Email tracking report 2013

Executive summary

Main results:

• Most people (69%) have more than one email address, with an average of around 2.4 accounts/user. This is very similar to the result from the 2012 survey (2.5 accounts/user)

• A dedicated email account for “dumping” marketing mail is not a strategy used by most consumers. 35% use different accounts to keep marketing and personal mail separate, but only 13% keep separate accounts as a reaction to too many marketing messages

• There were no major changes in the time spent on email over the last year, with a slight rise in home use. This speaks to the continuing value of email as a communication tool, especially in the mobile era. Equally, email use is not ubiquitous: as in 2012, just over half (55%) never check mail at work

• Consumers are largely indifferent to (48%) or pleased with (33%) inbox tools that automatically sort incoming mail into folders

• Consumers are subscribing to emails from fewer brands than in 2012. For example, the number getting mails from 11 or more brands dropped by 21%, from 43% in 2012 to 34% in 2013

• The volume of commercial email that consumers say they get has fallen, too. Of those signed up to at least some brand mail, almost half (48%) are getting less than three a day on average in 2013, while 41% were doing so in 2012

• Consumers are deleting emails more readily from the inbox. Although 53% still keep marketing emails for longer than a day, this number has fallen from 63% in the 2012 survey

• Saving money remains the top motivation for signing up for mails and is the top content preference

• Marketers are still doing a good job of making emails valuable. Consumers perceive no decline in the relevancy of brand emails: as in 2012, around 50% find at least one in three brand mails relevant or interesting

• Perceptions of relevancy are even higher among people subscribed to more brand emails: 49% of those who get 1-5 mails a week say no more than one in 10 are relevant or interesting. Only 12% of those who get over 41 such mails think the same

• Online retailers are regarded as the best at doing email well and were rated positively by 5% more respondents than in 2012 – the only sector to see an improvement over the previous study. However, users do distinguish between sectors in general and the mails they actually receive. So, for example, while supermarkets were rated lower for how well they do email in 2013, individual brands (like Tesco and Asda) were rated higher

• As in 2012, the click remains the most likely response to an interesting marketing mail (cited by 54%). However, out-of-email and indirect responses (like visiting a retail outlet) also continue to be important, highlighting the significant, broader impact of email on overall business results

• Consumers are most likely to mark as spam those emails that come unsolicited, too often or from senders they don’t recognise

• The desktop/laptop is regarded as the main device for email, with never less than 75% of consumers using these devices most often to do various email-related activities. However, 57% access emails at least sometimes on their mobile phone or smartphone

• The most popular email tasks on mobile phones are skimming subject lines and deleting or skimming, opening and deleting

• After seeing a product they want to buy in an email on their phone, the number of users who would wait until they were on a PC or laptop to do so is almost 10 times the number who would buy it straightaway using that phone

• Most consumers (64%) are not sharing emails into social networks

Main recommendations:

Marketers should:

• Further exploit the clear differences between consumer attitudes to marketing mails in general and to mails they get from trusted brands. For example:

o Consider testing increased frequencies

o Be more aggressive about promoting the list to existing customers

o Remind people of the broader relationship with the brand in the email itself through personalisation, purchase-related messaging, stronger brand signals and similar

• Focus even more on list-building, particularly on:

o Communicating the value of signing up

o Exploiting all customer touch points for list promotion, particular social network interactions, transactions and offline opportunities where mobile-friendly sign-up URLs and/or QR codes can capture opt-ins in-store, at events, and from print materials

• Exploit the potential of subject lines and content to drive out-of-email response, as well as impact on branding and awareness

• Optimise for the mobile environment, particularly:

o Optimisation of landing pages

o Using links, footers etc. to support mobile activities, such as searching for product and local information, social sharing, or use of apps

• Revisit send time tests and consider personalised send times, day of week/month tests, and/or lifecycle and behavioural email approaches

• Test the impact of mobile email and inbox tabs on the optimal duration of short-term promotions

• Review metric changes carefully before seeking to influence subscribers to manually alter automated inbox placements

Email tracking report 2013