Nearly three-quarters of e-mail marketers said in a recent survey that they plan to spend either the same amount or more on e-mail marketing in 2008 as they did last year.

The survey was part of MarketingSherpa's "E-Mail 2008: Top 10 Research Findings and Practical Ways to Increase E-Mail Performance" report. More than a quarter of respondents said they would spend 1.5 times as much or more as they did in 2007.

"That speaks a lot toward digital media coming into adulthood," said Tim McAtee, senior analyst at MarketingSherpa. "Every [type of digital media spending] is coming up with it, but I do still feel that e-mail marketing can fight for a greater share of budget."



MarketingSherpa also said that many e-mail marketers had no separate budget line item for e-mail.

The company found that small in-house marketers were slightly more likely to say they had no specific e-mail marketing budget line item, but that a third of large in-house marketers said so as well.

eMarketer predicts that spending on e-mail marketing will grow by 5.1% in 2008, up 46% over 2007's growth rate. Marketing for both the national and local elections will contribute to this growth. Spending growth in 2010 will be similarly boosted on a smaller scale by election activity.



E-mail's low cost, which contributes to its popularity, also moderates growth. Because it is a low-cost medium, even relatively large increases in the number of commercial e-mails will not be reflected in large spending increases.

Because e-mail has typically been positioned as a low-cost tool, many companies look to spend correspondingly little for their e-mail marketing efforts.