-start” rating all the time. Many times, you’ll get people on your list that shouldn't be there. And sometimes, bots can click these poll links to throw off your results.

Free to paid conversion rate

• 0.50% = Very Bad

• 1% = Bad

• 2% = Okay

• 2.5% = Good

• 3% = Great

• 4% = Excellent

• 5% = World class

This refers to the percentage of free newsletter subscribers that purchase your paid product or subscription.

This is almost impossible to benchmark, so take this with a big grain of salt.

With these benchmarks, I’m assuming you have a digital product or subscription with a price point of $50-$300.

The price point is important here. If you have a $2000 product and a 1% free-to-paid conversion rate, you’re world-class.

Another thing to consider is when your paid product is introduced.

For example, If you have a newsletter with 50,000 subscribers and introduce your paid subscription at that point, your conversion rate will be much lower than if you had the paid subscription from day one (and had proper marketing conversion tactics in place back then).