Studies Demonstrate the Increasing Effectiveness of Rich-Media, Rich-Information eMarketing

“By 2005, almost 30% of online media spending will be devoted to newer methods such as rich media (e.g. Flash, Java animations) or streaming (e.g. audio and video) advertising, up from 5.5% in 2000.”
-- Jupiter Communications

“Sending rich media emails can improve response rates, and, if given the choice, 35-40% of email recipients choose to receive multimedia email as opposed to text- based email.” -- The Yankee Group

DoubleClick Reports Click Through Rates of Rich Media Appeals Six Times Higher than Standard Media

While the mantra among advertisers is "no rich media for rich media's sake," it appears that ad response rates are reason enough to use rich media when appropriate. A report released last week by New York-based DoubleClick reveals some very promising data for the rich media advertising industry.

According to its quarterly Ad Serving Trend Report, released June 13, click-through rates on rich media ads are six times higher than those of non-rich media ads.
DoubleClick's ad serving data shows that rich media ads garner a 2.4% CTR, while non-rich media ads average a mere 0.4%. Plus, the ad serving firm is seeing a steady boost in the usage of its Rich Media Templates which track rich media ads. The company finds that on average, of the two billion ads it serves daily, 20% fall under the rich media umbrella, many employing Flash and formats such as Unicast Superstitials and Eyeblaster ads.
The report also shows growth in the usage of IAB-sanctioned ad formats and sizes: 5.5%, up from 3.4% of DoubleClick served ads in September 2001.
Additional Findings

DoubleClick served more than 8000 different ad sizes in May 2002.
Of the static ads served by DoubleClick, the difference between the CTR for IAB standard ads (0.5%) and non-standardized sizes (0.4%) is minimal.
Of the ads trafficked through DoubleClick's DART system, 43.8% are targeted by keyword or key value, while only 5.5% are targeted by geography and 1.3% by time-of-day.

Most DoubleClick served ads are less than 12K in file size (71%). Only 1.75% are over 25K, and 27.25% are between 12K and 25K.

About DoubleClick Inc.
DoubleClick provides tools for advertisers, direct marketers and Web publishers to plan, execute and analyze marketing programs. The company has its global headquarters in New York City and maintains 26 offices around the world.

Informed Marketer News recently released a new study of their customers’ newsletter mailings that provides insights and benchmarks for e-Marketers in a variety of ways, including editorial planning and response rate projection.

The October 2003 study presents data on readers’ content preferences and readership patterns that is based on over 100 million e-mailed newsletters that were sent to approximately eight million active subscribers. The research supports IMN’s strategy of Informative Marketing ,™ which uses continuous feedback about readership behavior to strengthen the interest of individual subscribers from one e-mail to the next.

This research calls attention to the inherent advantages that e-Marketers enjoy because of today’s technological advances. Marketers have instant access to behavioral data on every e-mail recipient so they now know what their subscribers are reading first, what kind of content they read, where they spend the longest time on a page, what they click to next, and which articles they pass along. The more marketers rely on this type of information and the statistics found in this study, the smarter they become – and the better chance they have of sending information that customers want, value, expect and continue to open and read.
Some of the key findings of this IMN study, which was based on the mailings by nearly 4,000 clients over three years, are:
Open rates vary industry to industry . When comparing industry to industry, this study found that several industries surpass the average unique open rate* of 39.4 percent. The top industries in this category, listed below, have the most success in engaging their subscribers.
63.2 percent - Marketing communications firms (advertising, marketing, public relations, etc.)

55 percent - Retailers
47.6 percent - Financial services
43.4 percent - Manufacturing
41.1 percent - Nonprofit organizations
40.9 percent - Software development firms

Readers highly value product information . The IMN study shows that, on average, active e-newsletter subscribers read 64 percent of the content in each issue. Subscribers seem to actively seek out product-oriented content most often, emphasizing the point that customers and prospects truly value information on products and services. Here are the “unique click-through*” rates that show what readers’ preferences are when seeking information from a newsletter:

29 percent product information
18 percent company news
14 percent industry news
11 percent tips and tricks and other topics

Your readers are getting your e-mail . Another interesting point of this study was the high average number of subscribers that receive their e-mails. Over 97 percent receive their e-mails, with only 0.3 percent bouncing due to full mailboxes and 2.3 percent due to incorrect addresses.
This study highlights the fact that by continually engaging readers with Informative Marketing strategies, marketers can develop e-newsletters that subscribers not only open, but look forward receiving. This improves branding, retention and customers’ likelihood to purchase.
*Note: A unique open rate refers to the percentage of subscribers who click the subject line of an e-mail to open and read it. If an individual opens the e-mail multiple times, only his/her initial click to open is counted. A unique click-through rate refers to the percentage of subscribers who not only open and start to read their e-mail, but then click an inside link for additional information. If an individual clicks multiple inside links, only his/her initial click-through is counted.