• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 13, 2012

A clear majority of new email subscribers are unengaged with email marketing programs, according to second-quarter data from Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council.
 
In fact, nearly two thirds -- 59% -- of new subscribers in an average list had opened, or clicked on, any messages since signing up.
 
The latest findings are not all bad for marketers, however. Open rates for “triggered messages” -- which are deployed as a result of an action or trigger such as “Welcome,” “Abandon Shopping Cart,” “Thank You” and “Anniversary” -- were 95% higher than standard marketing emails.  
 
That represents an increase over the previous quarter (75%) and the previous year (82%), according to Linda Woolley, DMA’s acting president and CEO.
 
“While the average business-as-usual email volume decreased 6% in the second quarter of 2012, we’ve seen a 14% increase in triggered email volume,” said Woolley. “This illustrates that direct marketers are evolving their email contact strategies.”
 
Still, triggered messages only accounted for 2.6% of total volume, according to Epsilon.
 
Among all marketing emails, non-bounce rates remained strong at 95.9% during the second quarter of the year, while open rates decreased slightly quarter-over-quarter (down 2.5%), but increased 15.2% year-over-year.
 
For its broader findings, Epsilon looked at some 7.3 billion emails across multiple industries sent in April, May and June of this year.