Epsilon recently released its Q4 2013 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks report. It found an increase in email open rates compared to Q4 2012. They were consistent from quarter to quarter.

It also found that 62% of new subscribers were “unengaged” with marketers’ email programs during the quarter.

This, the firm says, highlights a need for marketers to work on building and maintaining engagement.

“As we’ve said before, subscriber engagement isn’t a one-time effort. It’s a continual process that requires a long term strategy,” said Epsilon VP of Digital Analytics. “How, when and where a customer interacts with your brand could prove to be the most useful information in your email marketing efforts — today email marketers need to build connections between brands and customers that are based on engagement and differentiated experiences. The best way to achieve this is by leveraging data to provide meaningful experiences.”

Marketing Charts shares this graph based on data from the report:

Non-bounce rate was at 96.1% with click rates at 4.4% This was up quarter over quarter, and in-line with the previous year, according to Epsilon. This data represents Epsilon’s “Business As Usual” (BAU) trends from 7 billion emails sent during October, November, and December across multiple industries and roughly 140 clients.

Its Triggered Message Email Trends data comes from over 297 million triggered emails sent in Q4 across multiple industries, Epsilon found that triggered messages accounted for 4.1% of total volume, (down from Q4 2012), while triggered open rates were 58.5% higher than BAU messages in Q4.Triggered messages saw 127.7% higher click rates than BAU messages.

Finally, with its “Email Activity Segment Evaluation” (EASE) metrics, the firm found that half of an average email file had at least one open or click during at twelve-month period. 88% of a marketers email list had been on file for over three months, and about 18% of subscribers in an average email file had opened or clicked in the most recent three months.

You can find the full report here (via Marketing Charts).

Image via Marketing Charts