E-Mail Ad Spending Will Lag
E-mail advertising is expected to grow from $338 million in 2006 to $616 million by 2011, reflecting growth of 82%, according to eMarketer. This sounds great until you also see that total online ad spending is expected to grow twice as fast in that time frame.
Part of this could be attributed to pure wordplay. Senior analyst at eMarketer David Hallerman says that “E-mail advertising spending only represents a part of e-mail marketing expenditures.”
So, it seems necessary to take a gander at how e-mail marketing spending will look from 2006 to 2011. Sadly, this picture is even bleaker. E-mail marketing spending is expected to grow from $1,425 million in 2006 to $1,650 million by 2011, an increase of only 16%.
E-mail advertising spending in the U.S. as a percentage of total online ad spending will steadily decline from 2006’s 2.0% figure, according to eMarketer. This percentage reached a peak in 2002 with 4.0%, but in 2007 this number will only be 1.9%, and will gradually droop to just 1.4% by 2011.
One big reason for these expectations is the perception companies typically have of e-mail marketing efforts. Hallerman said that most companies view e-mail marketing as “a low-cost medium.”
It seems that e-mail marketing ventures have to prove their worth in their returns on investment for businesses that try their hand at them. Much of this will depend, of course, on how effective these businesses are at launching, implementing, tweaking, and maintaining these efforts.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005360
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/09/21/your-email-campaign-needs-work
