Email signature statistics: Why every business should optimize its email signatures

An email signature is a set of opportunities in professional communication that a business may use or overlook. This applies equally to small businesses and large companies. To make this tool work to its fullest potential, you need to collect email signature statistics, analyze them, and take action based on that analysis.

In this article, we explore key email signature statistics and learn how tracking this data and improving your signatures accordingly benefits businesses.

What are email signature statistics, and why are they important for marketing?

Email signature statistics are data that indicate how email recipients interact with elements of an email signature: links, banners, etc.

Every employee in a company sends dozens of emails a day (to contractors, clients, partners, cold leads, etc.), but correspondence is not only about sending messages; it’s also about building relationships. The email signature is a powerful tool that plays a small yet meaningful role in shaping these potential relationships.

This is why collecting email signature statistics is so important: It allows you to track, measure, and optimize the effectiveness of your email communication through signatures.

Why are email signature statistics important for email marketing?

An email signature is one of the marketing channels that works without an additional budget. Like other marketing channels, it ensures consistent branding and supports lead generation.

Collecting statistics is a necessary part of email marketing because it helps you:

• measure how effectively your signature increases brand visibility;
• gain insights to improve website traffic, boost conversion, and generate more leads;
• personalize marketing efforts based on customer location, interests, and pain points;
• get additional information about how recipients interact with your email marketing;
• change the vector of your marketing efforts if available statistics contradict predicted results.

With Stripo, you can design professional, personalized email signatures that look exactly as planned across all email clients with no coding required.

Key email signature statistics

Creating a stylish, professional email signature is one thing, but analyzing the statistics to understand what that signature actually does for you is another. Tracking these metrics is essential because where exactly a recipient clicks in your footer gives you information about their pain points, questions, and other key insights.

If the customer clicks on the website or social media icons, maybe they need to delve deeper into your company and the services you offer. If it’s a “book an appointment” button, they may already be close to making a purchase or booking your services.

It also could be a subscription button if you include a link to your newsletter in the signature. In that case, the click may indicate that the customer wants to stay connected with your company – perhaps their request isn’t urgent, or they simply need more time to make a decision. It's nice to have these valuable insights, don't you think? You also gain a new subscriber to your email newsletter list and will have the opportunity to remind them about your company through periodic messages.

What email signature statistics should be measured for customer satisfaction?

The key metrics you can (and should) track include:

1. Click-through rate (CTR). Click-through rates indicate the percentage of recipients who clicked on certain elements in your email signature. They reflect overall customer interest and their level of interaction with your business emails. Dynamic content, such as email signature banners, achieves an average CTR of 4%, significantly higher than the 2.5% industry standard for typical marketing emails. The CTR to the company’s website for employees who use a branded email signature is 15%, but only 3% for emails without it.
2. Conversion rate. This metric plays a crucial role by measuring how many recipients completed the action you linked to in your signature, such as booking a meeting or downloading a guide.
3. Email response rate. This metric’s importance depends on the types of emails you send: therefore, you should collect statistics separately for each type and analyze what exactly in the email prompted the recipient to reply: the importance or usefulness of the information, the desire to learn more details, or the email signature and the specific person mentioned in it. Studies have found that utilizing company email signatures influences customer perception and engagement. The email response rate of emails with a branded signature is 22% higher than the baseline.
4. Engagement rate. This metric analyzes customer engagement after they click a link in your signature. How much time did they spend on your website? Which pages did they visit? You can gain detailed insights by analyzing customer engagement.
5. Devices. Depending on the devices where most of your existing customers open your emails, you’ll likely need to make mobile optimization not only for the emails but also for the email signatures. A recently conducted survey found that over 41% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Thus, you should learn how to create an effective mobile email signature.
6. Geographic data. This information will be useful if your business has offices in different countries or cities, or special offers that depend on the customer's location.

Key statistics and benchmarks

Still not sure whether you need to track email signature statistics? Here are a few more numbers for you:

• 52% of users believe a solid email signature is key in communicating with clients: It helps build brand trust and leaves a lasting impact of professionalism;
• maintaining corporate consistency (25.1%) and improving branding and awareness (28.7%) are key objectives for using email signatures;
• the vast majority, 89.9%, have a single email signature, while 8.6% use up to 10 different signatures. You can have several different email signatures and use them depending on the audience, email purpose, seasonality, etc.;
• while 44.4% of recipients update their email signatures 2-4 times per year, 31.6% make changes only once every few years;
• Instagram is the most frequently included social media link, featured in 69.3% of email signatures. Facebook comes next, at 62.1%. Other commonly added platforms include LinkedIn (42.2%), YouTube (23.8%), X (17.5%), TikTok (11.4%), Pinterest (4.5%), and Reddit (1.85%);
• email signatures often are used for marketing purposes. Generating leads (18.8%), social media promotion (15.86%), and building a newsletter email list (10.2%) are the top three marketing uses of email signatures.

Email signature management

Companies spend budgets and time to create and maintain standardized signatures for all employees. They also need to run regular audits to ensure consistent branded signatures, i.e., that job titles and phone numbers are up to date and that all links direct clients to the correct pages on the website.

However, it’s not a waste of time. Company emails play a crucial role in helping to enhance branding and build trust. Thus, it’s important that employees understand the role of an email signature and actually use the uniform signatures to maintain consistency and brand identity.

If your company is not yet practicing signature management and hasn't developed a signature, you can view examples of signatures for different industries and get inspiration to work on your own.

Essential elements: What to include in your email signature for stronger email communication

Here are the most important points for an email signature that clients check:

• first name and surname;
• job title;
• company name and company information;
• contact info;
• social media links;
• legal disclaimers.

Legal and compliance considerations for email signatures

Legal requirements and compliance can be either geographical (depending on the laws of the country you work in) or industry-specific (e.g, legal, finance, real estate agencies, or healthcare professionals). There are also general requirements, such as having a clear and visible unsubscribe button.

If your industry requires specific disclaimers, draw them separately and place them below your email signature. If possible, provide a link to the disclaimer’s full text.

Email signature design best practices

As you already understand, an email signature plays an important role in maintaining a brand and generating leads, so you should approach its design thoughtfully. In addition, don't forget that a signature is also a source of valuable statistics and a platform for marketing activities.

So, here are some best practices you can apply to your email signatures:

1. Benefit from personalized email signatures with a photo

Make an email signature with a photo and a call-to-action button, something you can track to measure performance. And just like that, you have a built-in source of statistics.

(Source: Stripo template)

2. Make an email signature with a personal invitation

Add an invitation to a company event and a personal discount for the customer to your signature.

(Source: Exclaimer)

3. Add disclaimer buttons if your industry requires them

This is what a link to compliance considerations might look like: It doesn't interrupt the signature, but it stands out in color.

(Source: Stripo template)

4. Use multiple buttons in your email signature design

A well-thought-out design allows you to include multiple buttons in your signature, such as booking a meeting and opening a map.

(Source: Stripo template)

5. Add special buttons relevant to specific specialists

For example, add a link button that lets recipients apply for a job. This is especially useful for certain professionals, particularly recruiters or real estate experts.

(Source: Exclaimer)

The best part? In Stripo, you can easily customize your signature using templates.

Wrapping up

Email signature statistics are very important for businesses. Analyze metrics such as CTR, email response rate, engagement rate, devices, and geographic data; draw conclusions; and improve your marketing.

Remember that email signature marketing is another communication channel with your customers that can support brand loyalty and lead generation.