email

September 2002 www.doubleclick.net DoubleClick Q2 Email Trend Report Executive Summary Email marketing continues to grow as marketers take advantage of this cost-effective way of driving new business and communicating with customers. But as in-boxes fill, click rates for Q2 2002 permission-based email are down from Q2 2001 and bouncebacks are at an all time high. The challenge for marketers Total click-through rates for Q2 2002 are now at an average of 4.9%. will be to effectively target offers and carefully clean lists to maintain performance. Overview of Data The DoubleClick Q2 Email Trends Report contains aggregate data from DoubleClick’s DARTmail email delivery technology. The Q2 data is based on 1.7 billion emails from hundreds of clients and the trends are derived from data analyzed over the previous six quarters. All categories/data reported represent a significant sampling of customers. Historical Quarterly Performance • Total click-through rates (average of 4.9%) declined in Q2 2002 from Q1 2002 (6.8%), but it is too early to tell whether this is a significant trend, as rates increased from Q4 to Q1 (5.8% to 6.8%) (see chart on page 2). • Bounce back rates are at historical highs (12.6%) and rose every quarter since Q3 2001. This likely reflects full in-boxes both due to high volumes of mail and new size limits on in-boxes by email providers along with increasing job changes due to economic conditions. (c) 2002. DARTMAIL and DOUBLECLICK are trademarks of DoubleClick Inc. All rights reserved. DoubleClick Q2 Email Trend Report Historical Click-Through Rates 10.0% 8.4% • Business Products and Services had the highest bounce rates (19.0%) while Publisher – Business Audience emails, in contrast, had the lowest (8.6%). Bounce rates by company 8.0% 6.0% 4.0% 2.0% 0.0% Q1 2001 6.8% 6.1% 5.8% 6.8% 4.9% averaged 13.6% Day of Week Sent Unlike in other forms of direct Q2 2001 Q3 2001 Q4 2001 Q1 2002 Q2 2002 marketing, day of week sent is a significant variable for email. Judging by volume of mail sent, marketers prefer to mail early in the week. • Tuesday was the most common day of the week for emails sent, with 23.6% of all email sent that day. • Wednesday had the next highest volume with 22.7%, followed by Thursday with 18.2% and Monday at 16.8%. • Mail volumes are light on the weekends (1.5% of emails sent on Saturday, 1.7% on Sunday). Industry Category Performance • Business Products and Services had the highest open rates (47.4%) followed by Travel (42.5%) while the allcompany average open rate was 37.6%. • Consumer Products and Services were the most likely to be clicked through (9.4%) followed by Publisher – Consumer Audience (9.1%) and Travel (8.4%). The all-company click-through rate average was 7.5%. Click-Through By Industry Business Products and Services Consumer Products and Services Travel Retail and Catalog Publisher – Business Audience Publisher – Consumer Audience 5.2 9.1 6.1 7.5 9.4 8.4 Average: 7.7% 0 2 4 6 8 10 (c) 2002. DARTMAIL and DOUBLECLICK are trademarks of DoubleClick Inc. All rights reserved. DoubleClick Q2 Email Trend Report Conversion (Purchase) Metrics Retailers and catalogers are using promotional offers in email to drive consumers to their web sites and increase purchases. Analyzing the results of companies in the Retail and Catalog category who track conversion (purchase activity) through DARTmail shows that • • For every thousand pieces of email sent, three purchases result. Average order size was $101.55 3 purchases 68 clicks 4.3% conversion rate 882 pieces delivered 7.7% click-through rate 11.8% bounce rate Email Conversion Funnel 1000 pieces mailed For every thousand pieces of email sent, three purchases result. Message Formats Consumers respond better to Html than text. Html generates response rates overall 1.4 times and up to 1.7 times Message Format Performance Industry Category Business Products and Services Consumer Products and Services Travel Retail and Catalog Publisher – Business Audience Publisher – Consumer Audience Total Text % 1.0x 1.0x 1.0x 1.0x 1.0x 1.0x 1.0x HTML % 1.4x 1.2x 1.7x 1.6x 1.6x 1.5x 1.4x higher than text for all industry categories. • Overall click-through rate for industry text emails was 7.1%, while Html was 10.0%. • Html performed markedly better for most industry categories and increased performance particularly for Travel (1.7x), Retail & Catalog and Publisher – Business Audience (both 1.6x). (c) 2002. DARTMAIL and DOUBLECLICK are trademarks of DoubleClick Inc. All rights reserved. DoubleClick Q2 Email Trend Report • For information on DoubleClick’s e-mail marketing solutions, please call: 1.866.459.7606. • DoubleClick clients receive a quarterly account review which includes complete access to this data. • The DoubleClick Strategic Services Group is available for email marketing audits that include benchmarking your own results against category performance. For more information, contact: strategicservices@ doubleclick.net Conclusions Permission-based email marketing is now a widely accepted communication channel for publishers and marketers alike. As the volume of email increases along with bounce back rates, the challenge for marketers will be to differentiate their permission-based offers and develop the processes to ensure the cleanest lists and thus increase successful delivery. Marketers who efficiently manage their lists, target campaigns and develop compelling offers will continue to achieve strong results. 3. 2. Methodology/Data Included 1. The data has been aggregated on overall industry level and category level: Business Products and Services, Consumer Products and Services, Travel, Retail and Catalog, Publisher – Business Audience and Publisher – Consumer Audience. Open Rate is defined as Html Opens divided by (Html Delivered + MultiPart). Click-Through Rate is Total Unique Clicks divided by Emails Delivered. Bounce Rate is Soft Bounces plus Hard Bounces divided by Emails Sent. Quarterly comparisons are weighted average (by volume of email per company) of all emails sent; category numbers are unweighted averages across all companies in the category in order to develop a clearer measure of average company performance. For more DoubleClick Trend Reports, go to Knowledge Central at www.DoubleClick.net. (c) 2002. DARTMAIL and DOUBLECLICK are trademarks of DoubleClick Inc. All rights reserved.