69.4% of marketers have seen email bounce-rates increase over the past two years, causing databases to become out of date more quickly. Despite challenges, pandemic-era engagement increased for 70% of email marketers.
More than four in five marketers (82.8%) report that at least 20% of their marketing database is out of date, according to research conducted by end-to-end prospecting platform Outbase. Shockingly, 26% of the 500 marketers and business professionals surveyed say that more than 40% of their database is out of date.
As a result, bounces have become a major problem for email marketers, with 69.4% reporting a general increase over the past two years and 91.0% experiencing issues at some level. Bounced emails have caused significant problems for 45.5% of survey respondents.
One major contributor to the widespread increase in bounce-rate is the so-called 鈥�Great Resignation.鈥� As people resign from their jobs or move jobs more frequently, email marketing lists become out of date more quickly. It鈥檚 no surprise, therefore, that 74% of marketers are struggling to keep data up-to-date.
However, despite these challenges, engagement levels have increased for 70% of email marketers, showing that marketers are getting better at using email marketing as a tool – one of the channels that saw increased ROI as a result of the pandemic.
Scott Logie, Customer Engagement Director at REaD Group and Chair of the Customer Engagement Committee of the DMA 鈥� who contributed to the research report 鈥� says: 鈥淚t seems paradoxical to be getting better results while missing more often, but it鈥檚 really the result of a greater focus on targeting. It鈥檚 a classic 鈥榪uality not quantity鈥� issue 鈥� marketers do best when they鈥檙e sending emails directly to the people who want to read them and nobody else.鈥�
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Many marketers are trying to contend with the out-of-date data issue by updating their databases more regularly. Today, most marketers, 89%, update their database at least once per quarter, and 42% update them monthly or even more frequently. However, even this energy-intensive approach still struggles to keep up, so marketers are beginning to turn to smart solutions instead.
Rob Harlow, Co-founder of Outbase, says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 the youngest marketers 鈥� professionals under the age of 25 years old 鈥� that are working the hardest to keep databases up to date, and they鈥檙e seeing the best engagement, albeit at a significant time cost. The good news is that there鈥檚 a better solution: modern prospecting platforms eliminate the out-of-date data problem and make it simple to contact the right people and businesses every time.鈥�
More information on Outbase鈥檚 research is available in the report: https://outbase.com/report-great-resignation-impacts-sales-prospecting-data/
