New York, NY, 9/13/2005 - DoubleClick E-mail Solutions today announced the release of the Q2 2005 E-mail Trend Report which shows that key e-mail performance metrics including the non-bounce rate, click-to-purchase conversion rate and orders per e-mail delivered all improved versus Q2 2004, despite a decline in open rates.

DoubleClick has also introduced a new feature section to its E-mail Trend Report that provides a detailed analysis of a particular trend within the report. For the first feature section, the Q2 2005 report provides in depth insight into the open rate metric which has been declining every quarter for the past five quarters.

Q2 2005 Metrics

According to traditional metrics, e-mail marketing remained strong in Q2 2005. Bounce rates, which were at an all time low at 7.9 percent, declined 25 percent from the Q2 2004 rate (10.5 percent), and 5 percent below the previous all time low in Q1 2005 (8.3 percent). Open rates declined for the fifth consecutive quarter, falling from 36.0 percent in Q2 2004 to 27.5 percent in Q2 2005. This consecutive decline in open rates is analyzed in depth in a new feature section within the Trend Report.

Click through rates declined slightly from 7.7 percent a year ago to 7.2 percent, remaining above historical low rate and showing relative stability given the consistent decline in open rates. This relative stability is also reflected in the HTML click-to-open ratio (which increased from 26.5 percent to 32.0 percent from Q2 2004 to Q2 2005). These data demonstrate that content remains effective in driving click response once an e-mail has been opened, and show consumers respond to e-mail when they are cyclically “in market” for particular content or offers for which they have subscribed.

Conversion data remained strong in Q2 2005 for the Retail and Catalog marketers that track purchase activity through DARTmail. The click-to-purchase conversion rate rose 27.8 percent to 4.6 per cent from Q2 2004 (3.6 percent), while orders per e-mail delivered rose 18.2 percent to 0.26 per cent versus 0.22 percent a year ago. Despite a 14 percent decline in average order size (from $93 in Q2 2004 to $80 this quarter), revenue generated per e-mail remained stable at $0.20, as it was in Q2 2004.

Declining Open Rate

In Q2 2005, the open rate fell 23.6 percent versus Q2 2004, representing the fifth consecutive quarter that this metric showed a decline. The feature section of the Trend Report examines three forces that appear to be pushing open rates down: ISP and e-mail technology changes, file aging, and evolving consumer behavior.

The technology changes reflect the increased adoption of image blocking by several ISPs and in Outlook, either in bulk folders or by default. Because a one-image pixel image must be rendered for an e-mail to be measured as open, image blocking has had an impact on declining open rates. DoubleClick also identified the impact of file aging on e-mail open rates. New addresses tend to outperform older addresses, leading to a natural downward pressure on open rates as new addresses become a smaller percentage of a marketers overall file.

Finally, consumer e-mail behavior changes seem to also be affecting e-mail open rates. With the ever increasing volume of e-mail messages that consumers receive, they appear to be increasingly selective about which e-mails to open. However, given the stable performance in clicks and conversions, the selectivity seems to reflect when a consumer is in market for a particular product or service. DoubleClick has commissioned a study that will examine the branding impact of e-mail marketing to further explore this aspect of inbox visibility, and expect it to shed further insight into how consumer behavior may be affecting open rates.

“We have seen open rates declining for several quarters and we knew that that it was in part as a result of image blocking by ISPs and Outlook. What this in-depth review shows is that it isn’t one individual factor that is putting pressure on open rates but a combination of forces, and with this insight we can help marketers to better analyze and target their e-mails to various list segments,” said Kevin Mabley, Vice President of Account Management and Strategic Services for DoubleClick E-mail Solutions. “By combining this analysis with enhanced personalization and relevant messaging, marketers can not only improve their open rates, but more importantly, boost their overall marketing results.”

Methodology
The DoubleClick E-mail Trend Report contains aggregate data from DoubleClick’s DARTmail e-mail delivery technology. The Q2 data are based on billions of permission-based e-mails from hundreds of clients. The full results are available to DoubleClick customers and an executive summary, including the new in-depth feature, is available at: Knowledge Central

Performance metrics in this release relate to un-weighted averages across all companies. This is done to provide a measure of average company performance, due to the fact that very large mailers can bias the overall and category results.

About DoubleClick E-mail Solutions
DoubleClick E-mail Solutions delivers the most complete and flexible e-mail products and services to more than 400 companies globally. Many of the world’s most sophisticated marketing organizations across all industries leverage DoubleClick’s world-class technology, constant innovation and unrivalled insight into e-mail marketing to achieve superior results. DoubleClick E-mail Solutions is a recognized leader in the industry, offering its flagship DARTmail service and UnityMail software. E-mail Solutions clients benefit from DoubleClick’s comprehensive product and service solutions that enable them to successfully profit from their e-mail marketing investments.

DoubleClick E-mail Solutions is an operating unit of DoubleClick Inc. that together with DoubleClick Digital Advertising Solutions provides agencies, marketers and publishers the ability to successfully profit from their digital marketing investments. DoubleClick has global headquarters in New York City and maintains 21 offices around the world to serve its more than 2000 clients.

Source: Wired News