• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 9 hours ago

Email marketers have enough to worry about between vendor changes, personalization hurdles and regulatory issues. But they also have to contend with email inboxes filled with scam messages.

This is more of a problem this holiday season than some experts may realize, judging by a study from DigiCert, conducted by Vitreous World.

That’s why DigiCert is calling it “The Perfect Shopping Scam Storm.”

For one thing, 73% of shoppers cannot reliably spot fake emails, although this contradicts some of the more positive findings in the study. But 87% have received fake emails at least a few times. 

Of the consumers surveyed, 55% have been sent a Nigerian-prince style email they recognized as a scam, and did not engage, while 75% say they have never fallen victim to a phishing or scam email. 

To spot suspicious emails, 55% said they would look for poor spelling or grammar and 55% would check for a suspicious sender address. 

What is the overall solution? No doubt it is BIMI ((Brand Indicators for Message Identification), which allows verified brands to display their logos with their emails. 

Of the shoppers polled, 64% would be inclined to open emails that display an official brand logo. And, of the shoppers polled, 49% are more likely to engage with an email with a displayed logo than one that does not have one.  

In addition, 86% say they are more likely to click, reply or purchase if they are 100% certain that the email came from a brand. 

DigiCert acquired Valimail, a major supporter of BIMI and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) in September. 

Vitreous World surveyed 5,000 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.