Email Marketing RulesEmail 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.
New Name, Expanded Mission: Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Posted on November 20, 2023
Brands are breaking down the silos that separate their marketing channels so they can create the cohesive omnichannel experiences that consumers expect. And brands are also breaking down the silos that separate their marketing, sales, service, and other departments as they center their organizations around the customer experience rather than business functions. The digital experience is evolving, and we’re evolving along with it.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that Oracle Marketing Consulting is now Oracle Digital Experience Agency!
Some things won’t change, like our goal of surprising and delighting our clients with the quality and impact of our work for them. It’s because of this focus that we have an exceptional NPS of 70 and a customer satisfaction rate of 96%. Also unchanged is our veteran team of hundreds of experts, each with an average tenure of more than 10 years of industry experience.
However, if you haven’t been keeping a close eye on us recently, we’ve been steadily increasing and expanding our services in ways that make our new name much more representative of our present and our future…
When to Hit Pause on Your Digital Marketing Campaigns
Posted on November 7, 2023
Sadly, brands have faced an increasing number of circumstances in which they’ve decided it was in their best interest to cancel or delay their digital marketing campaigns, either on a national or regional basis. At the same time, in the heat of the moment, some brands have failed to pause their campaigns and faced allegations of insensitivity, suffered brand damage, and audience losses.
To increase your chances of responding in a way that’s most appropriate for your brand, your company should agree on the circumstances that would typically lead it to take action before you’re faced with them for real. You’ll still be forced to make a quick decision about what to do, but you’ll deliberate less because you will have clarified your corporate values and risk tolerances.
Consider these seven reasons that brands have halted marketing campaigns in the past and decide which might be appropriate reasons for your organization to hit pause on its email, SMS, social, and other digital marketing campaigns…
The Last Word on October 2023
Posted on November 3, 2023
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
US Marketers Increase Email Marketing Budgets as They Seek Ways to Increase Engagement (Insider Intelligence)
Spamhaus Opens Doors to Public Submissions to Enhance the Email Experience (EmailExpert)
Newsletter Directories – Your Key to Increasing Newsletter Signups (AWeber)
The Perfect Combination: GenAI and Persuasion Strategies for Unbeatable A/B Tests (MarTech)
The 37 Most (and Least) Useful Content Marketing Metrics (Orbit Media Studios)
Four Useful Ideas for Interactive Email (The Email Factory)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
still thinking about this pic.twitter.com/qPxEKnfEYv
— Ted Goas (@TedGoas) October 30, 2023
Noteworthy subject lines
Lonely Planet, 10/28 – 50 destinations to visit in 2024
MoMA Design Store, 10/12 – New In! Holiday Ornaments & Advent Calendars
Michaels, 10/30 – The Great Big Tree Spree: ALL Christmas trees are 50% off + save on fab finishing touches!
Home Depot, 10/26 – ’Tis the Season for Decorating & Doing ✨ 🎄 ✨
Williams Sonoma, 10/25 – Celebrating 10 years of ‘Twas 🎄
Kohl’s, 10/25 – Get a head start on your holiday & score the best gifts 🎁
Nintendo, 10/26 – The Holiday Gift Guide is here to deliver smiles!
Eddie Bauer, 10/18 – Your 2023 Gift Guide Is Here! 🎁
Victoria’s Secret, 10/31 – VS Holiday (Preview) is Here
American Eagle, 10/10 – Just dropped! The Grinch Shop 🎄 + up to 30% off all your faves
Bed Bath & Beyond, 10/18 – Earn $50 in Beyond Bucks for Your Holiday Shopping! 💸
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 10/26 – Black Friday savings are starting early! Up to 40% OFF now. ⏰
Dell Technologies, 10/26 – Here’s year early Black Friday Event look.
Crate & Barrel, 10/31 – We’re moving past spooky season and diving right into the holidays →
Michaels, 10/5 – Go all-out for spooky season with these décor project ideas. 👻
Spirit Halloween, 10/11 – 💛 Save 10% + Spirit gives 10%
Petco, 10/2 – Tons of cute costumes for your pet.
LEGO® Family, 10/11 – Free family activities to get creative this Halloween!
Nuts.com, 10/24 – FREE Shipping Is Flying Away 🧙♀️🧹
Petco, 10/30 – Halloween is tomorrow! Is your pet ready? 🎃
Spirit Halloween, 10/30 – 📢 Stores are open late 📢
Uncommon Goods, 10/31 – So scary: every one of these items *was* sold out.
Neiman Marcus, 10/5 – Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month
Allrecipes The Scoop, 10/5 – 31 Days of Crocktober
Moosejaw, 10/30 – It got cold! Get free 2-day on jackets $99+.
Nordstrom, 10/5 – Don’t forget your jacket!
Harley-Davidson® Clothing & Gear, 10/19 – Discover FLƎX layering
ECCO, 10/5 – You’re in luck–GRUUV is back!
Columbia Sportswear, 10/18 – Black Mesa™ takes you from city to trail.
NFLShop.com, 10/11 – Top NFL Fantasy Players
Abercrombie & Fitch, 10/30 – The stop-and-stare sort of tops.
West Elm, 10/19 – New lighting is all about making a slow-burn statement.
Clinique Online, 10/5 – The TLC your skin needs at night.
Art.com, 10/25 – Today is Pablo Picasso’s birthday!
Huckberry, 10/29 – No dead doves in the pockets, please…
Abercrombie & Fitch, 10/1 – You’ve got our app, right?
Zara, 10/24 – Discover what’s new this week at #zarawoman
Gap, 10/11 – 20 million TikTok views & counting
Everlane, 10/31 – Introducing the Kick Boot Jean
Cards Against Humanity, 10/26 – We made a whole new game
Banana Republic, 10/12 – BR x Peter Do: a study in versatility
Huckberry, 10/5 – Introducing: Huckberry x Grateful Dead
Huckberry, 10/19 – The Wait is Over: Huckberry x Wythe
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Leap Day Campaigns: 29 Messaging Ideas
What Keeps Me Up at Night about Generative AI
New Gmail & Yahoo Deliverability Requirements: What Senders Need to Do
The Critical Differences between Machine Learning & Generative AI Today
Fourth Quarter 2023 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
Holiday Email Subject Line Insights to Boost Your Campaign Results
The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
Accepting that You Can’t Change People… or Subscribers or Inbox Providers
Is CAN-SPAM Now Meaningless?
Posted on November 1, 2023
The US’s anti-spam law, The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, was passed way back in 2003. That was well before much stronger anti-spam laws were passed in other countries, most notably CASL in Canada and GDPR in the EU, which have set email marketing standards for multinational American brands. But more importantly, CAN-SPAM was passed before mailbox providers upped their spam filtering game so much that they effectively eradicated traditional, malicious spam.
With spam almost entirely blocked before reaching even consumers’ spam folders, much less their inboxes, consumers were left with a Report spam button that they didn’t quite know what to do with. With no malicious messages they didn’t request from unknown senders to report as spam, consumers started using the Report spam button to complain about other messages. For instance, they used it to nix unwanted emails from brands they knew—and even to banish emails they gave brands permission to send to them.
Of course, that’s just one way in which mailbox providers have led the way on fighting spam and, indeed, establishing the rules of engagement for email marketers. Last month, for instance, in an unprecedented collaboration, Google and Yahoo released joint email standards on authentication, spam complaint rates, and more that go into effect in February 2024.
That announcement made one of my colleagues ask, “I wonder what the FTC thinks about this?” Of course, as private businesses, mailbox providers are allowed to set higher standards. But as I thought more about everything major mailbox providers have done, I asked a different question: Is CAN-SPAM now meaningless?
Let’s answer that question by exploring the core tenets of CAN-SPAM and what the major inbox providers require of senders.
Leap Day Campaigns: 29 Messaging Ideas
Posted on October 30, 2023
It’s a marketing opportunity that comes around only once every four years. It’s Leap Day. With the next one coming up on Feb. 29 in 2024, the extra day is added to the shortest month of the year because the Earth takes approximately 365.25 days to orbit the sun, so every fourth year needs to have 366 days to fully account for that orbital time.
Much like having a Friday the 13th in October, the rarity of Leap Day has long inspired marketers to get creative and do something special for the occasion. To help inspire you, we examined Leap Day campaigns from the past four occurrences.
Across all of those campaigns, we’ve identified five major themes that brands have historically used. To illustrate each theme, we’re sharing messaging ideas that we’ve seen previously used, as well as some that we’ve haven’t seen but certainly fit the theme. Needless to say, we had to share 29 ideas in total.
What Keeps Me Up at Night about Generative AI
Posted on October 18, 2023
During the opening session of the B2B Forum this year, MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer Ann Handley wowed and pumped up the crowd with an empathetic Barbie-inspired B2Barbie presentation. The overall message: B2B marketers are often held to impossible standards and underappreciated despite their hard work and smarts. Ann’s point of view was crystal clear: “Hire Writers. Respect them. Pay them. Treasure them.”
But then generative AI took the stage, and attendees could be forgiven if they felt they weren’t Kenough… unless they used generative AI to create a digital clone of themselves to work alongside them. In a particularly chilling moment, Ann asked Trust Insights Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist Christopher Penn what kept him up at night about AI and he said the Israeli military using AI to select bombing targets.
Putting aside military and police applications (which I’ll assume we’ll all lose sleep over), Ann’s question resonated with me. So, I’d like to cathartically share some of the things that worry me most as a marketer about generative AI…
New Gmail & Yahoo Deliverability Requirements: What Senders Need to Do
Posted on October 13, 2023
One of the hallmarks of the email channel is a lack of standards and a lack of universal support for all but the most fundamental elements of email. For example, there are no standards around HTML and CSS code support; dark mode is implemented differently across email clients; spam filtering at different inboxes weights different factors differently; BIMI support is uneven and has different requirements at different inboxes; and on and on.
That’s why the recently announced collaboration between Gmail and Yahoo on spam-fighting protections is so unusual. The joint effort helps reinforce long-standing industry best practices for bulk senders and provides greater specificity on the benchmarks brands need to meet to stay in their good graces.
To avoid deliverability issues at Gmail and Yahoo mailboxes, brands need to meet the following four requirements by February 2024…
The Last Word on September 2023
Posted on October 12, 2023
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Why Some Companies Are Not Increasing Spend on Generative AI (MarketingProfs)
How Do You Compare with Your Fellow Email Marketers on Using AI? (Only Influencers)
Gmail Now Rejecting Unauthenticated Mail (Spam Resource)
Demystifying DMARC RUA Reports (EmailKarna)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Occasionally I check my spam folder and find gold like this pic.twitter.com/kM1HwotLcS
— Andrew King (@akingkiwi) September 14, 2023
Noteworthy subject lines
The Company Store, 9/14 – NEW Kids Bedding for the School Year 🏫🍎
Abercrombie & Fitch, 9/9 – Fully into football season.
Nuts.com, 9/7 – FREE For Your Snack-O-Lantern 🎃
Spirit Halloween, 9/8 – 💀 Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas!
American Eagle, 9/14 – HALLOWEEN INSPO + 30% off now extended 🎃
West Elm, 9/9 – Get ready to gather all fall
Crate & Kids, 9/14 – IT’S HERE! Check out our Holiday Shop →
shopDisney, 9/7 – Wow them with our most wished-for toys
LEGO® News, 9/26 – Need help finding the perfect gift?
Uncommon Goods, 9/21 – Holiday gifts under $50
Eddie Bauer, 9/7 – Get Out There, No Matter The Weather 🥾 🌧️
Harley-Davidson®, 9/23 – Cooler weather ❄️, hot looks 🔥
West Elm, 9/21 – Cooler temperatures make outdoor entertaining easier.
Lane Bryant, 9/4 – Mins left! 40% OFF all the fall newness
West Elm Sale, 9/4 – HOURS LEFT ⏰ Up to 60% off
Quiksilver, 9/4 – Final Hours: Extra 50% Off Sale On Sale
J.Crew, 9/4 – Ends at midnight: 40% off your purchase
Crate & Barrel SALE, 9/4 – Ends tomorrow: DOUBLE REWARDS
Norwegian Cruise Line, 9/22 – 0% APR Is Staying For A Little Longer
Duluth Trading, 9/6 – Hit ’Em With Your Best Squat
YETI, 9/14 – You Asked For More Pink And We Delivered
Goldbelly, 9/9 – Ship Food Love for Maui 🌴💖
Clinique Online, 9/22 – Weekend treat for you! Get our #1 makeup remover free with $50 purchase.
Allrecipes Dinner Tonight, 9/25 – Our #1 Saved Recipe of 2023 So Far
Fanatics, 9/28 – Dooney & Bourke x NFL Collection
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Get Inspiration from Our Holiday Subject Line Word Cloud
The Business Storytelling Show: The Email Marketing Rules to Follow
The Future of Content Marketing: 5 Predictions
7 of My All-Time Favorite Email Subject Lines & Why
The Best Use Cases for Unique Generative AI-Crafted Emails, Unfortunately
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
