Smart automotive email marketers study their open rates and click-through rates (CTRs) to make each email better than the last.

Looking at that data, you’ve naturally wondered how your numbers stack up to the rest of the industry. Is your automotive email marketing team pulling in high scores, or are you stuck in beginner mode?

What is a good benchmark for dealer email stats?

How to Find a Good Open Rate or CTR for Auto Emails

We’ll offer some numbers to give you a general sense of the open rate or CTR your automotive emails should strive for, but remember that there are a lot of variables at play:

• How many people did you send to?
• How did you target them?
• What is the quality of the offer?
• How well designed is the email?
• How often do you send emails?
• When are you sending?

And so on.

Here are some key points to keep in mind when determining whether your emails are scoring high enough.

1. Focus on Your Stats

The danger of getting caught up in everybody else’s auto CTR or open rate is the same as worrying about how much faster another runner is.

If you want to have the overall high score or fastest time, it’s only going to happen when you PR (run your best personal record). To do that, you need to learn about your unique strengths and weaknesses — not someone else’s.

And you become the best dealership you can be the same way: by setting realistic, smart goals based on your store’s specific needs.

The Internet affords you the chance to find your ideal buyers and make your marketing work for them. So be the best dealership you can be for those customers, instead of getting distracted by the leaderboard for auto CTRs or open rates.

2. Send Emails with Value

The best way you can improve your email open rates or auto CTR is by crafting dealer email marketing practices that respect your mailing list.

For starters, make your emails a treat to open by putting time into their design.

Next, think about what real value an email offers your contacts. If it’s not something a person would reasonably get excited about, is it worth sending?

For example, nobody enjoys being pelted with the same offer over and over. Why would anyone open your tire email when you’ve been running the same “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” deal for six months?

Ask yourself if each sales or service deal really merits an email. If it does, figure out who will be interested in receiving it.

Use your data to make smart choices about how you target. The more specific you can make your emails, the better you can expect your engagement to be.

Need help? Learn about our automotive email marketing packages »

3. Measure Your Open Rate or CTR

Again, there are plenty of reasons not to get too caught up in these numbers, and there are a lot of variables at play.

However, we think a good benchmark for auto dealers to aim for is an open rate of 20% and a CTR of 2% or higher. That’s based on some general email marketing averages from MailChimp and our experience with a range of different-sized clients in the auto industry.

But those numbers can all fluctuate quite a bit. General sales offers, auto service follow-up campaigns, and targeted model-specific emails will all have differing levels of success.

The more your dealer email marketing focuses on helping someone find sales and service information when they will want it (instead of simply when you have a special), the better off your numbers will be.

Don’t define your success by whether your emails are beating the other guy’s. Define your success by whether your emails accomplish what you need them to.

Improve Your Email Strategy

In the end, what will be most valuable is finding your average auto CTR or open rate — and then figuring out how you can improve those numbers.

If you’re baffled on how to amp up your email success, we’d love to talk with you about our email marketing services for auto dealerships. Click below to reach out: