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."

Categories: Press Releases

NEWS RELEASE: Friends Reunited buddies-up with email experts to improve deliverability

Email inbox placement up 38 per cent in just one month
Tackles one in four emails blocked at ISP level

In just one month, Friends Reunited, the original social network with 20.6 million members, boosted its email deliverability from 67.1 per cent in May to 92.5 per cent in June 2010.

In May 2010 the company, which sends around 30 million emails each month, deployed Return Path's comprehensive suite of email deliverability monitoring tools and services to gain greater insight into the deliverability of its email newsletter, user-activity triggered emails and marketing emails.

One in twenty (5.7 per cent) of Friends Reunited's emails were ending up in its subscribers' spam folders and more than a quarter (27 per cent) were going missing ...

Categories: Press Releases

Return Path Joins Forces with Yahoo!, Comcast, Cloudmark and Tucows to Combat Phishing and Spoofing of Email

Creation of a Domain Assurance Audit and Registry Supports Email Authentication and Allows Malicious Messages to be Blocked

June 9, 2010 - New York - Return Path, the global leader in email deliverability and reputation management services, today announced the launch of Domain Assurance, an audit and registry service aimed at battling phishing and spoofing by enabling the widespread use of email authentication protocols. The service leverages Return Path's relationships with the top ISPs around the world and its reach with 2,500 brand-name clients. It is currently in beta with a commercial launch planned for Q3 2010.

Domain Assurance provides companies with an audit of all email streams to determine if they are properly authenticated. Return Path's team of email experts can then assist companies to authenticate all of their email - corporate, transactional and marketing. The company's domains then go onto a registry and any improperly authenticated email coming from that domain can be blocked by mailbox providers with confidence. Companies that have registered will also receive immediate notification of spoofing and phishing attacks to their brands. In turn, ISPs and other mailbox providers will be able to protect their customers from phished emails pretending to be from registered companies.

Categories: Press Releases

Return Path Partners With Sympact to Offer Marketers the Ability to Deliver Dynamically Customized and Targeted Emails to Increase Email ROI

Sympact Partnership Gives Marketers and Publishers the Ability to Send Emails with Real-Time Pricing, Geographic Targeting, and Other Timely Data

May 19, 2010 - Return Path, the global leader in email deliverability and reputation management services, today unveiled, via a partnership with Sympact, the capability for marketers and publishers to send dynamic, targeted emails that include up-to-the-minute, real-time offers and pricing, geographic targeting and dynamic outbound linking. ...

Categories: Press Releases