• by Jess Nelson , December 4, 2015

Inaccurate data continues to impede email marketers, with three out of four companies experiencing delivery issues within the past year, according to Experian Marketing Services.

Experian reports that email volume in the third quarter of 2015 rose 24.8% compared to the previous year, but gains in unique opens and clicks were not as dramatic. Unique opens rose from 16.7% to 17.5%, and unique clicks remained consistent at 2.1%.

Some 37% of brands increased their email profit year-over-year, yet Experian reports continuing email marketing data frustrations. Marketers reported issues maintaining their own email database, as well as delivery issues with Internet Service Providers (ISP).

Although 80% of marketers responded that they had a data cleansing program in place, only 20% said they process it in real-time once the address has been captured. Sixty-four percent of invalid email address can be attributed to human error, according to Experian.

Among the repercussions of data inaccuracy, 37% of marketers responded that they hit a spam trap, 29% experienced trouble reaching their intended recipients, and 20% received customer complaints.

AOL, ATT, and Gmail have the highest inbox percentages among service providers, while Yahoo and Hotmail both rank under 25% in delivery placement.

With the holiday rush likely to produce a multitude of new email addresses for marketers to engage with, Experian suggests that marketers validate new email addresses; remove hard bounces; check for duplication and honor opt-outs, track delivery metrics to address any data or ISP issues proactively, follow all local anti-spam and regulatory laws, and identifyi email addresses that are active with other brands but inactive with theirs. 

Experian surveyed 200 businesses and conducted a data quality analysis across six verticals, including business products and services, consumer products and services, media and entertainment, multichannel retailers, publishers and travel.