Consumer E-List Glut Causing Steep Price Drop: Worldata

Growth in the overall number of available consumer e-mail lists is largely responsible for a 49% drop in prices over the past five years, says Ray Tesi, senior vice president of Worldata.

Worldata just released its first list price index covering the past five years from Summer 2006 to Summer 2011.

“In light of the tremendous economic shifts that have occurred over the last five years, we thought it would be useful to analyze pricing over this period of time,” he says. “I think what we were surprised at was not so much that many of these [list] categories had gone down but how on the consumer side they have dropped so precipitously.

“So many of these new consumer lists on the market were very large files that have gone for a much lower cost per thousand and I think mailers are looking for the most economical way to reach consumers,” he adds.

Those files typically include aggregations of consumer magazine and merchandise buyers.

Some standalone consumer files typically rent in the $100 per thousand to $125 per thousand range, while larger aggregated consumer files rent for as little as $75 per thousand, he notes.

Another factor possibly contributing to this price decline is the steady proliferation of free online editorial content, he notes.

“We’ve been seeing more people trying to get free content over the Internet,” he says. “So as you get free content the value of those [subscriber] names goes down a bit.”

Tesi points out that those signing up for free content are less likely to be high ticket buyers found among conventional magazine subscribers.

Business-to-business file prices have also been falling.

During the same five-year period, B-to-B file prices rose from $290 per thousand in 2006 to $299 per thousand in 2008 and then fell to $269 thousand now, an 11% drop from its highest point, according to Worldata.

Tesi attributed this in part to a decline in demand for U.S. B-to-B files caused by the fact that more companies were sourcing products and services outside the U.S.

“We saw a big shift in the last couple of years for B-to-B outside of North America, and that caused prices to drastically go down because they weren’t in demand,” says Tesi.

Attendee/member, public sector and donor files were the only categories that have increased in list price since 2006.

For example, attendee/member list prices rose from $116 per thousand in 2006 to $132 per thousand this year.

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