Email marketers need to get "back to basics" as the majority are failing to carry out even essential testing or employ a focused, strategic approach to customer segmentation and regular list cleansing.

Despite this situation, the number of emails that brands send out is spiralling, according to the Email Marketing Census published by digital marketing and ecommerce community site Econsultancy and email service provider Adestra.

Some three out of five organisations now send more than 50,000 messages each month compared with only two in five four years ago, with a quarter spending more than £50,000 per annum on email marketing compared with 17% in 2007.

But, although the quality of information in email databases is considered to a key barrier to the effective use of such messages, half of respondents admitted that they had no strategy in this area, while 48% failed to carry out regular list cleansing.

A further 49% felt they were held back by failing to effectively segment customers into groups, but nearly a quarter failed to undertake any customer segmentation at all. To make matters worse, only 32% carried out regular testing, a quarter did so only infrequently, while 13% did not bother at all.

As a result, Steve Denner, Adestra’s director, warned: "It’s time for marketers to get ‘back to basics’. Some crucial areas are dropping off marketers’ radars such as email triggers, deliverability and re-marketing. They need to be consistently covering all the basics" in order to see "improved response rates".

The research was based on a survey of almost 900 in-house and agency email marketers, which was carried out in January and February this year.