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January 18, 2010

For further information contact:
Ray Tesi, Senior Vice President
1-800-331-8102, ext.123
rtesi@worldata.com

2010 Trends Revealed in the Worldata Winter List Price Index

Consumer Email Lists Decline Sharply
Donors and Attendees Files Show Price Increases
International Email Prices Are Steady

January 2010, Boca Raton, FL –

Worldata’s Winter 2010 List Price Index, the barometer for the trending of all list rental pricing, reveals that Permission-Based Email B-to-C lists continue to lead the price decline, showing the largest price decrease of all categories. A few categories are revealing price increases this year, including the Donor category, which shows the highest CPM increase. International Permission-Based Email data has now been tracked for the fifth consecutive quarter and is showing a slight upward trend over last winter. This continues to indicate that international business is still booming among US-based companies.

For over twenty years, the List Price Index has served the Direct/Interactive Marketing community as the key source for the pricing and trending of all list rentals. The Index is reported quarterly, providing a comparison of list prices during any given 12-month period and tracking price fluctuations, as cost per thousand (CPM), for lists in various categories.

COMMENTS: “The largest drop has once again occurred in the consumer segment. Consumer email saw a 9.84% drop since last year - marketers know that these email addresses are readily available and are having to discount their files in order to stay competitive,” said Ray Tesi, Senior Vice President of Worldata. “That being said, we are still starting off the New Year as best we could hope for, with a few list categories stabilizing and even increasing in CPMs. The price of Donors and Attendees/Membership files both went up, demonstrating how valuable these files are. Anyone who is still attending a conference or donating to a charity is someone who you want in your prospect pool. They are part of an increasingly more difficult audience to reach.”

The most recent Worldata List Price Index reflects price variations from Winter 2009 to Winter 2010.
The lists evaluated are grouped into categories, such as Consumer Merchandise Buyers, Donors, Databases, Business Magazines and more . Information such as Average Price, Lowest List Price, Highest List Price and Exact Dollar Change are provided. Through charts and graphs, year-to-year price fluctuations can easily be distinguished in this index.

Worldata is continuing to closely track data internationally:

  • Permission-Based International Email has increased $1/M over last year with a current straight average price of $408/M.

“Even international email lists prices are inching their way up, mostly due to the growing awareness of global options,” said Tesi . “International email has huge potential – more and more BtoB mailers are doing business overseas.”

With this in mind, the comparison of lists in this Winter 2010 List Price Index to the Winter 2009 List Price Index of a year ago reveals some very significant variations not only in individual categories, but in media types as well, as exhibited below:

The Straight Average Graph (Chart 1) in the Worldata List Price Index examines the average cost per thousand (CPM) of the lists we have grouped in each category. Triple bars are used in each category for easy comparison of Winter 2008 and 2009 prices to Winter 2010 prices.

Although some categories have started to level off, many CPM averages for Winter 2010 have slightly decreased from Winter 2009. However, specific groups within categories demonstrated significant changes worth reporting.

  • Permission-Based Email B-to-B is the highest-priced domestic category, with a Winter 2010 straight average price of $284/M, a decrease of $1/M from last year.
  • Newsletters ranks as the next highest-priced category range, with a Winter 2010 straight average price of $177/M, the same as last year.
  • Donors remains the lowest-priced category, with an average list price of $83/M, increasing $2/M over last year.

The Straight Dollar Change Graph (Chart 2) shows the precise dollar amount that the average price for each category has changed within the specified 12-month period.

  • The largest price decrease occurred in the Permission-Based Email B-to-C category, which dropped $12/M from Winter 2009 to $110/M. Permission-Based Email lists have seen a decrease every quarter this past year, however, averages for this quarter reveal how significant the decrease has been over the year since Winter 2009.
  • Only Attendees/Members, Donors, Public Sector and Permission-based International Email files saw price increases this year. All categories except Donors saw a $1/M increase.
  • Donors showed the greatest price increase over the previous year, with a straight average price of $83/M, a $2/M increase over last Winter.
  • The categories that did not fluctuate in price are Paid Circulation Business Magazines, Consumer Merchandise Buyers and Newsletters, remaining at $135/M, $97/M and $177/M respectively.

The Straight Average Percent Dollar Change Graph (Chart 3) takes into consideration the percent change in price for each category.

  • Permission-Based B-to-C reflects the largest percent decrease at 9.84%.
  • The lowest percentage decrease occurred in the Permission-Based Email BtoB category with a 0.35% decrease in price.
  • The highest percentage increase occurred in the Donors category with a 2.47% increase.

Worldata and its group of companies have been leaders in the Direct/Interactive marketing services field for over 30 years. Worldata designed its corporate headquarters, located in Boca Raton, Florida, from the ground up. It is the only company offering all services under one roof, including Email and Postal List Management, List Brokerage, Email Transmission and Tracking, Database Marketing Services, Data Hygiene, Change of Address, Merge Purge, Cost-Per-Lead Marketing and Co-Registration, Custom Marketing Solutionsand Banner Advertising. Information about Worldata can be found at www.worldata.com or contact Ray Tesi, Senior Vice President, at 800-331-8102 or via email at rtesi@worldata.com.