The overall email delivery rate in the second quarter - total emails attempted minus all failures - remains strong at 94.4 percent, with several key vertical markets reaching record levels (retail promotional messaging, 95.9 percent; media editorial messaging, 98 percent), according to Bigfoot Interactive's quarterly vertical benchmark analysis for email campaigns launched and delivered in the second quarter.

In retail, focused and contextually relevant email marketing campaigns fared well, according to Bigfoot's report, released yesterday. The average unique click-through rate for retail promotional messaging reached 4.1 percent, increasing more than 10.5 percent year over year. In media, editorial messaging registered an 11.9 percent average unique click-through rate in the second quarter, up 2.6 percent from the 1Q05.

In the travel category, lifecycle communications were important, with the top-performing campaigns including first-purchase welcomes, trip guides and up-sell messaging to those who had already purchased or were planning a trip. The second quarter saw an impressive average unique click-through rate of 13 percent, and an unprecedented rate of 51.5 percent for service messaging, according to Bigfoot.