Audiences spend 10 seconds reading an email, down 15%

An overview of the time consumers spend reading an email between 2011 and 2021.

The time spent reading an email has fallen 15% to just 10.0 seconds this year, giving email marketing campaigns an even shorter amount of time to engage their audience, according to data from email marketing company Litmus.

The 10.0 seconds average seen this year is down 15% from 2020's average and is 25% shorter than in 2018.

Email marketing has grown in importance for many brands as a valuable way to reach, target and personalise communication in the absence of third-party data. It is also a cost-efficient way of enhancing first-party data,...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands