By: Frank J. Romano September 22, 2003 -- Jupiter Research reports that consumers will receive unwanted e-mail with increasing frequency in the coming years and that, by 2007, the average email consumer will be exposed to more than 3,900 spam messages annually. The report projects that the amount spent annually on e-mail marketing campaigns will grow from $1.4 billion in 2002 to $8.3 billion in 2007. “Consumers have learned to deal with spam the same way as junk mail. They delete it before reading the messages they actually want to read,” said Jared Blank, Jupiter Research senior analyst. “In 2001, U.S. consumers received over 140 billion spam e-mails and that number will grow significantly in the next five years. A growing number of individuals will begin using separate email accounts and e-mail filters set up specifically for dealing with spam and other unwanted mail.” Since 2001, the average amount of spam received per user has increased from 3.7 to 6.2 e-mails per day. Within the course of the next five years, the total number of unwanted e-mail messages sent will increase significantly, reaching more than 645 billion spam messages annually by 2007. Jupiter Research also predicts that in five years, the average online user will be exposed to 830 marketing impressions online per usage day, almost doubling from an average of 447 impressions in 2000. Jupiter's research indicates that retention campaigns will dominate the volume of non-spam e-mails over the next five years. The proliferation of newsletters, combined with the overall growth of e-mail marketing, will cause consumers to ignore newsletters and spam messages in greater numbers, thereby reducing their branding and messaging effectiveness. As intense competition drives down the cost to conduct e-mail marketing campaigns, companies will increase the volume of retention e-mail on sharply reduced budgets. Marketers have to find new ways to utilize the data collected in costly CRM systems, personalizing messages in an attempt to make offers more relevant. “The economic slowdown of the past two years has forced once free-spending companies to scrutinize marketing budgets much more closely to justify their overall expenditures,” said Blank. “As a result, budgets are under the microscope and marketers are demanding more bang for their buck. Successful e-mail marketing campaigns can no longer consist of blast messages to massive lists, but instead must directly target the specific interest of the individual consumer.” Text e-mails will continue to comprise the majority of e-mail volume until 2004. HTML messages receive a better response rate from consumers, and rich media e-mails will occupy a niche until 2005, by which time they will comprise 19 percent of e-mail spending. The future of advertising and promotion is somewhere at the junction of print, fax, handbill, e-mail, and other channels of communication.