For read rates, my typical answer was more than 20% and more than 30% is great. As it turns out that rough estimate was pretty accurate.

In terms of click-through rates, we always seem to play in the 8-12% range.. which by industry standards according to this publication are on the upper end. I suspect that is because Mail Chimp services a lot of entry-level Small Business marketers who may not be as aggressive about click-through rates and testing.

I was convinced that the answers were tied up in some extremely pricey benchmark report from a research firm, but www.mailchimp.com has provided them free. These categories are broken out to cover several business to business and business to consumer industry types.

Mailchimp Small Business Email Benchmark Report – Full article here