[Fredslist] E-Tactics Letter - Email's Woes: Blocking & Declining Open Rates

Tue Mar 29 10:50:01 EST 2005

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Sarah Stambler's E-Tactics(r)  Letter
March 29, 2005
Volume 14, Issue 4

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In This Issue
Email's Woes: Blocking & Declining Open Rates
     ISPs Block 22% of Permission-Based Email: Study
     Are Open Rates Declining?
Hot Technology From Japan: A Mobile Page Turner
Internet Poised to Surpass Newspapers for Shopping Info
13 Million Small Businesses Will Embrace Pay-Per-Call
Phil Bradley's Finding Information

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Email's woes: Blocking and Declining Open Rates

ISPs Block 22% of Permission-Based E-Mail: Study

A full 22% of all permission-based e-mail was blocked by 
the top Internet service providers (ISPs) during 2004, 
according to a Return Path study.

Corporate e-mail mistakenly considered spam by ISPs is a 
growing problem, up 3.3% over the second half of 2003, 
noted Return Path. 

Return Path monitored 50,000 marketing and transactional 
campaigns through its Mailbox Monitor service between Jan. 
and Dec. 2004. Blocking for each campaign varied from a low
of 1% to a high of 57%. 

In addition, blocking rates varied widely by ISP from a low
of 5% to a high of 36%. Companies saw the best delivery 
success at Earthlink, BellSouth, and CompuServe, which 
blocked only 5%, 6% and 8%, respectively. The most blocking
and filtering (36%) occurred at RoadRunner, followed by 
Mail.com (34%) and Comcast (31%). 

The ISPs monitored represent more than 80% of the mailing 
lists for most corporate mailers, said Return Path.

(Direct Newsline 3/17/05)

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Are Open rates declining?

A glance at open rates would give the impression that users
are opening a lot less e-mails than they did one year ago. 
But DoubleClick , in their recent E-mail Trend Report, 
believes that the reason for the decline is less about a 
change in the number of clicks than the effect of image 
blocking technology used by many e-mail programs. Since 
DoubleClick measures open rates by tracking image calls in 
HTML-formatted e-mails, image blocking obviously affects this metric. 

However, the lowered rates may in fact be more 
representative of the truth, according to DoubleClick. 
Before image blocking, many e-mails may have registered as 
"opened" when they had merely shown up in an e-mail preview
window as a user scrolled through e-mails or clicked on 
them before deleting. The relative stability of click and 
conversion rates supports this view. 

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Hot Technology from Japan: A Mobile Page Turner

AP, March 21, 2005

Your eyes probably hurt just thinking about it: Tens of 
thousands of Japanese cell phone owners are poring over 
full-length novels on their tiny screens. In this 
technology-enamored nation, the mobile phone has become so 
widespread as an entertainment and communication device 
that reading e-mail, news headlines and weather forecasts 
-- rather advanced mobile features by global standards 
-- is routine. Now, Japan's cell phone users are turning 
pages. – to read the whole story click here: 
http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=453860&r=453277&t=2051423080&l=1&d=85944211&u=http%3a%2f%2fpublications%2emediapost%2ecom%2findex%2ecfm%3ffuseaction%3dArticles%2esan%26forwarddg%3d1%26art%5faid%3d28351%26Nid%3d12651%26p%3d116721&g=1&f=85944327 

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Internet Poised To Surpass Newspapers For Shopping Info 

CONSUMERS ARE INCREASINGLY TURNING TO the Internet for 
information about local products and services, at the 
expense of newspapers, according to a new study by The 
Kelsey Group and ConStat, Inc. The study, based on a 
February telephone survey of 500 U.S. adults, found that 70
percent of households use the Internet to hunt for local 
merchants and stores--up from 60 percent in October 2003. 
At the same time, the percentage of households seeking 
information about nearby stores and services from 
newspapers declined from 73 percent to 70 percent. 

The trending indicates that it's only a matter of time 
until the Internet surpasses newspapers for shopping 
research, according to The Kelsey Group. Online users are 
increasingly seeking information about local retailers or 
professionals from the search engine giants--engines such 
as Google. More than half of respondents--55 percent--said 
they used large search engines to research shopping, up 
from 47 percent in October 2003. But users have also turned
away to a small extent from narrower sites, such as 
DoctorDirectory.com and MasterPlumber.com, as well as from 
local directory sites like Citysearch. 

The report also revealed that 74 percent of households now 
have Internet access at home, up from 67 percent in October
2003. Nearly eight out of 10 households--79 percent--have 
wireless phones, up from 71 percent 17 months ago. And 
almost one out of three households--31 percent--have Web 
access via wireless phone, up from 26 percent in October 
2003. 

(Online Media Daily Mar 23,2005)

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13 Million Small Businesses Will Embrace Pay-Per-Call

THE NASCENT PAY-PER-CALL ADVERTISING MARKET could draw as 
many as 13 million business owners who lack Web sites but 
want to advertise online, said Ingenio Chief Marketing 
Officer Mark Barach at the Search Engine Strategies 
conference in New York earlier this month. America Online's
Executive Director for Search and Navigation, Brendan 
Benzing, added that AOL is "quite bullish" on pay-per-call 
ads. Ingenio signed a deal with AOL in January to provide 
technology for pay-per-call ads served on AOL's search 
pages, starting in April. "AOL's stepping up because we 
have a lot of confidence in the model," Benzing said. "At 
the end of the day, businesses know the value of a call, 
and they're willing to pay." 

As with pay-per-click ads, advertisers bid on keywords or 
categories and are listed alongside natural search results
--but instead of a link to a Web site, the ad directs 
consumers to a telephone number. Pay-per-call often appeals
to smaller, local businesses that don't have a Web site, 
and to service-based businesses that seek local customers 
who prefer to call rather than interact with a Web site. 

Businesses do have to pay quite a bit for pay-per-call—
anywhere from twice as much to 10 times more than pay-per-
click ads, according to the panel members. But conversion 
rates are much higher, FindWhat Senior Vice President for 
pay-per-call Michael Kearns said, because consumers who 
make a call are interested in making purchases immediately.
"It's about using the power of the human voice to close 
business on the telephone," he said. 

FindWhat began to serve pay-per-call ads, also using 
Ingenio's technology, last year. "We think that pay-per-
call is going to be one of the most fast-growing categories
in the next five years," Kearns said. "It's a hybrid 
category that offers the best between direct response and 
search." 

(Online Media Daily Mar 2, 2005

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PHIL BRADLEY'S FINDING INFORMATION

http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=453860&r=453277&t=2051423080&l=1&d=85944233&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ephilb%2ecom%2fwhichengine%2ehtm&g=1&f=85944327

Phil Bradley's Finding Information 
(http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm) not only has some 
recent additions to the search engine universe, it also 
tells you in plain English exactly how to use them. He 
helps you to define what you need ("I want an overview of a
subject," "I want to see thumbnails of pages before 
visiting them," "I need access to academic resources," 
etc.). And he has dozens of search engines here, including 
several you many never have known about.  (FITA 3/16/05)

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The E-TACTICS LETTER, (ISSN 1542-2623) is published 12 times a year by E-Tactics, Inc. an electronic marketing and publishing firm established in 1984 that specializes in the creative use of electronic media in the design and implementation of customer driven marketing, research and publication strategies.

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