The company analysed over two billion emails, which were all bulk (not transactional) emails sent by South African customers.

"We compiled this benchmark report because there is no other data like this available for email marketing in South Africa," says Walter Penfold, MD of Everlytic. "The report that most marketers have relied on in the past is the IBM benchmark report, which groups South Africa under 'rest of world'. This doesn’t help us much."

For marketers operating in a competitive, digitised era, the report shows that email has two major advantages; it is a permission-based platform, and it relies on first-party data.

The report also reveals that over the next several years, as marketers gain more access to behavioural and demographic data (and the sharing of data across different channels increases), email marketing will enable hyper-personalisation, which will allow for a much more targeted approach to marketing and lead generations.

"Email marketing sits at the epicentre of digital marketing in South Africa," adds Penfold. "Over the next five years, we predict that email will remain the top performing messaging channel in terms of ROI and will live up to its promise of being a true, one-to-one digital marketing channel."

The Everlytic report unveiled key statistics around user behaviour and what this means for future email marketing campaigns. For example, average open rates were sitting at 25.83%.

This type of metric shows that the person receiving companies' emails trusts the brand, and finds the subject line enticing and/or relevant. In addition, average click-through rates were pegged at 3.46%, which indicates that the content is relevant and that subscribers want to engage.

The report shows that over 28% of emails are read on mobile phones, underscoring the importance of mobile responsive emails. Unsubscribe rates sit below the average of 0.33%, indicating that database shrinkage is within the norm.

"When examining the international and local data, it is clear that email marketing will continue to grow in importance in the local marketing mix," concludes Penfold. "And, with ever-increasing access to data, marketers can personalise and fine-tune email marketing campaigns – as well as achieve even higher levels of engagement and ROI."

For more information, visit www.everlytic.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.