Trends in Email Engagement [Infographic]

How much of an impact has Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) had on email marketing since its September 2021 release?

How many subscribers now use Dark Mode?

When’s the best time to send an email campaign based on your unique audience?

We dug into Litmus Email Analytics data to see how key email engagement trends like these  shifted from the end of August 2021 through the end of August 2022—and how they’ve stayed the same. Read on for a preview of what’s happening in email engagement.

Download our full Trends in Email Enagement report to see even more in depth data, and details.

In 2021, we recorded:

13.1 billion opens

1.01  billion/month (avg)

End of August 2022, we recorded:

12.1 billion opens

1.5 billion/month (avg trending)

How the top 3 email clients have shifted

(by percent of opens)

End of Aug 2022

Apple Mail Privacy: 51.0%

Gmail: 28.5%

Outlook: 4.2%

End of Aug 2021 

Apple iPhone (iOS Mail):  40.3%

Gmail:  29.8%

Apple Mail macOS: 11.3%. 

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Not sure if your email clients have shifted, or how impacted you’ve been by MPP? Litmus Email Analytics can show you the way.

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How Dark Mode usage has changed

We saw 28% of users viewing in Dark Mode in August 2021. By August 2022, that number had increased to nearly 34%.

We haven’t seen big moves in Dark Mode adoption –but it’s growing steadily. And remember, it’s important to know what your unique audience uses.  (For example, 41% of Litmus email subscribers currently use Dark Mode).

The best time of day to send emails4

In general, Litmus’ data on estimated open times3 reveals that no matter the time zone, the morning reigns supreme for prime email activity in six regions.

10 a.m.

Most popular open time in:

• United Kingdom (UCT)
• Germany (CET)
• Spain (CET)
• Canada (EST)

11 a.m.

Most popular open time in:

• United States (EST)
• Australia (AEDT)

3 a.m.

Least popular open time in:

• United States (EST)
• United Kingdom (UCT)
• Germany (CET)

4 a.m.

Least popular open time in:

• Australia (AEDT)
• Spain (CET)
• Canada (EST)

To see a detailed view of estimated open times in six regions, and how they’ve shifted since last year, download our full Trends in Email Engagement report. 

How long subscribers will spend with your message

The average amount of time readers spend with your email is getting shorter. 

2018: 13.4 seconds

2020: 11.8 seconds

2021: 10 seconds

2022: 8.97 seconds

Best months for subscriber engagement

Engagement ranked by month

November – 1,474,121,087 (11.20%)

December – 1,464,872,649 (11.13%)

October – 1,389,347,769 (10.56%)

September – 1,329,971,376 (10.11%)

August – 1,123,966,871 (8.54%)

Download our full report to learn how engaged audiences are the rest of the year.

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For more big picture email engagement findings from Litmus Email Analytics data, download our full Trends in Email Engagement report.

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¹ Reflects Litmus Email Analytics data as of August 31, 2022. Some email clients may be over- or under-represented, due to image blocking or image caching, most notably with Gmail. Still curious? Learn how we get this data.

² Based on known opens with color scheme data.

³ This section analyzes a subset of Litmus Email Analytics opens that contain geo data; geo data is not always accurate due to the way opens could be tracked through proxies in different countries. This data provides an estimate of the most popular times emails are opened in various regions. As of January 2022,  geo location data is longer available to Litmus users.

⁴ Litmus tracks time spent reading emails (read time engagement). This data is a subset of the larger data set, and represents 17% of the total email opens we processed.