Email marketing ROI goes up a gear thanks to better targeting

Interesting findings from this year’s DMA National client email report, sponsored by Alchemy Worx, – ROI rocketed in 2013 and marketers are predicting budget rises in 2014 for the marketing channel.

Yep, according to more than half of a panel of senior UK B2B and B2C client-side email marketers, email expenditure is likely to increase this year thanks in no short part to ROI hitting nearly 2,500%. In 2013 there was an average leap of 16% from £21.48 in 2012 to nearly £25 (£24.93) in 2013 for every £1 spent on email campaigns. This rises to an average of £30.52 for B2C campaigns.

So, what’s driven this leap in ROI? Well, according to the report’s authors its due “a heightened focus on better-targeted campaigns”. The stats reveal that there’s been a strong emphasis on list segmentation as the percentage of marketers segmenting campaigns for six+ audiences rose from 29% in 2011 to 38% in 2013. The amount of marketers not using segmentation techniques dropped from 19% in 2011 to 11% in 2013. Segmented emails accounted for 60% of all email revenue in 2013, compared to 55% in 2012. As a result the percentage of revenue marketers attribute to targeted email has also risen from 30% of total revenue in 2012 to 39% in 2013.

Increased social activity has also made a big impact on email ROI as it has increased levels of brand engagement with consumers and helped to drive a rise in the acquisition of new email addresses.

What’s particularly striking about this year’s report is that it silences the sound of the death knell for email we’ve come to expect from commentators at this time of year. Email seems to have gone up a gear in the past new thanks to new techniques, new approaches and better integration within the digital realm. But will this continue to develop…? Let’s see what next year’s National client email report has to say on the matter.

Read the National client email report infographic

By Tristan Garrick, DMA’s Head of PR & Content