By Jim Donovan

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — If your inbox is bursting at its digital seams, you’re not alone. Chances are that much of that email is from retailers, with promises of savings and deals. The number of emails sent by retailers is up 20 percent so far this year.

David Gerzof Richard is the president of Big Fish, a marketing communications firm. He says that while many companies have jumped on-board the social media bandwagon, many of them see more benefits from email marketing.

“Email marketing can be very targeted. You might be able to read everything in your email in your inbox, but there’s no way that you can keep up with every tweet and every update from the people that you are following,” Richard explains.

New technology like iPads and iPhones are changing how we get information. Richard says, “Greater than half of the U.S. population has a Smartphone. These devices are very quick and very enabled to be able to get not just one email account, but multiple email accounts; so it is very easy to be able to push a message directly to a consumer where they are.”

If you don’t want all these emails jamming your inbox, one strategy is to just stop giving out your email address. But then you might miss some good deals. Using a second email address solely for marketing emails, like a free Yahoo account, might help.