March 2023

State of Subscribers

A report to help B2B and B2C companies make crucial email decisions

Which service providers do consumers prefer for getting their daily dose of email? What are the underlying mail systems that businesses trust to power their email programs safely? These questions may seem simple enough in a day in which metrics and data seem to be omnipresent–but they’ve been surprisingly hard to answer for our industry.

With the launch of a new signals tool, which performs a lookup of all underlying mail systems within a subscriber list, we had a new set of data at our fingertips. As Apple’s privacy protection policies make open rates by device a less reliable metric, this data set can help inform decisions for marketers.

B2C Email Systems

Sample Size – 449 million

  • 50.3% 50.3%
  • 23.5% 23.5%
  • 12.1% 12.1%
  • 3.4% 3.4%
  • 1.8% 1.8%
  • 1.7% 1.7%
  • 2.6% 2.6%

Why it matters

for brands

For direct to consumer brands, we have seen a variety of use cases for this data. When moving to a new ESP and jumping into IP warming, having a clear picture of ISP counts helps with making a plan. We’ve also seen it prove useful when trying to mitigate reputation issues.

B2B Email Systems

Sample Size – 24 million

  • 40% 40%
  • 20.8% 20.8%
  • 20.3% 20.3%
  • 6.2% 6.2%
  • 3.9% 3.9%
  • 3.6% 3.6%
  • 5.2% 5.2%

Why it matters

for businesses

For B2B in particular it can be hard to pinpoint the underlying mail system. Most businesses operate with email addresses using their company’s domain, of course, obscuring the backbone of their email. Without these insights, it can be very difficult to properly measure deliverability as well as test inbox placement. Translation: you may never know if your email is making it to the inbox at all.

Our methodology

What is the Subscriber Insights tool?

This feature of the Inbox Monster platform allows users to easily upload their subscriber list without any identifying information. The tool churns out subscriber counts by underlying mail systems and offers a snapshot of areas of risk and reward. We’ve anonymously aggregated data points from this tool to create this subscriber snapshot. 

What about your audience?

As with most things in our digital world, seeing the trend line is important but the only way to get insights for your audience is to look into your subscriber list. Using a tool like Inbox Monster can give you a deeper level of metrics on your audience, so you know where to pan for gold.  Get in touch to schedule a demo.