News Release: Europe’s Emails Increasingly Going Missing

Requested emails blocked outright or shuttled into spam folders with little hope of being read

European consumers are not receiving more than one in six of the emails they have requested from companies. 17.8 per cent of legitimate marketing emails sent to European consumers are not being delivered – either going missing completely or going straight into spam folders. This compares to one in seven emails to European consumers (14.6 per cent) not reaching inboxes six months ago.

The findings come from Return Path’s bi-annual European Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, which measures the email management of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across Europe. Return Path, the global leader in email deliverability and reputation services, collected data on the success of more than 500,000 email campaigns between January and July 2010, to gain the most comprehensive picture of true “delivered” email rates.

Blocked emails a cause for concern across Europe

Across Europe only 82.2 per cent of legitimate marketing emails reached subscribers’ inboxes, down from 85.4 per cent reaching the inbox in the second half of 2009. More than one in eight commercial emails (13.6 per cent) are going missing completely – not in subscribers’ spam folders or inboxes, blocked by ISPs before reaching their subscribers – compared to one in nine emails (11.1 per cent) going missing six months ago. Moreover, the number of emails going straight to spam folders increased to 4.2 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent six months ago.

Marketers found it particularly difficult to reach French customers’ inboxes. More than one sixth of emails sent to French subscribers (15.9 per cent) went undelivered, with one in eleven (8.9 per cent) blocked at ISP level and one in 14 (7 per cent) only reaching spam folders.

In the UK more than one in seven legitimate marketing emails (13.5 per cent) failed to reach customers’ inboxes. One in 14 emails sent to UK subscribers (7.4 per cent) went missing completely and 6.1 per cent went straight to spam folders.

Despite having the highest inbox deliverability rates German ISPs also marked the most emails as spam. One in eleven emails sent to German consumers (9.3 per cent) was consigned to spam folders, while 87 per cent reached subscribers’ inboxes and one in 25 emails failed to reach either inboxes or spam folders (3.7 per cent).

Fig. 1 – European countries’ email deliverability rates:

Guy Shelton, VP for European Sales and Service at Return Path, explained that ISPs are just trying to do their jobs. “ISPs are battling extremely hard to protect their customers from the scourge of spam,” he said. “Marketers have their work cut out to prevent themselves from becoming friendly fire casualties in ISPs’ war on illegal unsolicited bulk email. Legitimate marketing emails often get caught in spam filters because customers flag email messages as spam when they have become bored of receiving emails from a company. If a company receives too many spam reports about emails requested by their customers then all the emails they send will be affected.”

ISPs strengthening defences against spam

UK ISP Demon had the highest missing email rate in Europe, blocking more than a quarter of emails sent to its customers (27 per cent) from reaching their inboxes or spam folders. BT Internet marked the most emails as spam in the UK, with 19 per cent of emails sent to its customers’ spam folders and just 74 per cent reaching subscribers’ inboxes.

German ISP Web.de diverted more emails into its customers’ spam folders than any other ISP in Europe. More than one third of emails sent to Web.de customers (36 per cent) reached spam folders, with only 61 per cent getting through to subscribers’ inboxes.

Consumers using French provider SFR had nearly one quarter of emails they requested (23 per cent) totally blocked from reaching their inboxes or even their spam folders, with only 77 per cent of emails reaching subscribers’ inboxes.

Shelton said: “Around 98 per cent of all email is spam. ISPs have to weed through it to try and discover what they should deliver and what they should protect their customers from. The problem for marketers is that legitimate permission-based emails are often identified as spam by ISPs, and subsequently directed to the spam folder or blocked at ISP-level, so the messages vanish into the ether.

“Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their email deliverability by following email best practice. The recent DMA National Client Email Marketing Survey 2010 shows that while marketers are concerned about deliverability, they still aren’t paying attention to where their emails are going. Too many marketers assume that if a sent email doesn’t bounce then it has been delivered, but this doesn’t take into account emails that go missing completely or end up in spam folders. Email marketers must accurately measure their campaign performance or demand accurate metrics from their email broadcast providers, showing how many emails are actually reaching the inbox, rather than how many didn’t bounce. Only then can they begin fixing their email reputation, which governs whether an email is routed to the inbox, the spam folder or to oblivion.”

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Notes to editors

For further editorial information or to arrange interviews contact returnpath@pwkpr.com or telephone +44 20 7609 1900.

About Return Path

Return Path works to make email work better by scoring and certifying email senders from around the world. We help marketers, publishers and other large-volume email senders increase their response rates by providing the world’s leading inbox deliverability solution.  We help mailbox providers and email administrators at ISPs and enterprises block unwelcome and malicious email by providing near real-time IP reputation scores and other data-driven tools. Taken as a whole, these tools and services improve the consumer experience of email by protecting them from spam, phishing and other abuse. Return Path offers free access to Sender Score, the email reputation measure compiled through our cooperative data network of ISPs and other email receivers, at our reputation portal: www.senderscore.org. Information about Return Path can be found at www.returnpath.net.