Email marketing is alive and well in Canada, according to a new report from eMarketer.
Last year Canadian marketers spent $21.8 million on email marketing, up 14.8% from 2014, the research firm said. eMarketer expects email spend to climb an additional 10% this year and continue to grow steadily over the next four years.
The lion’s share of the spend is being put towards permission-based email marketing, meaning communication that consumers have consented to by signing up for an email list or newsletter.
When the CRTC introduced new, more stringent “CASL” anti-spam laws in 2014, many in the ad industry speculated about the “death” of email marketing. The latest numbers from eMarketer suggest concerns about the law’s impact on email marketing were exaggerated.
In fact, some suggest CASL actually had a positive impact on email marketing. The eMarketer report concludes that CASL led to cleaner email lists and improved performance for marketing messages.
Ipsos Reid chief operating officer Steve Levy has likewise said CASL was a positive catalyst for change for the industry. Speaking at Marketing‘s 2015 Digital Religion conference, Levy said CASL led to “less clutter” and more impactful connections between brands and consumers.
“Brands were forced to pay much more attention to what they were doing, so it’s much more targeted,” Levy said.
Ipsos own research has also concluded email marketing is healthy in the Canadian market. According to Ipsos data, eight out of 10 consumers are willing to receive emails from brands. The firm’s research also showed that 83% of marketers reported they use email marketing “frequently” in 2014 – a sharp rise from 39% in 2006.
