Consumers Cutting Back on When They Check Emails

Consumers are sick of hard-sell email messages that are not informative enough and irrelevant, reports Adweek, but they’d still rather get email offers from brands compared to direct mail, mobile apps or social media. Those findings are from Adobe research—called the Adobe Consumer Email Survey—that surveyed 1,007 white-collar workers.

Additionally, stated Adweek, “half of consumers feel like marketers send too frequently.

“Meanwhile, here are several other data points from Adobe that marketers ought to find interesting.

• 20 percent are frustrated by having to wait for images to load.
• 19 percent are not happy with having to scroll too much.
• 26 percent of consumers are checking email first thing in the morning while still in bed, a 28 percent decrease year over year. So hey breakfast brands, perhaps time your campaigns for at least after they are done brushing their teeth.
• This should interest business-to-business marketers: more folks are logging off after work, with 20 percent “never checking” work email outside of work hours, a 43 percent increase year over year.
• And here’s one for fitness marketers: 28 percent of consumers age 18-24 peek at their email while working out, compared to 16 percent of consumers overall.”

Specifically related to email, most respondents check their work and personal email at least every few hours, which they feel is as often as they
should. That said, fewer respondents are checking their work and personal email than last year.
– Fewer respondents are checking their email while still in bed (with younger respondents most likely to do so), while
more are waiting until they get to the office (particularly older individuals).
– Fewer respondents are checking emails while on vacation, while on the phone, while walking, while working out, and
while at formal ceremonies.
– Smartphones continue to be the most commonly used device for checking emails, although computers are the
preferred device for checking work email. In addition, the rate of checking emails on tablets has gone down since
2016.
– 82% of work emails and 60% of personal emails are opened. Of those, 83% of work emails and 64% of personal
emails are read.
– Most respondents expect their email use (both personal and work) to remain the same over the next two years.
– Respondents most likely feel indifference when checking their work or personal email. Additionally, half get to “inboxzero”
which is most likely to make them feel relieved.

You can check out the full Adobe survey here.