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DoubleClick's Latest Email Trend Report Shows Record Email Productivity in Q4 2004 - Report also Highlights the Declining Efficacy of Open Rate Metrics as a Standalone Performance Measure - NEW YORK, March 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DoubleClick Inc. (NASDAQ:DCLK), the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web publishers, today released the Q4 2004 Email Trend Report which shows record email productivity during the quarter. During the quarter, marketers saw all time high order-per-email-delivered rates, and near-record click-to-purchase conversion rates. In addition, the revenue-per-email-delivered rate rose despite a dip in average order size. The Email Trend Report also points to a changing importance in the metrics that are used to measure the effectiveness of email marketing. In particular, the report highlights a challenge in measuring and benchmarking open rates as a metric, primarily due to technological changes such as image blocking, that affect how opens are recorded. Email Productivity at Record Highs For Retail and Catalog customers that track purchase activity through DARTmail, Q4 2004 was a banner quarter. Orders-per-email delivered at 0.35 percent were at an all-time high and significantly higher than the previous highest rate recorded in Q1 and Q2 of 2003 (0.30 percent). Click-to-purchase conversions at 4.8 percent were also at record levels, up from 4.2 percent in Q4 2003 and nearly matching the all-time high 4.9 percent recorded in Q4 2002. Revenue-per-email-delivered has remained steady over the past few years, with Retail and Catalog marketers recording $0.26 per email delivered in Q4 2004. Combined with the average order size which has slowly declined over the same time period, these results suggest a change in how email marketing is driving online sales. Although more people are purchasing as a result of an email offer, they are purchasing smaller ticket items. This suggests that email-driven purchasing has expanded to include nearly all product categories, and when people are in market for an item they are indeed converting. Despite the decline in average order size, the consistency of the revenue-per-email delivered further underscores the profitability of the email marketing medium. These findings are also consistent with the findings released in December by Performics, the search marketing division of DoubleClick, which showed that click volume and conversions were up, while average cost-per-click remained stable. Q4 Response Metrics Email marketing remained stable in Q4 2004, according to traditional metrics. Bounce-back rates declined to an all-time low of 9.4 percent. Open rates and click rates both declined slightly to 32.6 percent and 8.0 percent respectively, although each has been within a 6.6 point and 1.7 point range respectively for the past three years. These metrics show remarkable stability over the past three years, amidst public and private sector concern for spam and delivery filtering tools. While open rates have declined slowly but steadily over the past few quarters, clicks have remained strong and conversions have improved. The challenges in maintaining open rates include the adoption of image blocking filtering mechanisms among many major ISPs and email programs (such as Outlook) as a response to protect readers from potentially graphical or offensive spam messages. A side effect of this change, however, is a reduction in the calculated open rate of emails due to the inability to identify the email as opened unless the images render. Email delivery has remained a major focus for marketers in recent years due to the backlash to the spam onslaught. However, many marketers have realized that by focusing on delivery as a primary goal, they risk losing sight of the true goal of building relationships with their customers and increasing email productivity. In addition, the absence of an industry standard for calculating delivery rate has led to confusion as various benchmarks exist without much explanation of their methodology and, therefore, without grounds for comparison. "As the email channel matures, it is important for marketers and publishers to evolve their strategies along with their success metrics in order to build and enhance their relationships with customers," said Kevin Mabley, Director of Strategic Services at DoubleClick. "In addition to monitoring traditional metrics of email performance, the savviest companies are putting these data into context with customer behavior and profile data to drive informed targeting and messaging." Methodology The DoubleClick Email Trend Report contains aggregate data from DoubleClick's DARTmail email delivery technology. The Q4 data are based on billions of permission-based emails from hundreds of clients. The full results are available to DoubleClick customers and an executive summary is available at: http://www.doubleclick.net/us/knowledge Performance metrics in this release relate to un-weighted averages across all companies. This is done to provide a measure of average company performance, due to the fact that very large mailers can bias the overall and category results. About DoubleClick Inc. DoubleClick is the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web publishers to plan, execute and analyze their marketing programs. DoubleClick's online advertising, email marketing and database marketing solutions help clients yield the highest return on their marketing dollar. In addition, the company's marketing analytics solutions help clients measure performance within and across channels. DoubleClick Inc. has global headquarters in New York City and maintains 22 offices around the world. CONTACT: Dave Frankland DoubleClick 212.381.5629 DATASOURCE: DoubleClick Inc. CONTACT: Dave Frankland, DoubleClick, +1-212-381-5629, or Web site: http://www.doubleclick.com/ http://www.doubleclick.net/us/knowledge

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