• by Jess Nelson , June 15, 2017

A new study from Yes Lifecycle Marketing suggests that age influences email behavior, and that the majority of Millennials are eager for email-based promotions.

The email and cross-channel marketing solution surveyed more than 1,000 American consumers to analyze shopping and email behavior by generation. Across generations, 36% of respondents have a separate email address for brand communication. This jumps up to 58% when you analyze the email behavior of just Millennials, born in the 1980s and 1990s.

A separate email account for brand communication is actually good news for marketers, according to Yes Lifecycle Marketing, because consumers with marketing-only email accounts check in more frequently for promotions.  

Consequently, almost half of Millennials have made three or more purchases recently over email according to the report -- twice as many as Centennials (born between the mid-1990s and early-2000s).

Millennials are more likely than any other generation to find email and mobile apps important when making a purchase decision, with 67% turning to email and 61% to a mobile app when shopping. Millennials are also more likely to care about loyalty rewards than any other generation, and are more likely to stay loyal to a brand because of its company reputation or philosophy.

The results of Yes Lifecycle Marketing’s study on email behavior parallel recent studies by both Campaigner and Mapp Digital. Millennials were determined to be the most likely generation to engage with email marketing, according to a Campaigner study of more than 750 consumers, and email was selected by Millennials as their most preferred marketing platform in Mapp Digital’s 2016 report.