A study has indicated that two thirds of online Americans have made a purchase as a result of email, nearly twice the percentage who have purchased after receiving marketing messages delivered via both Facebook and text messaging.

A new study released earlier this month by global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget shared that consumers’ preferences vary significantly for communications with brands and friends. Based on a survey of 1,481 U.S. online consumers, ExactTarget’s 2012 Channel Preference Survey asked how Americans communicate online with brands and with friends and found a growing divide between personal communications preferences and how consumers want to receive marketing messages.

Key findings of the research include:

Email

·    96 percent of online consumers use email at least weekly.

·    66 percent have made a purchase after receiving an email marketing message.

·    76 percent prefer email over all other channels for customer service messages.

·    66 percent of teens (ages 15-17) prefer email over all other channels for permission-based marketing.

Text Messaging

·    68 percent of online consumers use text messaging at least weekly.

·    16 percent have made a purchase after receiving a text (SMS) marketing message.

·    25 percent prefer text messaging over all other channels for real-time travel alerts.

·    9 percent of consumers ages 25-34 prefer text messaging over all other channels for delivery of tickets to an event purchased online.

Social Media                                                                                                                

·    70 percent of online consumers use Facebook at least weekly.

·    20 percent use Twitter at least weekly.

·    20 percent have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook.

·    32 percent of teens (ages 15-17) have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook.

·    16 percent of teens (ages 15-17) have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Twitter.

·    4 percent prefer Facebook over all other channels for permission-based marketing.

Issues

Marketers focusing on email marketing also need to consider that worldwide inbox placement rates (IPR) declined sharply in the second half of 2011. Historically, IPR has remained steady at around 80 percent with one in five emails being delivered to the spam folder or blocked. For the first time in three years, email certification and reputation monitoring company Return Path has seen a major decline of six percent in the second half of 2011 bringing inbox placement rates to a record low of 76.5 percent globally, compared to 81 percent in the first half of 2011.

According to the company’s most recent Global Email Deliverability Benchmark report, companies are having difficulty in getting their emails delivered, ISPs are tightening requirements on reputation metrics and the number of companies using email to market continues to increase. The company sees both higher overall email volume and an influx of relatively unsophisticated senders – resulting in decreased inbox placement rates.