• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 25, 2021

Most brands are sending more email this year to some degree, according to Email Marketing Automation, a study by Ascend2. 

Of the brands polled, 74% are increasing their send, 36%, significantly, and 38% moderately. Another 20% are staying the same, and a mere 6% are decreasing their volume, 3% significantly. 

But emailers face challenges, the most difficult ones being: 

• Maintaining an engaged list — 45% 
• Reducing spam complaints — 37% 
• Increasing email list size — 34%
• Achieving measurable ROI — 33%
• Integrating email data with other systems — 29%
• Leveraging personalization effectively — 28%
• Optimizing for mobile — 22% 

And the respondents listed several areas for improvement:

• Personalization — 43%
• Data quality — 39%
• Email design — 34% 
• Messaging — 33% 
• Types of content — 28%
• Calls—to—action (CTAs) — 23% 
• Automation — 21% 
• Testing — 16%
• Segmentation — 15% 

Despite all this, 38% rate their email programs as very successful at meeting the goals set for them — or best in class.

Another 50% say they’re somewhat successful, and 12% are unsuccessful. 

The brands polled do a certain amount of testing before they mail. They test: 

• Design — 43% 
• Deliverability — 36%
• Subject lines — 35% 
• Subscriber verification—32% 
• Accessibility — 31%
• Sender reputation/spam score — 28%
• HTML validation — 25% 
• Device/Email client display — 23% 

Their most effective automated emails are: 

• Welcome/thank you — 49%
• Survey/feedback — 46% 
• Re-engagement — 32% 
• Remarketing — 11% 
• Personal event — 30%
• Transactional — 21%
• Onboarding — 18% 
• Abandoned cart — 15% 

How long should they keep an inactive subscriber before removing them from the list? Most would wait a fair amount of time:

• 2-6 months — 31% 
• 6-12 months — 28% 
• More than one year — 25% 
• 1 month or less —16% 

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 298 marketers in December 2020. Of those, 31% were B2B, 40% were B2C and 29% were B2B and B2C equally.