Ask ten different marketers to define personalization, and you’ll likely get ten different answers. Personalization in marketing has become a catch-all term—a grab bag of endless tactics that includes name merge tags, behavioral targeting, email triggers, content recommendations and so on. Traditionally, these tactics have also been pigeonholed into different industries...

Performance analysis is an absolutely vital aspect of any strategy. I may even go so far as to say that it’s the most important aspect. It’s what keeps you attuned to the pulse of your market, tells you what’s going down well and what’s less appealing. It’s how you weed out...

Every year for just a couple of days, I listen to some of the best minds in email share their experiences, guidance, and grievances over the email industry at the Email Innovations Summit in Las Vegas. Topics range from selecting your next email service provider (ESP), RFP best practices, privacy, design,...

Jenna Tiffany:  It's a pleasure to host another OI discussion with a topic that I’m sure all of you will have thoughts on as well as experiences to share.  Artificial Intelligence in email marketing So let's start with, have you used AI in your email marketing activities? What did you learn...

I’ve recently been working on two interesting projects which have put me either side of the brand and vendor perspective. Having worked agency, vendor and client side it’s a very useful juxtaposition from which to develop my own consultancy delivery experience. Project 1. I’ve been working with a marketing platform solution...

Over the last few years, the email industry has been increasingly focused on accessibility. That’s a good thing, especially considering that such a large percentage of the world’s population suffers from some sort of disability, whether it’s permanent or temporary. For example, the World Health Organization counts around 1.3 billion people...

2017 was probably AI’s breakout year in email marketing. It's from then on that I started to witness the results that AI can bring to the channel primarily when used in combination with Machine Learning and Automation. Change has been rapid and ongoing since then, and it doesn’t look like slowing...

How well does your email marketing program align with your customer’s lifecycle? Put another way, are you practicing lifecycle marketing? This is one of the first things I investigate when I’m working with a new client, because often the answer provides the basis for recommendations to boost performance (which is the...

The Nielsen Norman defines User Experience (UX) as “encompassing all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products”. They sum it up with this kernel of wisdom: “the first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss...

(The following is a recent discussion on the Only Influencers discussion list led by Kate Barrett. Join Only Influencers to be part of the discussion) Kate Barrett Hi everyone! I have the absolute pleasure of leading the discussion this week and I’m so excited to see what we all come up...

Living in the world of open rates, click rates and funnel driven conversion stats? I get it, we have to report on performance, but when do you get to do the really cool things in marketing? What happened to discovery and exploration? Why are we still looking at bar charts and...

As the world of digital advertising and marketing has planted its stake firmly in the ground in support of “NATIVE” (Sponsored) Advertising, the consumers have made it clear that they support the move. The line between online content written by journalists and story-like ads that are paid for by specific corporations...

Much has changed in the world of email marketing in the last 15 years.  Volumes are up, revenues are up, CPMs are down-and those are just a few of the big changes in the industry.  But one of the biggest changes is in the nature of the vendor/client relationships themselves. Specifically,...

The recent DMA 2019 Marketer Tracker Report reported that only 14% of consumers think that over half of the emails an organisation sends are relevant to them as individuals.  But maybe more shockingly, only 55% of marketers think that more than half of all the emails they send are relevant. So...

We marketers like to say we are customer-centric. We give "customer centricity" and "customer experience" the nod in our public commentaries. The Google Trends search trend pictured below shows a marked increase in "customer-centric" searches, which indicates that many of us are on board with this concept.  Source: Google Trends. Search...

Is it time to rethink the role of email marketing? Beyond a few developments such as optimizing for mobile, the role of email marketers has changed surprisingly little in the last 20 years.  Oh sure the tools have gotten better and more sophisticated, but what email marketers and teams do really...

Unboxing Campaign-Genius Campaign-Genius is a dynamic email tool based out of Seattle and is one of the entries of a growing category of real-time imaging tools such as Movable Ink and LiveClicker. It’s parent company, Say It Visually, was founded in 2008 and was a pioneer in the field of “Explainer...

The Following Email Marketing Round Table Discussion is based on Jenna Tiffany's article: Verbalising Email – How Will Voice Tech Change Email Marketing?  Jenna Tiffany: So let's start with, do we think it will change email marketing? And if yes, how?  Maybe you use voice tech already to read your emails...

Across the pond, the GDPR has presented the world of digital marketing with a unique opportunity to take stock, reflect on our methods, and start afresh with a clean sheet. It’s given us a fantastic insight into the mindset of our audiences, and empowered us to build positive, lasting relationships with...

“Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a voice.” Stephen Few This is an article that wrote itself. It started out as a rant about the relentless negativity surrounding the email channel and how everyone under estimates its importance to the digital ecosystem. As...