Legitimate email marketing appeals to consumers

According to results from a recent Harris Interactive poll conducted on behalf of New York-based Digital Impact, Americans who use the Internet appreciate the benefits of receiving legitimate email marketing messages and are clearly able to distinguish between legitimate, opt-in email marketing and spam.

The survey found that 86 percent of the respondents have requested to receive legitimate email marketing messages. Seventy-one percent have made purchases based on email marketing. Survey results also showed that 59 percent define email marketing as information on products or services that they have requested to receive, with 79 percent registering a neutral-to-positive impression of legitimate email marketing.

In related news, a study released in mid-September by DoubleClick found that as the volume of email marketing messages has increased, so have the bounce-back rates. The New York-based online ad technology company reported that bounce-back rates reached 12.6 percent in the second quarter, up from 7.7 percent in Q3 2001.