Given today’s economic uncertainty and budget constraints, many marketers have turned to e-mail as the medium of choice for communicating with their customer base.

The advantages of the e-mail channel are clear:

• E-mail owns a critical mass, reaching some 93% of Internet users
• E-mail response rates can be up to 10 times greater than direct mail, according to META Group/IMT Strategies research.
• The cost per communication is roughly 1/10 that of direct mail according to Andersen.

As more companies incorporated e-mail into the marketing mix, the number of e-mail vendors skyrocketed into the hundreds. These trends have also caused the current proliferation of spam, which threatens to undermine the entire e-mail marketing channel:

• 46% of all e-mail sent is reportedly spam, according to Marketing Sherpa
• 38% of permission-based e-mails are wrongly blocked by filters, says RoperASW
• As a result, the average e-mail response rates is a mere 1%, according to the DMA

As a marketer who may be considering (or already using) e-mail marketing services. Your most pressing challenge is to find a partner that will help you rise above the “inbox noise.”

This article examines the spam risks, most important features, and general sourcing and pricing options you need to be aware of in your decision making process.

E-mail Marketing Terms

• Blacklist -- Process where a specific URL address is blocked from an ISPs network. This means that any e-mail with the blacklisted domain (@spam.com) will not be delivered to the customers on that network.
• Firewall -- Security software that blocks certain messages from entering or exiting a network.
• ISP -- Abbreviation of Internet Service Provider, which is a company that provides Internet access to clients for a fee.
• Sniffer -- An e-mail program that can detect whether the recipient can view a Text- or HTML-based e-mail, and sends the appropriate format.
• Spam -- Definitions vary, but generally spam is unwanted e-mail, usually of a commerical nature.