E-mail marketers have seen increases in open and click-through rates for their messages, according to a new study.
Message open rates rose from 36.4% in fourth quarter 2002 to 39.2% in first quarter 2003, and click-through rates were up to 8.9% from 8% during the same period, according to the DoubleClick Q1 2003 Email Trend Report.
Bounce-back rates declined from 13.5% to 12.5%.
While 57% of all marketers decreased their mail-out volume from the previous quarter, 43% increased it.
Within individual categories, business products and services had the highest open rates (47.6% in the first quarter, compared with 41.2% a quarter earlier). Click-through rates rose 14%, to 7.9%.
Retail and catalog e-mails saw a slight increase in open rate between quarters, from 38% to 38.5%, and click-through rates jumped from 7% to 7.6%.
The beleaguered travel industry, which had experienced a sharp decline in the fourth quarter in its open rates, saw a rebound during the first quarter (43.4%, compared with 40.9%). Click-through rates were up from 5.8% to 8.4%.
Consumer products had the highest click-through rates (14%) followed by publisher, consumer audience (11.5%) and consumer services (8.6%).
Despite a drop in bounce-back rates, both business products and services and the travel industry saw increases in bounces, with business product bad addresses rising from 16.5% to 18.5%, and travel bounce rates rising from 13.3% to 14.9%.
Within the retail and catalog category, every 1 thousand pieces sent yielded 2.35 purchases, with an average order size of $110.18.
The Email Trend report is aggregated from a sample of marketers that use New York-based DoubleClick
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