The growth in e-mail marketing has created a need for demographic and psychographic information for the delivery of targeted electronic offers. And electronic marketers have managed to collect large datasets of demographic and psychographic information.

Specifically, this data-warehousing effort has evolved from the free e-mail services on the Web.

For the end-user, free-mail services are convenient, delivering several key benefits. They provide users with a permanent e-mail address, regardless of their Internet service provider. Since the vehicle for using free-mail services is a Web browser, registered users can access their e-mail from any Internet-connected computer.

Several of the more popular companies offering free-mail services include USA.NET, with its NET@DDRESS program; WhoWhere, which offers MailCity; Juno, which was one of the earlier players in the free-mail arena; Netscape (NetMail); and Yahoo (Yahoo Mail). Such organizations boast free-mail registration bases of several hundred thousand to millions of registered users. Although these firms are relatively new, they have in fact collected a large base of demographic and psychographic data.

USA.NET performs its data-collection activities in two phases. First, the user is presented with a one-page form to collect basic demographic information, which is followed with a multipage selection area to select specific areas of interest. USA.NET makes it very clear on how the data will be used, stating that "USA.NET collects this information for our own general demographic and may itself use this information to provide targeting and advertisements and other service offers."

Along with basic U.S. mailing address data, USA.NET allows users to enter in the country as well as an optional telephone number. This baseline information is augmented by collected elements that include gender, age range (broken into five- and 10-year ranges), marital status, combined household income and profession. Pull-down elements for profession include administration, education, executive/management, government/military, home maker, manufacturing/production, professional, sales/marketing, self employed, student, with a free-form field for "other."

After the users submit their basic registration information, they are presented with setup choices for USA.NET's "Direct Delivery" program, which allows users to opt in to receiving targeted e-mail news and information from a growing base of vendors. Users can make changes at any time,

controlling the types of e-mail offers they receive. Based on the vendors in place at the time of writing, psychographic interests such as financial/investing, music, computer hardware and software, books, health and fitness, career advancement, sports and entertainment, to name a few, are selectable.

WhoWhere's MailCity states clearly in its terms-of-service agreement that "WhoWhere and/or third parties may, from time to time, send e-mail messages to users containing advertisements, promotions, etc." In addition to basic name and address information, it warehouses the year of birth, marital status, income range and education level.

WhoWhere also collects detailed information about the user's company, collecting the industry type (accounting, MIS/DP, Internet, software development, consulting, education/training, engineering, government/military, legal, manufacturing, medical, R&D, sales/marketing) and company size range and employment status. Though users are typically registering for their home/personal use, the corporate information provides inferred information on their buying habits (i.e. a user employed at an engineering company would be responsive to highly technical offers). It also allows the generation of targeted business-to-business offers, where these individuals may influence or actually make purchasing decisions at work.

Augmenting the basic mailing and company data, WhoWhere collects psychographic information and purchasing interests by querying free-time activities through such choices as computer games, cultural events, cooking, movies, music, finance/investing, cars, travel and sports interests, including aerobics, cycling, football, golf and snow sports, to name a few. Users also are asked what they plan to purchase in the next three months, with choices such as a car, home, consumer electronics, computer, peripherals and/or software. Final questions include the primary Internet access point (work, home or school), presence of children and if the user would purchase products over the Internet.

Certainly, we all agree on the basic rule of thumb for a direct mail product-registration card, specifically "less is better." Interestingly enough, Web users seem to enjoy clicking various option boxes and making selections from pull-down menus, as evident by the high percentage of data elements collected by the various free mail service providers.

Based on the types of numbers and the level of data being warehoused by these and other free-mail services, it is evident that the Web, via its own evolution, is defining and segmenting itself in a traditional direct response marketing sense. If and when opt-in data from these organizations becomes available for external rental, it will be interesting to further analyze the types of individuals who have made the Web part of their daily activities.