Information services company Experian has released research that reveals one in six marketers in Australia have no way to measure the success of their email campaigns.

The report found that a quarter of all marketers in Australia still do not segment their email campaigns, continuing to opt for a ‘load and blast’ approach (26%).

This is an improvement on the findings from Experian’s 2008 research, which revealed 35% of marketers did not use segmentation.

Despite these findings, the report indicates that 95% of marketers believe their marketing campaigns generate average to good ROI.

The lack of reporting and measurement tools means marketers have no idea whether campaigns achieve positive business outcomes or indeed whether they damage their brand by sending out irrelevant content.

The research confirmed that there is an increasing dependency on email marketing for lead generation and customer retention – 31% of marketers send five or more email communications per month, while 67% plan to increase campaign frequency into 2010.

“Too many marketers continue to ignore the need to improve the quality of email campaigns. With so many organisations now conducting email marketing, consumers are struggling with a very crowded inbox,” explains John Merakovsky, director of Experian CheetahMail Asia Pacific.

According to Experian, marketers themselves admitted they are bombarded with too much content via email with almost two thirds claiming they delete between 25% and 75% of all marketing communications they receive from other organisations without reading them.