Pivotal Veracity Releases First-Ever Vertical-Market Email Engagement Index Benchmarks

Financial Services, Technology and Telecommunications Firms Most Successful at Engaging Customers in Q1 – Q3 2009

PHOENIX, Ariz., November 10, 2009—Pivotal Veracity, the industry leader in cross platform email deliverability and optimization solutions, today released its first Email Engagement Index (EEI) industry benchmarks report for Q1 – Q3 2009. The report reveals that financial services, technology and telecommunications firms were the most successful at engaging customers with their email programs during the first three quarters of 2009 (averaging EEI scores of 77 and 65, respectively), with retail, travel and hospitality marketers faring the worst (42 and 34, respectively).

“As the email technology and deliverability landscape continues to evolve in a direction that prioritizes individual consumer engagement, marketers must create more timely and relevant communications than ever before,” said Deirdre Baird, president and CEO, Pivotal Veracity. “Improving customer engagement—especially as compared to other mailers—can mean the difference between having deliverable campaigns that drive response and a high ROI, or campaigns that are blocked and sent to peoples’ spam folders.”

Leveraging a statistically significant panel of more than 50,000 email subscribers, Pivotal Veracity’s exclusive EEI solution provides marketers with an objective, 3rd party view of customer engagement as evidenced by four critical and never-before-had performance indicators; a proprietary algorithm processes these metrics to produce senders’ EEI scores:

1. Relevance and Response (“Read Rate”): The EEI makes it possible for the first time to identify “Read Rates.” Messages are counted as having actually been “Read” if a recipient either double-clicks the message or views the message for 5 or more seconds—regardless of whether images are on or off.  This provides a more  accurate view of campaign performance than traditional Open Rate metrics, because the Read Rate does not have the same limitation that requires images to be turned on in order to measure an “Open.”
2. Right Time: The average amount of time elapsed between when a sender deploys a message and when the recipient first views it in their inbox (i.e., when they first see it in the list view; but not when they have actually read it). 
3. Importance and Appeal: The average amount of time elapsed between when the recipient first sees the message from the sender in the list view and when the recipient actually reads the message. 
4. Frequency and Deliverability: The average number of emails per month that customers see from senders in their inbox.

The data in the table below highlights average EEI scores and underlying performance metrics across key vertical markets calculated between Q1 and Q3 2009. (Note: The “All Mailers” category includes data from industry segments that extend beyond the four segments that are the focus of this report).

“Marketers can use the Email Engagement Index to time email deployments for when customers actually read their messages, to identify how important their messages are perceived relative to other mailers, and to benefit from a host of other fascinating new insights that they never had access to before,” said Deirdre Baird, president and CEO, Pivotal Veracity. “Simply put, this unprecedented level of data translates into a competitive advantage that will ensure success in the new age of engagement-based spam filtering and customer-level inbox control.”

To access the full report, which includes detailed month-to-month vertical-market performance data, analysis and recommendations click here.

Methodology

The Email Engagement Index is based on multiple proprietary data sources that are aggregated and analyzed monthly across authenticated mailer domains. Metrics for industry benchmarks are compiled by averaging the results of mailer domains that have a maximum sampling error of +/-5% at the 95% confidence interval and require enough unique mailer domains and data to ensure an overall statistical sampling error for the industry benchmark of +/-1% at the 95% confidence interval.

About Pivotal Veracity

Pivotal Veracity is the number one ranked independent email delivery auditing and optimization company. The company provides a suite of solutions that empower permission-based enterprises with tools and expertise to improve the credibility, deliverability and effectiveness of their online communications. Pivotal Veracity’s solutions are offered directly to businesses as well as through a network of more than forty leading email deployment platforms, service providers and agencies worldwide. For more information, visit www.pivotalveracity.com.

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