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The Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index™ for January-June 2006 provides comparative e-mail metrics in aggregate, including 4,300 business and consumer e-mail campaigns compiled by the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Enterprise Edition, an e-mail marketing platform. The analysis included both marketing and transaction e-mail. Of the 13 industry categories, restaurants enjoyed the best open rates (167.7%, open rates exceeding 100% occur by way of pass-alongs, and reopened e-mail), as well as the best click-through rates (57.5%). Retail had the lowest open rate (35.3%), while the automotive sector had the lowest click-through rate (5.7%). All reported averages are unweighted. "These data help provide e-mail marketers with up-to-date benchmarking information," said Richard Merrick, managing director, Postfuture at Harte-Hanks. "Particularly as we look at individual industries, we see which vertical markets are doing the best to pique the interest of e-mail recipients – be they consumers or business persons." Behavioral targeting of messaging can raise metrics significantly, Merrick also reported. "One large retailer achieved a 74.2% open rate, 24.1% click-through rate and 0.1% opt-out rate, just by synchronizing e-mail with in-store activity," he said. "Using transactional e-mail to make dynamic product recommendations produce, on average, a 148.8% open rate and a 20.4% click-through rate." The 13 industries mentioned in the study (in order of descending click-through rates) are: restaurants (57.5%), publishing (55.6%), pharmaceutical (23.8%), travel and hospitality (23.4%), conference events (14.2%), financial services (11.0%), technology (10.9%), government (9.5%), insurance (9.5%), consumer packaged goods (8.6%), entertainment (8.1%), retail (6.0%) and automotive (5.7%). Among all sectors for all purposes of e-mail combined, the average delivered rate stands at 91.2% -- with an average open rate of 78.8% of those e-mail delivered, click-through rate of 18.7% of all e-mail delivered, and an opt-out rate of 0.4% of all e-mail delivered. Looking at differences between business and consumer markets, e-mail sent to consumers received the higher click-through rates of 19.9% and open rates of 78.9%, while business-to-business e-mail had rates of 11.2% and 67.7%, respectively. Results of the most recent Postfuture Index are available at www.postfuture.com. The next Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index report is slated for Winter 2007, following the holiday season. About Harte-Hanks ###
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