E-mail Delivery Rates Improved in First Half of 2006

An average of 19.2 percent of commercial e-mail was blocked from consumers’ inboxes between January 2006 and June 2006. But that’s down from 21 percent blocked during the same time last year, according to a report from e-mail solutions company Return Path. Looking at past e-mail delivery numbers, the trend appears to be reversing itself:

* 20.7 percent of commercial e-mail was blocked from consumers’ inboxes in all of 2005;
* 22 percent was blocked in 2004;
* 18.7 percent was blocked in 2003; and
* 15 percent was blocked in 2002;

Other data revealed by the report:

* In the first half of 2006, Internet service provider (ISP) Excite blocked the most commercial e-mail, 50.7 percent;
* Compuserve blocked the least, 11.8 percent;
* AOL blocked 14.1 percent;
* Yahoo! blocked 15.2 percent;
* Hotmail blocked 22.7 percent; and
* Gmail blocked 34.3 percent.

For a copy of the Return Path report, visit http://www.returnpath.net/resources/archives/whitepapers/index.php