2006 will see marketers place trust in email

The first challenge was presented by spammers and more recently phishers, which undermined confidence in email, one of the most popular reasons for people to go online. Bill Gates' assertion in 2004 that we've seen the end of spam proved premature but perhaps it marked a peak in public concern.
 
The second challenge was presented by the nature of the individuals holding direct budgets at brands. Traditional direct marketing agencies and in-house direct marketers proved slower than their colleagues with an online advertising remit to grasp the potential of the internet.

Banner and search-type advertising benefited accordingly, with search achieving the greatest success. Finally, list operators hardly helped matters, offering inconsistently-valued data which was hard to compare.
 
The IAB's newly-formed Email Marketing Council will add substance to the claim that 2006 is the year of email as we compile the industry's first robust report into email adspend.

It will show that expenditure is rising alongside volumes and provide the clearest evidence of confidence in the medium. I believe the growth in both expenditure and volumes on acquisition campaigns will accelerate from this point in particular because of email's suitability for geodemographic targeting and data gathering, combined with the fact that list owners are working more closely with ISPs to overcome deliverability issues.
 
There are those who object, highlighting declining click-through rates for example. However, most forms of online marketing have experienced a similar drop. The decline facing email is I believe primarily a result of media owners' willingness to over-broadcast to their lists and not grow them fast enough.
 
The medium isn't for everyone, it's true, but cynics should be reassured by the emergence of dedicated email planning and buying agencies which are best placed to know which lists are the most responsive. In combination with a more professional approach to planning and more effective targeting from ever-more sophisticated data, the all important cost-per-acquisition measures will continue to be met.
 
By tracking annual spend on email for the first time the IAB will show conclusively that the virtues of email, prime amongst them transparency, are an increasing draw for advertisers, another nail in the coffin of direct mail and an important component of digital's increasing share of total adspend.

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