• by Jess Nelson , January 25, 2016

Marketers are planning to increase the integration of direct buy buttons into email this year. A study released by Campaigner reveals that 22% of the 500 marketers polled have already used a direct-buy button in some capacity, and 36% have reported increases in sales and revenue.

Direct-buy buttons are available on several social networking sites such as Pinterest and Facebook, but marketers are looking to expand their use and reach. The most popular channel for future investment is email, with 22.3% of marketers looking to integrate a direct buy button into their email marketing campaigns by the end of the year.

It comes as no surprise that email lingers on the minds of marketers looking to sell more products and services, since email still ranks as the best marketing channel for return on investment per dollar spent.

In order to generate a sale, however, marketers must first entice subscribers to open their emails -- and this remains a challenge for marketers.

Increasing open rates is the top challenge for email marketers this year, according to Campaigner's study.

Some 31.4% of marketers selected increasing open rates as their top challenge in email marketing this year, followed by 20% of marketers who selected email engagement as their second most difficult challenge. Creating new content and earning new subscribers also ranked as top challenges for marketers in 2016.