DALLAS, March 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Adestra, a leading provider of innovative marketing technology software and services, today announced the results of a study designed to gauge consumer opinions and behavior when it comes to email. The survey asked more than 1,200 respondents from teenagers to Baby Boomers how they interact with, and think about, the email messages they receive.

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"Email marketers are like big-game hunters," said Ryan Phelan, VP of marketing insights for Adestra. "We're always trying to track where our customers are going and what they're doing. We scroll through spreadsheets of data but what we really want to know is what happens after we hit 'send'? Who is actually reading our emails and from what devices? We commissioned this study to answer some of those questions."

Perhaps the most surprising thing revealed in the study is that teens and Millennials use email. A lot. Of course they text and engage with their friends via social media, but when it comes to communicating with brands and organizations, email reigns supreme.

According to the study, nearly 68 percent of teens and 73 percent of Millennials said they prefer to receive communication from a business via email. In addition, more than half rely on email to buy things online. Not surprisingly, the same holds true for Gen X and Baby Boomers.

"For the last few years, it's been widely assumed that email would fade away because Millennials and teens weren't going to use it," Phelan said. "It turns out that the opposite is true. Email continues to be part of everyday life across all age groups, with consumers literally hanging out in their inboxes all day long."

As important as why consumers use email is when and how they access it. Across all age groups, 86 percent say they use their smartphones for email communication (that number is even higher for teens and Millennials). And 48 percent of teens and 44 percent of Millennials reach for those smartphones to check messages right after turning off the alarm clock.

According to Phelan, these findings have huge implications for marketers.

"At Adestra, we believe that in order for our customers to be successful, we need to help them create and implement campaigns that resonate with their customers and build long-term relationships," Phelan said. "Successful marketers understand the need to find those micro-moments - that increase relevancy for all age groups and considers channel preference for maximum impact. The insight gleaned from this study will be invaluable to our clients and the industry."

For a copy of the full report, as well as more expert analysis and insight from Adestra, please visit: http://www.adestra.com/consumer-adoption-and-usage-study.

ABOUT ADESTRA 

With 500-plus clients worldwide across a number of key sectors, Adestra is a leading global provider of one-to-one email and lifecycle marketing solutions for global and growing brands alike. The company's industry leading digital marketing platform - MessageFocus - provides marketers with a powerful infrastructure that helps them communicate more effectively with their customers and subscribers by providing hyper-relevant context. This proprietary technology also allows for automated messaging and incorporates enterprise-class native functionality, which reduces implementations and brings clarity to complexity. Along with a superior platform to execute marketing automation, Adestra was founded on the principle that marketing success takes more than technology, which is why customer service is at the heart of our business. Adestra was a winner of the 2014 Customer Focus Award from the Customer Service Institute, and we continue to maintain one of the highest customer retention rates in the industry. Adestra is trusted by top brands like UBM, FranklinCovey and Oxfam, among others. Established in 2004, Adestra is based in Oxford, England, with offices in London, Dallas and Sydney. For more information, visit http://www.adestra.com.

SOURCE Adestra Inc