• by Masha Geller , September 19, 2002

First off, a reminder: There’s less than a week left until our Forecast 2003 show. We’ve been fortunate enough to assemble an absolutely stellar roster of speakers, so if you haven’t already, click on the link below and come see what they have to say about the future. It’s at the Yale Club next Thursday, Sept. 26, and it’s not to be missed. Register today!

That said, I have bad news. Jupiter Research yesterday released a report predicting that consumers will receive unwanted email with increasing frequency in the coming years and that by 2007 the average email consumer will be exposed to more than 3,900 spam messages annually.

According to the report, since 2001, the average amount of spam received per user has increased from 3.7 to 6.2 emails per day. Within the course of the next five years, the total number of unwanted email messages sent will increase significantly, reaching more than 645 billion spam messages annually by 2007. Jupiter Research also predicts that in five years, the average online user will be exposed to 830 marketing impressions online per usage day, almost doubling from an average of 447 impressions in 2000.

The good news is that the amount spent annually on email marketing campaigns will grow exponentially in the coming years from $1.4 billion in 2002 to $8.3 billion in 2007, Jupiter analysts think. Their research indicates that retention campaigns will dominate the volume of non-spam emails over the next five years, but marketers will spend more on acquisition emails through 2004. The proliferation of newsletters, combined with the overall growth of email marketing, will cause consumers to ignore newsletters and spam messages in greater numbers, thereby reducing the branding and messaging effectiveness of these missives.

Also, whereas text emails will continue to comprise the majority of email volume until 2004, in general HTML messages receive a better response rate from consumers. Jupiter predicts that rich media emails will occupy a niche until 2005, by which time they will comprise one-fifth (19%) of email spending. By 2007, rich media emails will capture 25% of the market as marketers learn to use this type of email in a cost-effective manner.