Conversion rates are the biggest concern for nearly half of all email marketers surveyed by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Alongside conversion rates (at 48 per cent), click rates (at 43 per cent) and deliverability (at 39 per cent) were identified as the most concerning current issues in email marketing, according to the National Client Email Report, released last week.

Internal resources, at 38 per cent, was pinpointed as the biggest obstacle to email marketing success with over a quarter of those surveyed stating they don’t manage their programmes in-house. The second biggest obstacle listed in the survey was budget, at 26 per cent - although the percentage of marketing budgets spent on email marketing had dropped slightly from 55 per cent in 2010 to 48 per cent in 2011.

Despite these barriers 90 per cent of respondents, which were from all sectors, not just charities, identified email marketing as strategically important, and 63 per cent are looking to increase expenditure in this area in future.

The report was conducted by the DMA’s Email Marketing Council. Dela Quist, chair of the Council, said: “Marketers are coming round to what we’ve been saying for some time now – that the end result is where we need to be focusing our attention and our resources if email marketing is to continue maturing.”

Quist also spoke of the growing trend amongst  organisations to outsource their email marketing to specialist agencies.

The report was compiled from information given by 143 respondents across business sectors.