Despite all the social media alternatives, direct marketers still prefer email by a substantial margin for reaching people, according to a study by the Association for National Advertisers.
The “Response Rate Report 2021: Performance and Cost Metrics Across Direct Media” revealed that email was the most used direct medium across business-to-business, business-to-consumer and hybrid campaigns, averaging 82% usage among marketers versus 74% for social media.
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Trailing by substantial margins were paid search (51%), digital display (42%), direct mail (38%) and SMS text (18%).
The study is based on an online survey of 581 marketers between February and July 2021.
Even though email maintains primacy among direct response media, its usage has declined 6% since 2018, while social media use rose 17% since the prior ANA study three years ago.