Consumers prefer to shop online at certain times, but retailers are not aligning emails with those times, according to an October 2012 study by Yesmail. 39% of consumers point at the evening hours between 6pm and 10pm as the time they do their online shopping, but only 5% of email campaigns from retailers were deployed during those hours. 

According to data published by email testing and analytics company Litmus, the iPhone is the leading platform for email opens, surging ahead of Outlook for the first time earlier this year. A study of over 1 billion emails found that 20% of opens occured on an iPhone, followed by Outlook at 18% and Yahoo! mail at 13%. 

A survey released today by StrongMail reveals that 80% of businesses reported an uptick in email performance when sending messages at a particular time of day. 87% report that there are tangible benefits associated with being able to control when emails arrive, with fully 1 in 3 believe sending at the ideal time increases revenue. Still, over half are not testing to find that ideal delivery window, and only 39% are segmenting email by time of day. 

Data from a New York Times survey finds that 39% of Generation X shares content via email, while only 19% share on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Millennials share more by social but just barely - 35% compared to 34% by email. 66% of each group shares via analog channels - by actually talking to other people. 

A new class-action lawsuit filed in Canada charges that Google's Gmail “intercepts, obtains and uses personal information it collections from emails sent to Gmail users.” Lawsuits of this nature are not unique, but the twist to this one is that it is filed by someone who is not a Gmail user and is therefore exempt from the disclaimers in Gmail's terms of service. 

When asked what developments will have the greatest impact on their email marketing programs over the next 12 months, 83% of CMOs chose social media - well over smartphone and tablet adoption (46%). The use of engagement metrics by webmail clients made the list in third (37%).

A newly released eTail report surveying the tech spending of online retailers finds that 32% intend to increase investments in email during the crucial fourth quarter. The most popular channels for increased investment are search (48%) and social media (34%).

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, 28% of a knowledge worker's time is spent managing email, a figure that could be cut by almost a third with a change in tools and tactics. The number one recommendation for spending less time on email: unsubscribe. 

According to a recent report by Marketing Sherpa, 72% of email marketers test subject lines, though only 35% believe subject lines are "very effective" at driving results. The tactics considered most effective are target audience (42%) and landing page (41%), though these tactics are tested by fewer than 1 in 3 marketers. 

However relevant and targeted, most email messages are regarded as junk mail, even if they make it to the inbox and enjoy readership and clicks. Only if a message is perceived to be coming from someone the recipient knows and likes and wants to hear from does it transcent the junk mail moniker and come to be regarded more like a letter than a flyer.  Read the full article on Business 2 Community.