DMA Report Shows Most e-Marketers Offer Opt-Out

Almost all online marketers are offering consumers a chance to opt out of e-mail marketing solicitations. And nine out of ten refuse to rent their house files with e-mail addresses.

But the size and accuracy of DMers' e-mail lists vary with company size.

Those are among the findings of a new report by the Direct Marketing Association.

The DMA found that that 60% of the firms surveyed do not rent third-party e-mail lists, and 74% do not send non-targeted e-mail to prospects.

The survey also revealed that most Web marketers maintain an in-house e-mail list, with large firms more likely to have one than smaller companies. But small companies have the largest percentage of e-mail names in their house files--65.5%, compared with 44.9% for medium-sized firms and 46.9% for large operations.

And business-to-business DMers lead the pack with 63.8% of their house files covered, compared with 37.8% for consumer marketers.

Almost two thirds of the respondents said they clean their e-mail lists at roughly the same frequency they clean their postal files. Business-to-business marketers seem to have the best files--38% clean them several times a month, compared with 20% for consumer DMers.

And in general, 58% of small companies clean their lists several times a month or on a monthly basis, versus 53% for large companies.

The DMA received answers from almost 700 companies.