Email delivery rates in the U.S. and Europe reached 89 percent in 4Q05, up from 87 percent in 3Q05 - increasing to 92 percent in the U.S. and 86 percent in Europe - reports Internet Retailer, citing figures from email marketing services provider Lyris. Users having email addresses with top 10 U.S. providers on average received 97.5 percent of their opt-in email, compared with 76.4 percent for those using a bottom 10 provider.

According to the Lyris report (pdf), the top 10 U.S. domains by delivery to inbox were peoplepc.com, 99.51 percent; earthlink.net, 99.35 percent; yahoo.com, 96.81 percent; gmail.com, 97.59 percent; usa.net, 97.98 percent; knology.net, 97.4 percent; juno.com, 97.33 percent; socall.rr.com, 96.68 percent; cs.com, 96.48 percent; and mac.com, 95.77 percent.

European providers are more quickly improving deliverability, blocking 3 percent fewer emails in 4Q05 than in 3Q05, compared with U.S. providers' 1 percent improvement in the same period, according to Dave Dabbah, director of marketing at Lyris.