20% of email in Oz never reaches inbox

After analyzing millions of email messages from their own internal data, email intelligence firm Return Path found that 1 in 5 emails never reach an inbox. Of that 20%, 18% were blocked or went missing and 2% were sent to spam.

"Mailbox providers have taken extreme measures to stop spam and phishing from reaching the inbox to protect their users, resulting in more and more marketing emails being delivered to the spam folder," said Theo Noel, Regional Director (AU/NZ), Return Path.

In New Zealand, Return Path found that no emails were sent to spam and just 8% went missing or were blocked, leaving a 92% delivery rate.

According to Return Path CEO, Matt Blumberg, marketers continue to face challenges ensuring email communications end up in the inbox. However, use of email intelligence, he says, is improving deliverability and ROI is rising.

"Traditionally many marketers focused on bounce rates to assess whether they were reaching subscribers, but those don't tell the whole story," Blumberg told Marketing Magazine Australia.

"Today new metrics such as inbox placement rate and read rate are providing better visibility into email marketing performance, and while they still have progress to make, marketers are using email intelligence - data, analysis, and insight - to understand deliverability and continually improve the subscriber experience."

As other research has found, people are opening more email on their mobile device, and Australians are no exception. In the two years to October, 2012, Return Path reports opens on mobile rose 300%. While opens on desktop remained fairly constant, webmail opens decreased slightly over the same period.

"In Australia, Apple controls a larger market share of smartphones and with Australians checking email daily on both desktops and mobile devices, marketers will have to design with both platforms in mind," says Noel.

Tags: Australia, email deliverability, email marketing, marketing, mobile email, New Zealand, spam