Tom Profile PicTom Wozniak is the head of Marketing and PR for OPTIZMO Technologies, delivering the industry’s most powerful platform for email compliance and suppression list management to clients throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Tom has over 20 years of experience in email, affiliate, and various other digital marketing channels.  Prior to OPTIZMO, he was VP of Marketing at SpotX, headed up marketing at Media Breakaway, and held senior leadership roles with Trueffect and NextAction, among other companies.  He regularly writes for several industry publications and speaks at various affiliate and email marketing industry events.

Where is the Line When it Comes to AI Usage Disclosure?

nahrizul-kadri-OAsF0QMRWlA-unsplash-600

Regardless of whether you are a believer that AI is going to revolutionize every industry for the better or a skeptic who sees AI as a threat to original content creation and a host of other ‘human’ roles, I think everyone agrees that AI is here to stay. In the email...

Continue reading
  1358 Hits

Imposter Syndrome in Email Marketing

Mask-600

I was listening to an interview recently that discussed how common imposter syndrome is among many professionals today. It got me thinking about how this very common issue might relate to email marketing in general. Defining Imposter Syndrome Imposter Syndrome is described as the psychological experience of having self-doubt in one’s...

Continue reading
  1852 Hits

A Deep Dive into Opt-Out Activity

junseong-lee-v_WLk_vNYRA-unsplash-600

Back in 2021, I wrote an article for Only Influencers sharing data from OPTIZMO’s annual Email Opt-Out Infographic. That infographic covered data from 2018-2020, so it culminated with a look at how a year of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced email opt-out behavior. (Is it just me or is it hard to...

Continue reading
  1687 Hits

New Year’s Resolutions for Email Marketers

kelly-sikkema-PXl_S152jNM-unsplash-600

It’s that time of year again, time for a slew of articles either forecasting what will happen in the email marketing industry during 2024 or focused on New Year’s resolutions marketers should have on their lists. Far be it from me to swim against the current over the holidays, so here’s...

Continue reading
  1278 Hits

Email Marketing in The Big Marketing Picture

chris-linnett-ml5oOt1aaug-unsplash-1-600

When I brainstorm topics for an upcoming OI article, sometimes I focus on bigger trends in the industry (AI!) or areas where I can speak with some authority (email compliance). But I also like to think about topics and conversations that have come up on our Thursday OI-members-only Live Zoom calls,...

Continue reading
  1982 Hits

The Past, Present, and Future of AI in Email Marketing

wyron-a-GY38n9WKjQI-unsplash-600

Not sure if you’ve heard, but Artificial Intelligence (AI) is kind of a hot topic right now - in literally every industry and even among consumers. If you’ve attended any of our Thursday Only Influencers (OI) Members-only Live Zoom calls this year, you’ve probably noticed that AI comes up on pretty...

Continue reading
Tags:
  1702 Hits

3 Tips for Using AI to Create Marketing Content

possessed-photography-zbLW0FG8XU8-unsplash-600

I’m not usually one to make assumptions. There’s an old saying about what happens when you assume things (you make an a$$ out of you and me). But, I’m going to ignore that advice and assume that just about anyone reading this has now heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how...

Continue reading
  1873 Hits

An Email Marketer’s Holiday Wish List

huimin-cai-RfZxY-KFqjs-unsplash-600

It's the time of year when a lot of people are putting together their holiday wish lists. Whether it’s kids putting together a list of toys for Santa (Xbox, Elmo, a Red Rider BB gun), or grown-ups letting their partners and family members know what they might want (Amazon gift card,...

Continue reading
  1851 Hits

Questioning Some Email Marketing Conventional Wisdom

peter-jan-rijpkema-Lc9dnhXXmAE-unsplash-smaller

In life, we all use conventional wisdom (CW) on a regular basis. We come across it in every facet of our lives. “If the stove gas burner doesn’t light the first time, wait a few seconds for the gas to dissipate before trying again.” “Kids should do homework every night.” “It’s...

Continue reading
  2245 Hits

A Look at How Email Opt-out Activity Changed in 2020-21

alain-pham-WMdKyKpmYDI-unsplash-600

As we approach the halfway point of 2022, we’re now a bit over 2 years since Covid was declared a pandemic (March 11, 2020). At that point, it's safe to say that marketers had little to no idea how dramatically our businesses and marketing programs would be impacted. Now, with 2...

Continue reading
  2628 Hits

Looking at Email’s Place in 2022

rajiv-bajaj-i4QIqfcTkN8-unsplash-600

With 2022 speeding along at a breakneck pace, I wanted to take a moment and consider the outlook for the email channel in the overall marketing mix this year. Over the course of the last two years, digital marketing, in general, took on more importance than ever before, as real-world business...

Continue reading
  2412 Hits

4 Tips for Building your 2022 Email Marketing Strategy

brett-jordan-cBY2CtqQ6YI-unsplash-600

As we speed toward the end of the year (seriously, it’s almost Thanksgiving - how did that happen so fast?), email marketers are focused on two key projects. 1 - Ensuring those all-important holiday season campaigns all go out without a hitch. 2 - Finalizing your 2022 email marketing strategies. While...

Continue reading
  2401 Hits

How Email will Thrive in a More Privacy Centric World

jason-dent-JFk0dVyvdvw-unsplash

Privacy. Consumers want it (or at least say they do) and in many cases they feel that companies know too much about them and their activities. Admittedly, you can create surveys that will demonstrate how much consumers value their privacy and others that show how much consumers enjoy marketing that is...

Continue reading
  2936 Hits

3 Things to Watch in Email Marketing in 2021

mostafa-meraji-cUxF-FcFwL4-unsplash

Here we are in 2021, getting ready to celebrate the 43rd birthday of email marketing. Who would have guessed back in 1978 that email would become the first digital marketing channel, helping to pave the way for every other digital channel in the next four decades? Maybe even more impressive is...

Continue reading
  2559 Hits

How Did 2020 Impact Email Opt-Out Activity?

Opt-out

For the past few years, OPTIZMO has been publishing infographics based on email opt-outs processed on our platform (100s of millions every year). While there are many insightful reports, white papers, and infographics released every year by various companies in the email marketing industry, the vast majority focus on email activity...

Continue reading
  2956 Hits

Email Opt-Out Benchmarks

AdobeStock_186728822-200

Earlier this year, I wrote a post for Only Influencers on Turning a Negative into a Positive which highlighted the value of analyzing the negative marketing signals generated by every email campaign (opt-outs, spam complaints, non-responders, etc.). I thought I would build on that topic just a bit before 2020 comes...

Continue reading
  3575 Hits

4 Creative Uses of Video in Email

video-200

On a recent OI-members-only Live Zoom discussion we spent some time talking about how to leverage video in email campaigns. The conversation was spurred by Tejas Pitkar’s (Netcore) recent OI blog post and there were a lot of great ideas brought up by the group. So, I thought it would make...

Continue reading
  3846 Hits

Turning a Negative into a Positive

neg-pos-200

As email marketers, most of us are focused on how our campaigns perform. Even if our emails aren’t specifically designed to drive leads, sales, or other recipient actions, we still monitor key metrics like Open Rate to at least determine if recipients are looking at the message.  For those email marketers...

Continue reading
  3645 Hits