I was just answering a Washington Post reporter's questions on how the spam epidemic is affecting the way consumers trust email newsletter publishers, and realized that it may, ultimately, help our sponsorship CPM. After all, if consumers are so disgusted with spam that they *only* open email from people they know and trust and have a longstanding there-will-be-value-in-this-email relationship with, then broadcast email newsletters will get higher open rates than other broadcast email. That's gotta filter down to higher trust and clicks at a lower CPM for sponsors.

About a year ago I saw a study showing that ezine sponsorships were getting (an average) a 1-2% click rate and cost 1/4-1/2 CPM of whatever banners did at the time. Now I'd love to see some numbers on ezine sponsorship clicks currently, and compare them to broadcasts to rented opt-in lists. Oooh, maybe I'll have to commission a researcher to look into that for Sherpa!