Relevance is in the eye of the beholder-in the case of e-mail marketing, the eye belongs to the consumer not the marketer. 56.4% of respondents to a new study said they receive from marketers a high volume of junk e-mail-defined as e-mail from companies I know but that is not interesting to me-and 65.7% said they receive a high volume of spam-defined as e-mail I never asked to receive.

So when do consumers open and read e-mails? Primarily when they know and trust the sender and when an e-mail’s subject line creates enough interest, according to E-mail Connections are Down, but Opportunity to Build Relationships and Increase Sales is Up, a new study from Return Path Inc., an e-mail marketing firm.

The top reasons consumers open e-mails from retail marketers (respondents could pick more than one answer) are:

• 59.1% know and trust the sender
• 45.2% are intrigued by an e-mail’s subject line
• 27.2% only open e-mails they normally read
• 24.2% are intrigued by what they see in the e-mail preview window
• 23.1% wish to read discount offers
• 20.2% wish to see details of free shipping offers
• 9.5% believe an e-mail looks like a catalog they received at home
• 9% feel a company does not send much e-mail

When it comes to the high volumes of junk and spam e-mail, consumers take one of four primary actions, the study found:

• 26.2% always use an Unsubscribe button, 36.6% sometimes use the button and 8.4% never use the button
• 13.9% always use the e-mail program’s This Is Spam button, 37% sometimes use the button and 28.5% never use the button
• 22.8% always ignore every message from a sender, 42.4% sometimes ignore messages and 17.4% never ignore messages
• 18.8% always set up an e-mail filter, 30.1% sometimes set up a filter and 32.2% never set up a filter

The survey was conducted in late December by Return Path, which polled members of its My View online panel.