• by January 24, 2001

This morning, after downloading my emails (523 of them to be exact and that's just from the overnight hours), I finally decided to remove myself from a few lists I somehow ended up on. It took a while, but I did it. Unfortunately, Jupiter Research found a way to swiftly destroy the sense of accomplishment I felt after typing the word "unsubscribe" a few dozen times.

According to their latest prediction, in 2005, advertisers are expected to send some 268 billion email messages. That's 22 times the number of emails sent last year, and more than 5,600 (average) for each email subscriber.

I do generally look at these research house predictions with a healthy amount of skepticism. As one reader put it, these announcements often sound a lot like: "Last year they sold 1 million scooters. This year they sold 4 million. That means that in 10 years, everyone on earth, and even some on Mars, will own one." But today's announcement seems a little more ominous if you look at it from an advertiser's point of view.

According to Jupiter, portals and Internet service providers (ISPs) are going to start charging online marketers for the massive volume of email being sent across the Web. Analysts say that as the providers restrict access to a user's primary inbox and monetize the delivery of promotional email, advertisers looking to reach consumers online must prepare to pay a premium.

As email marketing increases, the business of sending emails will likely evolve into a "tier-based" system, with senders paying more for premium services, Jupiter said. First tier email, for example, would be sent to a targeted user's primary inbox at the time of day that person was most likely to be online. The bottom tier would be reserved for bulk email messages that would go into a separate "junk" inbox.

If Jupiter's predictions are correct, it would be welcome news for Web users who are sick of receiving unsolicited commercial email, or spam. At the same time, Jupiter advised, marketers should begin factoring the costs of promotional email delivery into their budget planning.

Not that I think this is going to happen any time soon, but it might not be a bad idea to plan for the worst case scenario.