A few reports have accumulated on my desktop that I’d like to pass along for weekend browsing.

First, especially for our UK readers, but with trend data all email fundraisers might be interested in, here’s the National Client Email Report 2013 from the Direct Marketing Association UK on email marketing in the UK.

Notably, B2C email marketers in the UK are reporting an average return of £23.21 for each £1 spent on email in 2012. How’s that ROI sound to online fundraisers?

Amongst all email marketers, there’s very little sign of lessening impact — 13% report decreased open rates, 15% report lower click rates, and 13% report lower conversion rates. Transactions and conversion of organic website traffic are by far the major methods for acquiring new email addresses. 54% of respondents contact addresses on their email list four times per month or more. The tools that work — welcome messages and regular e-newletters. And the greatest sources of ’email marketing education’ are industry blogs and industry email newsletters.

Second is Pew Internet’s Smartphone Ownership 2013. The bottom line — 56% of American adults now use smartphones. This overall penetration is driven by the 18-24 years (79%), 25-34 years (81%), 35-44 years (69%), and 45-54 years (55%) age groups. And by the college educated (70%) and $75,000+ household income (78%).

If your typical donor is under 45, college educated and well-paid, I hope your online fundraising is mobile-friendly!

Finally, perhaps the annual Bible on the state of the internet, Mary Meeker’s KPCB Internet Trends 2013. There’s a brief summary of the report here in Wired, and from there you can access Meeker’s full 117 slide presentation.

I enjoyed slide #10:

The biggest trend for Meeker — sharing of photos and videos is skyrocketing. More than 500 million photos are shared daily, mostly on Facebook. Another key trend:  “wearables, drivables, flyables and scannables” — computing goes into all kinds of devices that we wear, and that move through the world with us. … everything from health monitoring bands to Google Glass. And surging China: the value of merchandise sold by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba topped the total sold by Amazon and eBay combined at the end of 2012. Chinese spend more time on the internet and mobile devices than Americans.

If you can’t find the internet factoid you want in this presentation, it probably doesn’t exist anywhere!

All three reports make for good weekend browsing if you’re curious about the communications trends that shape how your donors are interacting with the information world.

Tom