• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 18, 2021

Email marketers are not doing as well, as hype would have it. Many are underwhelmed by their results and by their ESPs, according to Email Marketing: Tapping into data goldmines,” a study released Thursday by Simon Data, working with ClickZ. 

Only 31.71% of email marketers said their campaigns are effective, versus 60.16% who called them adequate and 8.13% who said they do not feel they are working.   

One issue is data integration. While 515%% say their current ESP integrates with all their customer data services, 38.5% contend it does not, and 10% don’t know. 

Drawing from these findings, the study concludes that ESPs are not all created equal. But there are many to choose from -- respondents list 54. 

Then there is timing. Of those polled, 52.7% report it takes from one to three business days to get the information they need to run a campaign. Another 22.5% say the timing is 4-5 days, while 10.1% say it takes 6-10 days and 14.7% say the process takes more than 11 days. 

The respondents also use a varying number of segmentations, as follows:

• One size fits all — 20.8%
• 2-10 — 64.6% 
• 11-50 — 12.3% 
• 51-100 — 1.5%
• 100+ — 0.8% 

One issue is that few are basing their segmentations solely on real-time data:

• Real-time data — 12.3% 
• Historical data — 33.1% 
• Both — 46.9% 
• Don’t know — 7.7%

In addition, most use only a couple of personalization elements. Specifically, they utilize: 

• 1 — 46.2% 
• 2 — 30% 
• 3+ — 23.8% 

What is stopping them? For 30.2%, the time it takes to create segments is a barrier to the amount of personalization that can go into a campaign. Another 34.9% say this is somewhat so, and 34.9% answer no. 

Finally, there is the issue of access to customer data. Of those surveyed, 58.1% feel that better access would improve their ability to personalize their email marketing, while 34.19% say there would be no change and 7.69% say it would not help very much. 

Many teams can be involved in the email campaign process — up to a point. The respondents list:

• Email marketing team — 85.4%
• Data team — 40$ 
• IT/Tech team — 33.8% 
• Other — 24.6%
• Engineering team — 13.1%

The study concludes that there is “an abundance of choice out there when it comes to which ESP to use, and the quality of the services they offer is just as diverse.” The level of integration “is the most important factor for marketers to consider,” it says.

The report is based on a survey of 130 marketing executives conducted by ClickZ, working with Simon Data, in August-September, 2021.