Return Path recently released their Second Annual Holiday Email Consumer Survey. Amongst the key findings:

- The most important factor influencing consumers as to whether they would open a marketing email or not was familiarity with the sender (60.6%)

- When survey participants were asked how they used email in their holiday shopping, 50.2% stated that they took advantage of email offers.

- 16.9% of respondents stated that they received so much email during the holiday season that it was overwhelming

- When asked how they dealt with the increase of emails during the holiday season, 68% just deleted the additional emails, but over 33.6% reported the sender as a spammer to their ISP.

This last point is particularly disturbing. I’ve seen this happen on many occasions through AOL automated spam reports. It doesn’t seem to matter if your lists are double opt-in or how easy you try to make the unsubscribe process, some people will just report your communication as spam. How do many define spam? Any email communication that they don’t find interesting.

You can download a free copy of Return Path’s Email Consumer survey here

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