1. Quarterly Benchmark Study
Q1 2008 (January, February, March)
Experian CheetahMail
29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006
T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378
www.cheetahmail.com
2. Table of Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. 3
Performance Metrics................................................................................................................ 4
Conversion Metrics .................................................................................................................. 5
Bounce and Unsubscribe Metrics........................................................................................... 7
Day of Week and Time of Day Analyses ................................................................................. 8
Methodology............................................................................................................................. 9
Appendix................................................................................................................................. 10
Appendix II: Alternative Vertical Breakdowns...................................................................... 18
Experian CheetahMail
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3. Executive Summary
The following report details the key metrics that helped to determine the success of
CheetahMail’s clients’ email programs over the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2007. In summary, the
following trends were noticed:
Open and Click metrics held steady across the board
Clicks as a percentage of opens improved by a half of a percentage point.
All Industry Average total and unique clicks improved by 2.9% and 2.6%
Total and unique open rates declined by a negligible 1.7% and 1.1% over last quarter
Average Order Size continued to rise notably while other transactional metrics held
steady
Average Order Size rose again this quarter, advancing by nearly $11 to $209, for an
improvement by 5.5%
Transaction rates declined by 0.01 percentage points
Transactions as a percentage of clicks fell by half a percentage point
ROI remained at $0.17
Bounces decreased by seven tenths of a percentage point, while unsubscribes
increased by 0.04 percentage points
The All Industry Average bounce rate this quarter declined by 16.8%, from 4.2% to 3.5%
The average unsubscribe rate increased by 24.4%, from 0.18% to 0.22%
Experian CheetahMail
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4. Performance Metrics
All Industry Average total
Q1 2008: Open Ra tes by Vertica l
and unique open rates, at
22.3% and 15.6%, changed
22.3%
All Industry Average
15.6%
minimally compared with last
25.3%
Travel & Entertainment
15.0%
quarter. Individual verticals
26.3%
Publisher
also changed very little, with
19.2%
Total Open
20.6%
Multi-Channel Retailer
the Publisher vertical’s gains
15.3%
Unique Open
of 3.6 and 1.9 percentage
23.5%
Consumer Products & Services
16.5%
points in total and unique
13.9%
Cataloger
10.7%
opens (improvements by
31.0%
Business Products & Services
15.8% and 11.1%)
19.4%
representing the largest
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
changes. Travel &
Entertainment climbed by
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
7.8% and 7.4%, gaining 1.8
and 1.2 percentage points.
All other verticals changed by no more than 3.6%. This quarter’s All Industry open rates are
about 10% below the average quarterly open rates across 2007 (24.7% total, 17.3% unique),
and about 21% below the average quarterly rates across 2006 (28.2% and 19.9%).
All Industry Average total
Q1 2008: Click Rates by Vertica l
and unique click rates, at
5.1%
5.1% and 3.5%, also
All Industry Average
3.5%
changed minimally over last
5.6%
Travel & Entertainment
3.1%
quarter, increasing by only
6.0%
Publisher
2.9% and 2.6%. The
3.9%
5.4%
Multi-Channel Retailer Total Click
Publisher vertical climbed by
4.0%
Unique Click
5.2%
2 and 1.2 percentage points
Consumer Products & Services
3.6%
in total and unique clicks,
2.9%
Cataloger
2.1%
while all other verticals
4.9%
Business Products & Services
changed by no more than a
3.3%
third of a percentage point in
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7%
either measure. The All
Industry click rates this
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
quarter are 8.3% and 7.4%
below the average quarterly
click rates for 2007 (5.5% total, 3.8% unique), and 25.7% and 22.6% below the average
quarterly rates across 2006 (6.8% total, 4.6% unique).
The clicks per opens metric has been notably stable for the last two years. The All Industry rate
this quarter, at 21.8%, is only 2.3% above last quarter, 1.6% above the average quarterly rate
for 2007 (21.5%), and 0.6% below the same average for 2006 (22%). The Publisher and Travel
& Entertainment verticals showed the most improvement over last quarter, increasing by 19.4%
and 14% respectively and gaining 3.3 and 2.4 percentage points. All of the other verticals
changed by no more than 1 percentage point.
Experian CheetahMail
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5. Conversion Metrics
Changes in transaction rates
Q1 2008: Transaction Ra tes by Vertical
were minor for all verticals
this quarter, with the All
A ll Industry Average 0.13%
Industry Average rate falling
Travel & Entertainment 0.03%
0.01 percentage points over
Q4 2007. The greatest
Publisher # N/A
changes over last quarter
Multi-Channel Retailer 0.08%
were the decline of
Consumer Products & Services 0.27%
Consumer Products &
Services by 0.03 percentage
Cataloger 0.11%
points and the rise by 0.02
Business Products & Services 0.33%
percentage points for
Business Products &
0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35%
Services. However, this
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
quarter’s All Industry rate is
8.2% above the average
quarterly rate for 2007 of 0.12%, and 5.5% above the average rate for 2006 of 0.13%. The
Business and Consumer Products & Services verticals’ rates this quarter are respectively 47.4%
and 27.5% above their average quarterly rates across 2007 (0.22% and 0.21%).
The All Industry Average transaction rate as a percentage of clicks (4.4%) fell a mere half a
percentage point as compared with last quarter. This metric has been relatively stable for some
time, with this quarter’s rate only 1.7% above the average quarterly rate for 2007 of 4.3%, and
only 4.2% below the same average for 2006 of 4.6%. Consumer Products & Services improved
by 14.4% this quarter whereas Travel & Entertainment, Multi-Channel Retailers and Catalogers
declined by 27.8%, 25.4% and 14.8% respectively. Consumer Products & Services has
improved markedly over time, with a rate this quarter (7.3%) that is 32.5% above its average
quarterly rate for 2007 of 5.5%, and 62.7% over its average across 2006 of 4.5%. On the other
hand, Multi-Channel Retailers has declined, with a rate this quarter 18% below its average
quarterly rate across 2007 of 3.2%, and 30.1% below its rate across 2007 of 3.7%.
Average Order Size
Historic Average Order Size
continued to climb this
$220
quarter, with the All Industry
Average advancing by
$210
nearly $11 to $209, an
improvement by 5.5% over
$200
Q4 2007. This rate is 8.1%
above the average quarterly
$190
order size across 2007 of
$180
$195, and 9.6% above the
average across 2006 of
$170
$190. The increase in order
sizes this quarter is largely
$160
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
concentrated in the Multi-
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
Channel Retailer and
Consumer Products &
Experian CheetahMail
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29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006 • T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378 • www.cheetahmail.com
6. Services verticals, which rose by $18 and $10 respectively, improving by 6.8% and 10% over
last quarter.
Historic Revenue over Email Delivered
$0.21
$0.20
$0.19
$0.18
$0.17
$0.16
$0.15
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
The All Industry Average revenue per email delivered (ROI) remains at $0.17 this quarter. This
rate matches the average rate across all quarters of 2007, and is 2 cents below the average
quarterly rate for 2006. Business Products & Services’ precipitous rise this year tapered off,
settling at $0.51, 4 cents below last quarter’s $0.55. Travel & Entertainment’s rate increased by
a penny to $0.07; this is a penny below the average for this vertical across all quarters of 2007.
All other verticals declined by 2 or 3 cents.
Experian CheetahMail
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7. Bounce and Unsubscribe Metrics
The All Industry bounce rate
Historic Bounce Ra te s
this quarter improved by
5.4%
16.8%, falling seven-tenths
5.2%
of a percentage point to
5.0%
3.5%. This rate is an
4.8%
improvement by 20.8% over
4.6%
the average quarterly rate
4.4%
for 2007 (4.5%) and by
4.2%
27.9% over the same
4.0%
average for 2006 (4.9%).
3.8%
Every vertical either
3.6%
remained the same
3.4%
(Business Products &
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Services at 6.2%) or
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
decreased. The Publisher,
Consumer Products &
Services and Travel & Entertainment verticals improved the most, declining by 1.7, 1.5 and 1.2
percentage points respectively.
The All Industry Average
Historic Unsubscription Rates
unsubscribe rate, at 0.22%,
0.35%
represents an increase by
24.4% over last quarter,
0.30%
returning us to the previous
quarter’s level. This rate is
0.25%
0.01 point above the
0.20%
average quarterly rate for
2007 (0.21%) and an
0.15%
improvement of 0.01 point
over the average for 2006
0.10%
(0.23%). The only vertical to
0.05%
improve this quarter was
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Publishers, which declined
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
by 7.3%. The Publisher and
Multi-Channel Retailer
verticals’ rates are 0.09 and 0.02 percentage points better than their respective average
quarterly rates for 2007 (0.19% and 0.22%). Compared to their average quarterly rates for
2006, Travel & Entertainment improved by 0.05 points, and Publisher and Multi-Channel
Retailer improved by 0.02 points.
Experian CheetahMail
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8. Day of Week and Time of Day Analyses
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Open and Click Rate s by Da y of W eek
regained their status as the
25%
most popular days to send
email, increasing by 9.3%
20 %
20% 18 % 18 %
17% 18 %
18%
and 4.8% respectively.
16%
15% 15%
14 %
15%
Wednesday held its position
and Monday and Friday
10% 8%
8%
7%
declined by 5.4% and 6.5%.
6%
5%
Sunday advanced notably by
9.3% while Saturday fell by
0%
18.4%. Open rates held
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
steady on Wednesday but
rose on all other days, with
Sent Volume Q4 Sent Volume Q1
Unique Opens Q4 Unique Opens Q1 Friday and Saturday
Unique Clicks Q4 Unique Clicks Q1
increasing by 7.3% and
6.2%. Clicks improved
across the board, with Sunday, Friday and Saturday climbing by 23.8%, 23.7% and 20.9%.
Sunday continues to outperform other days, with open and click rates of 22.7% and 6.9%.
Cheetahmail’s clients
Sent by Time of da y
increased their rate of
40%
sending emails most notably
Q1: 2008
for the period from midnight
35%
to 4:00AM, with send volume
30%
rising by 15.1% for a gain of
25%
Q4: 2007 3.4 percentage points. Next
was the improvement by 2.3
20%
points between 8 am and 12
15%
noon, followed by a drop of
10%
2.2 percentage points
5%
between 8 pm and midnight.
0%
0:00 - 3:59 4:00 - 7:59 8:00 - 11:59 12:00 - 15:59 16:00 - 19:59 20:00 - 23:59
Experian CheetahMail
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29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006 • T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378 • www.cheetahmail.com
9. Methodology
All data has been aggregated by month, quarter, and industry and analyzed within the following
verticals:
Business Products & Services
Cataloger
Consumer Products & Services
Multi-Channel Retailer
Publisher
Travel & Entertainment
Note: We have suspended reporting of the Non-Profit vertical for the time being and will resume when we
determine that our client base may appropriately represent that sector.
Specific industry numbers are based upon non-weighted averages across all companies within
the industry to illustrate an accurate measure of average company performance.
The metrics included in this study are defined as follows:
Total Opens: All opens recorded for the mailing including multiple opens by the same
subscriber
Unique Opens: The number of unique subscribers that have opened an HTML-
formatted message
Total Clicks: Every click on a tracked link, including multiple clicks by a given
subscriber
Unique Clicks: The unique subscriber-link combinations, i.e. each unique link clicked
on by each subscriber
Transaction Rates: Overall percentage of transactions as related to delivered
messages (transactions / (sent - bounced)). This metric only includes data for clients
who have implemented CheetahMail’s Track to Purchase functionality
Transaction Rates as a Percentage of Clicks: Percentage of transactions compared
to the number of unique clicks (transactions / unique clicks). This metric only includes
data for clients who have implemented CheetahMail’s Track to Purchase functionality
Average Order Size: Average total amount for each transaction. This metric only
includes data for clients who have implemented CheetahMail’s Track to Purchase
functionality
Revenue Over Email Delivered: Average amount earned for each delivered email
(total order / (sent - bounced))
Bounce Rates: The percentage of subscribers that did not receive a mailing because
their email addresses hard bounced (bounce / sent)
Unsubscribe Rates: This reflects the total number of subscriptions lost as a result of
users unsubscribing from the mailing (unique unsubscribers / (sent - bounced))
Experian CheetahMail
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29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006 • T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378 • www.cheetahmail.com
10. Appendix
Historic Open Rates
29%
27%
Total
25%
23%
21%
19%
Unique
17%
15%
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
Historic Click Rates
7.5%
7.0%
6.5%
Total
6.0%
5.5%
5.0%
4.5%
4.0%
Unique
3.5%
3.0%
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
Historic Transaction Rates
0.15%
0.14%
0.13%
0.12%
0.11%
0.10%
Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Q4: 2006 Q1: 2007 Q2: 2007 Q3: 2007 Q4: 2007 Q1: 2008
Source: CheetahMail an Experian Company; Professional Services Department
Experian CheetahMail
10
29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006 • T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378 • www.cheetahmail.com
18. Appendix II: Alternative Vertical Breakdowns
In an attempt to offer more relevant context for our Benchmark numbers, we have evaluated all
participating clients and classified them into a set of more granular verticals. We hope this
alternative view of the traditional data for this quarter will provide more specific insight and help
you better understand how your program compares to your category. We believe that each
client was placed in the most relevant vertical to their business, though some clients were
assigned to multiple categories.
Vertical Definitions
Offline Point of Sale: Retailers who do not have ecommerce and instead use email to
drive in-store purchases
Online Point of Sale: Retailers who almost exclusively or exclusively use email to drive
subscribers to their websites to make purchases
Luxury: Comprised of retailers that sell high-end merchandise exclusively or almost
exclusively
Apparel & Accessories: Shoes, bags, belts, apparel and sportswear
retailers/merchants are all represented in this vertical
Department Stores: Retailers offering a variety of merchandise and services organized
in separate departments
Specialty Product: Retailers who sell a particular product line or category of products
Private Label: Merchants who sell their own private label merchandise
Multi-Brand: Merchants who sell multiple brands
Financial Services: Includes banks, lending institutions, financial consultants, and
financial publishers
Telecom & Technology: This represents retailers and service providers of technology
products and telecommunications equipment
Travel: All methods of travel are represented in this vertical including land, air and sea
Entertainment: This includes all entertainment media such as music, movies,
television, radio, and interactive
We will continue to analyze, refine and expand this research in future studies. We welcome
your feedback and hope that you find this to be a useful addition to our benchmark reports.
Experian CheetahMail
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29 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10006 • T 212 809 0825 • F 212 809 6378 • www.cheetahmail.com
19. Below are some of the statistics that we found most relevant and interesting when we further
segmented our regular benchmark verticals:
The Travel and Entertainment alternate verticals both increased in total opens by 42%,
climbing 11 and 5 percentage points respectively, and Telecom and Technology gained
2.6 points, an increase by 8%. Department Store fell 6.3 points in total opens, a decline
by 29%.
The Travel and Entertainment alternate verticals also showed the most notable change
in click rates, gaining 1.3 and 1.4 percentage points in unique clicks and 4.2 and 2.5
points in total clicks, while All Industry rates changed negligibly. Financial Services fell 1
percentage point in total clicks, while all other alternate verticals moved by less than 1
point in both metrics.
Clicks as a percentage of opens presented the same pattern, with the Travel and
Entertainment verticals showing the most movement, rising 1.8 and 5.4 points and
improving by 10.4% and 35.6% respectively. Department Store rose 1 percentage point,
climbing by 3.9%, and Online Point of Sale fell 1.1 percentage point, at a rate of 5.3%.
All other verticals changed by less than 1 percentage point.
The Private Label segment declined markedly in transactions, falling by 0.1 percentage
points. The next largest movements were an increase by 0.02 points for Online Point of
Sale and decreases by 0.02 points for Department Store and Apparel & Accessories. All
other alternate verticals changed by no more than 0.01 percentage points.
The decline in transactions as a percentage of clicks was concentrated in Private Label
and Entertainment, which declined by 1.1 percentage points, followed by Department
Store and Apparel & Accessories, which fell by 1 and 0.7 points respectively. All other
segments changed by no more than half a percentage point.
The gain in Average Order Size this quarter is concentrated in the Travel, Department
Store, Specialty Product and Online Point of Sale alternate verticals, which rose by $25,
$17, $16 and $15 respectively, at rates of 15.1%, 4.8%, 14% and 12.9% over last
quarter. At the same time, Apparel & Accessories declined $26, by a rate of 10.1%.
While overall revenue per email delivered (ROI) remained unchanged over last quarter
and our regular industry verticals showed changes of no more than 4 cents, our alternate
verticals reveal more useful insight: Travel and Specialty Product increased by 6 and 5
cents respectively, at rates of 33.4% and 76.1%, while Private Label, Apparel &
Accessories and Luxury declined by 7, 6 and 5 cents respectively, at rates of 37.7%,
28.3% and 20.6%.
Experian CheetahMail
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20. Offline Point of Sale Online Point of Sale
22.2% 14.8%
% Total Opens
16.2% 11.2%
% Unique Open
6.5% 3.2%
% Total Clicks
4.0% 2.3%
% Unique Click
-- 0.18%
% Transactions
-- $ 0.18
Revenue Per Email Delivered
-- $ 130.40
Average Order Size
6.0% 1.9%
% Bounce
0.29% 0.18%
% Unsubscribe
Luxury Apparel/Accessories Department Stores Specialty Product
18.5% 17.8% 15.5% 19.2%
% Total Opens
14.1% 13.4% 12.0% 14.2%
% Unique Open
5.7% 5.3% 4.4% 4.3%
% Total Clicks
4.3% 3.9% 3.2% 2.9%
% Unique Click
0.05% 0.09% 0.12% 0.21%
% Transactions
$ 0.20 $ 0.16 $ 0.32 $ 0.19
Revenue Per Email Delivered
$ 474.44 $ 231.07 $ 374.68 $ 131.36
Average Order Size
1.8% 1.8% 1.3% 1.9%
% Bounce
0.22% 0.17% 0.16% 0.21%
% Unsubscribe
Private Label Multi-Brand
19.8% 17.8%
% Total Opens
14.5% 13.3%
% Unique Open
5.1% 3.7%
% Total Clicks
3.5% 2.7%
% Unique Click
0.12% 0.11%
% Transactions
$ 0.11 $ 0.12
Revenue Per Email Delivered
$ 150.45 $ 140.49
Average Order Size
2.3% 1.8%
% Bounce
0.22% 0.17%
% Unsubscribe
Financial Services Telecom & Technology Travel Entertainment
38.0% 35.2% 37.2% 17.0%
% Total Opens
23.5% 23.2% 21.1% 12.5%
% Unique Open
6.5% 5.7% 9.5% 4.7%
% Total Clicks
4.6% 4.0% 4.8% 2.9%
% Unique Clicks
8.8% 6.2% 5.7% 8.8%
% Bounce
0.25% 0.23% 0.10% 0.31%
% Unsubscribe
Experian CheetahMail
20
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