More than half (56.4 percent) of consumers reportedly got high volumes of "junk" from marketers ("email from companies I know but that is just not interesting to me"), second only to "spam" ("email I never asked to receive"), which 65.7 percent say they received in high volumes during the holidays, according to Return Path.

Below, some of the findings of Return Path's "Fourth Annual Holiday Email Consumer Survey," via MarketingCharts.

• Nearly six of ten consumers (59.1 percent) surveyed by said the primary factor in opening and reading an email is whether they know and trust the sender.
• That's followed by having previously opened an email and found it valuable, at No. 2, and the subject line, at No. 3:

• Most respondents (77.9 percent) said they noticed an increase in email during the holiday season:
  • Some 13.0 percent said the amount was "overwhelming."
  • 24.1 percent said the amount was higher yet "still manageable."
• In general, some 26 percent of respondents said they get 50+ or more non-personal messages each day, and 21.9 percent say they get 35-50 messages daily.
• Reaction to unwanted holiday email varied:
  • Some 45.6 percent just deleted the emails.
  • 24.8 percent said they unsubscribed.
  • 22.3 percent said they reported the sender as a spammer.
• In general, most email subscribers say they typically seek to first unsubscribe from unwanted email, then complain to their ISP:
  • Nearly twice as many (26.2 percent) say they "always" unsubscribe as those who "always" click the spam button (13.9 percent).
  • Just 8.4 percent say they "never" unsubscribe, while 28.5 percent say they "never" complain to the ISP.
  • Generally, the tendency is to unsubscribe (62.8 percent) or ignore a sender's every email (65.2 percent) than to complain by clicking "this is spam/junk" (50.9 percent).

About the study: The Holiday Email Survey was conducted on December 26, 2007-January 6, 2008 with members of the My View (formerly Survey Direct Live) consumer panel. The survey includes responses from 1,695 consumers, ages 18-54, in the US and Canada. A PDF of the study is available from Return Path.