63.8% of retailers conduct up to three e-mail campaigns each month and another 25.2% conduct between four and eight campaigns. 62.8% also indicate that they've increased the frequency of e-mail campaigns in the past year.

26.5% of participants in the survey report open rates of 20% or more (11.2% reported 20% to 25% while 15.3% said more than 25%), while another 11.8% report open rates of 16% to 19%. 14.6% report e-mail open rates of less than 5%, with only 6.2% with open rates of 1% or less.

3. Conversion rates:

Sales conversation rates generated by e-mail marketing are also substantially higher than a year ago. For example, 28.3% report no change in their overall e-mail sales conversion rates. But 20.6% also indicate that sales conversions as a direct result of better e-mail marketing have improved by up to 5% in the past 12 months, with 7.2% reporting conversion increases of more than 10%.

4. List segmentation:

49.1% of online retailers segment their lists by repeat buyers and another 42.1% segment first-time buyers. 33% segment their lists by purchase frequency, followed by 19% that segment recipients by average ticket, 14.7% by age, 12.9% by sex and 12.3% by household income. 78% also list "other," indicating that there are many ways to break down a customer file.

5. Sales from email activities:

49.4% reported less than 5% of their sales are attributable to email marketing. 23.8% said email says were 6% to 10%, while 20.6% reported sales form email campaigns at 11% to 30% of total sales. Finally, 6.3% said that their email campaigns resulted in more than 30% of their sales.

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