New Benchmarks for Direct Marketing Response Rates: How Do Yours Compare?

2010 Response Rates and Cost per Response: Key Findings

Since DMA created the trends report in 2003, direct marketing has expanded far beyond traditional channels like direct mail and catalogs to email and interactive marketing, and DMA has broadened its metrics to include these new channels.

The DMA’s research found that:

Email to a house list averaged a 19.47% open rate, a 6.64% click-through rate, and a 1.73% conversion rate, with a bounce-back rate of 3.72% and an unsubscribe rate of 0.77%.

Direct mail response rates have held steady over the past four years. Letter-sized envelopes had a response rate this year of 3.42% for a house list and 1.38% for a prospect list.

Catalogs had the lowest cost per lead/order of $47.61, just ahead of inserts at $47.69, email at $53.85, and postcards $75.32.

Paid search had an average cost per click of $3.79, with a 3.81% conversion rate. The conversion rate (after click) of Internet display advertisements was slightly higher at 4.43%.

Outbound telemarketing to prospects had the highest cost per order or lead of $309.25, but it also had the highest response rate from prospects of 6.16%.  The highest response rate for a house list was also telephone, at 10.41%.

Response rates for business-to-business direct marketing campaigns were generally higher than for business-to-consumer campaigns.  Lead generation and high-end average sale campaigns also had higher response rates. Read more at www.gianfagnamarketing.com