One in Seven Marketing Emails Undelivered in Europe

Anti-Spam Measures Hurt Legitimate Commercial Emailers, Says New Report
BT, Orange & Yahoo! Are Most Difficult Inboxes For UK Marketers To Reach

More than one in seven legitimate marketing emails sent in Europe are not being delivered to consumer inboxes, a new study today reveals. In the second half of 2009, 15 per cent of European permission-based commercial email either went straight to recipients' spam folders, or weren't delivered at all.

The findings come from Return Path's Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, which measured inbox placement rates across North America and Europe. Return Path collected data on the success of more than half a million email campaigns between July and December 2009 to gain the most comprehensive picture of true "delivered" rates.

The report also found that inbox placement rates varied significantly between Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For ISPs in the UK, the proportion of messages successfully delivered to the inbox ranged from a high of 98.25 per cent, to barely 75 per cent for the most marketer-unfriendly ISP.

Categories: Email Deliverability | News | Press Releases

Almost 20% of Commercial, Permissioned Emails Never Reached U.S. & Canadian Consumer Inboxes in the Second Half of 2009, According to New Return Path Email Deliverability Benchmark Report

New York, NY - As commercial email senders increasingly turn to email marketing to help drive sales and attract new customers, problems remain in ensuring that requested emails successfully reach consumer inboxes. In the second half of 2009, 19.9% of commercial, permissioned emails never reached consumers inboxes in the United States and Canada, a slight improvement from January - June 2009 when 20.7% of commercial, permmissioned emails failed to reach consumers inboxes, according to the new Return Path Email Deliverability Benchmark Report. European inbox placement rates fared slightly better with 15% of requested, permissioned emails never reaching consumer inboxes.

Permissioned email reached only 80.1% of consumer inboxes in the United States and Canada during the second half of 2009 (July through December), a .8% increase from the 79.3% inbox placement rate recorded in the first half of 2009. In the United States and Canada, 3.5% of those emails were delivered to a "junk" or "bulk" email folder and 16.3% were missing or not delivered at all - with no hard bounce message or other notification of non-delivery. In Europe, 85.5% of emails reached consumers inboxes, 3.6% of emails were delivered to a "junk" or "bulk" folder, and 11% of emails were missing or not delivered at all. In the Asia Pacific region, inbox placement of permissioned emails was higher in the second half of 2009 with 86.9% of emails reaching the inbox. 10.7% of emails were missing or not delivered and 2.5% of emails were delivered to a "junk" or "bulk" folder.

Categories: Email Deliverability | News | Press Releases

RETURN PATH IDENTIFIES TOP 10 EMAIL TRENDS IN 2009

For immediate release - Return Path, the leading email deliverability and reputation management company, today released its Top Email Trends in 2009 report. While 2010 promises even more changes in the email industry, Return Path has identified the top trends in email in the past year.
"Return Path is dedicated to ensuring that consumers receive the emails they want to receive and offering ISPs the tools and knowledge to identify legitimate, permissioned email," said George Bilbrey, President, Return Path. "With our extensive knowledge of the email industry, we feel it's important and valuable to learn from the past to foresee where the industry is headed in 2010. By understanding the industry trends in 2009, marketers can work to improve their email programs in 2010."

The Top 10 Emails Trends in 2009, include:

1. Spam growth continues - Reports in early 2009 estimated daily spam volumes are more than 117 billion emails every day. In addition, image spam increased in 2009, a problem for enterprises and ISPs using outdated email security software
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Categories: News | Press Releases

NON-PROFITS STRUGGLE WITH EMAIL CUSTOMIZATION - ONLY 12% USED GEOGRAPHIC DATA TO CUSTOMIZE EMAIL MARKETING, ACCORDING TO A NEW RETURN PATH STUDY

For Immediate Release -- Most non-profit organizations have mastered the basics of email marketing, yet room for improvement remains, according to a new Return Path study -- Telling Stories, Building Relationships: How Non-Profits Can Create More Engaging Email Marketing Programs.

Sixty-two percent of non-profit organizations studied sent new subscribers a welcome email message, according to the new study. In fact, non-profit organizations' were more likely to send a proper welcome message than commercial marketers. Only 40% of commercial marketers sent a welcome message, an earlier Return Path study discovered. Even better, ninety percent of non-profits followed best practices and sent their welcome message within 24 hours.

But moving beyond the basics is a challenge for charitable organizations. Most notably, the study found that ...

Categories: Press Releases