Prices for marketing list rentals are falling across almost all major categories, with permission-based B2C email taking the lead for the first time as the lowest-priced category, according to the Winter 2012 List Price Index from Worldata. The index, which serves as a barometer for pricing and trending of list rentals, shows that permission-based email B2C now has an average list price of $80/M, representing a 15% year-over-year fall from $94/M in Winter 2011, tying it with aggregated business databases for the lowest average price of the season.
According to Worldata insight, many technology, financial services, and business marketers are seeking to reach the up-and-coming entrepreneurs who built their own companies out of the recent recession. This push towards the small-medium business market has increased competition for list availability, leading to the drop in pricing.
International Still Highest Priced
Permission-based international email remains the highest priced category at $403/M, representing a marginal drop from $406/M in Winter 2011. The most expensive domestic category is permission-based medium-large business email (previously permission-based B2B email), at $251/M, down 10% from $280/M a year earlier.
Business Category Shows Largest Dollar Fall
The largest straight dollar price decrease occurred in the aggregated email database-business category, as it dropped $45/M from $204/M in Winter 2011 to $159/M this year. By contrast, the largest price increase that occurred was just $2/M, in the donors category, up from $83/M to $85/M.
The only other 3 categories of the 20 grouped that experienced a price increase all saw just a $1/M straight dollar change.
Databases and Masterfiles Plummets
The databases and masterfiles category reflected the largest percentage decrease, at 23.2%, falling $33/M from $142/M to $109/M. Other categories experiencing significant percentage declines included aggregated email database-business (-22.1%), permission-based B2C email (-21.6%), and aggregated database-business (-14.9%).
The highest percentage increase occurred in the donors category, a 2.41% rise.
About the Data: The Worldata 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.