Doubleclick's Q Report Shows Bulk Email Marketing Eficiency Increase

Internet marketing company DoubleClick published its final report over the bulk email marketing evolution this year. The figures show year-over-year increase in delivery rates (cleaner emailing lists), and a decrease in open rates and click-through rates. The variations are light, proving a steady and maturing environment. DoubleClick's metrics The data analyzed were based on more than billion messages sent by hundreds DARTmail customers, measuring bouncebacks, open rates, click-throughs and conversions (open to sales, or click to sales ratio). The results were reported for and compared to . DoubleClick used unweighted averages for all analyzed categories. This helps eliminating the influence that large email marketers could have over category averages, as the report states. The email marketing categories considered in the study were:

Business Products & Services Consumer Products Consumer Services Financial Services Travel Retail&Catalog Publisher - Business Publisher - Consumer

Email marketing performances The bounce rates show a slight decline overall, and a more consistent decline in the Travel category, down .% from .% to .%. Business Publishers was the only category that increased open rates, however slightly, from . to .. For other categories, open rates declined. The open rates' decline in most categories is possibly owed to SPAM increase and reveals people's reticence to open messages they are not highly interested in. Click through rates increased in only two categories, Consumer Publisher and Travel. More interestingly, email-productivity has shown better figures in number of orders per email sent: .% in ; but the average revenue per email sent declined . percent. The average email order throughout was $, in a year-over-year declining trend. Conclusion About the overall productivity of bulk email marketing the report concludes: "email marketing is a maturing and relatively stable marketing tool. Improvements in list hygiene and address collection processes seem to have improved bounce rates, but flagging response rates suggest subscriber files are beginning to mature."