Automotive Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics – Q2 2025
Published: July 2025
Use Q2 benchmarks insight to maximise Q3 investments
Preferences change over time, so it is important to review the suitability of any communication strategy on a regular basis to check it still meets the needs of the customer and your business.
Our ongoing benchmarking of the effectiveness of different forms of digital communication gives context for retailers to evaluate their own performance. Looking back at the second quarter affords a valuable opportunity to evaluate successes, as well as lessons to carry into the next quarter.
The numbers in review
In the second quarter of 2025, our clients received a combined total of 263,734 new enquiries and distributed over 2,897,006 emails using VoiceBox for sales and aftersales. These AI-powered emails communicate key information specific to each customer, such as prompts about stock, details of maintenance work due, or end-of-term renewals.
Monitor data capture and consent to underpin success
Our BrainBox reporting platform enables clients to monitor their data quality and consent capture rates across all data sources to aid continuous improvements. High-quality data is the core of effective marketing campaigns, and accurate data must be combined with consent to maximise the chances for success.
Analysis of the CRM data from over 500 of our retailer clients revealed that 9% of customer records lacked an email address, and 7% were missing a phone number. Among records with an email address, 27% did not have consent to receive marketing messages.
The power of data with detail
A key benefit to using VoiceBox is the ability to offer bespoke communication depending on each customer’s needs via data segmentation. For example, messages to Motability customers in Q2 received an impressive open rate of 56%, boasting an eight percentage-point uplift in open rate compared to Q1. The effectiveness of these messages, which include tailored Motability content, is evident in the average click-through rate of 23%, the second-highest engagement of all our client emails.
Retailers can choose to segment data by enquiry type or powertrain to ensure hyper-targeted messages, which helps improve the quality and quantity of responses. Since introducing more granular targeting to its VoiceBox communications in December, one client has received over 450 sales conversions from its Stock Alerts messages. Its EV-specific stock messages, which include relevant EV images and terminology, attracted a 51% open rate and a 30% click-through rate, which both sit higher than the average for all email communication sent through VoiceBox, clearly highlighting the benefit of high-quality data and segmentation.
Using reminders and aftersales campaigns to re-engage customers
Our clients sending service and MOT reminders received a 53% open rate in Q2 and an average click rate of 13%, resulting in over 104,000 bookings.
Looking to Q3, we are encouraging our customers to couple these reminder messages with MOT ’Pull Forward’ campaigns to help workshops balance the cadence of aftersales bookings and flatten out peaks and troughs in utilisation.
One of our recent consumer surveys found that 60% of UK car owners agreed with the statement: “I’d prefer to book my MOT up to a month (minus a day) earlier if I could still keep the original renewal schedule.” Overall, 78% of the car owners surveyed were already aware that they could book an MOT up to a month before it expires and still maintain the original renewal schedule. However, awareness of this option was found to be lower among younger drivers, with 50% of 18- to 24-year-olds stating they did not know this was possible, indicating a potential demographic to target with additional guidance.
Enhanced CRM email open rates and click-through rates for UK car, van, and motorcycle retailers
| Message | Objective | Ave Open Rate | Ave Click Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enquiry Follow Up | Nurture active leads | 61% | 15% |
| Stock Alerts | Engage open enquiries with new or reduced stock | 46% | 38% |
| Appointment Confirmation & Reminders | Improve kept appointments | 73% | 8% |
| Lost Sale Follow Up | Capture business insight and re-engage unconverted leads | 56% | 17% |
| Post Delivery | Capture reviews and introduce aftersales | 77% | 18% |
| Motability Messages | Bespoke customer journey for Motability customers | 56% | 23% |
| Service and MOT reminders | Re-engage customers and keep workshop front of mind | 53% | 13% |
| End-of-term finance renewals | Warm up existing customers to aid sales retention | 53% | 13% |
Marketing Delivery builds customer marketing solutions exclusively for the automotive sector, with AI-driven, dynamic, and personalised email, SMS, and social media communications. Our nationwide team of automotive experts boasts 300+ years of combined industry experience, providing solutions to more than 500 retailer clients.
If you’re looking to enhance your CRM, contact us today.
Disclaimers
The accuracy of email open rates may be impacted by Apple’s privacy changes and their Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) feature, and this should be considered as you interpret open rate data. The data provided on this page is an average of all emails sent between 1 April 2025 and 30 June 2025 and may vary from email marketing benchmarks data provided within the VoiceBox application.
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