Referral E-mail Hyperlinks as Customer Acquisition Tools on the Web:
An Empirical Analysis of "E-mail-this-page" Data
Patrali Chatterjee, Sandeep Krishnamurthy and Laura Mather
September 2004
Working Paper No: RBS-MKT-2004-36
This work cannot be cited without the authors' permission
Abstract
“E-mail-this-webpage-to-others” hyperlinks on webpages serve as viral marketing tools
by leveraging the power of consumer networks and help firms in attracting new
consumers and encouraging current customers to revisit the website. We analyze the
clickstream from Encyclopædia Britannica’s consumer website to understand what drives
this action with a hierarchical modeling approach that accounts for (i) a high proportion
of consumers who never send any email, (ii) heterogeneity across consumers in
propensity to send email, and (iii) heterogeneity across webpages that are e-mailed.