Email marketing software firm Bronto launched an online resource for email marketing statistics - updated weekly, for 14 industries - to help marketers benchmark their own performance.

For the three-month period ended November 20, the weighted average for the covered industries was a 95.5 percent email delivery rate, 24.2 percent open rate and 5.0 percent click-through rate, according to Bronto’s Industry Statistics. But rates vary by industry.

The highest delivery rate is for e-commerce/retail (97.8 percent), whereas manufacturing/distribution has the highest open rate (36.7 percent) and services/consulting has the highest click rate (8.8 percent).

The industries covered by Bronto include advertising/marketing, e-commerce/retail, education, financial services, government, healthcare/insurance, legal services, manufacturing/distribution, publishing/media, real estate, services/consulting, technology and travel/hospitality.

Bronto has also published the first of a planned series of quarterly reports analyzing email marketing statistics and trends by industry.

Statistics for Travel/Hospitality Industry
Three Month Period Ending Delivered Opened Clickthrough
October 2, 2005 93.7% 38.6% 6.3%
October 23, 2005 93.4% 35.7% 5.6%
November 13, 2005 94.5% 34.3% 5.8%
November 27, 2005 95.3% 32.1% 6.0%

Source: http://bronto.com/stats/