Why Email Marketing Still Delivers Real ROI in South Africa

We have been pulling together research and case studies on the effectiveness of email marketing in South Africa. Some of the numbers are worth paying attention to.

It's the best ROI of any digital channel in SA

Email marketing produces the best return on investment of any digital marketing channel we measured. On average, clients report a 30:1 ROI from targeted email campaigns, for every R1 spent, you get around R30 back.

For context, marketers in the UK report £38 back for every £1 spent, and in the US the figure sits at around $44 per dollar.

It costs far less than other channels

Email is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience. On average, it costs 80% to 86% less to send an email than to promote content through social media or search engines.

Campaign results are easy to track

Email gives you immediate, measurable feedback: delivery rate, open rate, bounce rate, click rate, conversion rate, and more. That transparency also makes it well-suited to A/B testing.

Segmentation lifts performance significantly

Segmentation means splitting your subscriber list into targeted groups based on criteria like location, age, gender, or known interests. The payoff is clear: segmented campaigns produce click-through rates that are 100.95% higher than non-segmented campaigns, and open rates that are 14.3% higher.

B2C email marketing statistics

Here is what the data shows for brands communicating directly with consumers:

• Welcome emails punch well above their weight. On average, they generate 320% more revenue per email than most other promotional emails.
• Consumers who buy through email spend 138% more than those who receive no email offers.
• Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share content on social media than prospects acquired through other digital channels.
• Nearly 80% of retail professionals say email is their most effective customer retention tool. The nearest competitor is social media, at just 44%.
• Around 77% of people prefer to receive opted-in promotional messages by email over direct mail, SMS, phone, or social media.

B2B email marketing statistics

In the B2B space, the numbers are just as strong:

• Email ranks third as a source of information for B2B audiences, behind only word-of-mouth and industry-specific thought leadership.
• Around 86% of business professionals prefer email for work communication, ahead of phone calls.
• CTRs in B2B email campaigns are 47% higher than in B2C campaigns.
• 59% of B2B marketers name email as their most effective channel for revenue generation.

A few more numbers worth knowing

If you are still weighing up the channel, consider these:

• 80% of users delete emails that are not optimised for mobile.
• Emails with a personalised subject line are around 25% more likely to be opened.
• Segmented campaigns account for more than half of all email marketing revenue.
• Including video in an email can improve CTRs by as much as 300%.
• Average email open rates have improved year on year, reaching 24.88% in 2018, up 0.3% on 2017.
• 73% of millennials say email is their preferred channel for business communication.
• The number of email users worldwide was projected to reach 2.9 billion by mid-2019.
• Nearly 188 million emails are sent every minute globally, a figure expected to exceed 192 million before 2020.

Email works, but only when it is done properly. If you want to see how TouchBasePro helps companies improve their returns through better email marketing, speak to our team.