Most Effective vs Most Difficult Email List Growth Tactics, January 2015 [TABLE]

The most effective tactic for executing email list growth was one of the easiest, too: 43% of marketers said prompting website visitors to opt in to company emails was effective, and just 16% said this was the most difficult. Content downloads were the second most effective tactics for increasing email list size, close behind at 42%.

On the flipside, social media sharing was the most difficult tactic for executing email list growth, at 40%, This makes the 29% who said it was effective look impressive, especially considering it trailed least-difficult upcoming events in the effectiveness category by just 1 percentage point. Paid search campaigns were the second most difficult, cited by a close 39%.

Nearly half of Ascend2’s respondents said increasing email list size was a top objective for the year ahead; however, results from November 2014 polling by Salesforce Marketing Cloud indicated that what happens after consumers sign up is more important. Here, just 21% of marketers worldwide looked at list growth rate to measure email marketing success. Clickthrough rate (47%), conversion rate (43%) and click-to-open rate (38%) were at the top of the list, and unsubscribe rate was even more important, at 23%. Read the rest at eMarketer.