Report: 45% of actions within web apps trigger email

"The survey findings ... confirm what we already know: transactional email attracts new customers and keeps existing customers, plain and simple," said Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid. "Web applications that are not taking advantage of transactional email response rates, or that are investing in more regulated forms of email marketing, are likely missing a huge opportunity for driving faster customer growth."

Some interesting findings include:

• 81% of web applications support email signups/registrations
• 77% support password recovery
• 50% support purchase, order or shipping information

Nearly 40% of businesses surveyed are targeting a consumer audience with this type of message; 26% are targeting business audiences. However, more than three-quarters (77%) say email is 'the most important channel' for contacting or communicating with their target market.

Transactional emails are CAN-SPAM approved and while most have been order/shipping confirmations, with the advent of social networks and ecommerce apps transactional emails have grown to more than confirmations. These emails can now be triggered by sign-ups, password requests or friend/follower requests.

In 2012 SendGrid reports sending 20 billion emails for businesses, 90,000 emails per minute and have added new clients like Tumblr, Pinterest and HP Cloud, sending transactional emails to the users within their networks.

New data from Epsilon finds email open rates increased nearly 6% between Q4 2011 and Q1 2012. Triggered messages (Q1 2012) accounted for just over 2% of the total email volume; open rates for triggered messages were 75% higher than typical messages.

Tags: email marketing, email trends, Epsilon, SendGrid, transactional emails