Email Marketing RulesThe Last Word on December 2023
Posted on January 2, 2024
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Gmail’s AI-Powered Spam Detection Is Its Biggest Security Upgrade in Years (Ars Technica)
A Crash Course on List Unsubscribe (Spam Resource)
The Bot Menace: Deciphering the Hidden Threat to Email Campaign Success (Only Influencers)
Hope for the Future of Email: Thoughts from Mark Robbins at Email Camp (Sinch)
2023 in Social Media: The Case for the Fediverse (The Verge)
Four Years After Apple, Google Will Finally Kill Third-Party Cookies in 2024 (Ars Technica)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
These will be the most important cases for journalism and publishing in our lifetime. If AI companies have to cut deals with news organizations and publishers to license their content feeds for use as AI training data, that could save local journalism as well as magazines and… https://t.co/wYmwkusrp5
— Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) December 31, 2023
Noteworthy subject lines
Fandango, 12/12 – Your 2023 At The Movies
Nintendo, 12/13 – Chad, your Year in Review 2023 is here!
Lonely Planet, 12/30 – Where we traveled in 2023!
Vuori, 12/28 – Vuori’s Year in Review
Fanatics.com, 12/28 – Explore 2023’s Best: Trending Memorabilia and Rare Sales Await!
kate spade, 12/17 – You’ve got invites, we’ve got outfits
ZALES®, 12/31 – Glam Looks For Tonight, Up to 40% Off!🥂
Allrecipes Dinner Tonight, 12/27 – This 5-Ingredient Appetizer Is the First Thing Gone at Parties
Dell Technologies, 12/26 – Tech to power new endeavors in 2024.
Michaels, 12/5 – Kids Club Winter Workshop is here! ❄️ Sign up for 12 FREE creative classes.
REI, 12/8 – Save Up to 50% on Holiday Gifts for Outdoor Memories
Goldbelly, 12/13 – The CHEESIEST Christmas Gifts! 🧀😜
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 12/3 – Your 25 Days of Deals are inside!
Petco’s Days of Deals, 12/13 – 12 Days of Deals starts NOW!
IKEA Family, 12/18 – It’s the final week of 24 days of deals!
Nuts.com, 12/12 – On The 4th Day of Nutty Nights, My True Love Sent To Me…
Omaha Steaks, 12/11 – Get 50% OFF + an EXTRA 20% & save green on Green Monday.
Fanatics.com, 12/16 – Festive Unboxing: Shop Your Holiday Doorbusters Up To 65% Off
Huckberry, 12/17 – Big Gift Energy
YETI, 12/4 – Holiday Customization Ends Tomorrow
Crate & Barrel, 12/3 – Oh-so-fast furniture that arrives in time for the holidays!
Fanatics.com, 12/13 – Gifts Galore –> Order TODAY & Get It By Xmas!
Eddie Bauer, 12/13 – LAST DAY For Delivery By 12/22 With Standard Shipping
The Company Store, 12/12 – ⏳ LAST CHANCE for FREE GROUND SHIPPING
MoMA Design Store, 12/17 – There’s Still Time! (Last-Minute Gifting)
Macy’s, 12/18 – Procrastinated gift shopping? We’ve got you 🎁
vineyard vines, 12/20 – 🎁40% Off Gifts + GET THEM BY CHRISTMAS!🎁
Williams Sonoma, 12/20 – Still need gifts? Order with Next-Day Shipping TODAY for guaranteed Christmas delivery
Redbubble, 12/24 – Cutting it close? Gift instantly with gift cards ⚡️
Lane Bryant, 12/24 – …and to all, a good night! $25 PJ SETS ends soon
Cacique Intimates | Lane Bryant, 12/25 – And now, what you really want…$19.99 & UP BRAS
Abercrombie & Fitch, 12/26 – Jeans still on your wishlist?
Uncommon Goods, 12/27 – 10 things to gift to yourself
Harley-Davidson® Clothing & Gear, 12/30 – TO: You, FROM: You
Neiman Marcus, 12/16 – Shop our Christmas Sale early! Take up to $250 off your next purchase
ECCO, 12/15 – Our End Of Year Sale starts now
Nuts.com, 12/8 – Gone By New Year’s Day 🎁✨
Bitly Team, 12/7 – [Gift Guide] 5 Things to Buy Instead of Bitly
Banana Republic, 12/25 – Holiday gifting with @laurandnicolas
Williams Sonoma, 12/16 – TUCCI by GreenPan™: beauty meets high performance
West Elm, 12/1 – Inside celeb stylist & designer Kate Young’s home
AKHG By Duluth Trading, 12/29 – Introducing: AKHG® FITNESS
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
3 Tailwinds Driving Focus on Building Direct Customer Relationships
TimTalk Webcast: What Keeps Me Awake at Night about Generative AI
Black Friday Week: 3 Key Email Marketing Insights
4 Stakeholders Every Email Marketing Program Has & What They Want
4 Major Factors Impacting Email Marketing Performance This Holiday Season
Happy Holidays!
Posted on December 25, 2023
Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, my family and I wish you all the best this holiday season. See you in the New Year, EmailGeeks!
3 Tailwinds Driving Focus on Building Direct Customer Relationships
Posted on December 20, 2023
It’s never been one marketing channel versus other channels, because it’s always been all marketing channels in coordination with each other—and, increasingly, all marketing channels in tight orchestration with each other. That said, three major digital marketing trends are causing brands to increase their focus and investments on email, SMS, loyalty, and other marketing channels where they have the most control over building and reaching their audiences.
- Social media is stagnating overall, and key platforms are declining or at risk of serious declines
- Stronger privacy protections on various digital platforms are undermining advertising and data collection used for targeting
- Generative AI is set to reduce search traffic, particularly for unbranded search terms
Let’s talk about each of these trends in turn.
TimTalk Webcast: What Keeps Me Awake at Night about Generative AI
Posted on December 18, 2023
Generative AI has more upside than downside, but that doesn’t make the potential harms any less real. I join TimTalk host Tim Hughes to discuss some of the worries I wrote about in one of my MarketingProfs columns.
Specifically, we talk about my worries that…
- GenAI will ultimately cost many people their jobs
- Companies won’t stop at outsourcing the ‘burnout’ or low-value work
- Companies won’t reinvest the time saved by GenAI
- Companies will create digital doppelgängers of employees or influencers
- Art and craft will be reduced to ideas
- Brands won’t be transparent about their GenAI use
- Content creators will become content editors
- GenAI will cause reciprocity to break down
For the full discussion…
Black Friday Week: 3 Key Email Marketing Insights
Posted on December 15, 2023
The time period from the start of the week of Black Friday through Cyber Monday is the critical beating heart of the holiday season for business-to-consumer brands. Here are three key takeaways for retail and ecommerce marketers:
- Seize the opportunity to get in front of eager buyers
- Expand your email audience…carefully
- Maximize your envelope content’s impact
4 Stakeholders Every Email Marketing Program Has & What They Want
Posted on December 8, 2023
Email marketing is as powerful as it is complicated—and that complexity is slowly growing over time. The reason it’s so complex boils down to one simple fact: Email marketing has multiple stakeholders, each with their own agenda and priorities.
Email marketers have the challenging job of satisfying all of those stakeholders and balancing their sometimes competing demands. Let’s talk about who each of these stakeholders are and, more importantly, what they each want from email marketers.
4 Major Factors Impacting Email Marketing Performance This Holiday Season
Posted on December 6, 2023
It’s not enough to have meaningful external benchmarks and solid internal benchmarks. Marketers need the right perspective and context to properly use those benchmarks and to appropriately interpret their current results. That’s especially true during fast-moving peak seasons, like the holiday season for retailers and ecommerce brands.
When measuring your email marketing performance this holiday season, you’ll want to be mindful of several factors. We discuss a wide range of macro economic and channel factors in the on-demand webinar including in this post, but we’d like to highlight the four factors we think are impacting email marketing results the most this year.
The Last Word on November 2023
Posted on December 4, 2023
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
The Art Of AI: Marketers Use Technology For Content Creation, But Many Have Issues (MediaPost)
Consumers Want Companies to Take a Stance on Climate Change, Mental Health (Insider Intelligence)
The Reluctant Spammer (Seth’s Blog)
Email Weekly Halloween Edition: Behind the Scenes (Action Rocket)
12 Fun Newsletter Ideas Using UGC and Social Proof (Sender)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
If you want to reduce your CTR, putting TWO asterisks inside the button is a great approach pic.twitter.com/1sIeoeNjvG
— Alex Williams (@alexcwilliams) November 9, 2023
Cyber Monday https://t.co/yUBk5gKoZY -via @minethatdata
— James Koons (@Email_Privacy) November 27, 2023
Training AI to code email is like teaching how money works to a 3 year old.
— Alex Williams (@alexcwilliams) November 15, 2023
Noteworthy subject lines
Big Lots, 11/6 – Holiday ho-ho-hosting essentials up to 65% LESS than elsewhere! 👏
Michaels, 11/6 – Christmas trees are now at BLACK FRIDAY PRICES! 🎄 (This. Is. MAJOR.)
Home Depot, 11/9 – —Black Friday Savings—
Eddie Bauer, 11/14 – Get EARLY ACCESS To Our Best Black Friday Deals! 👀
Banana Republic, 11/5 – Shop the Holiday Preview Event now
Macy’s, 11/2 – The early elf gets the best gifts ❄️
Abercrombie & Fitch, 11/3 – *Insert sparkles emoji*
Michaels, 11/14 – ✔️ Affordable ✔️ quick ✔️ easy gift ideas curated for you
REI, 11/2 – Perfect Gifts for the Hardest to Shop For
Gap, 11/3 – Holiday PFJs FOREVER
West Elm, 11/30 – Ready for the year’s coziest morning?
Fanatics.com, 11/12 – 25% Off Top Gifts in the Game From New Era
Art.com, 11/2 – Add meaning to your holiday decor with spiritual art.
CHANEL, 11/19 – Find your dream gift for the holidays
Michaels, 11/30 – The ultimate jewelry edit: Gifts for the trendsetter on MakerPlace.
Harley-Davidson, 11/7 – The Pre-Black Friday Sales is here 🚨
Peloton, 11/7 – Black Friday came early
Crate & Barrel SALE, 11/12 – Up to 60% off Black Friday clearance + 2x rewards ends SOON →
Zales, 11/14 – Shop Early & Save BIG: 30% Off Black Friday Sale
Camping World, 11/20 – Black Friday starts now! Doorbusters up to 60% off ⚠️
West Elm Sale, 11/20 – Starting NOW: Up to 70% off
Fanatics.com, 11/29 – Up to 65% Off is Ending Soon >>
Duluth Trading, 11/29 – 40% OFF EVERYTHING ENDS TONIGHT!
vineyard vines, 11/28 – FINAL HOURS: Up To 60% Off
J.Crew Cyber Monday, 11/28 – **Last call for 50% off sitewide**
Huckberry, 11/19 – Your Cart’s Moment of Glory Is Here
Goldbelly, 11/6 – 🍗The “Rolls Royce of Turkeys” + Turduckens + Cajun Fried Turkeys!🍗
NORDSTROM, 11/7 – Wild about these boots 🐍
NORDSTROM, 11/2 – The slopes are calling ❄️
J.Crew, 11/6 – It’s Supersoft season
Gap, 11/9 – Puffer season starts NOW
Petco Membership, 11/13 – You’re invited to cook with Chef Cat Cora!
Magic: The Gathering, 11/21 – It’s here! Read all about MagicCon: Chicago! ✨
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Email Opens Are Not Dead: What’s Changed & What’s Not
Get Inspired by These Award-Winning Digital Marketing Campaigns
New Name, Expanded Mission: Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Email Opens Are Not Dead: What’s Changed & What’s Not
Posted on November 29, 2023
Email opens have never been an incredibly accurate metric. Our approximation for the reads that inbox providers see, tracking pixel-based opens are deflated by image caching, image blocking, and email clients that don’t render images, such as voice assistants and smart watches. And they’re inflated by pre-fetching—most notoriously by Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which seeks to obscure real opens by its users by burying them in a tsunami of auto-generated opens.
The launch of MPP 2 years ago immediately led to cries of “Opens are dead!” But much like the cries of “Email is dead,” you should ignore them. This is doubly true if you’re a B2B marketer, since you’re most likely to be vastly less affected than your B2C counterparts.
However, MPP has changed how marketers can and can’t use opens. Understanding these changes starts with understanding…
Get Inspired by These Award-Winning Digital Marketing Campaigns
Posted on November 28, 2023
Digital marketing awards highlight the very best work being done in the industry. In recent years, Oracle Digital Experience Agency (formerly Oracle Marketing Consulting) has helped its clients win more than 50 awards.
Most recently, our work with Xumo TV, Xfinity, and Lands’ End earned four MarCom Awards, three W3 Awards and an MediaPost Email Insider Award. Check out the campaigns that wowed the judges.
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
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