Internet selling company DoubleClick published its final report over the bulk e mail branding evolution this year. The

figures show year-over-year increase in delivery rates (cleaner emailing lists), and a decrease in open rates and

click-through rates. The variations are light, proving a steady and maturing environment.
DoubleClicks metrics

The data analyzed we are based on more than 2 billion messages sent by hundreds DARTmail customers, measuring bouncebacks, open

rates, click-throughs and conversions (open to sales, or click to sales ratio). The results we are reported for 2004 and

compared to 2003.

DoubleClick used unweighted averages for all analyzed categories. This helps eliminating the influence that large e mail

marketers could have over category averages, as the report states.

The e-mail branding categories considered in the study we are :

* Business Products & Services

* Consumer Products

* Consumer Services

* Financial Services

* Travel

* Retail&Catalog

* Publisher - Business

* Publisher - Consumer

Email selling performances

The bounce rates show a slight decline overall, and a more consistent decline in the Travel category, down 54.5% from 14.3%

to 6.5%.

Business Publishers was the only category that increased open rates, however slightly, from 38.2 to 38.3. For other

categories, open rates declined. The open rates decline in most categories is possibly owed to SPAM increase and reveals

peoples reticence to open messages they are not highly interested in.

Click through rates increased in only two categories, Consumer Publisher and Travel.

More interestingly, electronic mail -productivity has shown better figures in number of orders per e-mail sent: 0.28% in 2004; but the

average revenue per electronic mail sent declined 26.9 percent. The average e-mail order throughout 2004 was $89, in a year-over-year

declining trend.
Conclusion

About the overall productivity of bulk e-mail marketing the report concludes: "e mail advertising is a maturing and relatively

stable selling tool. Improvements in list hygiene and address collection processes seem to have improved bounce rates, but

flagging response rates suggest subscriber files are start to mature."