Permission-based b-to-c email list prices have decreased 49% to $89 per thousand files since summer 2006, according to Worldata‘s five-year trend report and list-price index.
Attendees and members, public sector and donor files are the only categories that have increased in list price in the past five years, increasing $16, $12 and $2 per thousand names, respectively.
“Very few organizations spend money sending people to events these days,” said Jay Schwedelson, president and CEO of Worldata. “A lot of people are having a tough time paying association dues. If a company would have sent 15 people 10 years ago, now they’ll send five people. Those five people are very important people. So the pricing on their data has gone up.”
Permission-based b-to-b email list prices increased $9 per thousand files to $299/M from 2006 to 2008. However, the price of b-to-b email lists has since dropped to $269 per thousand, an 11% decrease compared with 2008.
The report also compared summer 2011 figures to the previous year. During the past 12 months, permission-based b-to-c email files dropped $23 per thousand names from $89 per thousand in 2010, or a 20.5% decrease.
“Year-to-year, you’re seeing a slight downward movement,” said Schwedelson. “Overall, most categories saw a slight dip. The trend appears to be continuing. We expect that to continue for the next quarter or two. As the economic landscape shifts, the pricing should steer upward.”
Schwedelson said he isn’t optimistic about a b-to-c email list-price bounceback.
“Consumer email won’t increase,” he said. “At best, it will remain steady…There’s been a surge in availability in email data over the last five years and that’s driven prices down.”
Donor files remains the lowest-priced category, with an average list price of $85 per thousand, the same as last summer. The highest percentage increase occurred in the attendees and members category, which increased 1.5% to $132/M.
The average cost of permission-based b-to-c email lists dropped 13.3% in spring 2011 to $93 per thousand, compared with the same period in 2010. The average cost of permission-based b-to-c email lists had already dropped 7.3% year-over-year this winter, according to Worldata’s Winter 2011 List Price Index.
