Email Habits of Canadians

Email inboxes are personal. Whether you pride yourself on a blank slate, with each sender tucked away in its own personal folder, or relish the chaos of a bright red 3,678 notification looming over your email app, the way we organize, receive, and manage our emails is unique to each individual.

For marketers, understanding these unique traits is essential when crafting successful email marketing campaigns. If the majority of your target audience reads their email first thing in the morning, then you should be sending out your weekly blasts at 5 am. If your audience prefers video to photo, internal links to CTAs, or are most likely to open emails from senders in their contact list, you’re going to want to use this information when planning your strategy.

Other behavioural factors, such as how many email accounts your audience has, or what kind of promotional offers they enjoy receiving, can further inform email marketing strategies.

To help bring clarity to the email habits of Canadians, we teamed up with Jelly Academy, a digital marketing course that is always looking for the freshest data and insights, to conduct a nationwide survey to find out exactly what's going on in our inboxes. Here are some of the most poignant findings from the survey.

Do you open all of the emails you receive?

Jelly found that those in the 25-34 age group had the highest proportion of participants who answered "yes" to the question (31.25%), compared to the 35-44 age group which saw the lowest proportion (12.12%).

This is an interesting metric for anyone targeting Gen Z, as there may be higher email interest rates among this cohort.

This data also falls in line with our southern cousins in the USA, who report an average open rate of 30.7%.

When during the day do you check your personal emails?

The majority of respondents (25.8%) said they check their email first thing in the morning. Nothing beats eggs, bacon, and email, don’t you think?

23.7% stated they check their email whenever they pick up their phone. Maybe they wait until after their first coffee has settled in to get their day started.

21.1% said they wait until after lunch or their first break time to dive into their inbox.

And 17.4% stated “as soon as received”, followed by 12.1% that said they wait until they get home.

How many times a day do you check your email?

Like most of us, average Canadians use their digital devices as extra limbs, regularly checking them for news and updates. Of this group a whopping 58.6% of respondents stated they check their email more than 15 times per day.

17.2% reported checking 10-15 times per day, 13.3% said 5-10 times per day, and 10.9% stated they check their email 1-5 times per day.

Have you ever made a spontaneous purchase based off an email?

The 25-34 age group saw the largest proportion of participants that answered yes to this question (80.1%), and that proportion decreases with age. However, more than half of all age groups stated they have made spontaneous purchases based off an email.

Why do you stay subscribed to email lists?

Of the sample group, 25% said they stay subscribed to email lists in order to receive important information from the sender. 17.2% said they were looking to receive informational content, 8.6% were looking to get deals, and 49.2% were interested in all of the above.

Are you likely to open an email if it’s from a sender who isn’t on your contact list?

This question had the sample pool quite divided, and 51.6% said yes and 48.4% said no.

Why do you subscribe to a company’s newsletter?

While the knee-jerk answer to this question is probably: deals, deals, deals, Canadians are surprisingly indifferent to promotional emails.

40.6% of respondents stated they were interested in product updates, 24.2% stated they just loved the brand, and 21.1% were looking for a deal or discount.

What is your number one reason for unsubscribing?

The majority of users (52.3%) stated that receiving too many emails was their number one reason for unsubscribing. This was followed up by non-relevant content at 39.1%, already receiving the promotion they wanted at 3.1%, and boring content at a lowly 2.3%.

A recent global study from HubSpot reported similar findings, with 61% of respondents reporting too many emails as their biggest factor in unsubscribing.

What this study tells us about Canadian email habits

It’s clear from the data collected that Canadians are interested in more than just promotional offers. They are engaged with their inboxes, excited about the content they receive, and interested in hearing from the brands that they trust.

What Canadians don’t want to see in their inbox is spam or content that isn’t relevant to their interests. They also don’t want to be talked to all the time and will follow up too much chatter with a firm unsubscribe.

Marketers engaging Canadians with email campaigns should prioritize quality over quantity and ensure that all email content is relevant, interesting, and adding value to their audiences.