The Direct Marketing Association released their annual Response Rate Trend Report this week, including some interesting findings about direct mail, email, paid search ads, Internet display ads, and telemarketing:

• “Response rates for Direct Mail have held steady over the past four years. Letter-sized envelopes, for instance, had a response rate this year of 3.42 percentfor a house list and 1.38 percent for a prospect list.”
• “Response rates for B-to-B campaigns were generally higherthan for B-to-C campaigns.  Lead generation and high-end average sale campaigns also had higher response rates.”
• “Email to a house list averaged:
  • a 19.47 percent open rate
  • a 6.64 percent click-through rate
  • a 1.73 percent conversion rate
  • a bounce-back rate of 3.72 percent
  • an unsubscribe rate of 0.77 percent”
• “Paid search had an average cost per click of $3.79, with a 3.81 percent conversion rate.The conversion rate (after click) of Internet display advertisements was slightly higher at 4.43 percent.”

Perhaps the most interesting stats involve the costs of producing a lead or sale via different marketing channels. Many companies and marketers focus more on the per-piece cost of the different channels, instead of the end game of actual sales, which may account for the flood of marketing emails in my inbox/spam filter.

According to the report: “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.”

What kind of response and conversion rates are you experiencing? What marketing channels are performing best for you? Share your insights by clicking the comment button.