Email List Building: Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Bigger isn’t always better in e-mail marketing. Read this new study reported on Chris Baggot’s Blog:

The bigger the e-mail list, the lower the open and click-through rates, says a new study from e-mail service provider ExactTarget.

The 2005 study of more than 4,000 organizations 230,000 e-mail campaigns and 2.7 billion e-mail messages reports that lists with 100,000 or more names experienced an average open rate of 18.2% and click-though of 3.6%.

Those of 101-1000 names had an open rate of 42.1% and click-through rate of 6.8%.

For lists of 1,001 to 10,000, the rates were 33.2% and 5.1%.

For 10,001 to 100,000, the rates were 25.8% and 4.5%.

"This phenomenon is one of the strongest cases for audience segmentation," says Morgan Stewart, director of strategic services at ExactTarget and author of the study. "The smaller the targeted audience, the better organizations can aim their message directly to their subscribers in their e-mail communications."

The ExactTarget 2005 Response Rate Study summarizes overall open, click-through and unsubscribe rates and provides additional analyses based on day of week for sending email while examining list size and target audience.  The study is available by going here…