Stats watch: image blocking and consumer reactions to retail email

1. A German study found that 30% of respondents were knowingly using image-blocking email clients and webmail services. The study authors suggest that has obvious implications for open rates, especially when you consider that many other respondents might be using image blocking without knowing it.

You'll find the original study at promio.net (in German) which I found via Nico Zorn's Email Marketing Blog.

2. A retail survey sponsored by RightNow Technologies discovered that "...68 percent of consumers said they were prompted to browse a Web site after receiving an email from a retailer. 73 percent of consumers said they would appreciate any post-purchase follow up."

The first figure is nothing new (we kind of know emails cause people to visit websites). But the second number suggests there is genuine interest in marketing email of a more personalized and/or transactional nature.

The point is this...people do not dislike commercial email. They dislike badly-done or irrelevant commercial email.

More on open rates and statistics | Tags: email marketing, email marketing statistics, image blocking, open rates

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