Canadian Internet Users Know What They Want When It Comes To Email Marketing

Vancouver, BC- According to a new study released by Ipsos-Reid, Canada's largest market research company, Canadian Internet Users continue to show their receptivity to email marketing campaigns of their choosing, with nearly four out of five of Canadian Internet Users proactively opting in.

The special supplement to Ipsos-Reid's Canadian Interactive Reid Report, entitled "Email Marketing: What the Future Holds," shows that email marketing has a broad audience to reach. As the most popular online activity by far, ninety-two per cent of Canadian Internet Users use email on a regular basis, with 88% of online Canadians accessing this tool weekly, receiving an average of 22 per day.

Consistent over the course of 2001, the 79% of Canadian Internet Users opting in to receive email campaigns have subscribed to an average of 5.2 sites. They turn most often to news and information sites (54%), followed by entertainment sites (38%), and travel sites rounding out the top three (26%).

However, the study also reveals that Canadian Internet Users can be fickle when it comes to email marketing loyalty. In fact, of those who have registered for email marketing, 77% have de-registered for a variety of reasons. Reasons for de-registering include the fact that information received was not of interest (71%), the email was sent too frequently (58%), and users no longer had interest in the topic registered for (54%).

Despite the receptivity to email marketing when used correctly, spam remains a top concern for Canadian Internet Users. This is not surprising given that 79% of Canadian Internet users have ever received spam this quarter, at par with Q4-2000 findings. However this represents a significant increase from the 62% who had ever received SPAM in Q4 of 1999. Of those who receive spam, the average received per month now stands at thirty.

"As email marketing increases in popularity, and in an effort to avoid spam, Canadian Internet Users are going to become increasingly cautious about who they supply their email addresses to. Already 67% of those not willing to provide their email address to retailers and web-sites seek to avoid SPAM," said Marcie Sayiner, Senior Research Manager at Ipsos-Reid. "While email marketing may be considered the electronic equivalent to junk mail, Canadian Internet Users seem to have less patience with this medium."

Canadian Internet Users are not likely to see a decline in the use of email marketing techniques in the future. While Canadian Internet Users are more likely to read direct mail messages (58%), over unsolicited email messages (52%), when it comes to driving brand awareness, the two mediums come in at par at 23%. Appropriately, the effectiveness of email marketing is double that of direct mail marketing when encouraging Canadian Internet Users to opt-in to receive email marketing on a regular basis, at 14% and 8% respectively.

"There is no doubt that this medium can be effective when used appropriately. Marketers simply need to be more in turn with the needs of Canadian Internet Users in order to avoid diluting the market place with ineffective or unsolicited email messages," said Sayiner. "Otherwise, Canadian Internet Users will ultimately become less receptive and less tolerant of this approach."

The Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report is the largest, most comprehensive and authoritative source of its kind about quarterly Internet trends in Canada. The results are based on two separate data collection instruments. In the first, 1,000 web users from Ipsos-Reids Canadian Internet Panel are surveyed online. Panelists are chosen through random telephone surveys conducted on an ongoing basis across Canada. Results are complemented by a further 1,000 interviews via telephone with Canadian adults in order to verify results of the panel, and track issues among non-Internet users. Telephone interviews for this release were conducted between December 10th and 23rd, 2001 while the online data was collected between December 28th, 2001 and January 7th , 2002. These data are statistically weighted to reflect the population proportions of regular online users by online expertise and regional distribution. Our panelists represent approximately 14 million Canadian adult Internet users who are online for one hour a week or more (there are a total of 16.3 million adults who have Internet access).

With a national sample of 1,000 (for each component), one can say with 95% certainty that the overall results are within a maximum of 1773.1 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire population of Canada's regular online users been surveyed. The margin of error will be larger for sub-groupings of the survey population.

Established in 1979, Ipsos-Reid is Canada's leading marketing research and public opinion company. It is best known for the Ipsos-Reid Express Poll, the most widely quoted source of public opinion in the country. Ipsos-Reid has conducted extensive market and social research in 80 countries and in 40 languages, and serves clients around the world through more than 300-professionals and 1,000 data collection staff in eleven offices. The company is a member of the Paris-based Ipsos Group, ranked among the top ten research companies in the world.

For a copy of this Special Feature Report, "Email Marketing: What the Future Holds," or for more information, contact:

Marcie Sayiner
Senior Research Manager
(604) 893-1603

[email protected]