Emails from marketers led more users to make purchases this holiday season, with half of respondents to a Return Path survey saying they bought from emails, up from 44.8 percent the previous year, reports DM News. However, consumers were hit by an avalanche of email marketing after having signed up for them at websites or with marketers, writes MediaPost, citing the same survey. Some 44 percent said they were surprised at the large volume - more than they expected. Moreover, 83 percent noticed more emails between Halloween and Christmas, compared with 73 percent the previous year.

The result, in part, was that 50.2 percent said email had some influence on their shopping habits, a 10 percent jump from 2004. Consumers also responded more to free shipping offers via email (one in five consumers - a nearly 6 percent year-over-year increase), as well as to emails offering discounts (about a quarter of consumers - a 7.5 percent increase).

More than a third - 34 percent - said they reported marketing emails to be spam just because they did not want to receive the emails any longer; that could spell trouble for marketers. Some 68 percent also reported simply deleting messages they no longer wanted.