New Metric Shows 59% of New Email Subscribers Are Unengaged;
Marketers Should Focus on Segmentation, Onboarding and Welcome Strategies to Enhance Customer Engagement
Dallas, Texas – September 13, 2012 – Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Email Experience Council today released the Q2 2012 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks report, which introduces a new metric, Email Activity Segment Evaluation (EASE). According to EASE, 59% of new email subscribers on an average email list are unengaged with email marketing programs.
“Marketers today are asked to do more with less. Based on our discussions with clients and fellow marketers, we decided to introduce the Email Activity Segment Evaluation to help marketers find additional value in their existing assets: their email subscriber lists,” said Judy Loschen, Vice President of Digital Analytics at Epsilon. “Understanding each customer’s state of engagement as well as their behavior over time enables effective and highly relevant one-to-one communications. These insights can help marketers create greater impact with both triggered and business as usual messages.”
Business As Usual (BAU) Email Trends
The quarterly analysis is compiled from 7.3 billion emails sent by Epsilon in April, May and June 2012, across multiple industries and approximately 170 participating clients. The analysis combines data from Epsilon’s proprietary platforms.
BAU Highlights:
• Non-Bounce rate remained strong at 95.9%.
• Open rates decreased slightly quarter over quarter (-2.5%), but increased over Q2 2011 (15.2%), resulting in an overall open rate of 25.6%.
• Click rates decreased 0.3 percentage points from last quarter to 4.4%. They are also lower than Q211 (5.2%), but remain stable over the last two years.
Triggered Messages Email Trends
Triggered message benchmarks are compiled from over 193 million triggered emails sent by Epsilon from April to June 2012 across multiple industries. Results track campaigns deployed as a result of an action or trigger such as Welcome, Abandon Shopping Cart, Thank You and Anniversary.
Triggered Highlights:
• Triggered open rates were 94.8% higher than BAU. This is an increase over the previous quarter (75%) and the previous year (82.1%).
• Triggered messages accounted for 2.6% of total volume, 22.0% higher than Q211 (2.1%) and 14% higher than Q112 (2.3%).
• Triggered click rates continued to perform well, reporting 122.1% higher than BAU. Q211 triggered click rates showed an 88.6% lift over BAU.
Email Activity Segment Evaluation (EASE)
These metrics are compiled from over 660 million non-bounced and opted-in email addressed that were contracted from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, across multiple industries and approximately 150 clients. The EASE analysis, which includes behavioral segments, examined the overall performance of the average email file.
EASE Highlights:
· Nearly two thirds (59%) of new subscribers in an average list, have no opens or clicks since opting-in.
· Approximately 27% of subscribers in an average email list have opened or clicked in the most recent three months.
· Seeing a strong improvement since 2009, 23% of subscribers who have been on an email list three months or longer have opened and/or clicked within the most recent three months.
“While the average business-as-usual email volume decreased 6% in the second quarter of 2012, we’ve seen a 14% increase in triggered email volume,” said Linda A. Woolley, DMA’s Acting President and CEO. “This illustrates that direct marketers are evolving their email contact strategies to meet the changing needs and preferences of their consumers and responding to specific actions and behaviors.”
For more information and industry-specific benchmarks, the Q2 2012 Email Trends and Benchmark report is available at www.epsilon.com/pr/Q212emailbenchmarks.
###
About Epsilon
Epsilon is the global leader in delivering direct-to-customer connections that drive business performance. Epsilon’s integrated solutions leverage the power of rich transactional and demographic marketing data, strategic insights, analytics, award-winning creative and robust digital and database marketing technologies to connect brands with consumers both online and offline, increasing engagement to generate measurable marketing outcomes. Founded in 1969, Epsilon works with over 2,000 global clients and employs over 3,500 associates in 37 offices worldwide. For more information, visit www.epsilon.com, follow us on Twitter @EpsilonMktg or call 1.800.309.0505.
About the Email Experience Council
The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council is a global professional organization that strives to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and actively advocating its critical importance in business and its ROI value.
We are committed to regularly conducting a broad series of initiatives for a variety of organizations that highlight the positive impact and importance of email as a marketing tool, communications vehicle and branding device. Additionally, eec members are setting the standards for email through our Member Roundtables. The members who belong to our organization are representatives of other trade organizations, agencies, advertisers, technology partners, clients and companies focused on the potential of email marketing via mobile and other digital devices. We encourage you to become part of the eec at http://emailexperience.org/member-center/why-join-eec.
###
