Online retail spending by Hispanics is expected to reach $21.6 billion by 2011, according to a study by JupiterResearch, which also indicates this group is the largest U.S. minority population. The study found this group to be especially responsive to personalization in emails.

The right personalization and segmentation will aid email marketers looking to reach this group. It is one of several attributes that distinguish Hispanics' email preferences from among preferences in the U.S. population at large.

Hispanics are more likely to respond to promotional email that's personalized. Half of U.S. Hispanic email users surveyed said they prefer promotional email that is personalized around products or services of interest to them. This compares with just 41 percent of non Hispanic email users.

Hispanic email users also were more likely to make an offline or in-store purchase influenced by email (53 percent), compared with just 47 percent of non Hispanic email users. Nearly half of the Hispanics surveyed said they had made an online purchase influenced by a promotional email.

The Jupiter study also notes that though Hispanic email users are less likely than their non Hispanic counterparts to unsubscribe to promotional email offers that do not interest them, they are significantly more interested in receiving offers that are personalized. "Email marketers must effectively segment and personalize promotional email messages to target their Hispanic customers," the report concluded.