Return Path Claims Most Marketers Lack "Email Intelligence" Return Path today announced, in conjunction with The Relevancy Group, the release of a study on advancing email marketing performance through meaningful measurement. The study, which surveyed more than 300 senior marketing executives, pointed to an innate need for email intelligence, a unique combination of email data, analytics and insight, and found that email marketers lack the capabilities to compare campaign effectiveness against competitor benchmarks and to even understand their own performance after they hit send. For email marketers, gaining a competitive advantage can be difficult, as the entire email ecosystem is regularly challenged by a lack of reliable data, intelligence and insight surrounding the delivery of email. According to the study, more than 40 percent of marketers do not have analytics in place to determine inbox placement rates for their email campaigns. “There is a huge market need for email intelligence; marketers are missing a significant lift in revenue because they don’t have the proper analysis tools and competitive insights,†said David Daniels, CEO & co-founder of The Relevancy Group. “Knowledge truly is power, and having access to analytics tools that gauge email effectiveness enables companies to build deeper relationships with subscribers and, ultimately, drive greater sales.†The survey also found: Less than one-fourth of marketers (23 percent) analyze competitors’ email marketing campaign performance; although the research indicated that doing so increases overall revenue from a campaign by 25 percent or more. Sixty-five percent of marketers surveyed stated that access to the right data is a challenge for their organizations and nearly a third stated that they do not know how to access data when it’s time to evaluate a campaign. More than half of those surveyed (55 percent) are unable to perform any audience segmentation meaning that they blast the same message to every subscriber, and a third of marketers have no knowledge of their inbox placement rate. The survey findings validate Return Path’s new email intelligence positioning which reflects its mission to help marketers evaluate and maximize performance and accountability of email campaigns while protecting users from spam and other abuse. The shift in approach builds on years of email experience, unique data and actionable insights. The rollout includes the launch of a new global website, a new brand identity, and advertising and marketing communications campaigns. As part of this strategic evolution, Return Path today is launching a new suite of Email Intelligence products specifically designed for marketers to maximize the performance and accountability of email – incorporating access to data, analytics and actionable insights that drive optimal performance. The Email Intelligence Suite for Marketers includes Inbox Monitor, Inbox Insight and Email Brand Monitor – each of which uniquely addresses key challenges facing email marketers today seeking to drive maximum ROI from their email program. “Today’s competitive email environment means that marketers must have more intelligence around how they design, execute and measure campaigns given email’s impact on brand reputation, sales and ongoing market impression,†said Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path. “We saw an opportunity and need to focus on email intelligence to help our clients address this growing challenge. Through an even greater emphasis on analytics, we will continue to help our clients improve inbox placement rates, protect their brands and crush their competition.†Two of the new products, Inbox Monitor and Inbox Insight, give marketers access to data from a panel of nearly 2 million real email recipients to offer insight into inbox placement and competitive intelligence. Inbox Insight helps marketers outperform competitors by providing access to new email engagement data about their campaigns and those of competitors. Inbox Monitor provides greater visibility into clients’ inbox placement rate (IPR) by incorporating actual subscriber panel data with advanced seed list technology to provide the most accurate view of senders’ ability to reach their customers’ inboxes, and enables marketers to address issues on an ISP-by-ISP basis. Return Path also launched a new brand protection product Email Brand Monitor, that gives complete visibility into potential abuse of a brand’s domain. Email Brand Monitor helps marketers protect their brand equity and preserve customer trust in the email channel by providing a focused analysis of outbound email activity to combat fraudulent email and domain spoofing. Source: http://blog.returnpath.com/blog/ret...keters-access-to-data-to-maximize-performance
