The opening rate of emails has further declined from an average of 38% at the beginning of 2004 through to 33% at the end of 2004 - according to DoubleClick. This decline is largely put down to the ageing of Email lists and the greater use of email 'spam' filtering systems.

Web Certain's advice to clients is to continue to focus on building subscriber lists through you web site as the performance of this email tactic substantially beats more traditional 'blast' techniques of emailing - and we do not recommend buying email lists except in very exceptional circumstances.