Some 43% of marketers feel negative about the effects of GDPR, but email marketing continues to reap rewards as ROI increases year on year, according to research by the DMA.
The Marketer email tracker 2018 report found email marketing’s return on investment (ROI) is £32.28 for every £1 spent, up from £30.03 last year, despite industry fears sparked the looming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Although an encouraging 72% of marketers feel prepared for the new data legislation – which takes full effect on 25 May – 43% feel negative about how this will impact them.
Skip Fidura, strategy and insight director at dotmailer, who sponsored the report, said: “Like consumers, marketers still love email and we love it because it works. All the standard process metrics, open rates, click rates and most importantly conversion rates are up. This is in turn driving up ROI.”
The upward swing in email ROI is helped by 50% of marketers who are confident they can accurately calculate their ROI, according to the report, with 19% able to determine the lifetime value of an email address to their business.
Careful of email marketing complacency
However, it reveals that a surprising one in five marketers feel their organisation has no competence at all with staple email testing, with 15% saying they don’t conduct any tests on emails they send to customers.
Fidura said: “Email makes it so easy to test new metrics, copy creative and offers, that this should be as business as usual as adding in a subject line.”
Despite this, email is still perceived as leading the charge, so long as marketers remain vigilant. Marcus Gearey, chair of the DMA Email Council’s research hub and analytics manager at Zeta Global, said: “Email is still at the forefront of consumer marketing and both sides seem largely happy this is so. But marketers should be careful not to be complacent. They would be wise to learn from the principles of the GDPR’s inspiration and codify their own best practice for email to maintain its position as the pre-eminent marketing channel.”
