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• Only 56% of retail organisations believe they're using their databases to their full potential.
  

  Dynamic Markets 2008

• Three quarters of respondents said they would not open a piece of direct mail that had an incorrect salutation and mistakes in the name and address field.
  

  Mortascreen, 2008

• Only 50% of financial directors and managers see strong use of data-driven marketing in the sector.

  Director of Finance Online

• Data is seen as a strategic asset (by nearly 9 in 10 organisations) and the quality of data is believed to be important in the UK financial services sector, yet investment is currently driven primarily by regulation (73%)

  Dataflux, March 2009

• 9 in 10 have established a widely trusted enterprise view of data

  Dataflux, March 2009

• Financial services organisations have a wide collection of tools at their disposal to manage data, with data cleansing (65%) and data quality (63%) tools mentioned most frequently. Yet almost half of these tools are stand-alone solutions sourced from different providers

  Dataflux, March 2009

• Database management has an 80% impact on the success of the marketing campaign.

  Jorgen Nygaard Andreassen, FEDMA, 2009

• Research conducted by a data security company has found that poor data quality affects as many as "several million" public sector databases. Tom Ilube, chief executive of Garlik commented

  "A typical public database can have error rates approaching ten per cent, meaning that a single large government database could possess erroneous data on several million individuals."

  "Data quality lapses in public sector affecting millions, says report"

• 600,000 letters are misaddressed a week, which equates to 35 million a year

  Guardian.co.uk, 2008

• Businesses send about 87% of all mail in the UK licensed postal market, with the largest 500 companies accounting for 50% of all mail volumes.

  Postcomm. 2007-2008

• Approx 60% of mail goes from business to consumers (B2C), and 27% goes from businesses to businesses (B2B).

  Postcomm. 2007-2008

• The letters market is worth £6.6 billion. The total of this market (in the licensed area) has, dropped slightly - by two per cent in 2007/08 - and accounts for 21.5 billion items.

  Postcomm. 2007-2008

• The number of mailing disposed of or unopened in the past 12 months was less than 15%, down from 21% in 2006-07

  Nielsen Media research, Oct 2008

• In a survey conducted by Amarach (sponsored by An Pos) the one thing that would make respondents more open to receiving direct mail, is that of increased relevance to the recipient and/or their household.
  
  
• Direct mail provides consumers with a strong sense of control. For example, when asked whether they would prefer a company they deal with, to send them information in the post or via the internet, the vast majority prefer the former.
  
  
• Most regular users of direct mail (about two thirds of all businesses) tend to use customer databases to generate mailing lists and direct mail campaigns.
  
  
• 35% of marketers expect to increase their spending on direct mail over the next three years. The future is a conversation: The changing role of direct mail in Ireland

  An Amarach research report, sponsored by An Post, June 2008

• 40% of businesses still have over 80% of their data stored in separate systems across their organisation.
• 34% of respondents' citing duplication of effort as a symptom of siloed systems, while 24% say it would stifle innovation and sharing of ideas
• 2009 is said to be a year of modernisation for many companies. Over 20% of companies say implementing a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) would be a top priority, while a further 21% would be seeking application modernisation to fight the recession.

  Software AG, March 2009

• Firms are getting to grips with data hygiene: naming errors were down from 4% to 2.7% and address errors halved from 1% to 0.5%

  Missing the target - Marketing Magazine, October 2008

A recent survey, commissioned by DataFlux on data quality and data governance within financial service organisations shows:

• Data is seen as a strategic asset, by nearly 9 in 10 financial service businesses.
• Data is believed to be important in the UK financial services sector, yet investment in it is currently driven primarily by regulation (73%).
• Data governance is clearly a priority for financial services organisations, with a third having already completed a data governance project and nearly the same proportion currently implementing or considering launching one.
• Responsibility for data quality or governance initiatives tends to be scattered across businesses within financial services. In a third of cases this responsibility belongs to the IT department. Interestingly, 16% of organisations claim 'no-one has specific responsibility'
• Data management tools are available, but half of these are stand-alone solutions from various providers.
• Nearly two thirds believe a lack of attention to or poor control of data within financial institutions is not linked to the recent financial crisis. However a sizeable minority (18%) felt that these issues were at least a contributory factor

  DataFlux, Match 2009

• Database management is crucial to successful marketing campaigns. database management had as much as an 80% impact on the success of the marketing campaign.
• A study carried out by Econsultancy shows that 67% of respondents prioritise the need to find information quickly.

  'Database management is crucial to successful marketing campaigns', February 2009

• 23% of consumers don't complete a website form if they are not offered an address capture tool.
• Since purchasing QAS Pro Web, 75% of Experian QAS customers have seen an increase in data quality.
• In January 2008 the average UK internet user was online for a total of 50 hours.

  Minute Steak, April 2009

• Vivas Health, a Experian QAS customer, reduced their volume of returned mail by 55% after implementing QAS Pro and QAS Pro Web

  Experian QAS customer case study

According to research provided by Experian CheetahMail in January 2009:

• Visits to the top ten online UK retailers grew by an average of 37% year-on-year through the Christmas period 2008.
• 3.8m consumers spent a total of £102m online on Christmas Day 2008, up 21% on the same day last year, according to figures issued by the IMRG. That's an average of £26.80 per shopper, compared with £19.09 per shopper last year.
• Hitwise (an Experian company) has identified Boxing Day as the busiest day of the year in terms of traffic to online retail sites, with visits up 16.2% on the second busiest day of 2008.

• When asked to rank preferred methods of receiving marketing messages from vendors, 62% said that email was their preferred channel. Followed by direct mail (23%), then social media (13%).
• Survey also showed that email communications frequently trigger purchases, with 75% of respondents indicating that they had bought products or services as a direct result of receiving an email from a vendor.

  smartFOCUS survey, USA, October 2009

• Commercial e-mail returned a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the DMA's just-released Power of Direct economic-impact study.

  Directmag, Email ROI

• A recent report from analyst firm Forrester is predicting that by 2014 companies will spend over £1.2 billion on email marketing in the US alone - an 11% compound annual growth rate.

  UTalkMarketing.com, November 2009

• Email user numbers are expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2011

  The Radicati Group, October 2007 Report

• Email marketing now accounts for over 50 % of marketing communications

  B2B Marketing magazine, Email data survey, May 2009

• The study by VerticalResponse, which was carried out in the US but is likely to reflect UK trends, found that 96.2% of growing businesses intend to use email-based promotions during 2010.

  VerticalResponse

• The proportion of companies spending £10,000 or more on email has risen in last 2 years.
• Over one fifth of respondents send at least half a million emails per month.
• Email accounts for 14% of online marketing budgets. After search (19%) and website (18%)
• 45% believe that the biggest barrier to effective email marketing is the quality of the email database.
• 78% rated email as 'excellent' or 'good' for ROI, higher than any other digital marketing channel.
• 75% undertake 'basic segmentation' in their email strategies, with 19% saying they are planning to implement this.
• 51% have experienced problems reaching recipients' in-boxes in the last 12 months.
• 40%% say that 'Strategy and campaign planning' is the area that email marketers are most likely to focus on in 2009.
• 37%% say that they need to focus on 'list' and 'data quality'
• Targeting contacts with relevant messages from an accurate database is key. Without clean, complete and accurate data, this is not possible. Only 60% of respondents carry our regular list cleaning.

• Contact data erodes over time, 9,000 people move house and nearly 1500 people die daily
• On average, 10% of customer records change every year

  Royal Mail, 2009

• The AA, an Experian QAS customer, were able to verify 45% of addresses (using the data cleaning product, QAS Batch) that could not be matched using their previous system. This equates to approx 3.5 million records.
• QAS Batch improved the AA's marketable database by over 1 million extra contacts

  Experian QAS Customer case study

• Experian QAS customer, WaterAid have increased their donation income by over £12,000 due to an increase in accurate delivery of appeals and magazines. QAS Batch has also increased the speed of data import by 30% which helps free up around 20 days of labour each year.

  Experian QAS Customer case study

• Experian QAS customer, Coloplast implemented QAS Batch with Suppression, and found their database to be 81% accurate after the initial run with 20,000 incorrect records. This has been improved to 98% accurate, with 1,750 incorrect addresses being flagged

  Experian QAS Customer case study

• The National Fraud Authority (NFA) has said all forms of fraud cost the UK £30bn a year, or £621 per adult, with losses were paid for through taxes and rising prices of products and services.

The report by The National Fraud Authority (NFA) also states:

• 58% of fraud was in the public sector, at a cost of £17bn.
• £15.2bn lost through tax fraud - 3% of tax liabilities.
• Consumer scams £3.5bn.
• 31% of losses came in the private sector.
• Financial services sector lost an estimated £3.8bn.
• Cost of Insurance fraud equalled £2bn.
• Cost of Mortgage fraud equalled £1bn.
• The cost to the consumer goods industry equalled £1.3bn.
• The cost to manufacturing being £1bn a year.
• Technology, media and telecommunications lost £948m.

National Fraud Authority (NFA, Jan 2010

• Card-not-present fraud losses (which include internet, mail order and telephone shopping), rose by 243% between 2001 and 2008.

  APACS via Econsultancy Blog, May 2009

• According to the e-CSI Index, 74% of customers are satisfied with security offered by web retailers.

  IMRG, September 2008

• Online retailers are increasing expenditure on anti-fraud measures but there is a lack of support from government and law enforcement authorities, according to a new survey of 165 UK businesses and 1,000 consumers.
  1. Only 17% of retailers surveyed believed that the police were -effectively challenging online fraud
  2. 54% of consumers said that they still shop online, but are now more careful as a result of media coverage, though 30% said this had not changed their online shopping habits.
  3. 56% now use a credit rather than a debit card, while 84% look for signs that a website is secure before making a purchase.
  4. Media scare stories have been enough to dissuade 4% of respondents from shopping online altogether, while 10% shop less often as a result.
  5. 24% of consumers feel that responsibility for dealing with online fraud rests with retailers, and just 4% believe that this is a police issue.

  CyberSource via Econsultancy blog, Feb 2008

• Worries about credit card fraud remain a significant factor behind poor uptake of e-commerce by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
  1. FSB said only 18% of UK SMEs were trading online in 2005, while less than 1% were generating all their sales through the web.
  2. Although only 6% of small firms had experienced online credit card fraud, its threat was a significant concern to 19% of businesses, the FSB added.

  FSB, August 2007

• Merchants declined 4% of orders due to suspicion of fraud, a 2% decrease on the previous year. Similarly, in the US, the overall order rejection rates have fallen from 5.9% to 3.9%.

  CyberSource, 2006 UK Online Fraud Report

• Two thirds of consumers find providing paper documents inconvenient, yet 50% of companies still rely on paper documents to confirm IDs

  Experian's report on identity verification

• Credit card and identity fraud has sky-rocketed in recent years and it is thought that £330 is lost due to fraud for every child and adult in Scotland.

  'Scottish police propose special department to combat identity fraud'

• Over £1 billion of fraud cases were brought before the UK in 2008.

  'KPMG Forensic's Fraud Barometer reveals record identity fraud in 2008'

• The police have recorded a rise in data theft and report £20 billion lost by businesses to identity fraud each year.


• According to research carried out for National Identity Fraud Week, half of households in the UK throw away documentation that can be used by identity fraudsters.

  'Identity fraud warning for UK businesses'

• A study conducted by life assistance company CPP has found that more than a quarter of the UK population was affected by credit card identity fraud in 2008.


• 26% of people have had their credit card account accessed and funds fraudulently obtained.


• Online identity fraud was the method used upon four out of ten victims and a fifth had their card cloned. The remainder had their card used after it had been stolen or lost.


• The average amount of money stolen was £650 and London had the highest incidence of fraud in the UK.

  'Quarter of Brits affected by credit card identity fraud'

• A report published in January 2009, by the fraud prevention service CIFAS has revealed a 16% jump in the incidence of fraud across the UK in 2008.


• 2008 saw a 5.7% rise in the number of fraud cases that had been successful and were only discovered after an account or credit card had been acquired fraudulently

  'Identity fraud on the rise in 2008'

• Identity theft and Identity Fraud are not victimless crimes. In 2007 alone, CIFAS identified and protected over 65,000 victims of identity theft.


• At the latest estimate, identity fraud cost the economy £1.2 billion in one year.
• There has been a 40% rise in the number of victims of identity theft in the first 3 months of 2009.

  CIFAS, 2009

• The majority of organisations are equipped to process customer data against criminal lists. However, a significant minority (11%) report no such process is in place or they are unaware if any such capability exists in their organisation (7%).

  DataFlux survey on financial services organisations, April 2009

• Online banking fraud jumped to £52.5m last year, up from £22.6m in 2007, said UK payments association Apacs

  APACS (UK Payment association), April 2009

• Identity fraud accounts for a criminal cashflow of £10m per day.


• Plastic card fraud losses totalled £535.2 million in 2007 - with card identity theft accounting for £34.1 million of this figure

  CIFAS, 2009