• by Ray Schultz , March 12, 2018

Email marketers are on a roll, with 79% of executives surveyed saying they are achieving their top priorities and 34% claiming they are best in class, according to Email Marketing Engagement, a study released on Monday by Ascend2.

Their top goal, cited by 55%, is improving email engagement. But 43% also rated that as a “challenging barrier.” In addition, 48% see improving sales revenue as a main objective.

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 273 executives -- 46% in B2B, 36% in B2C and 21% in both.

Of those polled, 34% say their email effectiveness is increasing significantly and 52% say it is marginally improving. Another 12% feel it is decreasing to a marginal extent, and 2% that it’s significantly plummeting.

Of all the types of email tactics, single topic campaigns are the most effective at improving engagement, specified by 46%, followed by new subscriber welcome emails (39%). Those two also require the least effort. Automated/event-triggered emails are third, with 37%.

In contrast, integrated social media campaigns are described as effective by only 32%. Multi-topic campaigns are at the bottom, with 31%. 

Editors take note: newsletters with owned content have a slight edge in effectiveness over those with curated content — at 33% versus 32%. But they require more work. 

The respondents list the following strategic priorities for email marketing:

• Improving email engagement — 55%
• Increasing sales revenue — 48% 
• Improving quality of leads — 45%
• Increasing lads generated — 42%
• Increasing conversion rates — 39%
• Reducing cost of marketing — 22%
• Reducing sales cycle time — 18%

Yet some of those same goals are seen as barriers to success. The most challenging ones are improving the quality of leads (45%), improving email engagement (43%) and boosting conversion rates (43%).

• Improving quality of leads — 45%
• Improving email engagement — 43% 
• Increasing conversation rates—43%
• Increasing sales revenue — 33%
• Reducing cost of marketing — 26%
• Reducing sales cycle time — 24%

• Pre-pipeline (new subscribers) — 22%
• Early pipeline (opens, clicks) — 43%
• Mid-pipeline (form fills) — 24% 
• Late pipeline (sales revenue) — 11%

Of the firms reflected in the survey, 50% use a combination of outsource and in-house resources to executive email engagement tactics. Another 20% outsource to a specialist, and 20% rely only on in-house capabilities.