E-mail volumes beat out direct mail for the first time in the UK

For the first time in the UK, e-mail marketing volume has overtaken direct mail volume, according to a new report by the Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council.

The latest National Email Benchmarking report survey includes responses from 75 percent of UK e-mail service providers, who deliver the majority of outsourced e-mail messages to both business and consumer e-mail accounts in the UK. The study found that while direct mail expenditure continues to rise, volumes have decreased over the past year, as targeting and multichannel efforts have been integrated into the campaigns.

At the same time, the report found that year-over-year volumes of e-mail have increased by 52 percent, with the average volume of e-mails rising by 50 percent in the last quarter alone.

According to the report, 100 percent of respondents believe that volumes will continue to grow by about one third. Forty-two percent of respondents believe that the success of e-mail marketing campaigns is due to targeting, while 33 percent attribute it to the product offering and 25 percent attribute e-mail's success to good creative.

The survey also found that e-mail deliverability continues to improve with hard bounce rates standing at 2 percent, down from 6 percent in the first quarter.