southeast asia email marketing...

Southeast Asia EmailMarketing Benchmarks

Benchmarking research conducted in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia,

Vietnam and the Philippines to support businesses in improving their

email marketing ROI.

Southeast Asia Email Marketing Benchmarks 2017

The email marketing landscape in Southeast Asia is growing at an exponential rate. We are seeing increasingly high demand in emerging countries like Vietnam and consistent growth in sophisticated markets like Singapore and Malaysia.

We decided to develop the Southeast Asia Email Marketing Benchmarks report in conjunction with our global Email Marketing Benchmarks report to provide digital marketers in this region with knowledge and understanding of how they measure-up against other companies in the same region.

We have been able to interact more with our Southeast Asian customers since we opened our first regional office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2016, and we have received hundreds of questions, from the best times or days to send emails, to deliverability best practices and benchmarks to strive toward.

We’re here to help. We analyzed over 450 million emails that were sent across six countries in Southeast Asia – Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines – from January through June 2017, and put together this comprehensive report to help you gauge where your email marketing efforts stand.

We hope you enjoy reading this report, and as always, we welcome any and all feedback. You can reach us at [email protected].

Mellissa LeeHead of GetResponse Malaysia

Forewordfrom GetResponse

Southeast Asia Email Marketing Benchmarks 2017 1

Email marketing is huge in Europe, North America, and Asia, with over 80% of the world’s most powerful economies. While engagement is lower in North America, engaged European peers value quality in communication, reflected in the complaint and unsubscribe rates for that area.

Asia and South America demonstrate high email marketing engagement, too. This is reflected in open and click-through rates close to the average, and low unsubscribe rates. Africa, at the BoP, continues to climb the digital marketing ladder. While the region still faces many digital infrastructure problems, growth is steady compared to the 2015 numbers.

Justyna BakkerEmail Marketing Manager, GetResponse

Oceania

North America

Europe

Africa

Asia

South America

28.02%

20.73%

28.03%

17.20%

24.81%

25.02%

3.30%

3.23%

4.98%

2.61%

3.53%

3.46%

11.78%

15.59%

17.78%

15.17%

14.23%

13.85%

0.31%

0.21%

0.26%

0.14%

0.15%

0.17%

0.02%

0.02%

0.04%

0.01%

0.02%

0.01%

Continent Click-throughRate

Click-to-OpenRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Results are from March through May 2017

GlobalSnapshot


Almost half of all emails sent in Southeast Asia come from GetResponse customers in Singapore, followed by 17% in Malaysia, 16% in Vietnam, and 14% in Thailand.

Although the number of newsletters sent in Singapore is consistent with the other countries, the actual sends to mailboxes is significantly higher. This shows that companies in Singapore on average have more subscribers than other countries in Southeast Asia.

14% Indonesia

16% Vietnam

1% Thailand

17% Malaysia

6% Philippines

46% Singapore46%

6%

17%

1%

16%

14%

Breakdown of sends per country

Southeast AsiaSnapshot

26%open rate

4.9%click-through rate

0.13%unsubscribe rate

0.01%spam rate


According to data we collected, Vietnam has the highest open rates followed by Thailand and Indonesia.

However, in terms of click-through rates, Thailand subscribers are more engaged and more likely to click links in an email.

The unsubscribe and spam rates across all countries are consistent throughout the region and are relatively healthy.

When we deep-dive further into the number of subscribers each customer has in their database, we found that, on average, the engagement rate is higher among companies with smaller databases. This is consistent for all countries in Southeast Asia except Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines, which recorded steady engagement rates irrespective of database size.

Throughout Southeast Asia, we see that shorter subject lines tend to get higher open rates compared to the results from our global study. This could be because smartphone penetration is at approximately 40% of the Southeast Asian population , and email subject lines are shorter on a mobile device, compared to a web or stand-alone email client.

With smaller databases, companies can do more segmentation and personalisation, ensuring that their emails are targeted and relevant to the recipients.

Companies with less than 2,500 subscribers had a record-breaking 41.95% average open rate and 6.47% average click-through rate

Country

Malaysia

Singapore

Indonesia

Thailand

Philippines

Vietnam

Open Rate

16.52%

20.25%

25.72%

26.67%

22.73%

45.98%

Click-through Rate

2.39%

3.69%

2.74%

10.41%

3.64%

6.38%

Unsubscribe Rate

0.10%

0.13%

0.10%

0.15%

0.16%

0.13%

Spam Rate

0.01%

0.02%

0.01%

0.01%

0.02%

0.01%

Results are from March through May 2017

Consider sending your subscribers information that is highly targeted based on their behaviors and actions instead of a one-size-fits-all email.

GETRESPONSE TIP


Among our Southeast Asian customers, we see a high average open rate of 45.98% in Vietnam, compared to the rest of the region. At the other end of the spectrum, Malaysia has the lowest average open rate of 16.52%.

In click-through rates, Thailand has the highest average at 10.41%, with Malaysia and Indonesia being the lowest at 2.39% and 2.74% respectively.

Unsubscribe and spam rates remain consistent throughout the region.

Average open, click-through,unsubscribe, and spam rates

Continent

Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

16.52%

20.25%

26.67%

45.98%

25.72%

22.73%

2.39%

3.69%

10.41%

6.38%

2.74%

3.64%

0.10%

0.13%

0.15%

0.13%

0.10%

0.16%

0.01%

0.02%

0.01%

0.01%

0.01%

0.02%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Open rates are primarily dependent on your subject line, delivery time and email deliverability. To ensure maximum deliverability, it’s important to keep good list hygiene and use a reputable ESP when sending bulk emails.

GETRESPONSE TIP


Among our customers in Southeast Asia, the industry with the highest average open rate is the Education industry, with an average open rate of 41.06%. It is also the industry with the highest click-through rate at 8.06%.

The unsubscribe rate was the highest at 0.39% for the Arts & Entertainment industry, but as the variance is small, we consider this statistically insignificant.

We have excluded data from certain countries below because the sample size was too small to yield significant results.


Industrybenchmarks

Open, click-through, unsubscribe and spam rates based on industry

Agencies


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

35.79%

9.95%

5.81%

51.63%

56.98%

32.92%

2.85%

0.70%

0.00%

6.05%

8.44%

1.77%

0.21%

0.53%

0.10%

0.25%

0.10%

0.24%

0.03%

0.09%

0.00%

0.04%

0.01%

0.01%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

Arts & entertainment


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

-

13.74%

-

-

19.91%

51.03%

-

0.43%

-

-

4.50%

6.37%

-

0.45%

-

-

0.34%

0.38%

-

0.01%

-

-

0.01%

0.04%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

32.18%open rate



0.03%spam rate

28.23%open rate



0.02%spam rate


Education


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

24.46%

31.78%

36.79%

73.67%

41.04%

41.06%

3.41%

3.39%

4.72%

12.99%

4.42%

8.06%

0.11%

0.11%

0.12%

0.15%

0.07%

0.11%

0.01%

0.01%

0.00%

0.01%

0.01%

0.02%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

Financial services


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

82.76%

23.54%

17.51%

46.08%

18.30%

26.18%

24.40%

5.86%

2.81%

5.34%

2.50%

2.73%

0.20%

0.29%

0.35%

0.05%

0.08%

0.11%

0.01%

0.03%

0.02%

0.01%

0.01%

0.02%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

41.06%open rate



0.02%spam rate

35.73%open rate



0.02%spam rate


Health & beauty


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

25.68%

8.28%

-

36.32%

33.64%

4.19%

2.59%

0.66%

-

1.96%

1.41%

0.68%

0.18%

0.09%

-

0.18%

0.21%

0.10%

0.01%

0.04%

-

0.05%

0.02%

0.01%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

Internet marketing


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

10.71%

4.82%

15.88%

37.59%

12.59%

15.83%

1.92%

5.06%

3.00%

4.76%

1.81%

2.32%

0.08%

0.06%

0.18%

0.20%

0.15%

0.19%

0.02%

0.02%

0.02%

0.01%

0.01%

0.03%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

21.62%open rate



0.03%spam rate

16.24%open rate



0.02%spam rate


Retail


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

41.72%

57.06%

-

29.17%

22.00%

24.79%

5.95%

4.37%

-

2.64%

1.66%

7.13%

0.23%

0.32%

-

0.11%

0.07%

0.10%

0.02%

0.01%

-

0.02%

0.02%

0.07%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

Technology & high tech


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

24.25%

34.71%

-

27.76%

30.00%

-

1.79%

2.38%

-

2.98%

1.73%

-

0.10%

0.29%

-

0.12%

0.15%

-

0.02%

0.01%

-

0.01%

0.01%

-

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

34.95%open rate



0.03%spam rate

29.18%open rate



0.01%spam rate


Travel


Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Indonesia

Philippines

46.60%

-

28.21%

36.95%

-

14.78%

4.24%

-

1.58%

2.97%

-

1.07%

0.17%

-

0.07%

0.06%

-

0.09%

0.01%

-

0.03%

0.03%

-

0.02%

Click-throughRate

UnsubscribeRate

SpamRate

OpenRate

Country

26.65%open rate



0.03%spam rate


Malaysians are more likely to open emails at 3:00-5:00 PM. The average open rate then dips at 6:00-7:00 PM but then spikes again at 8:00 PM.

This could mean that the average Malaysian prefers to open emails during the workday but not while they are traveling to and from their office and home. The spike in open rate again at 8:00 PM is consistent with people sitting down at the dinner table and waiting for their food or having just completed a meal.

However, it is interesting to note that the click-through rates at 8:00-9:00 AM are more or less the same as at 3:00-5:00 PM, despite the significant drop in open rates. This means that even though fewer people open emails at 8:00-9:00 AM, engagement is consistent and relatively high during that time.

Malaysia

Resultsby hour of day


Singapore

Overall, the open and click-through rates by hour are erratic for Singapore, but we see an exponential increase in open rates at 5:00-7:00 PM.

The open rates during the average workday are consistent but relatively low, indicat-ing that Singaporeans prefer to check their emails during rush hour after office hours. This makes sense as most Singaporeans take public transportation and can read their emails in transit, compared to Malaysians, most of whom opt to drive.

Thailand

We see interesting data for Thailand – open rates are highest at 11:00 PM-12:00 AM and at 5:00 PM, with click-through rates averaging approximately 2.11% during those times.


For Vietnam, the highest open rates are at 4:00-8:00 PM. Click-through rates during that time are also relatively high at an average of 4.61%. And we see the highest click-through rates at 1:00 AM, which also accounts for 1% of total sends in Vietnam.

This could be because our customers in Vietnam are primarily servicing customers in other time zones, hence the high click-through rate at an unusual time.

Vietnam

Indonesia

Click-through rates are at their highest at 7:00-8:00 PM, although the open rates during that time are almost half of what they are at 11:00 PM-12:00 AM.


In the Philippines, we see a spike in open and click-through rates in the afternoon with a peak of 27.66% at 2:00 PM, decreasing slightly to a steady average of 22.24% at 3:00-6:00 PM. Open rates then decrease slightly at 7:00-8:00 PM, spiking again to 23.71% from 8:00 PM onward.

Click-through rates peak at 5.16% at 6 PM but remain consistent with open rates during the times mentioned above.

Philippines

Open rates are highest at 42.53% at 6:00 PM in Indonesia. This could be because of bad traffic conditions in Indonesia during peak hour, leading to more people using their mobile devices while stuck in traffic.

Click-through rates are lowest during the 6:00 PM hour at 1.32%. This is consistent with our theory that most people are checking their emails while stuck in traffic and therefore are scanning through emails but not reading them thoroughly while driving.

Click-through rates are highest at 5.32% at 3:00 PM.


Open rates are consistently higher Tuesday-Saturday, with Wednesdays and Thursdays slightly higher than average. Mondays and Sundays have significantly lower open rates compared to the rest of the week.

Click-through rates are consistent Tuesday-Saturday, with a slight peak on Wednes-days, consistent with the open rates.

Malaysia

Resultsby day of the week


Singapore

For Singapore, we do not see any significant changes in open or click-through rates. We see a slight increase in average open rates on Saturday at 19.18%, but the variance is not significant.

With regard to click-through rates, they remain consistent across all days of the week.

Thailand

Compared to Malaysia and Singapore, open rates in Thailand are higher toward the end of the week, Saturday to Monday.


For Vietnam, we see results similar to Singapore. Open rates are consistent through-out the week, with a slight 4% spike Sunday-Monday. Click rates remain consistent throughout the week as well.

Vietnam

Indonesia

However, it is interesting to note that click-through rates are higher only on Saturdays and slightly on Thursdays, with Sundays and Mondays being the lowest.


The data we have for Philippines is similar to what we see in Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam. Open rates are mostly consistent throughout the week, with no significant peaks. However, the open rate does decrease by approximately 4% on weekends.

The click-through rates increase 2% on Thursdays, but it is important to note that this slight increase is not statistically significant.

Philippines

Open rates are consistent Monday-Wednesday for Indonesia, but we see a slight increase on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The click rate is significantly higher on Sundays (double the weekly average) but consistent for the rest of the week.

The GetResponse Perfect Timing feature analyzes typical open patterns of your individual subscribers and sends your emails when subscribers are most likely to open them.

GETRESPONSE TIP


Based on the results, the highest open and click-through rates are achieved when customers email their customers 1-4 times per week. This is consistent across all Southeast Asian countries except Indonesia, which also shows a spike in open rate when subscribers are emailed 7-8 times per week.

We also see consistently across all countries that the unsubscribe and spam rates decrease as the frequency of emails-per-week increases, except Indonesia and the Philippines, where the unsubscribe and spam rates increase as the frequency of emails-per-week increases.

Sending frequencies


There’s no gold standard as to how often you should send emails. It depends on your industry and buyer personas. But here’s a rule of thumb: minimum once a month, maximum once a day. Most marketers go for a weekly newsletter, which returns the highest open and click-through rates.

Justyna BakkerEmail Marketing Manager, GetResponse

Preheader text is the text that appears under the subject line in certain email clients. It gives your subscribers a preview of your email.

For Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, including relevant preheaders in emails results in a significant increase in the open rate, while the click-through, unsubscribe and spam rates remain relatively unaffected.

For the rest of the countries, preheaders in emails do not significantly affect the average open rate.


Use a preheader as an extension of the subject line, and you’ll increase the chances of getting your email opened. In fact, you should make use of all the elements that subscribers see in the inbox before they open the email. Used well, the so-called envelope (sender, subject line, and preheader) can make a difference.

Irek KlimczakContent Marketing Expert, GetResponse

Use of preheaders

Use of emoji

Marketers often debate about whether the use of emoji leads to an increase in open rates.

Based on our research, the use of emoji does not produce a significant increase in open rates for all countries in this study.

This differs from our global data, which showed that, in other parts of the world, the use of emoji did increase overall open rates.


Open rates based on the use of emoji by country

We recommend using A/B testing to test variations of subject lines and analyze conversions from there, as results could depend on the nature and demographics of your database.

GETRESPONSE TIP

Subject line length

Our global study indicates that longer subject lines lead to higher open rates. However, in Southeast Asia, this is only the case for countries that use alphabet-based languages such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Our research has also indicated that shorter subject lines generally lead to higher open rates for Indonesia as well.

For this study, we assumed that Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines used an alphabet-based language in their emails, while Thailand and Vietnam used a symbol-based language.


Open rates based on subject line length by country

Your subject lines need to be compelling enough to get people to open the email. So it’s not about the length of the subject line but about conveying the message. The subject line of the email should give the reader an idea of what’s inside. If the content is relevant to your audience, it's easy to come up with a subject line that results in a high open rate.

Irek KlimczakContent Marketing Expert, GetResponse

Using personalisation in subject lines

The use of personalisation is shown to have an effect on open rates for all countries except Thailand, but most significantly in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Personalisation is one of the biggest trends in Internet marketing right now. Whether it’s personalizing websites, or social media content or emails, more and more market-ers are trying their hand with this technique.

Personalisation refers to the use of custom information unique to the subscriber, whether it’s their first name, email address, purchase history, gender, or any other personal information you may have.


Open rates based on the use of personalisation by country

Again, we see that the use of personalisation does not affect click-through rates in Thailand. However, for the rest of the region, there is a significant increase in click-through rates, most notably in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.


Click-through rates based on the use of personalisation by country

Try using your subscriber’s first name in the subject line to make the email more personal and encourage a higher open rate.

GETRESPONSE TIP

A landing page is a stand-alone web page designed for a specific marketing campaign. The purpose of a landing page could be to capture leads or to “warm up” potential customers to the product you are trying to sell them.

In Southeast Asia, 70% of landing pages created on GetResponse are created by customers in Vietnam, followed by Malaysia and Singapore.

Landingpages


10% Malaysia

11% Singapore

1% Thailand

70% Vietnam70%

3% Indonesia

3%11%

1%

5% Philippines5%

14%

Usage of landing pages in Southeast Asia

Despite Vietnam being the country with the highest use of landing pages, Indonesia has the highest average conversion rate for landing pages, followed by Malaysia and Vietnam. Singapore and the Philippines have the landing pages with the lowest conversion rates for the region.


Use of Tracking Platforms

For this portion of the study, we looked at tracking platforms used on landing pages in Southeast Asia: Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel.

90% of landing pages in Southeast Asia do not use any form of tracking for conversions.

The workflows that marketers most commonly use throughout the region are:

• Automatic welcome emails.• Dynamic segmentation based on actions and behaviors.• Abandoned cart emails for e-commerce stores.

We are seeing increasing demand for marketing automation in Southeast Asia this year compared to last year among both small and large companies, especially in Malaysia and Singapore.

Marketing automation

For the landing pages that do implement tracking platforms, Facebook Pixel was the preferred platform, with 68% of landing pages using it instead of Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Bing Ads.


Use of marketing automation in Southeast Asia

The results of your email marketing campaigns are affected by several factors – how active your database is and the design, content and copy of your emails, just to name a few.

We hope the Southeast Asia Email Marketing Benchmarks study provides you with some insights as to how your current campaigns are performing, and that you find it useful for planning and executing your email marketing campaigns moving forward.

We would love to know your thoughts. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to get in touch with us at [email protected].

Conclusion


Best wishes for your email marketing campaigns!

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