When asked to identify their top five priorities for the year, social integration and improving analytics were highest on the minds of email marketers, with 37% of those surveyed choosing each goal. That’s according to a new study conducted by the Relevancy Group and sponsored by Return Path.

The survey was conducted in August 2012 by the Relevancy Group using an online panel of marketing executives with those with fewer than 10,000 customer records filtered out. Those surveyed were running both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing efforts, across industries that included retail, travel, financial services and the media/publishing industries.

Slightly lower on the list of priorities were improving inbox delivery, improving transactional email capabilities, improving segmentation and targeting, and increasing relevancy with dynamic email content.

As for the tactics that will serve these priorities, the top choice (35%) was to enlist services and tools to improve deliverability. Many of the email marketers surveyed (32%) also said they would use predictive analytics to identify future customer trends.

The release of the survey data comes as Return Path — long known as being an email deliverability company — seeks to reinvent itself as an email intelligence company, as it integrates capabilities gained when it acquired OtherInbox in January.

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing

About The Author: Pamela Parker is executive features editor of Marketing Land and a contributing editor for Search Engine Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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