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2005-01 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
December 2004. The deliverability of legitimate
marketing email has increased despite tougher barriers imposed by anti-spam measures,
and this reflects better list hygiene (i.e. removing dead addresses) and tighter
targeting. Both open rates and click-through rates declined slightly, but end
conversion and order rates both improved slightly.
-source: DoubleClick
2004-03 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
March 2004. The inadvertent blocking of
legitimate mass emailing by ISP spam filters - known as false positive results
- is increasing. Almost 19 percent on average of opt-in email was blocked in a
recent study. Yahoo blocked almost 27 percent, while Earthlink blocked only 7
percent. MSN does fairly well, but has risen to 13 percent from 10 percent a year
ago. AOL blocks around 25 percent.
-source: Return Path
February 2004. Spam accounted for sixty
percent of 85 billion messages monitored in January.
-source: Brightmail
February 2004. Microsoft has unveiled
its proposed open-standard technology to authenticate the sender of an email.
Sender authentication is rapidly attracting attention as a weapon in the fight
against spam.
-source: IDG News Service
February 2004. Microsoft and Yahoo are
both looking into a monetary "email postage" fee as a means to authenticate
bulk email senders. Other ISPs are interested. The concept is to create a class
of trusted email. Critics decry the loss of the free Internet, marketers generally
approve. The Email Service Provider Coalition conceptually approves.
- source: Yahoo!, Microsoft, Goodmail
2004-01 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
COMMENT 2004-01. The US federal
Can-Spam Act took effect this year purportedly to reduce Spam, amid criticism
that it would be less effective than the several individual State initiatives
that were actually promising, and which it replaced. So far this year spam-filter
providers are handling more messages than ever. Professionals expect no reduction
in spam this year. Spammers can fairly easily move offshore to evade the new law.
Some spammers are probably practicing "faux compliance" and exploiting
the law's biggest loophole which is the permission to send unsolicited email so
long as an opportunity to opt-out is given to the recipient. Some legitimate marketers
have reacted with delight to this provision, which adds a new incentive to send
unsolicited email.
January 2004. In an attempt to outfox
spam filters, spammers have now created programs that rapidly morph the content
of messages, so that only three or four identical e-mails are sent out at a time.
-source: Cloudmark
January 2004. Of 300 million email inboxes
for Internet service providers and businesses studied, 61 percent of all emails
filtered in the first week of January qualified as spam. In December, prior to
Can-Spam's enactment, about 58 percent of the 80 billion messages were deemed
spam.
-source: Brightmail
January 2004. Although record levels of
spam are currently being observed, it's too early to tell if Can-Spam will work
as a deterrent. Filtering tools will remain in high demand.
-source: Intermute
January 2004. Can-Spam probably won't
have much impact until someone gets arrested, and the new law does provide for
stiff penalties including prison. The Federal Trade Commission charged with enforcing
the law has not yet shown that it has the resources to do so, and consumers so
far have no clear way to report unlawful email. Probably - and as forecast by
consumer groups before the law's enactment - Can-Spam will lead to an increase
in unsolicited mail from otherwise reputable companies. Legitimate marketers now
have a federally mandated stamp of approval: they can send each individual as
much email as they want until individually asked to stop. Opting out of spammers'
lists may well become the main daytime activity for most US email users in 2004.
-source: Coaliton Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, Spamhaus
December 2003. Despite increases in spam
and email clutter, bounce rates are down slightly (from13.3 percent to 11.8 percent)
and click-through rates are up slightly (from 8.5 percent to 9.2 percent) in comparing
Q3 2002 with Q3 2003, based on 2 billion emails studied. Bounce is only a measure
of list hygiene (valid addresses), and doesn't portray actual non-delivery of
email destroyed or held by spam filters.
-source: DoubleClick
2003-11 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
November 2003. Email marketing produces
dramatically better return on investment (ROI) than any other direct marketing
technique.
-source: Direct Marketing Association
October 2003. Perhaps not surprisingly,
B2B (business-to-business) newsletters have a 71 percent open rate, compared with
B2C (business-to-consumer) open rates of 41 percent (decreasing from 49 percent
last year)
-source: Opt-in News
2003-09 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
September 2003. The industries that score
the highest open rates for their emails (i.e. percentage of recipients who open
an email rather than delete it unread) are advertising and marketing. Open rates
by industry are:
Marketing communications firms 63.2%
Retailers 55.0%
Financial services 47.6%
Manufacturing 43.4%
Nonprofit organizations 41.1%
Software development firms 40.9%
-source: IMN
September 2003. During its peak activity
in August, the Sobig.F virus accounted for almost 73 percent of all email on the
Internet.
-source: Central Command
August 2003. Almost forty percent of permission
emails were opened by their recipients during Q2, this is a stable ratio. Click-through
improved at 8.3 percent. Delivery rates were 88 percent. Bounce rates (undeliverable)
continued to decline for the third quarter consecutively. Data came from over
two billion emails sent in Q2 by the company, which observes that marketers in
an increasingly adverse environment are improving productivity - by best practices
such as list hygiene and clear subject lines - to stay ahead of the spam deluge.
-source: DoubleClick
COMMENT 2003-09. The lessons of
the email marketing industry are important for all people who use email. In a
bewilderingly hectic, spam-flooded email situation, identifying your personal
email to a friend by a clear FROM identifier, and a clear subject line, becomes
as important for you as for the marketer.
August 2003. Internet Service Providers
(ISP) blocked 17 percent of legitimate permission-based email in the first half
of the year through their increasingly stringent spam filters.
-source: Return Path
2003-01 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
January 2003. 19 of the top permission
e-mail providers have formed the E-mail Service Provider Coalition. Most of the
biggest names in the industry are represented in the coalition, which will pursue
a legislative agenda for the permission-based email marketing industry.
-source: National Advertising Initiative
January 2003. 74% of respondents favor
making mass spamming illegal.
-source: Harris Interactive
2002-11 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
October 2002. Email has always been classed
with direct marketing, but can now be shown to affect branding also: the model
of impulse buying is not necessarily the correct one for permission email marketing.
- source: Quris
October 2002. 60% of consumers open emails
based on the ""From"" field. The sender has an important impact
on consumers' willingness to open emails - hence the success of "forward
to a friend" functions in websites.
- source: DoubleClick
October 2002. Almost one third of all
email addresses in the US are changing annually. The greatest reasons are changing
ISPs, job changes, and deliberate efforts to avoid spam.
- source: NFO WorldGroup
2002-09 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
September 2002. One out of three emails
is spam. This is a 15% increase over last year.
- source: Radicati Group
September 2002. 35% of email will be
unsolicited spam by end of 2002. Most online users maintain two email accounts
or more.
- source: Jupiter Research
September 2002. Consumers are still able
to distinguish spam from legitimate email marketing.
- source: Harris Interactive
September 2002. Permission email campaigns
have yielded results of up to 25% clicking through to the website, 15% making
a purchase.
- source: Digital Marketing
September 2002. 90% of companies surveyed
plan to try out email marketing next year.
- source: emedia
2002-07 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
July 2002. A unique experiment demonstrated
that a non-commercial mass emailing received less response to a specific call
to action than individually addressed emails to the same specific demographic.
The authors cite a "diffusion of resonsibility" that occurs with email
recipients who see other addressees listed, similar to bystanders at a crime scene,
who feel less obliged to intervene if many others are present. More studies are
planned.
-source: Technion Technology Institute
COMMENT 2002-07. Marketers might
call it a "diffusion of ownership" of the user experience. And all of
us might consider reworking those forwarded chain emails that go around to dozens
of friends if we want them to be acted upon.
2002-05 UPDATE - Market Snapshots
of the WEB
May 2002. Over 60 percent of consumers
prefer text based email marketing compared with around 35 percent who prefer HTML
email marketing, and only 3 percent who prefer rich media email ads.
-source: Opt-In News "2002 Email Marketing Factbook"
May 2002. Email marketing revenues will
reach $1.26 billion in 2002, up from $948 million in 2001. Direct mail has reached
its peak and will account for less than 50% of mail received by U.S. households
by 2005, down from 65% in 2001. Responses to email accumulate in an average of
three days, while direct mail requires an average response time of three to six
weeks. Currently, email costs range from $5 to $7 per thousand while direct mail
costs range from $500 to $700 per thousand.
-source: GartnerG2
April 2002. Two-thirds of companies surveyed
by the Direct Marketing Association report that sales in 2001 increased as a result
of using email marketing. 63 percent said email was their most effective tool.
-source: dmNews
COMMENT 2002-05. Email ads are
a third party ad included in someone else's mailing list, riding on the relationship
built by its host with the end recipients. Success rates are an order of magnitude
greater than direct postal mail, previously the marketing results leader. Email
is now regarded as second only to word of mouth as the most successful form of
marketing ever.
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