What’s happening: New research from Intuit Mailchimp reveals a striking gap between what brands ask for and what consumers are willing to provide, especially around phone number collection, where demand exceeds consent by more than two to one.
Why this matters: More than four in ten Australian marketers say getting visitors to sign up is their biggest challenge. This is the highest percentage among all countries surveyed.
Australian and New Zealand consumers are proving to be the world’s toughest target market for marketers trying to build email and text lists, according to new research that reveals significant gaps between business practices and customer preferences.
Only 64% of ANZ consumers have opted in to marketing emails and 50% to text messages, the lowest figures among countries surveyed in Intuit Mailchimp’s new report, The Art of the Opt-In: Why List Building is Only the Beginning. The research, developed with Ascend2, includes findings from 1,489 consumers and 249 marketing professionals in Australia and New Zealand.
Selective subscribers
The selective nature of ANZ consumers poses special challenges for businesses. More than four in ten marketers (41%) cite getting visitors to sign up as one of their top opt-in challenges, more than any other market surveyed.
“The opt-in moment is meaningful: consumers are inviting brands to enter their world,” said Anthony Capano, Regional Director, APAC at Intuit Mailchimp. “Shoppers in Australia and New Zealand are thinking carefully about that choice. As the inbox and message thread become increasingly noisy, this research is an important reminder that timing, value and transparency are key to building and maintaining consumer relationships.”
Less than half of Australians (42%) are aware of AI-enabled scams, yet campaigns sent to Australia had the highest open rate at 47.69%, according to separate email benchmarking data from MailerLite.
Trust threshold exceeded
The research exposes a critical mismatch in data collection practices. Sixty-five percent of brands ask for a phone number in their pop-up forms, but only 28% of consumers are willing to give it up, suggesting brands are crossing consumer trust thresholds by asking for complicated data too early.
“Most opt-ins fall short because they are created thinking only about what the business needs, rather than what the customer actually wants,” says Matt Cimino, product manager at Intuit Mailchimp.
Confidence varies widely by age. Thirty-nine percent of Generation Z believe brands will comply with privacy laws, a figure that drops to just 19% among baby boomers. For Gen Z, trust is visual and immediate: 43% say a clean, simple design makes them feel more comfortable filling out a sign-up form, compared to 29% of Boomers.
Meanwhile, most consumers have noticed an increase in marketing emails and texts, but only 40% say they are paying more attention to them, and about a quarter admit they are turning off these channels more than a year ago.
Moments of high intention
The data shows that successful brands focus on timing rather than frequency. Consumers are much more likely to opt in after browsing (50%) or during checkout (39%), yet many companies deploy generic pop-ups without considering customer intentions.
Those who stay subscribed say they want content that actually adds value (56%) and messages with a frequency that doesn’t feel spammy (40%).
Express consent remains the gold standard under Australian privacy law. Double opt-in is now considered a best practice, according to Sprintlaw legal guidelines, because it provides the strongest evidence of consent and typically yields higher engagement metrics.
Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective channels for Australian businesses. Email marketing delivers an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, according to industry benchmarks, while there are expected to be 4.89 billion email users worldwide by 2027.
Automation advantage
The research points to a significant performance gap between automated and manual approaches. Brands that consider the quality of their contact list to be best in class are three times more likely than others to fully automate their email and SMS marketing.
However, only 21% of brands have fully automated their email and SMS campaigns, and only a third are confident they can track which channels are driving signups.
List quality leaders are more likely to use welcome series (64% vs. 53% of all others) and cross-sell or upsell flows (45% vs. 36%). They are also significantly more likely to report high value across almost every channel, including organic social (62% vs. 43%) and paid social (56% vs. 40%).
“This research reinforces what marketers feel every day: relevance comes from clarity, not volume,” said Diana Williams, Vice President of Product, Intuit Mailchimp. “When data is fragmented, even the best intentions fall short. Our focus is on removing that friction by bringing together behavioral signals, automations and omnichannel insights so marketers can confidently turn every interaction into an opportunity to build trust and long-term growth.”
Marketers have less difficulty accessing data than converting it into value. Only 30% use preference or frequency data and only 29% use browsing behavior, despite these being among the strongest drivers of relevance.
For Australian businesses tackling these challenges, compliance with the Spam Act 2003 remains moot. Each marketing email must clearly identify the sender, include a functional unsubscribe option, and be processed within five business days of any opt-out request.
Download The art of opting in: why list building is just the beginning to learn more.
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