A recent State of Retailing Online 2007 report from Shop.org provides some very useful information about the effectiveness of email in retail. Here are some highlights:

1) Emailing a house list is delivering orders for less than $7 each. This is a real bargain when compared to banner ads ($71.89), paid search ($26.75), and affiliate programs ($17.47).

2) 88% of the merchants surveyed indicated that email became a higher priority during 2007.

3) The average click through rate on house email is 11% with a 6% conversion rate.

4) The average retailer mails its list 64 times each year.

According to Internet Retailer, Joann.com saw a 5.5% increase in revenue after implementing the HackerSafe logo into its site. They measured the increase with the use of a 30 day split A/B test.

This reminds me of a few things I have learned about HackerSafe and similar services.

1) Pricing is negotiable. Joann.com paid $15,000/year for this service, but I am not sure why. My guess is that the average site can get HackerSafe or a competitors’ service for $500/year if you negotiate. HackerSafe’s largest competitor offered us the service for free for a year at one point just because they were trying to take business away.

How’s your iBrick iPhone this morning? I read that a lot of users are being locked out thanks to a new firmware update–and it’s not just those that bought unlocked phones either.

For those of you who didn’t jump on the iPhone bandwagon, you’ll have no problem reading these stories on your phone this morning!

• Google may give users better privacy controls, if that’s what it takes to get the DoubleClick deal approved.
• Blendtec’s viral videos may well be the most successful viral advertising campaign ever. It’s helped them increase sales five-fold.
• How would you like your own online newspaper? DailyMe looks promising as it will allow you to customize your own news portal.