Marketers put their faith, and dollars, in email marketing

Marketers are confident that email ROI will increase in 2007, and are putting their money where their mouths are.

by Helen Leggatt

According to a new survey of 1,500 marketers from companies such as KPMG International, Art.com and Q Interactive, just over 72 percent are confident enough in email marketing to increase activity during 2007. Seventy percent are raising their email marketing budgets, and nearly a third will keep budgets the same as 2006.

Direct mail could be one of the main areas from which budgets will be robbed to feed email activity, as some cut offline budgets but increase online spend.

Retention and acquisition is where they intend to employ email the most, with the majority (55.3 percent) citing driving incremental revenue as their primary goal.

“As the audience for offline marketing media continues to migrate online, more and more marketers are spending their money on e-mail and search,” said Datran Media’s vice president of marketing, Lana McGilvray. “The two channels instantly connect marketers with customers and prospects, and their ROI performance can be tracked in real-time.”

When asked what they believed to have the most impact on their email campaigns during 2006, 34 percent said optimizing graphics and another 34 percent believed it was down to landing pages.

Not one of those surveyed thought that ROI from email marketing would decrease, but a massive 83 percent believed it would rise.

Datran Media's full survey results can be seen here.