Restaurant email marketing performance varies sharply by message purpose. In the January 2025–August 2026 benchmark period, new-guest welcome emails averaged a 33.9% open rate and a 7.2% verified return-visit rate, while post-visit thank-you emails produced a 29.9% verified return-visit rate despite an 11.1% open rate. These figures show why restaurants should compare campaigns by business outcome, not opens alone.
Contents
- Campaign benchmarks
- Engagement and sales benchmarks
- Segmentation, personalization, and automation
- What diners prefer
- Content and frequency
- Revenue and retention outcomes
Campaign benchmarks
The 2026 benchmark report from Bloom Intelligence, “Restaurant Email Marketing Benchmarks 2026” covers January 2025 through August 2026. Its results distinguish ordinary broadcasts from lifecycle emails tied to a guest’s relationship with a restaurant.
| Campaign type | Open rate | Click rate | Verified return-visit rate | Attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-time blast | 19.5% | 0.7% | 0.27% | About $80 |
| Birthday | 17.2% | 0.9% | 0.62% | About $112 |
| Anniversary | 20.9% | 1.5% | 1.34% | About $181 |
| At-risk win-back | 13.3% | 0.8% | 6.5% | About $1,106 |
| New-guest welcome | 33.9% | 4.8% | 7.2% | About $1,506 |
One-time blasts averaged a 19.5% open rate and a 0.7% click rate. Their verified return-visit rate was 0.27%, with about $80 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered emails. Birthday messages opened at 17.2%, clicked at 0.9%, produced a 0.62% verified return-visit rate, and generated about $112 per 1,000 delivered.
Anniversary messages performed better on engagement and measured return behavior: a 20.9% open rate, a 1.5% click rate, and a 1.34% verified return-visit rate. They generated about $181 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered emails. At-risk win-back emails had the lowest open rate in this group, at 13.3%, but a 6.5% verified return-visit rate and about $1,106 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered.
New-guest welcome emails led this table in both opens and clicks. Their 33.9% open rate, 4.8% click rate, 7.2% verified return-visit rate, and approximately $1,506 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered make the first post-signup interaction an important benchmark for restaurant operators.
Engagement and sales benchmarks
Older category benchmarks remain useful for context, but they should not be treated as current independent verification of newer campaign data. Campaign Monitor’s guide to email marketing for restaurants reports that restaurant, food, and beverage email campaigns averaged an 18.5% open rate, a 2.0% click-through rate, a 10.5% click-to-open rate, and a 0.1% unsubscribe rate in 2022.
The click-to-open figure is a different measure from the overall click-through rate: it describes clicks among people who opened, while click-through rate uses delivered messages as its base. Keeping those denominators separate helps prevent misleading comparisons across reports.
Toast reported that restaurants using Toast Email Marketing averaged approximately $2,800 in additional sales during the 14 days after an email in Q3–Q4 2021. The same Toast restaurant email marketing examples page reports an approximately 39% email open rate for historical Toast restaurant performance, with the publication appearing in 2026. Toast also reported that customers using its full Marketing Suite, including Email Marketing, had 63% more sales than customers without it during Q3–Q4 2021 restaurant performance data. That comparison covers the full suite, so it should not be read as an email-only lift.
Segmentation, personalization, and automation
SevenRooms reported meaningful differences between targeted and broad restaurant sends during February–May 2024. According to its 2024 U.S. restaurant trends report, targeted sends produced 23% higher open rates, 28% higher click-to-open rates, and twice as much revenue per email as broad sends.
The same report says personalized campaigns were 26% more likely to be opened than non-personalized campaigns, citing Campaign Monitor research. A separate Campaign Monitor restaurant email guide cites a 760% increase in revenue from segmented email campaigns. That percentage is presented as a cited finding in a 2022 guide, not as a guaranteed result for every restaurant.
Automation can be especially valuable at the beginning of the guest relationship. Mailchimp’s Silver Ventures case study reports a 28% average open rate across more than 108,000 subscribers for the restaurant-and-hospitality email program. Its welcome email automation averaged a 53% open rate. The case study was published in July 2026 and describes a one-year program result.
These results support a practical hierarchy: use broad sends for general awareness, targeted sends for stronger relevance, and automated lifecycle messages for moments when a guest’s context is already known. The figures are benchmarks and case-study outcomes, not promises of identical performance.
What diners prefer
The audience for restaurant email is substantial. SevenRooms’ 2025 U.S. data report found that 83% of U.S. diners were willing to sign up for restaurant marketing programs between December 12, 2024, and January 6, 2025. In the same measurement period, 62% of U.S. consumers preferred connecting with a restaurant by email for promotions, menu updates, and special events.
Preferences vary by generation. SevenRooms’ March 4–11, 2024 findings reported that 38% of Millennials and 37% of Gen X consumers preferred email marketing for restaurant promotions. Those percentages describe preference for email among the named groups, not universal willingness to receive unlimited messages.
Personal relevance also appears in older National Restaurant Association and LivingSocial research. The 2012 research release reported that 68% of consumers would visit or order after a message referenced their past patronage, 66% would do so when the message let them make a reservation, and 64% would do so when it identified them by name. The same study reported that 78% said a restaurant email would motivate them to visit, while 87% would visit or order when offered savings. These are legacy findings from 2012 and should be interpreted in that historical context.
Content and frequency
The 2019 Restaurant Success in 2019 report found that 31% of restaurant guests wanted restaurant emails once a week, 29% wanted them once a month, and 21% never wanted to hear from a restaurant by email. The results point to a divided audience: a consistent weekly cadence may suit some subscribers, while others prefer lower frequency or no email.
Operators’ content choices did not always match guests’ stated interests. In the same report, 40% of restaurant operators used marketing emails for upcoming events, specials, and discounts; 37% used them for new menu items; and 19% used them for birthday coupons. Diners reported that 72% liked announcements about new menu items, 60% cared about special-event announcements, and 47% were happy to receive birthday coupons by email.
The data supports a simple content mix: keep new dishes visible, use events and offers where they fit the audience, and reserve birthday messages for subscribers who value them. Frequency preferences should be collected or inferred from engagement rather than assumed to be identical for every guest.
Revenue and retention outcomes
The Bloom Intelligence benchmark includes two post-visit and loyalty-oriented campaign types. Visit-milestone emails averaged a 24.2% open rate and a 2.5% click rate from January 2025 through August 2026. They produced a 19.8% verified return-visit rate and about $4,488 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered emails.
Post-visit thank-you emails averaged an 11.1% open rate. Despite that lower open rate, they produced a 29.9% verified return-visit rate and approximately $9,950 in attributed return revenue per 1,000 delivered emails during the same benchmark period. The figures are attributed outcomes reported by the benchmark source; they do not establish that every restaurant will achieve the same revenue.
SevenRooms reported that its U.S. restaurant customers generated $12 million in email-marketing revenue during February–May 2024. The SevenRooms report presents that figure for its customer base and period, rather than as an industry-wide total.
Case studies provide additional examples. In SevenRooms’ Email Marketing 102 guide, Tate Dining Room’s anniversary campaign generated 290 covers within one year of the case study, produced HK$57 (US$7.28) in revenue per email sent, and achieved a 62% open rate. The guide also reports that Altamarea Group reached more than 47,000 people with 12 pre-built email campaigns in 2021 and generated almost $400,000 in revenue in 2021.
Taken together, the benchmarks show that lifecycle timing, relevance, and a measurable return action can matter more than the size of a broadcast list. For restaurant marketing teams, the most useful dashboard pairs engagement measures with verified return visits and attributed revenue, while keeping the source period and campaign definition visible beside every comparison.