China may be a hot spot for U.S.-based merchants, but emails they are sending to consumers there are more than likely not reaching the intended recipient.
According to data compiled by Return Path for its 2014 Inbox Placement Benchmark Report, just 44% of emails sent by U.S.-based senders to recipients in China are reaching the inbox.
While 9.7% of emails sent by U.S.-based senders to recipients in China are considered “bulk,” or landing in spam folders, 46.7% of those messages are considered “missing,” which Return Path defines as mail that is blocked by the ISP or sent to spam.
In contrast, Return Path’s research shows that a higher percent of emails sent by U.S.-based senders to recipients in English-speaking countries are reaching the intended recipient. For example, 93% of emails sent to recipients in Australia and 92% of those sent to recipients in the U.K. landed in inboxes.
However, emails sent by U.S.-based senders in France (91%) and Germany (90%) fared better than emails that were sent to recipients in the U.S. (89%).
Tom Sather, Return Path’s Senior Director of Research, told Multichanne Merchant that U.S.-based merchants should localize email content for the country it’s being sent to in order to reach the inbox. While filtering rules by major ISPs such as Gmail, yahoo and Outlook is consistant worldwide, Sather said the smaller, local ISPs will be quicker to protect their customers from potential spam.
“The more localized your content is, the better chance your email message will reach the recipient,” said Sather, who added that typos and grammar are a part of the ISPs’ checklist. “You need your personalization to go beyond the subject line, and be in the native tongue of the subscriber.”
The major ISPs have this down to a science, Sather said, while the local ISPs are more-reactionary to protect their customers.
Return Path conducted this study using a representative sample of more than 492 million commercial email messages sent with permission to consumers around the world between May 2013 and April 2014. Global and regional statistics are based on performance across more than 150 mailbox providers in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions; country- and industry-specific statistics are based on a subset of senders whose location and industry classifications are identifiable.