January

Sarah Stambler's

E-Tactics
^® Letter

January, 2005
Volume 14, Issue 2

A Year Later: Are they Still Clicking on Your E-Mail?

The answer to this question depends on who’s stats you read and what you see happening to your own lists. I personally have seen my open rate go down fifty percent in just the last year. Colleagues at a recent Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association luncheon corroborated my findings with theirs. Yet if you read through two major sources on email stats you find conflicting reports.

Let me walk you through some of the discrepancies and you can go to the actual sources and see for yourself in more detail.

1) Click Through Rate – Steady or Decreasing?

Email Sherpa published a brief overview on November 4^th of last year entitled: ANNUAL DATA REPORT: 2293 Marketers Share Real-life Campaign Stats & Plans for 2005 we are quoted the variances of marketers’ experiences. It’s hard to determine whether these marketers are quoting from scientific objective data or from anecdotal recall. Yet the overall consensus Email Sherpa reaches in its write up is that clickthrough remains steady for house lists because 50% of the marketers say there is no big change to their house lists.

Meanwhile, DoubleClick, in its Email Trend Report Q3 2004 which tracks two billion messages sent by its clients reports otherwise. There is no distinction made between house and third party lists. What Doubleclick does report is that the average click-through rate (8.2%) decreased 10.9% from, Q3 2003 to 9.2%

Email Sherpa shares marketers’ responses to what were this year's most popular clickthrough rate answers:

Newsletter articles sent to your house list - 6-10% CTR

Free offers sent to your house list - 6-10% CTR

Sales offers to your house list - 3-5% CTR

Anything sent to 3rd party lists - 0-2% CTR

Perphaps these stats can serve as some informal benchmark for you.

2) What May Be Driving the Numbers Down

It’s definitely worth reading the whole Doubleclick report – it's all of four pages and FREE. The most interesting point that I found in their conclusions had to do with the effect of increasing mail files. To quote the report, "Newer customers (who typically tend to be more responsive) now represent smaller and smaller proportions of total subscribers on file, potentially driving overall declines in response in most categories."

So it sounds like segementing your files might well be worth it even by the age of the record itself. Having six million names on files may seem like a lot of data "wealth" when what it could mean is that you’re loaded down with just a lot of digital baggage.

For The EmailSherpa Report Summary (full report for a fee) click here.

For the Doubleclick Report click here.

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E-Commerce Alert:
Online Consumer Fraud Rampant in
New York

When it comes to crooked online consumers New York City ranks number one in the nation, followed by Miami and Los Angeles, according to survey of companies victimized by online consumer fraud, which was conducted by Mountain View, CA-based CyberSource Corp.

The Big Apple had the highest rate of credit card fraud, stolen credit cards and improperly obtained credit information for online orders in the survey, more than twice as many as Miami and Los Angeles and 13 times higher than the San Francisco Bay area. Twenty-six percent of the instances of reported fraud were from New York.

"Few merchants will publicly discuss this, but it's no secret that some areas of the country have tarnished reputations due to a high incidence of e-commerce fraud," said Doug Schwegman, director of market intelligence at CyberSource.

One reason why Internet credit fraud is higher in New York may be the high concentration of trans-shippers in the region, a person who receives orders fraudulently for forwarding other parts of the world, especially Nigeria, Indonesia and parts of Eastern Europe, according to Schwegman.

As reported Dec 14, 2005 DirectNewsline

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Generic Keywords and Easy Returns Boost Sales

The use of generic keywords for Internet search engines (as opposed to trademark names) and convenient return policies boost online response and sales, according to two recently released studies of consumer shopping behavior.

Generic terms accounted for the majority of inquiry conversions to sales -- 61%, compared to brand name terms used for searches, which converted to sales 30% of the time, according to study findings released by comScore Networks, which as sponsored by Overture Services Inc., a subsidiary of Yahoo Inc.

Eighty-three percent of consumers use generic terms for Internet searches, rather than a product specific term. Roughly 40% of the inquiries that convert to sales occur within 5 to 12 weeks.

"Search cannot be thought of solely as a direct response marketing tool, especially in highly considered product categories," said James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Networks, in a prepared statement.

Ninety-two percent of adults who shopped online or by catalog said they are somewhat more likely to make another purchase if the return policy is convenient. Roughly 85% said they would not likely shop again with a company that has an inconvenient return policy, according to a survey commissioned by Austin, TX-based Newgistics Inc. and conducted by Harris Interactive.

When returning a product purchased online or from a catalog, 88% of consumers surveyed said they would be likely to take advantage of discount offer for another purchase, survey findings revealed. DirectNewsline Dec 14, 2004.

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Hitwise Finds Visits to Web Shopping and Classified Sites Rise 25.6%

U.S. visits to Web shopping and classifieds sites jumped 25.6% from the year-ago holiday season and peaked on Thanksgiving Day, said Internet research company Hitwise.

According to news reports, between Nov. 1 and Dec. 25, those sites claimed 9.1% of all U.S. Internet visits. Visits to large Web retailers peaked over a range of days. In particular, traffic to Dell.com, eBay.com and Amazon.com spiked on Nov. 10, Dec. 9 and Dec. 11.

On the other hand, visits to the sites of major brick-and-mortar retailers such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target tended to peak on Nov. 25 -- or Thanksgiving Day -- as consumers used the Web to research items before heading to stores for the traditionally heavy "Black Friday" shopping day. DirectNewline Dec 30, 2004

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Eatery Generates Traffic With E-mail

Sol Grill, a Newport Beach, CA restaurant has reportedly increased its customer traffic by 20% with an e-mail marketing program, developed with the help of mUrgent Corp., an e-mail marketing firm based in Santa Ana, CA.

After purchasing the restaurant earlier this year the new owners opted for e-mail advertising, rather than direct mail or space advertising to maintain customer loyalty and attract new customers.

A database has been developed to target promotions to customers who provide their e-mail addresses. The restaurateurs Misty and Peter Thorne said the response has shocked them. DirectNewsline Dec 21, 2004

Top

Nielsen//NetRatings: Week (01/02/05) from Imedia
Top search engines/portals & communities, and telecom/Internet services sites; retail goods & services, and financial services advertisers.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4913.asp

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In This Issue

A Year Later: Are They Still Clicking on Your E-Mail?

E-Commerce Alert: Online Consumer Fraud Rampant in New York

Generic Keywords and Easy Returns Boost Sales

Hitwise Finds Visits to Web Shopping and Classified Sites Rise 25.6%

Eatery Generates Traffic With E-mail

Nielsen/NetRatings: Week (01/02/05)

Want to learn more about us? Please visit our site at:
www.e-tactics.com

Or write:
Sarah Stambler

Phone: (212) 222-1713
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Back Issues:
Nov/Dec 2004
October 2004
September, 2004
July, 2004
June, 2004
May, 2004
April, 2004
March, 2004
February, 2004
January, 2004
More

Want to learn more about us? Please visit our site at:
www.e-tactics.com

Or write:
Sarah Stambler

Phone: (212) 222-1713
Not reading your own copy?

To change your e-mail status please click here.
Back Issues:
Want to learn more about us? Please visit our site at:
www.e-tactics.com

Or write:
Sarah Stambler

Phone: (212) 222-1713
Not reading your own copy?

To change your e-mail status please click here.
Back Issues:
Nov/Dec 2004
October 2004
September, 2004
July, 2004
June, 2004
May, 2004
April, 2004
March, 2004
February, 2004
January, 2004
More

The E-TACTICS LETTER, (ISSN 1542-2623) is published by E-Tactics, Inc. a boutique e-marketing firm established in 1984 that specializes in the creative use of e-media in the design and implementation of customer driven marketing, research and publication strategies.

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