Habeas Success Story: Decision Analyst

Decision Analyst Employs Habeas' Sender Warranted EmailTM Serviceto Reach More than Four Million Online Survey Panelists
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Decision Analyst is a leading international marketing research and marketing consulting firm committed to helping its clients achieve continuous competitive advantage through decision-focused, quality-driven marketing research, information systems and analytic technologies. The firm's marketing research and consulting services help its clients develop winning marketing strategies, build stronger brands, improve products, enhance customer loyalty, upgrade advertising, and accelerate new product development. Using both primary and secondary marketing research methods, the firm serves companies in the consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, retail, high technology, medical and pharmaceutical, utilities, and e-commerce industries.

Decision Analyst prides itself on innovation, being among the first marketing research and consulting firms to use online surveying. When Decision Analyst initiated Internet-based research in 1996, it had an online panel of 40,000 consumers. Today, that number has skyrocketed to more than four million individuals across 200 countries.

"In the early years, we had a very good response rate to our surveys - 60 percent or higher," said Chris Crouch, chief information officer for Decision Analyst. "As the Internet became more mainstream spam became more of a factor, and our response rates began to decline very noticeably. Even though we were using confirmed opt-in, we were still showing up on email blacklists. When we implemented the Habeas Sender Warranted Email service, our deliverability immediately went up by more than 40 percent and now we're once again at a reasonable level of response for our surveys, which is about 35 percent."

Habeas Sender Warranted Email: Delivers on Decision Analyst's Promises of On-Time, On-Budget Results

Decision Analyst had to solve its email delivery problem because it was directly impacting its ability to obtain survey results in a timely manner. "If we needed 400 responses to an online survey and only 300 responded, that meant we needed to send invites to additional people," explained Crouch. "This not only meant it would take longer to secure results for our clients, it also meant additional manpower to get the job done, which would affect our bottom line."
To counter this challenge, Decision Analyst initially began to work with an email outsourcing service, hoping that it would be able to get around the email gatekeepers that were incorrectly labeling Decision Analyst's email as spam. Over time, it was clear that this approach wasn't working and the firm didn't see any measurable payoff. Then Decision Analyst learned about Habeas.

"We were so tired of sitting on the phone with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) attempting to get our mail through," said Crouch. "We were also growing increasingly concerned about the extra time needed to provide our clients with the data they required to make solid marketing decisions. After some independent investigation, we determined that Habeas was the solution we had been looking for to resolve these issues and improve our online survey operations."

Since employing the Habeas Sender Warranted Email service in November 2003, Decision Analyst has doubled its survey response rate. This means that most surveys are completed by pooling a single group of candidates, rather than dipping into a second pool of survey candidates for additional responses. It also means that surveys can be closed more quickly than before, leaving more time for in-depth analysis and consulting.

"Habeas' services provide a clear path to email delivery in today's climate of exploding spam and unwanted mail. The Habeas Sender Warranted Email service does a great job distinguishing Decision Analyst from the junk mailers, and ensures that we can continue to leverage the Internet to perform valuable market research. Plus, the Habeas service offers a good return on investment, and delivers the results we need to meet client deadlines and budgets.