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DoubleClick's Fifth Annual Consumer Email Study Shows Consumers Open to Marketing Messages Within Transactional and Service Messages

Despite Growing Spam Levels, Consumers Continue to Welcome Permission-Based Marketing Emails

New York, NY, 10/18/2004 - DoubleClick Inc. (NASDAQ: DCLK), the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web publishers, today announced the results of its fifth annual Consumer Email Study at the DMA Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The study reveals the continued popularity of email for consumers and an increasing acknowledgment of email as a legitimate and relied-upon marketing channel.
Spam still comprises the largest proportion of email that consumers receive, however permission-based email is increasingly being welcomed by consumers as a replacement for telemarketing, direct mail, and even bills and statements. As further indication of the perceived legitimacy of email, consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases, both online and offline, as a result of receiving a permission-based email.

Email Usage Continues to Grow in Volume and Sophistication

Email usage has continued to rise over the past year with 81 percent of consumers identifying themselves as being online to send and receive email multiple times daily, and 33 percent reporting constant usage. This group of constant emailers jumped considerably (from 20%) from 2003 levels. The average consumer receives 308 emails per week, a 16 percent increase from 2003. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of this volume is considered to be spam, versus 56 percent in 2003. Permission based email accounts for eight percent of emails received, and two-thirds (67%) of respondents report opening at least 6 out of every 10 permission based emails.

Consumers are also becoming more sophisticated in their usage of email. A significant proportion of consumers consider email to be a replacement for telemarketing (49%) and direct mail to their home address (45%). When asked what they would like email to replace, 54 percent said telemarketing, 45 percent said in-person sales calls and forty percent said direct mail to postal address. An additional third (33%) of respondents would like to see email replacing retail offers and coupons, and twenty eight percent said bills or statements.

New Marketing Potential for Transactional Email

Across the board, consumers expect emails to confirm transactions and shipping (95% and 90% respectively), and many are open to the ideas of promotional emails being used to promote ancillary offers. Fifty-two percent were interested in offers for related products, 47 percent in information about membership rewards programs and 41 percent displayed an interest in sweepstakes.

Currently, more than half of consumers (57%) report receiving permission-based email from online merchants and from brick-and-mortar retailers (55%), with slightly fewer receiving them from catalogers (45%). In addition, 54 percent say that they currently receive bills and statements by email, with 65 percent of respondents receiving banking statements by email.

Historically, transactional and service email has originated from the IT department within an organization. By transferring ownership of this area to marketing, organizations can use these messages as a powerful sales tool, marketing directly to existing customers that have an ongoing relationship with its brand.

Email Continuing to Drive Multi-Channel Sales

Thirty-two percent of respondents have made an immediate purchase online as a result of an email, up from 28 percent in 2003. A slightly smaller percentage (30%) have clicked on an email to find more information, and then returned later to purchase online. An additional 12 percent clicked on an email to find more information and then later purchased the item offline. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of consumers have redeemed an online coupon during an online purchase, while 59 percent have redeemed an online coupon offline.

There is little variation between which categories are most likely to drive purchases through email. Travel, hardware/software, electronics, apparel, food, home furnishings, gifts/flowers and sporting goods all recorded between 71 percent and 80 percent of respondents that have purchased a product as a result of an email. Within these product sectors, catalogers are the most successful at driving purchases, most likely reflecting their innate multi-channel and direct marketing expertise.

Consumers Coping with Spam, while Spam Volume Continues to Grow

The volume of spam that consumers receive increased from 56 percent last year to 62 percent in 2004. Consumers had consistent views of what constitutes spam both this year and last. Deceptiveness (96%), unknown senders (93%) and offensive subject matters (93%) were the most commonly cited definitions of spam, although once again frequency (58%) and irrelevancy (57%), even in if permission was granted, can cause consumers to consider email as spam.

When asked about how they deal with spam, the majority of consumers (72%) simply delete these emails. Only 28 percent attempt to unsubscribe, compared to 33 percent two years ago. Sixty-four percent of consumers now use bulk folders, a significant jump from the 59 percent that reported using them in 2003. Report spam features have also seen a dramatic increase in usage, with 49 percent using them in 2004, versus 36 percent in 2003. Only 7 percent of spam messages get opened and 69 percent of consumers say they open only 1 to 10 percent of them.

Most likely reflecting these increasing spam levels, the from line continues to be the most compelling reason to open permission-based email, cited by 63 percent of respondents, versus 33 percent who cite the subject line. Of those that did cite the subject line, discount offers and compelling news increased in impact versus 2003, while free shipping dropped considerably (from 42% to 31%). These reasons differed between men and women with women were more likely to respond to retail and catalog offers, coupons and health information, while men are more likely to be interested in news and sports content.

This years study shows how consumers have embraced email as a marketing vehicle and have become more sophisticated in how they use and control this medium, said Eric Kirby, Vice President and General Manager of Strategic Consulting Services at DoubleClick. For marketers, what I think is most significant, is consumers embrace of email as a service and support vehicle and their openness to marketing messages within these service, support and transactional emails.

Methodology
The 2004 Consumer Email Study is the fifth in an annual series sponsored by DoubleClick. The study was conducted by ROI Research via the TNS NFO Access panel of 900,000 US consumers. One thousand consumers that use email at least once per week (statistically 94% of the US adult online population) were polled between during July and August 2004. To access the full study, please visit: www.doubleclick.com/consumeremail2004

About DoubleClick Inc.
DoubleClick is the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web publishers to plan, execute and analyze their marketing programs. DoubleClick's online advertising, email marketing and database marketing solutions help clients yield the highest return on their marketing dollar. In addition, the company's marketing analytics solutions help clients measure performance within and across channels. DoubleClick Inc. has global headquarters in New York City and maintains 22 offices around the world.

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