Experian Marketing Services showed that email volume has increased 10 percent in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011 according to the Experian® CheetahMail® 2012 Q2 email benchmark report.

Experian CheetahMail also found that total open rates increased 1.5 percent in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011.

Analyzing the email volume among different industries shows that Travel and Consumer Products and Services emails reported the largest increases, with 41 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Media and Entertainment emails also reported a double-digit increase (17 percent) in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011.There was only a 2 percent change in All Industry email volume from Q1 to Q2 in 2012, as all verticals except Travel had less growth from Q1 to Q2 in 2012 than they had for the same time in 2011.

“For Q2 2012, overall email volume increased 10 percent while open rates were slightly above the 2011 Q2 rates, as more than 55 percent of brands had statistically significant increases in open rates for Q2 2012,” said Regina Gray, vice president of strategic services, Experian CheetahMail.

“While click rates continued to show a year-over-year decline, there is some evidence that the rates are stabilizing. Email is still the most effective channel to connect with customers as we’ve seen a growing trend of brands utilizing social capabilities to acquire and engage consumers and fans across these new media channels.”

The Email and Social Media Connection
The Q2 benchmark report analyzed the Q2 2012 mailings that had a reference to a social media site in the mailing name or subject line of the email – such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest – and then were compared to the performance of all other mailings from the same clients for the same time period found that:

• 70 percent growth in brands sending ‘Like us’, ‘Follow us’ or ‘Pin us’ email campaigns.
• Pinterest ‘Pin us’ mailings are generating unique click rates that are almost 25 percent higher than other mailings.
• Unique open rates for Twitter ‘Follow us’ mailings are 9.5 percent higher than those for their other mailings, but unique click rates are virtually identical to all of their other mailings.
• Coupons had over 50 percent higher click rates and double the revenue per email than campaigns without offers.

Experian CheetahMail’s Q2 2012 Quarterly Benchmark Study is available to download.

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The combined Bing-powered search comprised 28.12 percent of searches for the month, with Yahoo! Search and Bing receiving 14.95 percent and 13.17 percent, respectively. The remaining 65 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report accounted for 6.86 percent of U.S. searches.

Shorter search queries increase 1 percent in May 2012
Shorter search queries — one to four words — increased 1 percent from April 2012 to May 2012. One-word searches comprised the majority of searches, too, amounting to 29.93 percent of all queries. One-word search queries have increased 19 percent from May 2011 to May 2012.  Longer search queries — those averaging five to eight words or more — decreased 4 percent from April 2012 to May 2012.

“As automated search features have rolled out across the major search engines, we can expect to see one-word searches continue to increase as they have over the past year,” said Simon Bradstock, general manager of Experian Hitwise. “The long tail is not going away, rather just becoming more intensified within the shorter queries, and in turn marketers need to focus more on how consumers start their searches.”

Learn more about search engine trends.

Experian Marketing Services’ CheetahMail® developed a new Pinterest email functionality late last year that has produced significantly higher both open and click rates for emails with the functionality, while also enabling retailers’ products to go viral. Several retailers, including Ballard Designs, have seen significant increases in click-to-open rates, Pinterest followers and pinboard activity by incorporating the capability into their email campaigns.

Specifically, the Pinterest feature allows brands to incorporate “Pin It” functionality within their promotional emails, so that consumers can link products they like to specific pinboards. Email recipients are able to easily share the products featured within the body of the email with friends and followers simply by clicking on the “Pin It” icon — the power of which is word-of-mouth product awareness. The feature is easy to implement, and the CheetahMail team provides the strategy and guidance on how to integrate Pinterest into campaigns, as well as the kinds of campaigns that are best suited to leverage the channel.

“We recognized the viral value of Pinterest early and recommended the ‘Pin It’ functionality to clients to help with customer engagement,” said Yara Lutz, vice president of Client Services at Experian CheetahMail. “The emails with the ‘Pin-It’ functionality have consistently delivered increased click-to-open rates and helped our clients, such as Ballard Designs, expand their presence on this valuable social networking site.”

Ballard Designs “Spring Favorites Campaign”
With the help of its Experian CheetahMail account team, Ballard Designs launched a Customer Spring Favorites promotional email to consumers. The email included six individual products with “Pin It” icons and delivered excellent results. Specifically, Ballard Designs saw:

• A 2.8 percent increase in click-to-open rates
• More than 15 percent increase in Pinterest followers within the first week of deployment
• A 33 percent increase in pinboard activity

“Knowing our brand well, Experian CheetahMail proactively reached out to help us strategize and execute the new ‘Pin It’ in email functionality,” said James Pope, director of public relations and social media for Ballard Designs. “It was very easy, and we are extremely pleased with the results of our first ‘Pin It’ campaign, which enabled six products to be ‘pinned’ separately from within the email, increasing click-to-open rates, Pinterest followers and pinboard activity. The functionality has now become an integral part of our ongoing email campaigns.”

Pinterest campaigns create higher open and click rates
Looking at brands currently sending ‘Pin Us’ campaigns, Experian CheetahMail found that ‘Pin Us’ mailings are generating higher open and click rates when compared to other mailings from the same brands among Experian CheetahMail clients. Pinterest mailings overall are generating 11 percent higher open rates and 25 percent higher click rates than other email campaigns between January 2012 and March 2012.

For more information about how Ballard Designs used the Pinterest feature to its advantage, please read the full Ballard Designs case study and view the Social Media’s Hot Trends Webinar.