E-mail Still Strongman in Internet Marketing Ring

The cornerstone of Internet marketing–e-mail–is as popular as ever. Spending on e-mail marketing is projected to reach $2.1 billion by the end of 2001. That’s a 110% increase over the $1.1 billion spent in 2000, according to a just-released eMarketer report.

Not surprisingly, there is a big difference in the click-through rate between opt-in e-mails and banner ads. There is an average 3.2% click-through rate for opt-in emails versus only 0.3% for banner ads.

Other e-mail facts from the study:

* E-mail users outnumber Web users by 10%–96.6 million to 87.9 million, respectively

* More than 1 billion e-mail messages are sent daily in the United States

* 80% of e-mail marketing messages are responded to within 2 days, as compared to the 6 to 8 week period for traditional direct marketing methods

New York-based eMarketer aggregates research data from a variety of sources for its report, including ActivMedia, AdRelevance and Competitive Media Reporting, among others.