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The Federation of European Direct Marketing Association is set to begin a major research initiative at the end of the year, to create an economic analysis of the impact of DM on the group's 25 member DM associations.

"We hope to be pleasantly surprised by the results," said Alistair Tempest, director general of FEDMA, during the global leaders session on Monday.

The research will compile statistics on consumer attitudes, business attitudes and create e-mail benchmarks, as well.

Several challenges are facing EU marketers, he noted, including data protection issues such as opt-in/opt-out regulations and how companies need to notify consumers about their data collection practices.

Consumer protection laws are also an issue, he said, noting it's often confusing trying to determine which country's laws apply in cross border sales.

As in the U.S., consumers opting out of receiving DM communications is a continuing concern. Tempest noted that in the month of August, 130,000 households registered with the U.K. DMA's Mail Preference Service, after a junk mail article appeared in the Daily Mail.

That number is significant, he said, considering that it's the same as the number of homes that would typically sign up in a year.