Email Data Source

We've recently received a number of requests from users to be able to download email creatives (screenshots of an email) with one click.

Today we are pleased to say that we've added this new feature to Email Analyst and now with one click you can export up to 20 creatives at a time and save them to your desktop as a .zip.

Sites like Gilt Groupe, Ruelala and Groupon are raising lots of money and acquiring members quickly.  It is a real land grab to see who will own the social commerce/flash marketing/private sales market space.  Since these sites are mostly member based and communicate their offers by email to their members, the EDS panel is ideally suited to tracking which of these players is gaining momentum.  The following is a run down of some of the main players, their comparative reach / membership base (based on the number of unique EDS panelists reached each overly the last thirty days) and some of their strategies and techniques when it comes to engaging customers via email.

1.  Gilt Groupe:  The luxury brand flash sale site reached an estimated 2.65 million uniques during the 30 days ended July 15.  Each day Gilt sent out an email blast for its main sales event that starts at noon.  As many as seven different subject lines are used for each blast, usually with a different ordering of the brands that are on sale.  Additionally an "after hours" sale takes place every few days, and Gilt sends out a blast to its entire membership base promoting this event.  The Jetsetter travel offshoot of Gilt reached an estimated 400,000 uniques during the same 30 day period.

2.  Ruelala:  Over the last 30 days Ruelala reached an estimated 1.47 million uniques.  This is a fairly low number, given that as of two months ago EDS logged Ruelala as reaching 2.0 million uniques.  It could be that the site is experiencing ISP delivery issues or (less likely) a drop off in membership.

3.  Groupon: I guess it can't hurt to get a $135 million investment to grow your membership base.  Groupon, the city by city "deal of the day" site that gets deep discounts for members based on the number of people who sign up for the offer, reached a whopping 11.1 million unique users by email during the last 30 days, according to EDS estimates.  Where is Groupon's membership the largest?  Atlanta, surprisingly, is at the top of the list.

4.  Shopittome: Shopittome, started well before the rest of the gang, and using a different approach, seems to be reaching an impressively large audience.  Our recent estimate is that they are reaching 5.6 million users, which is significant given that Techcrunch reported their membership as 3 million in April.  A major site re-design launched May 31 could be a contributing factor.  Unlike the others in this group, which send a few offers to a large number of people, Shop It To Me allows users to specify specific brands that they want to see offers on.  Offers are then collected from multiple sources and sent in an email digest.

We will check back in a month to report on which of these sites has gained or lost email market share. 

Email Data Source has just released a new version of our flagship product, Email Analyst, which now includes the unique reach of any of the senders we track, organized by month, week, or day. For the first time, brands and publishers can do a direct side by side comparison of their relative list sizes and reach. The reach data is pulled from the EDS panel of over 600,000 active inboxes.

EDS is excited to be able to offer this data to the email marketing community for first time ever.

Below is a series of screen shots which show how the new data appears in the tool: 



In the above image, we see senders listed by Monthly Unique Reach. As you can see, Apple Computer has the largest reach for the last 30 days. Clicking on the senders name reveals another level of detail, showing the individual lists from that sender: 




And finally, by clicking on the "Details" link, we can see all the Apple email campaigns along with their Reach and the Inbox Delivery: 

Internet Retailer's June Issue had an
interesting article about "Recession-Busters", meaning those internet retailers that significantly grew web sales from 2008-2009 despite the tough economy.  The article pointed to diapers.com as a succes story and mentioned that their growth was aided by key partnerships such as that with BabyCenter.com (a unit of Johnson & Johnson). 

When it comes to email marketing, a quick look at Email Analyst shows that Diapers.com is indeed making the most of its partnership with BabyCenter.  The June 9, 2010 campaign shown here for from "BabyCenter Partners" for Diapers.com went to an estimated 2.6 million BabyCenter subscribers, and dedicated blasts such as these from BabyCenter Partners featuring Diapers.com have been going out approximately once per week since June of 2008.  Diapers.com has also been promoted in the "My Toddler This Week" and "Pregnancy Bulletin newsletters from BabyCenter.com since May of 2008. 

Email Data Source estimates the monthly unique user reach of the combined BabyCenter email newsletters to be 10.4 million, making the relationship a strong distribution source  for Diapers.com

The June 2010 edition of Internet Retailer shows who the top gainers and losers were in terms of web sales among internet retailers.  We took a look at their list of the biggest winners and the biggest losers and pulled data from Email Analyst to get a sense of how their email marketing efforts corresponded to their web sales performance.  The results are tabulated below, and there's no doubt that the two went hand in hand.

The retailers with the largest growth in email marketing efforts (as measured by the growth in the number of email campaigns, including their own campaigns and third party campaigns that link back to the retailer's website) were Crocs.com, Express and Meijer.com. 

Retailer	2009 Email Campaigns	2008 Email Campaigns	Email Campaign Growth	Web Sales Growth
Crocs.com	222	27	722%	104%
Express.com	385	94	310%	238%
Meijer.com	254	128	98%	116%
The North Face	103	52	98%	63%
Golfsmith	313	213	47%	-26%
Diapers.com	177	129	37%	104%
Green Mountain Coffee	444	345	29%	50%
Design Within Reach	152	123	24%	-29%
iRobot.com	121	105	15%	-23%
DSW.com	203	201	1%	87%
Boston Apparel Group	687	736	-7%	-23%
Ann Taylor	557	601	-7%	-20%
Scholastic.com	195	391	-50%	-23%
Bidz.com	1,911	4,897	-61%	-47%
Nascar.com Superstore	44	157	-72%	-32%

Following up on our last blog post about Apple's email reach, we took a look at the buzz being generated by media outlets talking about the iPhone 4.  Specifically we looked at the email news alerts they have sent out in the last week.  Of the 50 news alerts from major publications that contained "iPhone 4" in the subject line, only 5 had actual links to apple.com in the body of the email.  The rest discussed the iPhone 4 but contained no links to apple.com

What does this mean for Apple?  It means that these email news alerts added an estimated 12 million unique users reached by email with news of the iPhone 4 release, but that only 500,000 or so of these unique users had a direct link to apple.com in the email news alert they received.



 

As Email Data Source has blogged about previously, Apple has tremendous reach through its email lists, derived from Mac owners, itunes users, and iphone and ipad buyers.  Apple's big news at the moment is the introduction of iPhone 4.  Their email campaign introducing the iPhone 4 went out to an estimated 80 million unique users yesterday, June 8. 

Interestingly, the campaign was sent to fewer people than the "iPad is Coming" campaign sent to an estimated 104 million unique users on March 12, 2010.  We would have expected that Apple would blast the iPhone 4 announcement out to its entire user base.  In particular, it is worth noting that the 80 million unique users includes various versions of the campaign sent out internationally as well as to subscribers to the main Apple News list.  Email Data Source logged versions of the iPhone 4 campaign in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, across Asia, and in Europe in English, Italian, German, French and Spanish.   

Recently we began tracking phishing schemes targeting US financial institutions in greater depth.  Here is a quick run down of the larger phishing schemes targeting Bank of America during the last two weeks:

The first sample phishing scheme spoofed the email address "online@bankofamerica.com" and had the subject line "Alert Message".  The attack reached 5.65% of our AOL email panelists.  AOL delivered the email to the inbox instead of the spam folder for 82.6% of recipients.  After this one send, the same attack was not repeated through May 24.

The second sample phishing scheme spoofed the email address "service@bankofamerica.com".  Starting May 15 we recorded repeated attacks each day through May 24.  The attack was focused on gmail users and reached as many as 0.3% of our gmail panelists on May 15.  Over the course of the next week the phishing scam continued to be received, reaching 0.27% of gmail panel users on the 16th, 0.21% of panel users on the 17th, and continuing to decline.  Gmail successfully placed 100% of the emails in the spam folder and none in the inbox.

The third sample phishing scheme spoofed the email address "security-alerts@bankofamerica.com" with the subject line "Important Security Update".  This phishing attach was detected on May then again on May 23, and it targeted AOL, Gmail and Yahoo users.  On May 20th it reached 0.71% of our AOL email panelists and AOL successfully placed the emails in the spam folder for 94% of recipients.  On the same day it reached .02% of our Gmail panelists and gmail successfully put in spam folder for 100% of recipients.  0.13% of our Yahoo panelists received the email, and Yahoo correctly placed the email in the spam folder for 98% of recipients.

Overall Email Data Source recorded 46 email phishing scams spoofing email addresses ending with @bankofamerica.com during the May 15 to May 24 period.  Indeed the majority of email traffic from this sending domain was phishing attempts.  Other Bank of America sending domains, such as emails ending with @ealerts.bankofamerica.com also saw phishing scams, but at a far lower rate.

Email Panel Now Shows Unique User Reach of Major Email Marketers and Trends in Ecommerce Activity of Major Internet Retailers.

New York, NY - May 24, 2010 -- Email Data Source , the leading provider of competitive intelligence for email and social media, announced today that it has doubled the size of its active inbox email panel to more than 600,000 members. The EDS email panel is the first time a Comscore or Nielsen style panel has been put together to measure email reach and inbox placement.

Email Data Source also announced new analytics capabilities which allow the company to track and report on the unique user reach of major email marketers by day, week and month.    

 

This is information that the major ratings agencies should be providing their clients but don’t because they lack the capability

“We are excited to bring this new data to the marketplace. This is information that the major ratings agencies should be providing their clients but don’t because they lack the capability,” said Bill McCloskey, Founder and Chairman of Email Data Source.

An example of the unprecedented insights gained through the EDS panel: Email Data Source reports that for the four day period ended May 7, United Airlines reached an estimated 11.2 million unique users through email. This compares with an email reach of the recently acquired Continental airlines of 7.0 million for the same four day period.

Email Data Source can now also provide data showing trends in ecommerce activity using data collected from its panel. As an example, Email Data Source tracks the number of recipients from the email address auto-confirm@amazon.com and the number of recipients from the email address customerservice@zappos.com with the subject line: Your Order Confirmation. By tallying the number of receipts delivered each day to Email Data Source panelists, the company can identify trends in ecommerce activity.

“Virtually every online sale is confirmed by an email. By tracking the number of email purchase confirmations received by our panelists, we have a great indicator of the number of people purchasing products from major online ecommerce players each day”, said Carter Nicholas, CEO of Email Data Source.

Following the Amazon example, Email Data Source reports that whereas Amazon reached an estimated 14 million unique users through all its email marketing efforts on May 7, the estimated number of people who received an email from auto-confirm@amazon.com (confirming a purchase) on May 7 was 562,000. This compares to an estimated 731,000 purchasers on May 4, 592,000 on May 5, and 627,000 on May 6.

Email Data Source is now the only company able to report on the actual, real world reach of each email marketers and the true inbox placement of each campaign. This gives marketers, for the first time, precise data to benchmark their performance and list size directly against their competitors’ email marketing programs.

 

Email Data Source announced today the top 25 Twitter Brands for the month of April.  Email Data Source produces its Twitter brand rankings by analyzing all tweets that link back to a website, and measuring the reach of these tweets based on the follower base of all people that retweeted the original message.  Factors that contribute to the rankings are:

-Follower base of brand
-Number of tweets of brand
-Number of retweets
-Follower base of retweeters

This analysis provides a real indicator of the traffic driving capabilities of these brands through their Twitter marketing efforts.  The top 25 Twitter Brands for the month of April were:

Site                                         Rank
nytimes.com                              1
eonline.com                               2
abcnews.go.com                        3
stumbleupon.com                      4
cbsnews.com                             5
huffingtonpost.com                    6
twitpic.com                                 7
nfl.com                                       8
instyle.com                                9
theonion.com                            10
ustream.tv                                11
mlb.com                                    12
facebook.com                           13
newsweek.com                        14
nba.com                                   15
pitchfork.com                            16
ew.com                                    17
people.com                              18
youtube.com                            19
msnbc.msn.com                        20
tvguide.com                              21
woot.com                                 22
sportsillustrated.cnn.com         23
etsy.com                                   24
whitehouse.gov                        25

For a complete listing of top Twitter Brands and the full calculations and data behind the Twitter Brand reach calculations, contact Email Data Source for a Twitter Analytics Demo.

Leading up to a holiday such as Mother's Day, when do email marketers start their promotional campaigns?  We took a look at the email campaign stats leading up to Mother's Day and here are the results.  For the six weeks leading up to Mother's day Email Analyst recorded more than 1,700 unique Mother's Day email campaigns from 950 unique senders. 



The vast majority of campaign activity was from marketers in the Flowers & Gifts market sector, but every type of email marketer, from computer manufacturers to non-profits took part in the crescendo.  Most activity took place during the last week of April and first week of May as shown in the graph above.  But the timing of email campaigns also depended on the type of offer being promoted. 

JustFlowers.com was fairly typical of email marketers in the Flowers & Gifts market sector.  These marketers tended to the following pattern: early reminder, promotional sale in advance, a full price promotion with a date reminder, then an urgent last chance email blast.  JustFlowers campaigns came out as follows:

Early Reminder:
April 27: Mother's Day is 12 Days Away
April 29: Mother's Day Flower Sale at JustFlowers.com

Advance Promotional Sale:
April 30: JustFlowers.com Mother's Day Savings

Full Price Promotion with Date Reminder:
May 2: Mother's Day is 1 Week Away.  Send Mom Fresh Flowers
May 5: Mother's Day is in 4 Days - JustFlowers.com

Urgent Last Chance:
May 8: Last Chance for Mother's Day Flowers

Marketers in the gifts category that require more shipping lead time than flowers which benefit from local distribution followed a similar pattern a week before.  Vermont Teddy Bear is a good example:

Early Reminders:
April 19: Look for your New Mother's Day Catalog this Week
April 21: Graduation, Mother's Day & More - Great Gifts for Spring Occasions

Advance Promotional Sale:
April 26: 2 Days Only: 15% Off for Mother's Day

Full Price Promotion:
May 1: See our New Bears for Mother's Day

Urgent Last Chance:
May 4: Hurry - Mother's Day is THIS Sunday!

The first week of April saw Mother's Day Email Marketing Activity from marketers in the following segments: Jewelry, Flowers & Gifts, Photos and Travel. 

Starting April 11, marketers of Beauty Products and Footwear joined in.

By the week of April 18 marketers in Retail, Apparel, Home Furnishings, Computers and Restaurants joined the crowd, and through May 7 the level of activity had more to do with frequency of campaigns than types of marketers.

For a complete data set on email marketing activity leading up to Mother's Day, please contact your Email Data Source sales representative.

The Under Armour brand has seen a huge surge in popularity and recognition in recent years.  This is a company that has been on a fast track: founded in 1996, it went public in 2005 and has been growing at 20% per year since.  At just under $1 billion in revenues, it is still a much smaller company than its rivals Nike ($19 billion in revenues) and Adidas ($13 billion in revenues), but when you consider that Nike and Adidas revenues are from worldwide sales and include sub brands such as Umbro and Converse (in the case of Nike) and Reebok and Rockport (in the case of Adidas) the level of direct competition between these companies in the US is closer than it first appears.

If corporate histories are to be believed, Under Armour is remarkably similar to Nike and Adidas in many ways.  All companies were founded as cottage operations (Adidas by two brothers in their mother's washroom, Nike from the trunk of a car at track meets, and Under Armour by two U Maryland grads from a basement) and became known upon signing their first major athletic spokerson).  One difference is that Under Armour came of age with the advent of internet marketing. 

So, how do the marketing efforts of Under Armour compare to its larger rivals when it comes to digital messaging?  Using Email Analyst, we took a peek at Under Armour's email marketing playbook from 2008 to the present to see how they are emulating and differentiating themselves from the competition.

By all appearances, Under Armour appears to be running a fairly straightforward, almost simple email marketing program. 

Vendor and Email Quality

Under Armour has been using Responsys as an ESP since at least early 2008 when Email Data Source first started tracking Under Armour's house email lists, and since early 2008 all their email campaigns have been run from a dedicated IP address.  The email quality has been above average, though occasionally Email Analyst has recorded a jump in broken links and bad redirects.  During a three week period in March-April 2008, however, almost all their email campaigns had greater than 50% broken links / bad redirects.  The rate of inbox placement has been consistently good for all campaigns across all ISP's, averaging 96.5% since we started tracking this statistic in January of 2010 through Email Data Source's Nielsen-like email panel that analyzes data from more than 300,000 actual email recipients.

Nike's email quality appears flawless by comparison, with virtually no broken links or bad redirects.  Inbox placement was slightly lower than that of Under Armour at 92.4% based on data from January through April, primarily due to specific campaigns in January and April that had a high percentage of spam folder placement at Yahoo and Gmail.

Adidas, which uses the ESP Cheetahmail, also has few broken links and bad redirects than Under Armour with the exception of a few campaigns in December of 2009 that did have broken links.  Inbox placement for Adidas averages 95.0% and they only appear to have lower than average deliverability with AOL. 

Campaign Reach and Opt-In Sources

Under Armour's largest email blasts go out once or twice a month and reach .08% to .09% of the Email Data Source panel.  Based on Email Data Source estimates, this corresponds to roughly 1 million people.  Other email blasts are sent every 2-3 days with a lower reach ranging from .01% to .04% campaigns.  Under Armour's email blasts are sent almost exclusively to people who have signed up for email updates or registered at UnderArmour.com

Nike's larger email blasts reach .16% to
.18% of the Email Data Source panel, or over 2 million people, and are sent approximately once per week.  Two campaigns were recorded in Q1 2010 that reached .25% to .27% of the panel.  These campaigns focused on new product releases, specifically Nike's new Dynamic Support running shoes.  Nike's US email list seems to be entirely sourced from opt-ins at nike.com or subsites such as nikerunning.com.

Adidas' largest campaigns have a reach of .12%, roughly 1.5 million people.  The largest campaign of note was an end of season sale.  More common are product introduction campaigns such as this one announcing Star Wars themed sneakers (why they didn't wait until May the Fourth to launch this is beyond us).

Unlike Under Armour or Nike, Adidas sources opt-ins from partner sites such as My Coke Rewards and Body By Milk.

Segmentation

Nike does far more in the way of segmenting than either Under Armour or Adidas.  Whereas Nike sends out two to four distinct campaigns on any given sending day, Adidas and Under Armour send out at most two.

Product vs. Engagement

Virtually all of of Under Armour's email  campaigns are direct product pitches or sales announcements.  Apart from just a few holiday engagement campaigns (one before Christmas and one for Mother's Day), a single campaign to support US troops and a "Tell your Under Armour story, there have been few other engagement campaigns during the last six months.  Only since November '09 has Under Armour included Twitter and Facebook links in its emails, and indicator that they are behind the trend towards merging email and social media under one umbrella of digital messaging. 

The campaign at right is fairly typical of an Under Armour campaign and in my opinion has weak call to action and engagement.  With the subject "You saw it at Augusta.  Now get the gear" the campaign could for example link to photos from the Augusta tournament or seek engagement in other ways, yet even the social media links at the bottom are very small.  The purchase calls to action also lack prominence.


Nike, in contrast, has campaigns that are specifically engagement focused such as the example at right from Nike +.    These types of community oriented engagement campaigns tie directly into social sites bringing Nike's email and social marketing efforts together.  Nike does few if any sale specific campaigns although most emails do have a "Just Reduced" link to sales.

Adidas strikes a balance between product oriented campaigns, sales and engagement campaigns. Examples of engagement are the customizable sneaker store Mi Adidas which is featured frequently in email campaigns and campaigns that direct subscribers to special events such as the running clinic featured in a Feb 23 campaign shown below. Oddly, Adidas appears to be making little effort to integrate email with social media: most campaigns do not include links to social sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

Presence in Third Party Emails

Email Marketing efforts also include advertising in partners' newsletters.  In this arena Under Armour shows little activity, with only a few links in affiliate partner sites such as Flamingo World and KeyCode.com registered by Email Data Source during the last thirty days.  Adidas also has relatively few distribution partnerships in place, with only a few links in newsletters such as that of the WNBA.  Nike by contrast shows far greater presence, with distribution partners such as Daily Candy and Livestrong.

Twitter

Under Armour has shown very little activity using Twitter, with only 1 tweet in the last thirty days to its 8,700 followers.  The tweet was not retweeted by anybody.  NikeStore by contrast put out 75 tweets over the last thirty days to its 11,500 followers and 54 people have retweeted their tweets.  Adidas running put out two tweets to its 86,000 followers during the same period and ten people retweeted its messages.

It has been 2 months since we added Panel Data to Email Analyst and after showing it to clients and prospects, it is clear that the data we are pulling on reach and inbox placement for any campaign is extremely accurate.

Recently we've start showing the data to brands who were surprised at some of their low delivery numbers. They were able to confirm the low delivery with their ESP's, so we thought it would be good to start publishing some of the brands with the worst delivery. Here is a sample to get started. Look for more posts soon: 

thestreet.com: less than 75% inbox placement at Gmail

adobesystems.com: less than 75% delivery at Yahoo for first and last week of April

advancetaken.com: less than 50% delivery at AOL. Less than 25% delivery at Yahoo and Gmail.

amoureux.com: less than 50% at Gmail and Yahoo.com

Astrology.com: less than 75% at Gmail

babyfit.com: less than 50% at Yahoo

backpacker.p0.com: less than 50% at Yahoo for last 2 weeks.

bankratemail.com: less than 50% at yahoo first week in april, less than 75% last week in april

barchart.com: Less than 50% at Yahoo, less than 75% at AOL

bellagio.mgg01.net: Less than 50% at AOL 3rd week in April

bergdorfgoodmanemail.com: less than 75% on Gmail

bettingasabusiness.com: less than 50% at Gmail, less than 75% on AOL

beveragedaily.com: less than 75% on Yahoo.

bhg.bhgscrapbooksetc.com: less than 75% on Yahoo 3rd week in April

biospace.com: less than 75% on Yahoo

blockbuster.com: less than 75% on Gmail last week of April

ChateauOnline: less than 75% on Gmail and Yahoo

brainteaserarchive.com: less than 50% on Yahoo and AOL

buzz.biglots.com: less than 50% on Yahoo last week of aprilthestreet.com: less than 75% inbox placement at Gmail

Here is a list of the top 10 tweets for April, based on reach.

1. The White House: #Malaria kills ~1,000,000/yr. Here's our 6yr strategy to fight back & #endmalaria http://bit.ly/awMQbO #worldmalariaday

Total Reach: 15,407,784
Number of Times Retweeted: 1,113

2. Ryan Seacrest: you've seen the tweets for #worldmalariaday...take part! RT to raise awareness, donate to save lives: http://bit.ly/aDaKVu

Total Reach: 12,753,911
Number of Times Retweeted:400

3. Souljaboytellem: ALL my fans tweet a question here before I go to billboard today :) http://bit.ly/aR6l2u

Total Reach: 8,702,348
Number of Times Retweeted:71

4. TheEllenShow: If you’ve ever wondered what happens during commercial break at Idol, @RyanSeacrest & I are answering questions. http://su.pr/5EDt9V

Total Reach: 7,531,218
Number of Times Retweeted:49

5. KimKardashian: I got naked for Harper's BAZAAR! http://bit.ly/cxnZ6C So empowering!

Total Reach: 6,926,118
Number of Times Retweeted:323

6. TheOprahShow: @KimKardashian texting and driving is outrageous.... Take our #nophonezone pledge --> http://bit.ly/8Ljxbb

Total Reach: 5,076,569
Number of Times Retweeted: 170

7. BarackObama: RT @WhiteHouse #Malaria kills ~1,000,000/yr. Here's our 6yr strategy to fight back & #endmalaria http://bit.ly/awMQbO #worldmalariaday

Total Reach: 4,682,631
Number of Times Retweeted: 167

8. britneyspears: Are you voting for Brit in FHM’s 2010 Sexiest Women In The World? http://bit.ly/britfhm -Adam, Manager

Total Reach: 4,655,610
Number of Times Retweeted: 70

9. zappos: About to livestream our 1st #deliveringhappiness happy hour - grab a drink! 5 PM PST: http://ustream.tv/deliveringhappiness

Total Reach: 4,576,656
Number of Times Retweeted: 17

10. peoplemag: Sneak Peek: Inside @Justinbieber's PEOPLE cover! http://ow.ly/1vHow

Total Reach: 4,098,466
Number of Times Retweeted: 662

Today I received an email campaign from Amazon, offering a chance to win a $1000 gift card if I signed up for their clothing store email list.  It made me wonder what was motivating them to grow theiir list in this way.  Could it be that Amazon lacks email firepower even while it is the top ranked Internet Retailer?  Using Email Analyst's new panel data, I took a look at the reach of email campaigns from the top Internet Retailers and re-ranked them according to their email campaign reach. 

Company      Email Reach Ranking     Internet Retailer Ranking
Apple                          1                                       5
Sears                          2                                       7
Amazon                      3                                       1
Dell                             4                                       3
Best Buy                     5                                       9
Staples                       6                                       2
OfficeDepot                7                                       4
Officemax                   8                                       6
NewEgg                     9                                       8
QVC                          10                                      10

Apple once again proves itself to be an email power house, with an enormous list built from itunes, mac and iphone users, and what is clearly a concerted effort to keep their users opted-in.  And you can see that Amazon is ranked third behind Sears.  Is Amazon making a concerted effort to get back on top?

Just a quick note to everyone, We are now collecting data on more than 3300 brands in Email Analyst.

If you would like to request coverage on any brand, just email me at alyssa@emaildatasource.com.

Email Data Source will be publishing overviews of different brands email marketing efforts. Today we look at Bath and Body Works.

Below is a list of all the subject lines used by Body and Bath works for March, along side of the approximate percentage of their list each email was sent to. Their biggest campaign for the month had the suject line "Free PocketBac, $6 Wallflowers & Free Shipping. Details Inside!".


Their highest traffic day to the site was on March 8th on the day they sent this email: "Limited Time Only: New! Moonlight Magic "






$1 Shipping Today Only! + New Sweet Pea Forever! Details Inside.        35.82%
$15 Off + $3 Shipping. Details Inside.                        41.88%
$2 Shipping + New Brands for Beautiful Hair! Details Inside.            4.12%
$3 Anti-Bac + $1 Body Lotion. Details Inside.                    0.54%
$6 Hand Cream & $3 Anti-Bac | Breathe is Back Online!                3.30%
$6 Wallflowers + Free Shipping. Details Inside.                    20.76%
$6 Wallflowers, $3 Anti-Bac & Free Shipping. Details Inside!           5.82%
2 Days Only! $1 Shipping + $6 Wallflowers! Details Inside.            78.45%
2 for $20 Candles + Free Shipping! Details inside.                0.24%
2 for $20 Candles, $3 Shipping, Breathe is Back Online! Details Inside.   10.90%
20% Off - Details Inside. Ends Sunday!                        7.80%
20% Off + $3 Shipping. Details Inside.                        4.52%
20% Off + Free Shipping. Details Inside.                    4.37%
20% Off Any Purchase - Ends Sunday!                        75.71%
3 Steps to the Perfect Fragrance Experience & Spring Break Essentials!        0.22%
Classic Deals - Online Only. Details Inside.                    11.27%
Dry Hands? Get Relief with Hand Cream Offers Inside.                71.93%
Ends Today! $15 Off + $3 Shipping. Details Inside.                34.65%
Ends Today: Free Shipping & Presidents' Day Sale! Details Inside        1.49%
Free Gift For New Store at Festival Marketplace!                0.24%
Free Home Fragrance Item - Kenwood Towne Centre. Details Inside.        0.30%
Free Item + $3 Shipping. Details Inside.                    5.34%
Free Lip Offer and $3 Anti-Bac! Details Inside.                    86.18%
"Free PocketBac, $6 Wallflowers & Free Shipping. Details Inside!"        100.00%
Free Shipping + New Moonlight Magic! Details Inside.                49.04%
Free Shipping + Presidents' Day Sale Ends Monday! Details Inside.        0.48%
Free Shipping! New Fragrances! Details Inside.                    0.83%
Introducing Patricia Wexler, M.D. Dermatology - Special Offer Inside!       0.20%
Limited Time Only! Sweet Pea Forever + $1 Shipping. Details Inside.        54.66%
Limited Time Only: New! Moonlight Magic                        69.72%
New Spring Fragrances + New Improved Anti-Bac!                    0.70%
New! FitFlop Styles + Free Shipping. Details Inside!                11.79%
New! Moonlight Magic + Free Shipping. Details Inside.                35.18%
New! Orange Sapphire | $6 Wallflowers + Free Shipping. Details Inside.        92.13%
New! Orange Sapphire, $6 Wallflowers + Free Shipping! Details Inside.      20.87%
Presidents' Day Sale: Buy 3, Get 3 Free Signature Collection + More!"       0.28%
Retinol is Here! Free Shipping Offer. Details Inside.                11.25%
Spring is in the Air! Home Fragrance Deals Inside.                15.88%
Today Only! $10 C.O. Bigelow + Free Shipping! Details Inside.            22.83%
Today Only! $8 Aromatherapy + Free Shipping. Details inside.            28.29%
Today Only! Free Shipping on Any Order!                        14.77%
Try New Summer Vanillas for $1 + $6 Wallflowers                    73.07%
Try Orange Sapphire for $1 + Free Shipping! Details Inside.            16.98%
Try Our Newest Fragrance Orange Sapphire for only $2!                0.21%
Upgrade Your Body Lotion Free! Details Inside.                    0.31%
Wallflowers on Sale + Free Shipping. Details Inside.                17.50%
Welcome to Bath & Body Works! (Free Travel Size Offer Inside!)            0.61%

Body and Bath Works Inbox Placement is very good although there were problems in March with delivery to Gmail accounts. The problem seems to have been corrected by April.

Many advertisers, especially those who use affiliate networks, are in the dark when it comes to knowing who their email distribution partners are. 

Email Analyst provides transparency into who your email distribution partners are.  The below is a demonstration of how an advertiser can use Email Analyst identify its email distributors including those distributors who are picking up affililiate links.

We will use Best Buy as a sample advertiser.  Email Data Source's spidering of email marketing campaigns shows all email campaigns that link in any way to bestbuy.com, whether sent from Best Buy or from a third party.

A quick search therefore shows all the distribution partners for Best Buy.  Information which Best Buy may or may not be aware of.  To the right is the list of email distributors for Best Buy.  At the top of the list, with fifteen email campaigns in the last thirdy days linking to bestbuy.com is CMJ Network, a publisher that comments on new music.  Other distributors on the list include several coupon sites, CNET and the Philadelphia Eagles. 

As it turns out, many of these distribution partners are Commission Junction Affiliates, and the presence of links to Best Buy in their emails is because Best Buy participates in the Commission Junction Network.  Email Analyst determines this because it records the clickstream data of each link in an email campaign.  The clickstream data to the right shows how a link in a Shoping Guru email redirects through Commission Junction and sends traffic to BestBuy.com.  Best Buy is unlikely to know whether or not its Commission Junction affiliates are sending out emails with links to bestbuy.com.

Using Email Analyst, Best Buy can begin monitoring all email creatives that go out from its Commission Junction Affiliates.  This allows them to monitor the use of their brand in email marketing, gaining transparency into a medium that would otherwise remain opaque. 

The Netflix top 100 list is often criticized as self-perpetuating and too long term.  Indeed, if you take a look at the Netflix Top 100 list, you will be surprised by what is still on there.  At the top of the list is Crash.  It has been at the top of the list since 2007...And if you look at the top ten movies on the list they are all movies that were released on DVD between 2005 and 2008.  The implication is that it takes a couple of years to make it on to the Top 100 list which should perhaps be renamed the Top 100 All Time Rental List.



To get a much more recent view of which DVDs are most popular, being watched at home within the last week, we took a look at emails sent by Netflix confirming DVD returns.  Using the associated email panel reach data, we can get an up to date view of the most recently watched DVDs by Netflix members. Here is a list of which DVD's have just been returned by Netflix members from March 30 to April 11, ranked by popularity:

1.  Twilight Saga: New Moon
2.  The Men Who Stare at Goats
3.  The Way We Were (can anyone help explain this one?)
4.  The Box
5.  The Time Traveler's Wife
6.  The Boondock Saints II
7.  2012
8.  Shrink
9.  Julia & Julia
10.  Michael Jackson's This Is It
11.  Blood: The Last Vampire
12.  Precious
13.  Up In The Air
14.  The Informant