68% Of UK Marketers Rate Email As Best Channel For ROI

UK marketers continue to view email as the channel generating the highest return on investment (ROI), Econsultancy has found in its Email Marketing Industry Census.

In the poll, sponsored by Adestra, 1,100 marketers established that despite reports of the death of email and the medium’s decreasing popularity, the channel is still alive and kicking and remains an integral part of businesses’ marketing strategies. This was reflected in marketers’ responses to the survey, who ranked email as the best channel in terms of ROI despite brand’s increasing focus on social media channels.

Some 68% of the poll participants said they generate “good” or “excellent” ROI from email marketing, trumping last year’s winner in this category – search engine optimisation (SEO) – which lost 8% of its supporters and was ranked second in the chart. Third on the list came content marketing, followed by paid search, offline direct marketing, affiliate marketing, social media, mobile marketing and online display marketing.

In addition to email’s high ROI potential, the channel was also lauded for its capacity to deliver higher revenues than other channels used for targeting consumers; marketers now believe that e-mail contributes an average of 23% to its total sales, an increase from the 18% measured in the previous year.

Econsultancy commented that email has the potential to deliver strong results to marketers who invest time and effort into adjusting their strategies to meet consumers’ ever-evolving expectations. One good way to improve ROI is by including personalisation, automation, dynamic content and mobile optimisation techniques, according to the marketing expert.