1 in 7 marketing emails ‘undelivered in Europe’

The findings, from Return Path’s Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, found that in the second half of 2009, 15 per cent of European permission-based commercial email either went straight to recipients’ spam folders, or weren’t delivered at all.

The report measured inbox placement rates across North America and Europe . Return Path collected data on the success of more than half a million email campaigns between July and December 2009 to gain the most comprehensive picture of true “delivered” rates.

The report also found that inbox placement rates varied significantly between Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

For ISPs in the UK , the proportion of messages successfully delivered to the inbox ranged from a high of 98.25 per cent, to barely 75 per cent for the most marketer-unfriendly ISP.

Deliverability A Cause For Concern

Return Path, the global market leader in email deliverability and reputation services, warned that the high volumes of undelivered messages should be a cause of concern to commercial emailers whose email services providers (ESPs) are reporting unrealistically high “delivered” rates.

“Many email broadcast systems will report a message as delivered if it hasn’t bounced, and can often claim deliverability rates of 95 per cent or more,” said Margaret Farmakis, Return Path’s senior director of Response Consulting. “Yet our research shows that true deliverability, where messages are successfully delivered to customer inboxes, is substantially lower.

“The email channel has proved resilient during the recession because it’s one of the most cost-effective methods of marketing,” continued Farmakis. “But email is only effective if it gets read. Given that 15 per cent of all European commercial email goes undelivered, marketers must ensure that they get true delivery metrics, including the numbers of messages blocked or sent to the spam folder, not just the number that bounce. Only accurate metrics will enable marketers to know precisely how many messages are getting to customers’ inboxes, and will thus enable them to take immediate action to rectify any deliverability issues they might have.”

Legitimate Marketing Messages Marked As Spam

Inbox placement varied substantially between different ISPs, with some mailboxes proving significantly harder than others for marketers to reach. In the UK , the most difficult ISPs for marketers were Demon; BT; AOL; Orange ; and Yahoo!. A quarter (24.7 per cent) of marketing emails sent to Demon mailboxes went undelivered, while of those sent to BT clients, more than 21 per cent failed to reach the inbox.

“Internet Services Providers work extremely hard to protect their customers from the scourge of spam emails,” said Farmakis. “The problem for marketers is that legitimate permission-based emails are often misidentified as spam by ISPs, and subsequently directed to the spam folder or vanish into the ether. Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their deliverability by following email best practice.

“Although Europe outperformed North America – where almost 20 per cent of permission-based email wasn’t delivered in the last six months of 2009 – these figures still represent an unacceptably high rate of missed opportunities and lost sales.

“The first step to improving email deliverability is to understand how many emails are actually being delivered to the inbox. And, while it might be tempting to believe in reassuring reports of high delivery rates in the high nineties, our research shows that true inbox placement is substantially lower,” concluded Farmakis. “That’s why email marketers must demand accurate metrics from their email broadcast providers, showing how many emails are actually reaching the inbox, rather than how many didn’t bounce. Only then can they begin fixing their email reputation, which governs whether an email is routed to the inbox, the spam folder or to oblivion.”

The full report can be downloaded at: www.returnpath.net/landing/globaldeliverability

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