The number of China enterprise email users was estimated to reach 112 million in 2016 and is expected to reach 135 million in 2017 according to iResearch.

Third party email providers in China sent a total number of 50 billion emails in 2016 with the average open rate of 10.46%, CTR of 2.37%, and the bounce rate of 18.61%.

Transactional email broadcasts have an average open rate of 15.02%, higher than non-transactional emails.

China Email Campaign Benchmarks by Industry

Also read: China digital marketing focus of advertisers in 2017

92% Chinese use smartphones ‘all the time’ according to WBR Digital. 70% Hong Kong consumers have bought something as a result of receiving a marketing e-mail.

China’s consumers use smartphones very often, compared to other countries. 100% respondents owned at least one smartphone and 92% use smartphones for a long time according to the research of WBR Digital.

Marketers have long been trying to get a complete view of their consumers to better align their marketing efforts. With the advent of the digital age which has now evolved into what is now known as the Internet of Things, marketers are increasingly finding themselves grappling to truly understand consumer preferences and behavior when it comes to channels, devices and content according to WBR Digital.

Consumer Behavior by Device

Messaging and social media are among the primary functions for mobile use among the Chinese. Monthly active users (MAUs) of QQ are 850 million as of September 2015, MAUs of WeChat is 650 million, and MAUs of Weibo is 222 million.

The second most popular activity for the Chinese is reading news articles. Therefore, although advertising on newspaper and magazine declines 34.5% and 18.5% respectively in the first three-quarters in 2015 compared to the same period in 2014, mobile news apps are very prevalent among the Chinese especially the post-90s and post-80s.

57% Chinese use smartphones to shop either ‘often’ or ‘very often’ while values they have created are immense. Overall transaction sales of Tmall on Double 11 this year reached 122.937 billion yuan (US$19.34 billion). Retail sales through tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices in China are expected to increase by 85.1% annually to US$333.99 billion in 2015, accounting for 49.7% of China’s retail e-commerce sales according to eMarketer.

Accurate customer data are a cornerstone of effective modern marketing campaigns according to WBR Digital. As high as 87% Chinese use smartphones to browse web pages either ‘often’ or ‘very often’ which will be a powerful tool to target consumers.

Major Chinese use smartphones for banking occasionally only 44% use smartphones for online shopping often or very often.

73% Chinese still like to read e-mails on the desktop, 26% prefer on tablet and 56% on mobile. 64% Chinese have purchased goods as a result of promotional content they received e-mails. 65% have purchased goods when they received content from SMS; 55% have purchased from the in-app messages; 53% have purchased during the social chat, and 41% have purchased from social media messages.

Most occasionally, recommendations from friends, families, fashion bloggers or others can better attract China’s consumers thus social media as a platform for sharing should be put much time and efforts in. 66% Chinese use social chat apps such as WeChat and Line to share messages, 52% will repost on social media or networks to share, 36% will share on SMS, and 34% share on DMs.

Content Preferences Targeted Content Strategy

Ultimately, an engaged and receptive audience is anchored by content relevancy and accurate targeting. Failure to provide this will be most likely result in damage to consumers’ concern. Thus, advertisers should deliver e-mails more personal and relevant.

A lot of integrated content e-mails are distributed via various channels in China while 24% who have received integrated content have no interest in it and 24% haven’t received and won’t like to receive at all. 44% consumers are interested in the integrated content and are willing to receive continuously.

Email is the most mature marketing channel, therefore, it is no surprise that marketers across the region are feeling better of personalizing their messaging. 82% China’s consumers have received personalizes e-mails, 79% have received personalized content on SMS, 68% on the social chat, 64% on social media, and 62% on apps.

Consumers in China still prefer e-mail (63%) as one of the most important ways to transmit information about brands or companies. 47% also like to get in touch with brands or companies through social chat apps. Only 43% always want to contact through SMS, 38% through app notifications, and 29% through social media or networks.

Markers targeting China should manage multiple channels to provide proper prices. 54% China’s consumers have received conflicting or contradictory promotions or content on SMS or e-mail, 49% once received conflicting messages on social chat, 48% on apps, and 40% received on social media.

Apart from conflicting promotion content, 71% China’s consumers have received irrelevant content on e-mail, 68% on SMS, 63% on social chat, 57% on social media, and 55% on apps.

The majority of China’s consumers receive 1 – 5 (40%) and 6 – 10 (33%) push notifications per day from apps on mobile or tablet. Only 6% consumers in China disable push notifications for most apps.

73% consumers open half or less of the notifications pushed out compared to 21% of opening 50% or more. Only 7% don’t open any notifications.

Communication Preferences Channel Hopping

Most consumers are willing to receive promotional offers and updates on new products and events on mobile, digital and social platforms. Only 8% prefer not to receive any content. Thus, marketers have to understand what consumers really like before sending e-mails.

Location-based offers have enormous potential for retailers to capitalize on their physical presence to provide targeted and relevant offers directly to the consumer. However, only 68% like to receive location-based offers and promotions via e-mail or EMS. Only 47% consumer are willing to receive on social media.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

China’s mobile internet users reached 901 million as of September of 2015 according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The mobile e-mail users in China have reached 250 million based on the latest report of WPS.

64% e-mail users are used to use e-mail on desktop computers. However, by the further expansion of the mobile internet and smartphones, more people tend to use mobile phones to contact with friends, read news and even work that 56% e-mail users prefer utilizing mobile mailbox every day.

Business mailbox is one of the major reasons of people to open e-mail every day. Business e-mail users in China receive an average of 20 e-mails and send 2 to 3 e-mails every day. Enterprise e-mail users are mainly companies operating the internet, finance, sales and the like as well as some large state-owned enterprises. Mobile business mailbox users almost spend one-fourth of their working hours on mobile mailbox apps.

College students and white collars are major users of personal e-mails in China. In general, a majority of private mailbox users will open once to twice every day although they have two or even more e-mail accounts. College students and white collars who need to apply for jobs or change jobs receive an average of ten e-mails every day and six from online recruitment websites.

Men accounts for 70% of mobile e-mail users and women only 30%. Female mobile e-mail users usually manage e-mails during 9am to 10am while male users are used to handling e-mails at night.

More than 20% users will read through the e-mails to search for news and the average usage time has increased by 50% according to WPS. 15% users check their mailboxes in the subway, 10% will open the mobile e-mail accounts before going to sleep, and 9% even use the mobile apps in the bathroom.

Men aged from 25 to 35 years old play the dominant role among mobile e-mail users. The post-70s don’t use mobile e-mails very often. Only the post-90s who will apply for jobs use mailboxes every day. The post-70s prefer to use 163 Email accounts and Yahoo Email. The post-80s like to use 163 Email, QQ Email, and Gmail. The post-90s are more likely to use QQ Email and Gmail. Mobile mailboxes are most popular in Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Liaoning. QQ Email, 163 Email, Sina Mail, Gmail and Hotmail are popular private mailboxes:

• QQ Postbox: mainly for students, white collars and people not using the internet too much, mostly for entertainment and everyday communication;
• 163 Postbox & Sina Mail: mainly for individual and business contacts;
• Gmail: users are more likely proficient in networking and computer applications;
• Hotmail: mainly for MSN white-collars.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

In the half of 2014 in China, average deliverability rate, open rate, click-to-open rate and click through rate were 94.54%, 9.39%, 16.71% and 1.57% respectively according to data from Webpower China. The indicators showed stable growth in electronic direct mail (eDM).

In H1 2014, eDM is mainly applied in 14 industries including domestic e-commerce, overseas e-commerce, finance & insurance, group buying, travel & hotel service, human resource, media/ publisher, education/ training and exhibition.

In China, eDM still performed well in human resource category since 2013 and finance & insurance industry was the one with most rapid growth rate in H1 2014.

Liuyun, China client service director of Webpower, points out some tips for eDM’s improvement in China:

1. It is important to promote recognition of eDM and integrate with users’ needs.
2. To strengthen and optimize chart according to enterprises’ operating routines is an effectively method.
3. According to users’ activity, enterprises send campaign mails based on a elected list.
4. According to users’ behaviors, enterprises can send custom-made mails with BI system.
5. Enterprises should consider to optimize system on mobile device.
6. In the near future, mails can integrate with other channels to realize diversity.

Also read: China Email Marketing Industry Report in 2013

Webpower recently released China email marketing industry report, showing overall development and industrial application status quo. The report provided four EDM (email direct marketing) indexes for analysis.

According to the report, the overall EDM average delivery rate reached 94.07% in 2013, with 3.49% YoY growth. Average unique open rate increased by 14.83% yearly to 11.59%; average unique click & open rate increased by 1.18% yearly to 20.56%; average click & delivery rate was 2.38%, up 12.26% in 2013.

Chinese email marketing tended to be in a steadily rise in 2013. The performance in Q2 was quite remarkable, while the performance was rather stable in other quarters. From April to June was the busiest period of economic activities, so enterprises from all industries would start email marketing during that period.

Email user coverage in China was 125 million, far less than online shopping and search engine. But the average visit duration was 79.6 seconds, longer than online shopping and search engine.

However, email marketing might not look so optimistic. 67.37% respondents said they only used work email, and 25.83% mainly used work email. Merely 5.2% used personal email only.

Email users in China were not fans of non-work emails, 32.53% delete non-work directly, work email only used for working. 33.56% checked the titles and senders information, those were defined as ads would be deleted directly. 26.5% would read the emails first then decide whether or not to delete. Only 6.15% were interested in the emails.

Email marketing appeared to be very difficult in China.

Yahoo! decided to close its mail service in China in early April. It sent notification to users that they had enough time, until Aug 19, to save their emails and contacts and switch to another provider. And now Yahoo! Chinese mail is coming into its last few days.

NetEase, Chinese leading e-mail provider, suggested Yahoo! mail users move to NetEase mail. Users could use email migration tool to move mails, contacts and other files to NetEase simply by one click. NetEase promised that they would provide  free high quality mail service permanently, and users could have the permanent NetEase Internet identity with constantly improving user experience.

Web Power, an email marketing service provider with a presence in China, shared some data of average EDM performance in China in 2011.

If you are running your own EDM campaign in China, here’s a few tips for you:

• Support of Simplified Chinese. It’s not rare to see companies sending unreadable EDM to target audience; always test and make sure it supports Simplified Chinese in both content and subject line
• Leads generation. It probably costs less to buy email database in China but “permission-based” EDM works better; also utilize China’s social media like Weibo and make the content relevant and interesting
• Integration. Integrate your EDM with other channels to make it more convenient for your users to get the relevant content

Bonus tip: if you target business users, implement a mechanism in your leads generation to allow company email account only (to deliver the incentives).

Feel free to share what you have learned in EDM campaign so far.

Email deliverability in China is much worse than the global average; only 58% of all emails can reach users’ inbox, which is also much lower than the average in Asia Pacific region (78%) according to data shown in a recent ReturnPath report.