• by Masha Geller , November 25, 2002

Whenever an online-related announcement bears a headline containing the word “stabilization,” my first feeling is that of disappointed skepticism because "stability" is not a word often used in this industry. Yesterday was no exception, as DoubleClick Inc. announced the results of its Q3 2002 Email Marketing Trend Report, which found that after a significant dip in Q2 performance metrics including open rates and click rates, in addition to high bounce back rates, Q3 metrics have “returned to 2001 levels.”

So that’s what they mean by stabilization!

Semantics aside, DC’s Q3 data revealed that open rates remained consistent quarter-over- quarter at 37.3% (from 37.6% in Q2), while click-though rates increased to 8.5% in Q3 from 7.5% in Q2. Bounce back rates declined from their historic high of 13.6% in Q2 to 13.3% in Q3. The high bounce back rates probably reflect full in-boxes, new size limits for inboxes as well as address changes.

Business products and services continued to have the highest open rates (47.4%), followed by travel (42.5%) and consumer products (41.9%). However, business products and services had the highest bounce back rates in Q3 at 16.5%, although this has declined from 19% in Q2. Retailer and catalog bounce back rates decreased significantly from Q2 dropping from 14.6% to 11.9%.

Not surprisingly, HTML continues to prove more effective than text – at least in DoubleClick’s experience, HTML also outperformed text email, generating an 11.3% click- through rate, versus 6% for text emails.

And if inbox clutter is something you’re worried about (and everyone should be), DoubleClick says that Tuesday remains the most popular mailing day, with almost 24% of all email is mailed on a Tuesday (consistent with Q2), ranging from 18.6% of emails in the consumer products category to 42.2% in the travel category. Wednesday, the second most popular day overall, and is the most popular day for retailers and catalogers (29.3% of volume). Thursday is the most popular for the consumer product and services category (30.2%).