RESEARCH PROJECT AT YAHOO:
​EXPLORING EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS

Year: 2019 | Yahoo / Verizon Media | Mentor: Frank Bentley | Skill: Survey, Quantitative Analysis, Qualitative Analysis

Project Overview

People have different approaches to follow a brand. For example, they can subscribe to a brand on Email, like the brand's Page on Facebook, or follow its account on Instagram. With people's increasing adoption of social media, these platforms become strong competitors of email from the perspective of marketing.

Back in 2010, a study carried out by Jakob Nielsen found that 90% of the participants elected to receive updates from companies through email, while only 10% chose Facebook. A study conducted in 2018 shows that 20% preferred to receive promotional messages through email, and 20% preferred social media. However, these results come from self-reported studies which could be biased. To have a better understanding of users' following behavior on Email vs. on Social Media, we conducted a MTurk survey to explore whether people follow more brands or stores on Email or Social Media, what categories of subscriptions users have on social media platforms, and under each category, whether they follow more on email or social media platforms.

​​We are preparing a manuscript for CHI 2020. More details will be shared after the paper is published.