DoubleClick released its Q4 Email Trend Report yesterday which found that during the holiday season of email marketing and online shopping, delivery rates, open rates and click-through rates all
improved overall over Q4 2002, and click-through rates also improved in almost all industry categories. Overall, delivery rates (emails sent minus the bounce-back rates) rose to 87.3% in Q4 2003,
versus 86.5% in Q4 2002. Open rates also showed a slight increase from 36.4% to 36.8% in the same time period. Lastly, Click-through rates rose from 8.0% in Q4 2002 to 8.4 percent in Q4 2003. In terms
of industry categories, travel marketers saw click-through rates rise 31.0% or 1.8 percentage points from 5.8% in Q4 2002 to 7.6% in Q4 2003; Business Products and Services rose from 6.9% to 8.9%
representing a 28.9% relative increase in performance.
