Experian Marketing Services showed that email volume has increased 10 percent in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011 according to the Experian CheetahMail 2012 Q2 email benchmark report. Experian CheetahMail also found that total open rates increased 1.5 percent in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011.

Analyzing the email volume among different industries shows that Travel and Consumer Products and Services emails reported the largest increases, with 41 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Media and Entertainment emails also reported a double-digit increase (17 percent) in Q2 2012 versus Q2 2011.There was only a 2 percent change in All Industry email volume from Q1 to Q2 in 2012, as all verticals except Travel had less growth from Q1 to Q2 in 2012 than they had for the same time in 2011.

"For Q2 2012, overall email volume increased 10 percent while open rates were slightly above the 2011 Q2 rates, as more than 55 percent of brands had statistically significant increases in open rates for Q2 2012," said Regina Gray, vice president of strategic services, Experian CheetahMail. "While click rates continued to show a year-over-year decline, there is some evidence that the rates are stabilizing. Email is still the most effective channel to connect with customers as we've seen a growing trend of brands utilizing social capabilities to acquire and engage consumers and fans across these new media channels."

The email and social media connection
The Q2 benchmark report analyzed the Q2 2012 mailings that had a reference to a social media site in the mailing name or subject line of the email - such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest - and then were compared to the performance of all other mailings from the same clients for the same time period found that:

• 70 percent growth in brands sending 'Like us', 'Follow us' or 'Pin us' email campaigns.
• Pinterest 'Pin us' mailings are generating unique click rates that are almost 25 percent higher than other mailings.
• Unique open rates for Twitter 'Follow us' mailings are 9.5 percent higher than those for their other mailings, but unique click rates are virtually identical to all of their other mailings.
• Coupons had over 50 percent higher click rates and double the revenue per email than campaigns without offers.