Study: New subscribers more likely to read

When it comes to email lists, newer subscribers are more likely to read marketing messages, making those first few email contacts very important. In fact, new email subscribers have a read rate of 39%, high above the average email read rate.

by Kristina Knight

ReturnPath's new Lifecycle Benchmark should help marketers better understand how consumers engage with email. Key among the finds is this: new subscribers are much more likely to read merchant and brand messages.

But all the news isn't great. According to ReturnPath's experts more than half of consumers (53%) are signing up for email lists using rarely checked or even inactive email addresses. This means marketers need to be more focused on verifying email addresses and perhaps using double opt-ins to ensure the email addresses used for signups are active and used by those signing up.

Other interesting findings from the report include:

▪ 39% of new subscribers read marketing messages, overall email read rates average 22%
▪ During the first year, subscriber read rates drop to 32%
▪ New subscribers send SPAM complaints 4% of the time for an initial message, overall SPAM rates are 0.17%
▪ Higher complaint/SPAM rates continue through the first year, though they drop to 1%

"High quality email addresses are obviously more desirable, as messages sent to these inboxes are more likely to be read and acted on. To help improve the quality of email signups, marketers need to be more active about verifying the validity of the email addresses they add to their list--an email validation service can help with this," write the report authors.

More ReturnPath data can be found here.

Tags: email content, email marketing, email subscription, email trends, ReturnPath