List Price Index: Pitfalls Remain in Consumer Sector A study out last week suggests that the Can-Spam legislation and the ongoing controversy over Sender ID have contributed to waning interest among marketers in renting e-mail lists.
“While pricing remains high in the business-to-business e-mail area, mailers are tentative in using e-mail as an effective method of communication,” says Ray Tesi, senior vice president of Boca Raton, FL-based list firm Worldata, which compiles the List Price Index quarterly.
Permission-based business-to-business e-mail lists are the highest-priced category of lists, with an average price of $287/M, an $8/M increase from the same quarter of last year. Permission-based business-to-consumers e-mail lists are tied with newsletter mailing lists as the second highest-priced category, at $170/M, on average. But while the rental cost of newsletter lists held steady, the price of consumer e-mail lists fell $2/M.
The average price of the consumer merchandise buyer files is $98/M, flat with last year. The average price of business merchandise buyers is $118/M, up slightly from last year’s $116/M. In the database/masterfile category, the average price rose 8% during the past year, to $129/M.