Must-know email statistics and trends for 2024 (Updated April 2024)

Email is an essential part of our lives, both business and personal.

It’s a tool we use to apply for jobs, market our products and services, negotiate and seal deals, offer support to our customers, and even keep in touch with our loved ones.

But is email really that popular, or is this just another subjective opinion on the internet?

Well, the numbers paint a clear picture. Read on to find out what some of the latest email statistics show and how the email game is changing this year.

Email usage and email marketing statistics for 2023/2024

Not convinced that email is here to stay? The following collection of email usage and email marketing statistics for 2023 and 2024 will remove all your doubts.

• The number of global email users is expected to grow to around 4.37 billion in 2023. In 2024 this figure will be around 4.48 billion and in 2025, this figure is predicted to reach around 4.59 billion. And in 2026, it will be 4.73 billion.
• The most used email clients in the world were Apple (58.08%), Gmail (29.68%), and Microsoft Outlook (4.04%). As of February 2024.
• The average email user has 1.75 email accounts.
• 1.2 to 2.3 spam emails are delivered to inboxes worldwide
• 99% of email users check their inbox every day, 58% of whom do it first thing in the morning.
• 59% of millennials and 67% of Zoomers check their email inbox on their smartphone.
• Globally, the number of sent and received emails per day is projected to increase to 347.3 billion in 2023. This figure is set to grow to 361.6 billion by 2024 and 392.5 billion by 2026.
• 40% of surveyed email users said they have at least 50 unread messages in their inboxes.
• 41% of email views come from mobile devices, while 39% come from desktop computers. The remaining 20% of email views come from tablets and other devices.
• The average employee spends 57% of their time communicating (According to Microsoft)
• 8.8 hours a week are spent on email by the heaviest email users (According to Microsoft)
• On average, professionals check their email 15 times per day (According to HBR)
• 50.7% of Marketers think AI will make e-mail marketing more effective in August 2023
• 53 percent of Gen Z users reported using e-mails for work.
• 59% of B2B marketers said that email is their top channel for revenue generation.
• 47% of email recipients decide whether to open an email or not based on its subject line.
• 77% of B2B firms use email newsletters, with 79% considering email the best distribution channel.
• 3% is the average email conversion rate
• The US tops daily spam emails at 8 billion as of Jan 16, 2023; Czechia and Netherlands follow with 7.7B and 7.6B.

• Approximately 75% of Gmail users access their inboxes on mobile devices.
• 31 is the median age of Gmail users.
• The average Gmail account has over 17,000 messages.
• Tracking emails in Gmail is over 40 percent, according to a study by OMC
• 46% of global smartphone users prefer to be contacted by businesses via email.
• 29% of marketers consider email marketing to be the most effective marketing channel.
• 4 out of 5 marketers say that they would rather give up social media marketing than email marketing.
• 89% of marketers use email as the primary channel for generating leads.
• 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute content.
• 87% of B2C marketers incorporate automation into their email marketing strategy.
• 64% of small businesses use email marketing to get in touch with customers.
• 33% of marketers send weekly emails, while 26% send multiple emails a month.
• The average marketing email open rate is 21.5%.
• The average marketing email click-through rate is 2.4%.
• The average marketing email click-to-open rate is 10.5%.
• The average email newsletter unsubscribe rate is 0.1%.

Source: CampaignMonitor.com

• On average, consumers spend 10 seconds reading brand emails.
• 74% of baby boomers, 72% of Gen X, 64% of millennials, and 60% of Zoomers consider email to be the most personal channel of communication with brands.
• Consumers in the U.S. discover coupons from brands primarily via email.
• 37% of brands are increasing their email budget.
• Almost 22% of all email marketing campaigns are opened within the first 60 minutes of sending.
• Subscriber segmentation, message personalization, and email automation are the 3 most effective email marketing campaign strategies.
• For every U.S. dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect up to 45 U.S. dollars in return.
• Quality assurance, A/B, and spam testing your marketing emails can result in a 28% higher ROI.
• The top 4 email elements that undergo A/B testing are:
  1. Subject lines (91%)
  2. CTAs (51%)
  3. Send time/day (40%)
  4. Email layout and current position (36%)
• Global email marketing revenue is expected to cross the 10-billion-dollar threshold in 2023. This figure is projected to increase to 17.9 billion U.S. dollars by 2027.
• Most scheduled emails are for Monday 27.45% (According to Mailbutler.io)

Source: https://www.mailbutler.io/

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Gmail statistics

• Gmail has over 1.8 billion users worldwide.
• Gmail holds 29.68% of the email client market share.
• Gmail accounts for 130.9 million of the total email users in the US.
• Gmail owns 75.78% of the market share in the US.
• Average Gmail users spend 28 minutes daily in their inbox.
• 121 billion emails are sent via Gmail daily
• 27% of all email opens are on Gmail

Outlook usage statistics

• Outlook.com has more than 500 million users.
• More than 86% of Outlook users check their emails from their mobile.
• Microsoft's Exchange Server is used by over 80% of Fortune 500 companies.
• Around 28% of email opens in the United States occur on Outlook.
• Nearly 50% of Outlook users are using Outlook 365.

Email productivity statistics for 2023/2024

Simply put, email productivity means managing your email correspondence efficiently.

This may include carving out time in your workday to deal with important messages, minimizing distractions by snoozing less urgent emails, replying quickly when possible, and, of course, deleting unnecessary messages.

But what do the latest email productivity statistics reveal? Read on to find out.

• The average professional gets around 121 emails every day.
• The average office worker sends around 33 emails every day.
• The average employee spends 4.1 hours a day reading, writing, and managing emails. That’s more than half the average workday.
• 96% of employees consider irrelevant internal emails from colleagues and bosses to be a waste of time.
• In July 2022, the average person got 56.4 emails every day, including spam. 9.1 of all non-spam email messages were responses.
• In July 2022, the average person sent 19.9 emails a day. 2.4 of those messages were replies to received emails.
• In July 2022, the average email response time was 12 hours, 19 minutes and 38 seconds.
• In July 2022, the average email response time within work hours was 4 hours, 7 minutes and 19 seconds.
• In July 2022, the average person received 1.6 spam email messages a day.
• 19% of email users check emails as soon as they receive them.
• 43% of surveyed white-collar workers in the U.S. shared that they check their work emails every few hours outside of their regular work hours.
• Employees spend more than one and a half hours a day recovering from email interruptions.
• Around 15 billion spam email messages are sent every day.
• In 2023, an astounding 85% of emails were classified as spam
• Due to spam, businesses lose around 20.5 billion U.S. dollars per year in lost productivity.
• 25% of remote workers in the US favor email as their favorite; hybrid employees prefer email, then direct messaging and calls. (According to a March 2023 survey)

7 must-know email trends for 2023/2024

When it comes to email communication and especially email marketing, 2023 is full of interesting trends.

Here are 7 exciting email changes you should consider adopting as soon as possible:

Trim down your subject lines

This year, digital marketers recommend writing extra-short, to-the-point email subject lines.

Think three words or less. So, for example, instead of writing “10% Discount Voucher on Hundreds of Items,” try “Special Discount Offer” or “Limited-Time Discount.” Remember: conciseness is key.

Personalize your email messages

When signing up for your email newsletter, your current and potential customers provide you with their personal info.

One of the reasons they do this is to help you create and share relevant and valuable content with them.

And that’s exactly what you should do - write custom emails for specific recipients based on their age, location, preferences, email behavior, purchase history, etc.

It’s important to keep in mind that email personalization goes beyond addressing your subscribers by name.

Make the important bits clickable

Your email recipients shouldn’t have to assume what you want them to do or where they’re supposed to click.

That’s why you should always make sure the crucial parts of your email copy are clickable. You should, of course, start with your CTA and social media icons.

Check out this guide on how to create clickable emails with the right design.

Optimize your emails for mobile

As mentioned above, a large number of email views come from mobile devices. This means that a huge chunk of your recipients open and read your emails on their smartphones.

That’s precisely why you should make your email marketing campaigns mobile-friendly.

Aside from using responsive templates, you can accomplish this by going easy with images, being efficient with your words, particularly in your subject lines and headers, avoiding long paragraphs, and using buttons for your CTAs instead of written links.

Add user-generated content to your email messages

2023 is the perfect year to start enriching your emails with user-generated content.

It’s a great way to show your customers you don’t take them for granted and that you care about their experience with your products and services.

There are many types of user-generated content to choose from, but two of the most effective ones are reviews from your customers and photos of them using your products and services.

Make your emails interactive

Interactivity is one of the most fun email trends in 2024.

You can make your email marketing campaigns more engaging and competitive by adding gamification elements and interactive sounds, incorporating polls, surveys, feedback forms, and quizzes, and including hover-over imagery effects.

Although animated GIFs are cool and popular, they’re not interactive as they’re viewed passively.

Include unsubscribe links both at the beginning and the end of your emails

Trying to keep your subscription list intact by hiding your unsubscribe links is so 2010. Such tricks won’t fly today. The smartest and safest approach is to make it obvious for your subscribers to opt out of receiving new email messages from you. Incorporating unsubscribe links both at the top and the bottom of your emails is the easiest way to do it.

Email for work statistics 2023/2024

At Mailbutler, we asked our customers to answer several simple questions regarding the way they use email for business. Here are the insights we gained:

For the question: Which of the following best matches your job title?

• 31.9% responded that they are business owners
• 26.5% responded that they are employed
• 22.1% responded that they are self-employed
• 10.1% responded that they are freelancers
• 8.2% responded that they are entrepreneurs
• 1.3% responded that they are something else

For the question: Which of the following best matches the industry you work in?

• 24.1% responded that they are working in Consulting
• 16.1% responded that they are working in Education
• 11.2% responded that they are working in Design
• 10.% responded that they are working in Software
• 9.2% responded that they are working in Marketing
• 6% responded that they are working in Photography/Videography
• 6% responded that they are working in Real Estate
• 5.2% responded that they are working in Law
• 3.6% responded that they are working in Event Management
• 0.4% responded that they are working in Translation
• 8% responded that they are working in Other (Biotech, Business Services, Music Business, Non-profit, etc.)

For the question: Is email your primary communication tool at work?

• 68.6% responded that it is
  
• 23.7% responded that they also use other tools
• 7.6% responded that email is not their primary communication tool

For the question: How much time do you spend handling emails per day?

• 18.5% responded that they spend less than 1 hour
• 41.2% responded that they spend 1-2 hours
• 26.4% responded that they spend 2-4 hours
• 13.9% responded that they spend 4+ hours

For the question: How do you distribute the time that you spend managing emails?

• 56.4% responded that they fit emails into their schedule as needed
• 29.7% responded that they open emails as soon as they receive them
• 13.7% responded that they dedicate specific times of the day
• 0.3% responded that they open them multiple times a day

For the question: How many emails per day require your attention?

• 23.2% responded that they receive 1-10
• 35.9% responded that they receive 11-20
• 20.9% responded that they receive 20-40
• 20.1% responded that they receive 40+

For the question: How do you manage your contacts/business relations?

• 68% responded that they are using their computer’s address book
• 23.8% responded that they are using a CRM tool
• 4% responded that they are using Mailbutler’s Contacts feature
• 3.4% responded that they are using an Excel sheet
• 0.9% responded that they are using other tools

For the question: How do you keep track of emails that you do not respond to right away?

• 38.8% responded that they leave them as “unread”
• 25.1% responded that they mark them with color or flag
• 14.1% responded that they just remember them
• 12.8% responded that they just snooze them
• 6.4% responded that they have a separate folder
• 2.8% responded that they have other techniques

For the question: How many people are employed at your company?

• 39.1% responded that they are just them
• 19% responded that they are 2-4 people
• 12% responded that they are 5-10 people
• 3% responded that they are 11-15 people
• 4.8% responded that they are 16-29 people
• 22.1% responded that they are 30+ people

For the question: How do you prefer to keep yourself informed?

• 79.5% responded that they use the internet
• 45.7% responded that they use news apps
• 32.8% responded that they use TV
• 29.3% responded that they use newspapers
• 28% responded that they use social media
• 24.7% responded that they use radio

For the question: Which Mailbutler feature is the most important for you?

• 49% responded that our Email Tracker feature is the most important feature for them
• 19.6% responded that Send Email Later is the most important feature for them
• 10.8% responded that Undo Send is the most important feature for them
  • (when this survey was made, Undo Send was still a core Mailbutler feature)
    
• 6.5% responded that Follow-up Reminder (now called Tasks) is the most important feature for them
• 4.3% responded that Email Templates is the most important feature for them
• 2.5% responded that Notes and Tasks (now just Notes) is the most important feature for them
• 0.8% responded that Contacts are the most important feature for them
• 0.6% responded that email tags are the feature that is easiest to use

For the question: What do you use Mailbutler for?

• 67.4% responded that they want to improve email communications
• 43.8% responded that they use it to be more productive
• 32.3% responded that they want to get insights into recipient behavior
• 32.3% responded that they want to keep their inbox organized
• 16.7% responded that they use it for managing customer relations
• 14.6% responded that they use it for better-structured to-dos and notes
• 4.7% responded that they use it to manage teamwork

Email statistics FAQs

What is the future of email?

The future of email looks bright. Experts predict that the number of global email users will increase to around 4.59 billion in 2025.

The number of sent and received emails per day is also expected to grow - to 361.6 billion by 2024 to be precise.

When it comes to email marketing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are already making marketing automation a possibility and will give businesses the chance to create large email marketing campaigns without having to spend a lot of money.

Do email campaigns still work?

Yes, they do. Global email marketing revenue is projected to reach over 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

Plus, email marketing’s average ROI is practically unbeatable - for every U.S. dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect up to 45 U.S. dollars in return.

Email marketing campaigns work mainly because people prefer getting promotional messages in their email inboxes rather than anywhere else.

What are the 5 types of email?

The 5 most common email types are:

• Newsletter emails (emails sent to a list of subscribers to keep them up to date regarding your products and services or brand)
• Lead nurturing emails (emails sent to move leads from the consideration stage to the decision stage of the lead funnel)
• Promotional emails (emails that offer incentives to drive sales and revenue)
• Milestone emails (behavior-based emails sent to existing customers)
• Survey emails (emails sent to a target audience to gather information via surveys or questionnaires included in them)

Summary

The email has been declared dead many times.

However, if we take into consideration the number of global email users and the number of emails sent and received every day, it becomes clear that this communication and digital marketing tool isn’t a thing of the past.

The email is here for good.

The latest research shows that both individuals and companies rely on email to market their products and services and seal deals.

They will continue to use email for business purposes, but their success will depend greatly on whether or not they adopt the hottest trends and make the necessary adjustments.

These adjustments include personalization, interactivity, captivating storytelling, user-generated content, and, of course, data privacy.

Exciting times are ahead!

Sources

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide/
2. https://wpdevshed.com/email-usage-statistics/
3. https://www.martechalliance.com/stories/email-marketing-stats-and-trends-for-2022
4. https://financesonline.com/email-statistics/
5. https://www.nexalearning.com/blog/bid/24544/six-startling-statistics-about-email-use
6. https://www.ipost.com/9-email-marketing-trends-for-2022
7. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7315-future-of-email-marketing.html
8. https://www.enginemailer.com/blog/email-marketing-trends-2022 
9. https://hbr.org/2019/01/how-to-spend-way-less-time-on-email-every-day 
10. https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide
11. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1270488/spam-emails-sent-daily-by-country.
12. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/will-ai-fix-work
13. https://www.statista.com/statistics/812060/email-marketing-revenue-worldwide/
14. https://www.statista.com/statistics/911592/frequency-consumers-checking-work-emails-outside-work-hours/
15. https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/
16. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263298/business-messaging-channels-preferred-by-smartphone-users-worldwide/
17. https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-used-email-clients