After finding a suitable email newsletter/notification service in Envoke, eServices has seen an uptake in programs using the platform to generate unique content for the public.
One of those groups is the wildlife viewing team from the Department of Environment. They create and publish content for the Wildlife Viewing e-newsletter. This is an email newsletter they send 1 to 2 times a month, depending on the season.
As part of our 2025 wrap up, eServices looked at the performance analytics for this publication. Our goals were to:
- compare the publication’s performance metrics to industry benchmarks to establish benchmarks specific to the newsletter;
- identify what works well and what the team might want to improve or investigate further; and
- learn how the publishing process has been working for the team.
Newsletter performance metrics and industry benchmarks
We used industry benchmarks for government email newsletters simply as a starting point to gauge the newsletter's performance comparatively and to help us establish benchmarks that are specific to each of our newsletters. We looked at:
- delivery rate;
- open rate;
- click-through rate;
- bounce rate;
- unsubscribe rate; and
- subscriber growth rate.
Delivery rate
The delivery rate is the percentage of emails sent that were successfully delivered to a recipient. The delivery rate for this newsletter ranged from 89% - 99.5%. The industry benchmark for delivery rate is around 95%.
What we learned from this data: The subscriber emails are active and real.
What we learned from the wildlife viewing team: They are very active managing their email contact lists to ensure they are up to date.
Open rate
Open rate is the percentage of recipients who opened an email. The Open rate for this newsletter started at 78% in April and ended at 65% in December. The open rate average was just under 72%. The industry benchmark for a government email newsletter is between 20 and 40%.
What we learned from this data: The open rate is well above the industry benchmark which indicates the newsletter subject line gets their subscriber’s attention.
What we learned from the department: They have a very loyal base of people who are interested in the Yukon's flora, fauna and more. They open the newsletter when it arrives in their inbox.
Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR is the percentage of email recipients who clicked a link in the email. This number depends on the type of newsletter the team shares. One may be a stand-alone story with no calls to action and another may be a summary that links back to a webpage where their subscribers can get more details. This team produce more of the latter.
The CTR for this newsletter ranged from 3 to 20%. The industry benchmark for government newsletters is around 2.3%.
What we learned from this data: Subscribers are engaged and the team produce quality content with good calls to action.
What we learned from the team: They almost always link users to places where they can get more information. They also have some standard columns that create a consistent user experience for people as they are familiar and subscribers know what to look at and where to click.
Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the number of emails that could not be delivered to a subscriber’s inbox. it indicates a subscriber’s inbox is full, a server is down or an email address is invalid.
The bounce rate for this newsletter ranged from .51% to 11.11%. The industry benchmark for government newsletters is 2%.
What we learned from this data: Higher bounce rates occurred the month the newsletter was launched. Since then, it has been consistently in the 2% range.
What we learned from the team: When they launched the first newsletter, they had migrated their subscriber list to the new platform and found there were a lot of invalid email addresses they had to remove. They also have people sign up with pen and paper at events and trade shows and they take these and complete the subscription. There can be errors in this process. Some users might already be subscribed to the newsletter and sometimes the hand writing can be difficult to interpret and the email address is entered incorrectly.
Unsubscribe rate
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who opt out of a mailing list after they received an email newsletter.
The unsubscribe rates for this newsletter was around .40%. The industry benchmark for an email marketing newsletter is around 0.19%.
What we learned from this data: This was not a good comparison because it isn't an email marketing newsletter. We'll continue to track this into 2026 to determine what the benchmark for this newsletter is.
What we learned from the team: We found out the team are very diligent about managing their subscriber lists. They actively remove or unsubscribe users when they come across duplicate emails or have identified invalid emails. Another interesting idea that came out of the discussion is that people visiting the Yukon might subscribe while they are here and then unsubscribe when they leave. We'll continue to monitor this to see if there are seasonal trends.
Subscriber growth rate
Subscriber growth rate tells us how quickly a newsletter is gaining new subscribers. The subscriber growth rate for 2025 leveled off at around 4%. The industry benchmark is around 2.5%.
What we learned from this data: We are going to continue to track this metric over time to establish a benchmark for this newsletter. One suggestion for the team was to consider developing a communications plan or editorial calendar to post social media or other ads to let people know about the newsletter and how they can subscribe.
What we learned from the team: The main goal for the newsletter is to share information about events and the work they do. Getting it up and running, managing the account and creating consistent content have been their focus.
Next steps
This was an interesting exercise.
Overall we found people subscribe to the Wildlife Viewing e-newsletter because they are genuinely interested in the content. They open the newsletter, stay subscribed and engage with the content. They also attend the events captured in the newsletter.
One area of improvement might be to let more people know the newsletter exists and link them to the subscribe page – especially heading into their busy summer months.
eServices will continue to track performance metrics this year so we can fine tune our templates and advice to departments to make sure the content they create reaches the people who want it. And we know the Yukon wildlife viewing team will be doing the same.
Speaking of which - the April issue just launched and it is full of great articles! If you or your family are interested in Yukon wildlife, plants, art contests, Wild Discoveries events and more we recommend you subscribe to this newsletter.