Why chasing benchmarks can hurt your email performance

The 30% Email Revenue Benchmark Is Pointless. Here’s Why: For years, agencies have pushed the narrative that “30% of your revenue should come from email.” Sounds authoritative, right? But here’s the problem— It’s meaningless without context. A brand selling impulse-buy jewelry isn’t the same as one selling supplements with long consideration windows and recurring purchases. Different industries. Different customer behaviours. Different buying cycles. Yet, many founders obsess over hitting this arbitrary “30%” as if it’s the gold standard. What happens? 1. Chasing numbers ⤷ Sending more campaigns despite declining engagement. 2. Audience fatigue ⤷ Burning out your list just to make dashboards look good. 3. Short-term hacks ⤷ Relying on flash sales to inject temporary revenue. And the reality is— Attribution itself is flawed. Just compare Klaviyo’s attribution windows by tweaking a single day—you’ll see revenue figures swing dramatically. So, which number is actually right? Neither. Because it’s the wrong question. The real question isn’t “Is email driving 30% of revenue?” It’s “Is retention marketing driving profitable, sustainable growth for the business?” Any agency fixated solely on attributed revenue is missing the bigger picture. Retention isn’t about hitting vanity metrics—it’s about how your strategies impact broader business KPIs. Yes, revenue matters. But if it’s your north star, you’re steering the ship off course.

🚫 Industry benchmarks are bullsh*t - especially when you are using them wrong 🚫 Stop comparing your marketing metrics to companies playing a completely different game. The data you see should be a "cool fact" - nothing else. Your competitor's: • $250 CPL • 2.8% CTR • 50% demo-to-close rate All irrelevant. Why? Because they might have: ✅ Different positioning and sales motion ✅ Different stage of product-market fit ✅ Different brand awareness (that took YEARS to build) & trust in the market You’re not competing against their numbers — you’re competing against their context. Of course benchmarks have value.They help you spot outliers, sanity check your funnel, and sense-check your GTM motion. But chasing them? Stressing over them? Comparing blindly?That’s where teams go wrong. When you blindly chase their benchmarks, you start: • Making bad optimisation decisions • Killing experiments too early • Burning out your team • Wasting budget Instead: ✅ Benchmark against your own baselines ✅ Double down on what moves your revenue ✅ Optimise for your business model — not someone else’s highlight reel (which for all we know could be a lie, as Dave Chapelle would say "LinkedIn is not a real place") The game isn’t who gets the cheapest leads. It’s who builds the most durable, scalable growth engine. Focus on your own levers. Play your game.

Industry benchmarks are overrated. There, I said it. Every year, reports from HubSpot, LinkedIn, WordStream, and many others tell B2B marketers what their numbers should look like. - A “good” CPL is under $150 - A “strong” Google CTR for fintech is 2% - Email open rates “should” be 25% And the list goes on and on... But here’s the problem: benchmarks don’t know your business. A $300 CPL could be a steal if your deal size is six figures. A 1% CTR might be fine if conversion rates are strong. A lower email open rate doesn’t matter if response rates are high. Your business is unique, from what you sell to how you sell it. Comparing yourself to industry averages is meaningless if it doesn’t align with your pricing, sales cycle, and audience. Instead of stressing over whether your numbers match a report, ask: - Are we generating the pipeline we need to hit revenue goals? - Are our lead and conversion metrics tracking in a way that makes sense for our business? - Are we measuring against our own historical data, not just an industry average? Because at the end of the day, the only benchmark that actually matters is the one that moves your business forward. #b2b #b2bmarketing #saas #advertising #measurement #growth

I advise most of my clients to STOP using industry benchmarks Here's why I stay to stop using industry benchmarks: ❌ Too broad "Retail" may include Target and a tiny mom & pop shop so it's hard to tell if you're comparing your brand against an actually comparable brand. ❌ Inconsistent tracking Not every ESP tracks metrics the same way (example: email opens can vary drastically dependent on if machine opens included). ❌ Zero context Industry benchmarks ignore your brand strategy - so your campaign targeting a specific segment for a specific goal shouldn't be compared to industry averages. So what should you do? Benchmark against your own performance. ✅You know your company goals. Align benchmarks around these. ✅You know your targeting strategies. Track results when they change. Stop stealing your joy by looking at where the industry is at. Start evaluating results against your own performance. #EmailMarketing and #SMSMarketing community - ----- ❓ Do you like using industry benchmarks? ❓ Why or why not? ⬇️ Comment below⬇️ ♻️ Reshare this post if it was helpful! ----- P.S. - Want to know how to build better benchmarks for your email or SMS program? Sign up for BearMail, my newsletter, to get the full details - revealed next Monday (4/28).