DMA: The facts on... email marketing

Marketing Direct 14-Nov-06

Email marketing continues to grow in popularity, with mailing volumes in the first quarter of 2006 up by 13 per cent on the previous quarter, and by 30 per cent on the first quarter of 2005. Even with this substantial rise in mailing volumes, response rates are holding up well, with average total click-through rates for retention emails holding steady at 10 per cent, and increasing from six per cent to eight per cent for acquisition emails.

The figures are contained in the latest National Email Benchmarking
Report, produced by the DMA's Email Marketing Council, which looks at
email activity in Q1 2006. The report is based on a survey of Email

Service Providers (ESPs) that account for over 75 per cent of the UK's

emails delivered by ESPs.

"It is evident that companies are now becoming more sophisticated in the
way they are using email," says Richard Gibson of RSA Direct and chair
of the Email Marketing Council benchmarking hub. "Email marketers are
segmenting their databases and using dynamic response to ensure they get
good response rates."

Deliverability remains an issue, however, despite the fact that three
quarters of the ESPs surveyed demonstrate a delivery rate of over 91 per
cent for retention emails.

As part of the survey, ESPs were asked whether their clients would pay
to guarantee delivery of emails, and, if so, how much they would be
prepared to pay. Over 65 per cent said they believed their clients would
consider some form of payment, with the majority of respondents
suggesting that clients would pay up to £1 per 1,000 emails, or
over £5 per 1,000 emails.

DMA Email Marketing Council chair, Chris Combemale, says these findings
are no real surprise. He points out, however, that companies will need
to do their own studies on the impact on sales in order to see whether
the extra cost is justified in relation to any incremental sales
increase.

Deliverability aside, however, Combemale says the report makes for
encouraging reading. "There's a lot of good news in there about volumes,
click-through rates and increasing personalisation and sophistication,"
he says.