• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 12, 2019

All other worries aside, the biggest challenge facing email marketers worldwide is staying out of the spam folder, according to a study by GoodFirms.

Of the marketers polled, 76.25% place landing in the spam trap on their list of obstacles. 

Running a distant second is creating compelling content, cited by 48.75%. Third is boosting open rates and CTRs, at 33.13%. 

In addition, 29.38% are daunted by the introduction of the Promotion Tab by inbox service providers. And 12.50% cite the challenge of growing and retaining subscribers. 

Yet brands are spending an average of 12.09% of their total marketing budgets — anywhere from 2% to 30% — depending on the campaign type, the content requirements and the email list, the study states.

In another key finding, marketers identified their favorite email tools. 

MailChimp is first, being selected by 31.88%. HubSpot is next with 26.25%, followed by ActiveCampaign (15%), Constant Contact (13.13%), GetResponse (7.50%) and ONTRAPORT (6.25%).

However, the choices of these respondents may not reflect those of other email marketers.

GoodFirms surveyed over 100 marketers and experts from the U.S., the UK, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, India, South Africa and Singapore.

From this sample, the study identified these email marketing priorities:

• Build strong customer relations — 96.88%
• Sell products/services — 95.63% 
• Grow customer base — 85.63% 
• Brand awareness — 78.13%
• Boost engagement — 62.50% 
• Build credibility — 39.38%
• Weekly updates — 27.50%

To achieve those ends, 53.75% send marketing emails once per week, and 33.75% once every other week. Another 6.88% send email monthly, and only 5.62% do so daily.

What kinds of email do they send? They include:

• Announcement emails — 96.88% 
• Welcome emails — 84.38%
• Thank you emails — 72.50%
• Lead nurturing emails — 56.25%
• Remarketing emails — 52.50%
• Customer acquisition emails — 43.75%

And they are increasingly tech-savvy, pursuing behavioral targeting (62.50%), interactive emails (51.25%), Hyper-personalization(48.75%) and mobile-friendly emails (37.50%). 

However, the latter statistic is disappointing, given the wide proliferation of mobile phones.

What kinds of results are they getting? They are drawing an average open rate of 22.5% and a click-through rate of 4.2%.

Almost half — 48.13% — get between 10% and 20%. Most of the rest are somewhere in the middle, but 3.75% achieve highs of from 40% to 50%. 

Click-throughs are slightly different, with 40.63% pulling 5% and 25% getting 3%. In contrast, 7.50% of those surveyed achieve 6%, and 5% manage a rate of 2%.

The respondents are utilizing five main optimization strategies: 

• Landing pages — 81.88% 
• Personalized emails — 80.63%
• Subject lines — 78.13% 
• Social media — 69.38% 
• User-generated content — 38.75%