Data followup: Google Adwords trounces email marketing in efficiency

We noted at the beginning of the month our ongoing disappointment with the efficiency of our email marketing attempt to get people to complete our Q2 marketing survey (which, by the way, is just winding up). As some of you may remember, the stats looked something like this:

Emails sent: 11,261
Bounced: 342
Removed: 302
Net sent: 10,919
Emails opened: 1,783
Click throughs: 30
Cost: $3,000
Surveys completed: 10

That's a 0.3% response rate off the net emailing. Each click-through cost roughly $100, and each survey about $300.


Well, after running Google Adwords for about three weeks, we achieved the following results:

Impressions after three weeks: 952,787
Clicks: 355
Surveys completed: 64
Cost: $1,116.59

On AdWords, we ran both cost per click advertising and impression-based ads. Our response rate on the advertising was only 0.03%, mostly driven down by our CPM advertising; our advertising on selected web sites on an impression basis actually had about double the response rate (0.07%) because of better targeting. However, our cost per click overalll was only $3.15, and our cost per completed survey is just $17.45 instead of $300.

The numbers speak for themselves. Anyone who isn't considering Google advertising should ask themselves why not. And people who think email advertising is a great way to reach people had better have great opt-in email lists.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, AdWords, Business, Direct email, Google, Marketing, Marketing measurement