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The purpose of this research is to look at the attention span given to bills, statements, official correspondence and direct marketing by consumers in major European economies and the USA.

Over 1,000 consumers were interviewed via web survey in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the USA, during May/June 2007. Respondents were asked to estimate the typical amount of time that they spent looking at a range of documents, from their monthly bank statement to the direct mail they received.

The research found that consumers spend more time looking at printed communications than those online. Different communications (i.e. mobile telephone bills, bank statements, tax correspondence, etc) hold the customers' attention for longer than others, and this differed on a country‐by‐country basis.

The value of the research to bank marketers is it highlights where banking communications sit in the battle for the customer's attention and how they can gain more value from existing forms of customer communications such as bills and statements.

This paper aims to review recent changes in the nature and capabilities of responsive marketing, particularly the balance shift from cold prospecting to customer development, in order to challenge preconceptions about today's marketing metrics.

A variety of recent research outputs are reviewed, covering the topics of data availability, marketing communications channels, campaign outsourcing, and customer re‐recruitment.

The paper concludes that marketing return on investment (ROI) is increasingly measurable, but the balance of expectation has recently changed. Information on the customer or prospect, along with the ability to speak to them through certain channels, has become more restricted. And customers increasingly expect personalised, relevant communications from companies they already do business with. So marketers are having to invest in data gathering and campaign targeting. New developments have improved some areas: response modelling has increased in sophistication, and existing communications with customers are now being harnessed for marketing purposes.

The research reported in this paper would benefit from further in‐depth study, especially regarding best‐practice use of existing channels to the customer, such as statements, regulatory correspondence and loyalty communications.

In practical terms, this paper highlights the need to re‐appraise metrics used to measure and monitor marketing ROI, in particular whether to use in‐house customer relationship management (CRM) systems, or whether to outsource the process.

The paper forms a timely prompt for marketing experts to challenge the received wisdom of marketing communications measurement, where the assumptions made five years ago cannot necessarily be treated as appropriate to the current situation.

To review the role of modelled data in target marketing, in the light of several years of widespread denigration of modelled information over specific attributes.

Key recent factors, influences and statistics on the availability and use of specific/personal marketing data are reviewed, noting the increasing restrictions due to public dataset withdrawal, privacy legislation and so on. Channel proliferation and change in the balance of spend between prospecting and developing existing customers are noted. All are then related to the revival of need for modelled data.

While the demand for volumes of individual consumer marketing data continues to rise, the availability and useability of that data is in decline. Modelled attributes are becoming the only way to fill the gap.

This paper demonstrates that the widespread criticism of modelled data ignores the increasing need for such information to meet the inexorable trend away from mass advertising and towards direct marketing techniques.