Marketers concerned about legitimate e-mail blocked as spam will find confirmation of their fears in a report released Tuesday. The costs of such blocking will nearly double, soaring to $419 mil in 2008 from $230 mil in 2003, according to Jupiter Research. Ironically, the percentage of wrongly blocked permission e-mail will drop from 17% today to just under 10% in 2008, researchers found.
Spam and filters are biggest challenges in e-mail marketing
A Responsys survey of marketing decision-makers at B2B and B2C companies finds that at least 60% of respondents cite spam, e-mail filters and e-mail inbox clutter as the biggest challenges they face in e-mail marketing efforts. Over 50% say developing quality e-mail lists is the greatest challenge in the business today.
Phishing up 400% over Christmas holidays
E-mail phishing attacks jumped over 400% during the holidays, according to an analysis released Wednesday of scams reported to clearinghouse Anti-Phishing.org.
5% respond to phishy e-mail
Tumbleweed claims 5% of e-mail recipients respond to a “phishy” e-mail, where the suggested URL is not whgat it appears to be (the article tells about the latest Visa International scam).
83% of Americans will register for ‘do-not-spam’ list
Recent nationwide study of 1,000 adults from Synovate shows that 83% of Americans will register for a ‘do-not-spam list’, if and when it is enacted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On average, Americans get a staggering 155 unsolicited emails in their personal or work email accounts each week with 20% receiving 200 or more
35 M e-mails will be sent out daily by 2005
IDC predicts that e-mail traffic will reach 35 million messages a day by 2005. A survey of IT directors has found that e-mail storage now makes up around 40% of data retention costs in businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with IT heads reckoning that 20% of all the e-mails they have to keep are personal or non-work-related messages.
Sophos: Third of spam e-mail is sent through 0wned PCs
One third of all spam circulating the Web is relayed through PCs that have been compromised by malicious programs known as Remote Access Trojans, according to Sophos, a corporate spam and antivirus company.
Geographic origins of spam
A report from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) claims the United States of America leads the world in both spam production and spam consumption.
| Spam Origins, March 2003 | |
|---|---|
| United States | 58.4% |
| China | 5.6% |
| United Kingdom | 5.2% |
| Brazil | 4.9% |
| Canada | 4.1% |
| Others | 21.8% |
| Source: UNCTAD | |
What e-mail marketers are concerned about?
31% say that their biggest concerns for e-mail delivery stem from blacklists and potential recipients? spam filters, while only 8% cite potential legislation. 22% are afraid of bounces and address changes, the same amount is concerned with inbox clutter and the rate of opened letters declining.
Gartner on enterprise spam
By the Q4 of 2004, 85% of enterprises will have enterprise-level spam filtering in place.
Solid Oak: As much as 90% of e-mail is spam
Illegitimate email messaging over the Internet is currently greater than 90% according to Solid Oak Software, Inc. There are numerous recent reports that have indicated that spam accounts for 50-60% of all email traffic.
50% of consumers boycott spammers
A recent study authored by Quris shows nearly half of consumers surveyed reported that they have stopped doing business with companies altogether as a result of poor email practices. Similarly the study finds that over 57% of consumers have made purchases as a result of email, based upon survey responses from 1,684 email users in the United States.
Luth: Donations through e-mail don’t quite work
According to Luth Research, at least 40% of US households have made financial donations to non-profit organizations from face-to-face interactions or through postal mail. Over 15% have made material donations resulting from a call from someone they knew, while just 4.7% have made such donations based on receiving an e-mail from someone they knew. E-Mails from a known person do better for financial donations, as 8.1% have made monetary donations from such e-mails.
Pew report on spam
In large numbers, Internet users report that they trust email less and some even use email less because of spam. Why? Users worry that the growing volume of spam is getting in the way of their ability to reliably send and receive email. They complain that it uncontrollably clutters their inboxes and imposes uninvited, deceptive, and often disgustingly offensive messages. Here are the key figures:
- 25% of email users say the ever-increasing volume of spam has reduced their overall use of email; 60% of that group says spam has reduced their email use in a big way.
- 52% of email users say spam has made them less trusting of email in general.
- 70% of email users say spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying.
- 30% of email users are concerned that their filtering devices may block incoming email.
- 23% of email users are concerned that their emails to others may be blocked by filtering devices.
- 75% of email users are bothered that they can’t stop the flow of spam.
- 80% of email users are bothered by deceptive or dishonest content of spam.
- 76% of email users are bothered by offensive or obscene content of spam.
Radicati: Spam statistics
A recent study by the Radicati Group Inc., a research firm in Palo Alto, Calif., found that spam accounts for 14.5 billion messages a day – or 45 percent of all e-mails – and costs businesses globally $20.5 billion a year in lost productivity and technology expenses.
The future is even bleaker, according to the firm: It predicts that 58 billion junk e-mails will be sent every day within four years, costing businesses $198 billion annually.
Radicati estimates that spam costs businesses an average of $49 per mailbox this year but forecasts that could rise to $257 per year by 2007 if nothing is done to curtail the proliferation of junk messages.
In-flight e-mail numbers
Customers access JetConnect by plugging their laptops into jacks on Verizon Airfone handsets on seatbacks of 123 Continental and 110 United planes. Those numbers will grow to 411 for Continental and 525 for United by year’s end, and Cathay Pacific will equip its entire 75-plane fleet with JetConnect next year.
E-mail: People read only 65% of the newsletters
E-mail users regularly open and read e-mail from 10 to 20 companies or a maximum of 16 on average, according to a recent report. Respondents said they open and read about 65 percent of the permission e-mail they receive, but that when asked to re-evaluate the permission-based e-mail relationships they maintain, they would renew just 47 percent of those relationships.
Radicati: Anti-spammers make more money than spammers
Recent estimates from the Radicati Group show that firms selling antispam products and services stand to make $653 million in revenues in 2003, and up to $2.4 billion by 2007.
In comparison, spammers overall will make between $11 million and $111 million this year, an estimate derived by comparing the number of known spammers with the range of their incomes as reported in public interviews.
E-mail click rates
Since the first quarter of this year open rates have declined from 39.2% in Q1 and click-through rates have fallen to 8.3% this past quarter from 8.9% in Q1. Nonetheless, it is important to note that legitimate e-mail marketers can carve a space for themselves over time.
DoubleClick’s report is based on aggregate data from hundereds of DoubleClick clients who sent 2 billion permission-based commercial e-mails using the company’s DARTmail delivery technology. DoubleClick notes that companies in certain industries fared better than others in Q2. For example, e-mails promoting retail companies and catalogs experienced delivery rates of 91.3% this past quarter — up from 85.4% in Q2 2002 — while click-through rates rose 9.8% over the year.