Mobile Email Study Finds 81% Growth in Email Activity on Mobile — iPad, Tablet Viewership Increasing

Marketers Need to Embrace Changing Email Habits New York, NY – May 17 , 2011 – Return Path, the world’s leading email certification and reputation monitoring company, today announced the findings from its “Email on the Move: The Future of …

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UK Email Marketers: Help is on the Way

It’s been an interesting few weeks in the world of email marketing in the UK.

First, the DMA released the results of their client survey that showed that email marketers are rightly concerned about the effect that deliverability challenges have on their email marketing success rates. The report – which Return Path sponsored – included the very surprising finding that UK marketers don’t have access to the metrics needed to assess their inbox placement rates (IPR) and that they aren’t very interested in gaining access to them. (You can download our version of this report – with a special forward by Return Path CEO Matt Blumberg)

Then, Return Path released new figures showing that…

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Email Marketers’ Misleading Metrics Count Email in Spam Folders as Delivered

Many European marketers are counting marketing emails that end up in spam folders as delivered messages.

Rather than monitoring inbox placement rates – which provide marketers with the actual number of emails being delivered to consumers’ inboxes – marketers are using a delivered rate metric, which counts emails that reach consumers’ inboxes minus emails that bounced back to the sender. This method does not take account of emails being delivered to spam folders or being blocked at ISP level and disappearing completely.

Measuring delivery rates using misleading statistics gives marketers an unrealistic view of the success of their email campaigns, according to Return Path’s new Deliverability and Reputation Handbook: A Guide to Achieving 100% Inbox Placement in Europe.

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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.

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Email Users Want More From Marketers (and Their Inbox)

Subscribers around the globe know their importance to marketers, and would like to be treated accordingly. They have become more discerning about handing out their email address, and they look to marketers to customize experiences based on self reported data as well as insight passed through cookie-based technology and purchase patterns. Although there are some regional differences around the globe, the bottom line is that email marketing is welcome most when it’s used as a way to connect with customers, rather than just broadcast information.

These are some of the findings of a new global consumer attitude survey published by Return Path partner e-Dialog…

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Marketers Send High Volumes of Email to Non-Responsive Customers, Endangering Email Deliverability

Only 12.5% Take Steps to Re-engage With Lapsed Subscribers, a New Return Path Study Finds

August 16, 2010 – E-retailers continue to struggle with building customized, 1-to-1 email marketing efforts tailored to subscriber response rates, or more importantly lack of response, according to Return Path’s new study — The One-Way Conversation: Email Marketing to the Non-Responsive Subscriber, Return Path is the global leader in email deliverability and reputation management services.

A majority of the email marketers that Return Path studied sent email at a steady, high frequency for a 19-month period, despite a total lack of response from the subscriber (no opens, no clicks, no purchases). For the new study, Return Path studied the email marketing efforts of 40 online retailers over a 19-month period. Eventually, 11 companies studied (27%) stopped sending email to non-responsive subscribers. Yet, 10 of the companies stopped sending email without making any attempt to reengage the customer or specifically asking the customer whether or not they’d like to continue receiving emails.

“We were certainly surprised to see how these e-retailers were sending emails to a customer who was completely non-responsive,” said Stephanie Colleton, Director of Professional Services, Return Path. “We strongly recommend that email marketers, not just e-retailers, monitor their subscriber responses – opens, click-throughs and conversions – and adapt their campaigns to either slow down the emails to once per month or send a re-permission email to determine subscribers’ continued interest in receiving emails.”

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Want to Get into Gmail? Check Your Sender Score (Plus 4 More Tips)

If I had a nickel for every time that someone asked me for tips to get delivered to the inbox at Gmail, I wouldn’t be writing this right now because I’d be retired and living on my own personal island. Gmail has been notoriously difficult for some senders because of lack of requirements and acceptable reputation metrics for getting inbox placement. I’ve listed five, simple tips to help you improve and maintain your delivery at Gmail.

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Undercover Unsubscribing

That’s it – I’m unsubscribing from all the marketing emails I receive.

I’m going undercover for three months, removing all my marketing email subscriptions and tracking various data points in the opt-out experience to unearth the sometimes hazy business of the unsubscribe process for an upcoming Return Path email study.

I’m investigating how effective brands are in their response to me opting-out of receiving their emails. I’ll also look into whether or not brands are providing their subscribers with a clear unsubscribe option. Failure to do so may result in subscribers preferring to complain to their ISP, if that’s the easier option. This could lead to all of the brand’s marketing messages getting diverted to the junk/spam folder or being blocked all together.

When it comes to the unsubscribe experience, I imagine many marketers will assume because I’ve unsubscribed from an email I’m not interested in their brand anymore. In fact, this ‘rejection’ could be for many reasons

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Lacking a Common Language

Human communication takes many forms, from the dense poetry of Shakespeare’s plays to the rigorous precision of IETF documents to the false apologies conveyed by emoticons. Metaphors seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread, while verbal puns can creep up on the unwary like a faux queue in arrears. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, like a bull in a china shop, inaccurate cliches and colloquialisms can actually impede communication — particularly technical communication.

Some of the terms I see floating around the industry are silly and annoying, but …

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Has Social Networking Surpassed Email?

As Return Path’s resident Business Analyst, I have become a bit of a geek about data graphics. A great chart can be a transformative experience that reveals new and insightful ideas. A bad experience with a chart can leave you feeling confused, misled, aggravated, betrayed, (and blogging…) Case in point: a recent edition of Silicon Alley Insider’s Chart of the Day email newsletter. It jumped out at me because …

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