Improve your email marketing for 2009

Online advertising budgets are set to grow next year and companies need to make sure their marketing is both effective and legal, according to new research.

Display budgets are expected to increase by ten per cent over the next 12 months and finances for searches will increase by 17 per cent, a survey by New Media Age found.

Morgan Stewart, director of research and strategy at the company, said he expects open, click-through and conversion rates to decline in 2009 as subscribers' inboxes get inundated by emails.

He advised people who want to use email marketing that "it will be more important than ever to deliver relevant, timely information to customers in a way that honours the individual preferences of each subscriber".

Email advertising and search marketing make more regulation breaches than any other form of online marketing, according to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Webcertain advises businesses that want to send HTML email newsletters to their target audience need to make sure they have permission from the person being sent the email, unless they contacted the business first.

It needs to be clear who the email is from, include a valid reply address and an unsubscribe option.