Stagnating email marketing results: any explanation?

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on October 18, 2007

statisticsNot a facetious question this...

We have a growing body of email marketing knowledge, experience and best practices, super new tools and technology, and stronger cooperation between ISPs and senders of email.

So you'd expect average email marketing results to improve over time, right?

But if you browse reports (like Sherpa's benchmark guide), you find that clickthrough rates (if we take that as an acceptable success measure) are not spiraling upwards.

Here's a quote from that report on CTRs for B2C emails sent to house lists:

Emails featuring both free and sales offers slipped in 2006

So why the stagnation?
  • Measurement issues and statistical anomalies?
  • Influx of new marketers still learning the nuances of email marketing?
  • General email fatigue?
  • Overzealous list growth with folk sending too much email to too many recipients?
  • Outlook 2007?
What do you think?

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[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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3 Comments:

I don't have the answers, but I've often been wondering the same thing. I've added my two cents to MindComet's blog, emailmarketingvoodoo.com.
By Blogger MindComet, on 18 October, 2007  
 

Thanks! Glad I'm not the only one wondering...
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 19 October, 2007  
 

I just wonder how much of it can be easily explained by people reading the email but not clicking through. I receive emails from many places that I frequent both online and in person. With a few exceptions, I read almost every email...often from top to bottom. What I DON'T do is click very often. My personal click habits are very erratic...sometimes I click because I have more time that day, sometimes because I wanted to shop there anywhere, other than those reasons, I rarely click if the info I need is in the email.

I think that facet of the click rate makes it less than perfect.
By Blogger Jennifer, on 19 October, 2007  
 

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