Inserts generate significant online response

The Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Inserts Council has revealed that inserts are being devalued as marketers fail to acknowledge their ability to generate a significant online response.

Research commissioned by the council showed that an average of 52 per cent of responses to inserts went online, with some advertisements prompting an online response as high as 70 per cent.

The research measured the percentage of insert responses that go online and how this differs by client sector and magazine type.

The results were taken from more than four million inserts sent out by a pool of five clients representing diverse industry sectors.

All the inserts were in the same A5 format and were carried in a range of titles including newspaper colour supplements, television magazines, women's weeklies and third-party book clubs.

Of all the commercial sectors, cosmetic surgery prompted the largest online response with 70 per cent of respondents turning to the web for more information.

This was followed by toy retailer inserts, which resulted in 58 per cent of responses going online and charity inserts, which recorded a 27 per cent online response.

The majority of titles led to a high percentage of respondents going online.

A clear link was apparent between the title's readership and its website's usage and longevity.

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