New Goodmail Study: Marketers Boosting ROI 38% through E-Mail Accreditation

PRESS RELEASE

PARK CITY, Utah — December 9, 2008 — Marketers using email certification solutions like CertifiedEmail generate average profits 38 percent higher than their non-certified peers, according to "The ROI of Rendering," a new research report released by Goodmail Systems today at the Email Insider Summit in Park City, Utah. Commissioned by Goodmail to JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, the study, which draws from a comprehensive survey of 202 email marketing executives, finds that marketers using email certification benefit from higher conversion rates (e.g., click-to-purchase) and contribute more revenue to their companies' bottom lines.

"In these especially difficult economic times, marketers must focus on reaping the most out of every dollar they spend," said Peter Horan, CEO of Goodmail. "The new report highlights that email certification helps marketers make more money from their email campaigns. Most important, solutions like CertifiedEmail that improve consumer trust and assure message delivery and rendering help firms recoup the costs of campaign and content development and drive greater profit."

By embedding emails with cryptographically secure tokens, email certification enables qualified marketers to benefit from assured delivery to the inbox (bypassing all spam filters) and the full rendering of links and images. Because each individual message is certified, ISPs also have the security assurance they need to visually distinguish these messages in the inbox interface (in CertifiedEmail's case, with a blue ribbon envelope icon).

Key findings of the study include:

Email marketers that use certification "demonstrate the highest monthly revenue and profit " more than double that of the overall community," the study reports. "The dramatic increases can be attributed to the higher key performance measures, including: delivery rate, unique open rate, unique click-through rate and conversion rate.Accreditation can deliver an ROI for marketers across industries and market segments."

Restoring trust in email a top concern in 2009. Marketers in the survey cited "increased spam and email phishing attacks" (53 percent) and "further email and image blocking" (45 percent) as their top challenges during the next 12 months, compared to the 40 percent who are worried about the poor macroeconomic environment.

Email marketers that use certification drive more conversions and sales. Sixty-eight (68) percent enjoy conversion rates of three percent or more, compared to only 40 percent of non-certifiers. Email drives 3.1 percent or more of overall corporate sales for 88 percent of marketers that use certification, but for only 52 percent of those not using these solutions.

The study also shows that marketers using email certification employ more sophisticated marketing tactics. For example, they are more likely to include 4 images or more in their email templates and employ list segmentation and dynamically generated content to construct their emails. The study finds that email certification "lessens the burden of message delivery challenges and removes the hurdle of image rendering, this in turn allows marketers to focus more on implementing the tactics that empower and embody relevancy as distractions of delivery and rendering are removed."

"Email certification is a virtuous cycle for marketers - knowing that their images are guaranteed to be rendered allows them to focus their efforts beyond the 'small details' of email marketing, in turn further increasing their marketing margins," said Jordan Cohen, senior director of industry relations, Goodmail.

The complete study is available for download from the Goodmail Web site at www.goodmail.com.

Survey Methodology

In October 2008, Goodmail commissioned JupiterResearch to conduct a formal survey of email marketing executives. A total of 202 qualified marketers completed the survey. Respondents received an email invitation to participate in the survey, with an attached URL linked to the Web-based survey form. As an incentive, respondents were awarded with frequent flyer points.

About Goodmail Systems Goodmail Systems is the creator of CertifiedEmail, the industry's standard class of trusted email. CertifiedEmail provides a safe and reliable means for consumers to easily identify authentic email messages from legitimate commercial and nonprofit email senders. Each CertifiedEmail is sent with a cryptographically secure token that assures authenticity and is marked in the inbox with a unique blue ribbon envelope icon, enabling consumers to visually distinguish email messages which are real and sent from email senders with whom they have a pre-existing relationship. Available to email senders meeting strict standards for best practices and low complaint rates, it is the only class of e-mail available that assures delivery of all opt-in e-mail messages to the inbox, with links and images automatically rendered intact, yielding measurable improvements in e-mail effectiveness. CertifiedEmail has been adopted by seven of the nation's top 10 email mailbox providers and is in use by 500 commercial, government and non-profit senders. It is supported in North America and Europe by a wide network of email platforms and service providers. For more information, go to www.goodmailsystems.com(businesses) or www.certifiedemail.net(consumers).

For Media: Stephen Gilmore MS&L 212.468.4056 [email protected]