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DoubleClick's Latest Email Trend Report Shows Record Email
Productivity in Q4 2004
- Report also Highlights the Declining Efficacy of Open Rate Metrics as a
Standalone Performance Measure -
NEW YORK, March 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DoubleClick Inc. (NASDAQ:DCLK),
the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web
publishers, today released the Q4 2004 Email Trend Report which shows record
email productivity during the quarter. During the quarter, marketers saw all
time high order-per-email-delivered rates, and near-record click-to-purchase
conversion rates. In addition, the revenue-per-email-delivered rate rose
despite a dip in average order size.
The Email Trend Report also points to a changing importance in the metrics that
are used to measure the effectiveness of email marketing. In particular, the
report highlights a challenge in measuring and benchmarking open rates as a
metric, primarily due to technological changes such as image blocking, that
affect how opens are recorded.
Email Productivity at Record Highs
For Retail and Catalog customers that track purchase activity through DARTmail,
Q4 2004 was a banner quarter. Orders-per-email delivered at 0.35 percent were
at an all-time high and significantly higher than the previous highest rate
recorded in Q1 and Q2 of 2003 (0.30 percent). Click-to-purchase conversions at
4.8 percent were also at record levels, up from 4.2 percent in Q4 2003 and
nearly matching the all-time high 4.9 percent recorded in Q4 2002.
Revenue-per-email-delivered has remained steady over the past few years, with
Retail and Catalog marketers recording $0.26 per email delivered in Q4 2004.
Combined with the average order size which has slowly declined over the same
time period, these results suggest a change in how email marketing is driving
online sales. Although more people are purchasing as a result of an email
offer, they are purchasing smaller ticket items. This suggests that
email-driven purchasing has expanded to include nearly all product categories,
and when people are in market for an item they are indeed converting. Despite
the decline in average order size, the consistency of the revenue-per-email
delivered further underscores the profitability of the email marketing medium.
These findings are also consistent with the findings released in December by
Performics, the search marketing division of DoubleClick, which showed that
click volume and conversions were up, while average cost-per-click remained
stable.
Q4 Response Metrics
Email marketing remained stable in Q4 2004, according to traditional metrics.
Bounce-back rates declined to an all-time low of 9.4 percent. Open rates and
click rates both declined slightly to 32.6 percent and 8.0 percent
respectively, although each has been within a 6.6 point and 1.7 point range
respectively for the past three years. These metrics show remarkable stability
over the past three years, amidst public and private sector concern for spam
and delivery filtering tools. While open rates have declined slowly but
steadily over the past few quarters, clicks have remained strong and
conversions have improved.
The challenges in maintaining open rates include the adoption of image blocking
filtering mechanisms among many major ISPs and email programs (such as Outlook)
as a response to protect readers from potentially graphical or offensive spam
messages. A side effect of this change, however, is a reduction in the
calculated open rate of emails due to the inability to identify the email as
opened unless the images render.
Email delivery has remained a major focus for marketers in recent years due to
the backlash to the spam onslaught. However, many marketers have realized that
by focusing on delivery as a primary goal, they risk losing sight of the true
goal of building relationships with their customers and increasing email
productivity. In addition, the absence of an industry standard for calculating
delivery rate has led to confusion as various benchmarks exist without much
explanation of their methodology and, therefore, without grounds for
comparison.
"As the email channel matures, it is important for marketers and publishers to
evolve their strategies along with their success metrics in order to build and
enhance their relationships with customers," said Kevin Mabley, Director of
Strategic Services at DoubleClick. "In addition to monitoring traditional
metrics of email performance, the savviest companies are putting these data
into context with customer behavior and profile data to drive informed
targeting and messaging."
Methodology
The DoubleClick Email Trend Report contains aggregate data from DoubleClick's
DARTmail email delivery technology. The Q4 data are based on billions of
permission-based emails from hundreds of clients. The full results are
available to DoubleClick customers and an executive summary is available at:
http://www.doubleclick.net/us/knowledge
Performance metrics in this release relate to un-weighted averages across all
companies. This is done to provide a measure of average company performance,
due to the fact that very large mailers can bias the overall and category
results.
About DoubleClick Inc.
DoubleClick is the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising
agencies and web publishers to plan, execute and analyze their marketing
programs. DoubleClick's online advertising, email marketing and database
marketing solutions help clients yield the highest return on their marketing
dollar. In addition, the company's marketing analytics solutions help clients
measure performance within and across channels. DoubleClick Inc. has global
headquarters in New York City and maintains 22 offices around the world.
CONTACT:
Dave Frankland
DoubleClick
212.381.5629
DATASOURCE: DoubleClick Inc.
CONTACT: Dave Frankland, DoubleClick, +1-212-381-5629, or
Web site: http://www.doubleclick.com/
http://www.doubleclick.net/us/knowledge