E-Mail Volume Increases, Testing Lags Behind

The number of marketing e-mails being sent to consumers continues to increase, finds a recent survey. U.S. retailers and wholesalers will send 158 billion marketing e-mails this year, a number likely to grow 63 percent to 258 billion in 2013, Forrester Research predicts. But the increase in volume hasn’t translated into an increased reliance on testing.

According to Internet Retailer’s survey of 174 Web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers, conducted last month with e-mail marketing and survey firm Knowledge Marketing, 52.9 percent of respondents do not test their e-mail campaigns. Here’s a look at some more of the survey’s findings.

* 77 percent of online consumers say they receive too many e-mails (Forrester Research);

* 48.9 percent of the respondents said they’ve increased the number of monthly e-mail campaigns they send;

* 55.7 percent said they send one to three e-mails per month, 20.7 percent send four to five, 12.1 percent send six to eight, 5.7 percent send nine to 10, 3.4 percent send 11 to 15, 0.6 percent send 16 to 20 and 1.7 percent send more than 20;

* 55.2 percent said they segment their e-mail marketing lists, but 44.8 percent do not;

* 32.2 percent of the respondents who do test e-mail marketing campaigns test two versions, 11.5 percent test three and 2.3 percent test four;

* 46 percent said they test e-mail subject lines; and

* 19 percent said they feature customer reviews in some of their marketing e-mails.

For more information, go to www.knowledgemarketing.com.