National survey reveals increase in email acquisition response rates

Email acquisition click through rates have risen from 6% to 8%, according to the DMA’s National Email Benchmarking Survey. The survey also reinforces predictions that email is set to level with direct mail in terms of volume. Overall, the first quarter of 2006 has shown a 30% year on year increase in average mailing volumes and volumes in the first quarter of 2006 have risen by 13% on the last quarter of 2005. Despite increasing volumes, response rates such as click though rates are remaining static and retention figures still stand at approximately 10%.

Richard Gibson, Chair of the Email Marketing Council Benchmarking Hub, says: “The considerable rise in acquisition response rates demonstrates increasing sophistication among clients in terms of their targeting and messaging. The report shows that marketers are continuing to invest in email as a channel and are also taking steps to improve via their provider list hygiene. This demonstrates the growing understanding of the impact that this can have on deliverability and on their brand.”

The survey also offers some insight into the structure of the ESP vendor marketplace. The majority of suppliers (53%) are used purely as a third party dispatch partner. However, the report also points to ESPs operating as list owners and media buyers. Media or data ownership and acting as a media planner and buyer both account for 24%. In terms of clients selecting ESPs, ‘price’ and ‘customer service and support’ were regarded as the key criteria.

For the first time, the survey also gained initial feedback on payment to guarantee delivery. Over 65% of ESPs believe that clients would consider some form of payment to guarantee delivery. Actual payments per 1000 email addresses vary from ‘up to £1’ to ‘over £5’ with 18% of respondents saying that they would pay over £5 per 1000 emails. However, the survey also indicates that deliverability is only a real problem for a handful of customers with three quarters of them demonstrating a delivery rate of over 91% for retention programmes.

Gibson adds: “Under payment for delivery models, bulk email senders pay outright for ‘postage’ that guarantees their email will be delivered to participating ISPs, who are paid for accepting the mail.

“Such a system does bring some benefits and makes particular sense in certain industry sectors such as financial services where there is a need to reinstate consumer trust due to fraudulent use of emails or indeed for transactional emails where guaranteed delivery may be worth the extra cost.”

For press enquiries, please contact:

Rachel Aldighieri DMA PR Manager Tel : 020 7291 3315 / 07801 573324 Email : rachel@dma.org.uk

Editor’s Notes

The DMA UK is the largest trade association in the marketing communications sector, with over 900 corporate members. The DMA’s mission is to maximise value for members, whilst maintaining and enhancing consumer trust and confidence in the direct marketing industry.

To assist, the DMA administers a portfolio of Preference Services that allow consumers to register their contact details, free of charge, should they choose to reduce the amount of direct marketing approaches they receive via mail, telephone, fax and email.

Sales attributed to direct marketing activity total £107 billion each year, £67 billion of this from consumer sales and £40 billion resulting from business to business direct marketing. As an industry, direct marketing generates around 9% of consumer sales on a yearly basis as well as employing roughly 814,000 people (both directly and indirectly) and supporting 3% of all employment in the UK. In 2004 organisations spent a total of £37 billion on direct marketing, of which over £14 billion can be attributed to media spend.