E-Mail Marketers Sending in the Dark

The proposition for e-mail marketing in the Web 2.0 world is simple—a low-cost medium with a good return on investment that can be easily tracked.

But for many e-mail marketers, tracking is proving tricky.

According to eROI, 18% of US e-mail marketers are not tracking the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Reasons for not tracking varied. Most marketers not tracking site conversions did not know how. Lack of time and budget were also concerns.

Similarly, the biggest reasons for not tracking e-commerce conversions were lack of knowledge and budget.

"If retailers want to avoid being ignored—or blacklisted—they must improve the relevancy of their e-mail programs," said Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer.

"The solution lies in using segmentation and personalization techniques to target e-mails. Of course, retailers also need to be vigilant about testing their tactics to determine which are most effective."

The eROI study found that open rate, click rate and open-to-click ratio were the three metrics most important to e-mail marketers.

To download a free copy of the eROI study, "Trends & Use of Email Analytics," click here.