• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 31, 2006

According to a new study from e-mail services provider Silverpop Systems Inc, reported by Internet Retailer, branding in an e-mail subject line is critical to campaign success, worth an open rate that's 32% to 60% higher than when the e-mail doesn't have such branding.

The study also finds that:

• Lifestyle photography pays off in higher e-mail click rates for B2C marketers. The average click rate for B2C e-mails with lifestyle photography was 6.3% and 5.4% without it.
• For B2B e-mails, the 4.1%, click rate for those that included lifestyle photography was lower than the 5.3% for e-mails that didn't include it

In addition, the summary shows that the study says the postcard design, a favorite of b2c e-mail marketers, doesn't produce the highest click rates for them. The newsletter format produced average click rates of 7.1% for the B2C respondents, versus 6.2% for e-mails using the postcard layout.

Silverpop reports that while it might seem logical that the more links in an e-mail, the higher the click rate, but that number drops off in the range of six to 10 links per email.

And, while the senders of B2C marketing e-mails including a promotion most often featuring a percentage off the purchase price, the study found that dollars off generated higher clicks.

"According to the study" IR says, "click rates for emails offering a specific dollar amount off were 45% higher than those offering a percent discount..."

Read the Internet Retailer synopsis here, or visit Silverpop for the study "E-mail Creative That Works"