• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, February 16, 2010

Research firm Email Data Source (EDS) said it is launching a new service showing both the reach of email campaigns and percentage of inbox deliverability. EDS is attaching it to an existing email and social media analytics tool, Email Analyst.

The system will offer the "percentage of active email inboxes that receive an email message ... (and) the percentage of emails actually being delivered to the inbox versus the spam folder." Data can be broken out by an ISP, be it Yahoo, AOL or Gmail.

EDS said other services offer data on emails blocked by ISPs, but its system can gauge "where a message goes once it is delivered" -- which has been a challenge.

"Together, these two metrics bring a new degree of accuracy to list size and inbox placement that was never available before," EDS said. EDS said it is providing an independent verifier of audience measurement for email, which can "help marketers evaluate email partners and vendors."

EDS conducted a January study of reach and inbox deliverability covering four leading newspapers: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Washington Post.

The NYT performed the best in reach ("4,500 per million active email accounts") and had "an average of 96% delivery to the inbox (meaning approximately 4% of their emails were delivered to the spam folder)." The Washington Post scored second in reach (3,400 per million) with the same inbox delivery percentage. USA Today led with 97% deliverability, but had a reach of just 1,000 active email accounts per million, EDS said.

The LA Times trailed with the lowest reach of 300 active email accounts per million, and a 92% deliverability rate.