E-mail continuing to drive sales in third quarter, reports DoubleClick
E-mail productivity has significantly increased for online merchants, with conversion rates and number of orders per e-mail delivered both rising over the previous year’s rates, DoubleClick Inc. reports in its Q3 2004 Email Trend Report. The report shows continued stability in overall e-mail performance over the past two years, while year-over-year figures show an increase in delivery rates and a decline in open rates and click-through rates.
The click-to-purchase conversion rate grew 23.5% to 4.2% in the third quarter from 3.4% a year ago. The average number of orders per delivered e-mail rose 17% year over year to 0.28% from 0.24% in Q3 2003.
The overall average delivery rate measured by DoubleClick for all industries was 89.3% for the third quarter, up from 88.2% a year ago. DoubleClick shows slight improvements in e-mail delivery for most industries, measured as year-to-year declines in bounce rates, most notably the travel category, where Q3 bounce rates declined to 6.5% from 14.3%. However, revenue per e-mail dropped 19.2% to $0.21 for the quarter, while median order size declined 6.9% to $94.
The business publisher category was the only category that saw an increase in open rates, with a marginal increase from 38.2% to 38.3%. Business products and services had the highest open rate at 41.5%, while retail and catalog had the lowest open rates of any of the categories at 30.8%. In consumer products, open rates showed the biggest decline year over year, dropping 22.8% to 33.9% from 43.9% for the year ago quarter. The open rate for financial services was down 14% to 38.1% from 44.3%, and business products and services, though it had the highest open rate, was nevertheless down from 46.3% the previous year.
Q3 click-through rates declined 36.4% to 5.6% from 8.8% for retail and catalog; 22.6% to 8.9% from 11.5% for consumer products; and 27.9% to 7.6% from 10.6% for financial services. Consumer publishers, up 23.4% to 11.6% from 9.3%, and travel, up marginally to 8.7% from 8.5%, where the only categories where Q3 click-through gained over last year.
“This quarter’s data reveal the effectiveness of e-mail as a marketing tool for online merchants and underscores the maturity and stability of e-mail as a communications vehicle," says Kevin Mabley, director of strategic services at DoubleClick. “As more and more marketers adopt and abide by best practices in list hygiene and continue to pay attention to customer preferences, we predict response rates and conversion trends will continue to hold strong—a great message for merchants this holiday season.”
DoubleClick bases its trend report on billions of permission-based e-mails sent by hundreds of its DARTmail e-mail delivery customers.
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