The State of Email Marketing Is…

…strong, but could be stronger, according to the finding of our 2014 State of Marketing report, which surveyed more than 2,500 marketers. First, the testaments to email’s strength: Eighty-eight percent of marketers use email marketing and another 9% said they plan to launch an email program this year. Only 3% said they…

I’m Visited by the Ghosts of Predictions Past, Present, and Future

In my latest Email Insider column for MediaPost, I reluctantly cast myself in the role Emailnezer Scrooge and am visited by three ghosts that hold me accountable for my past email marketing predictions and press me for an assessment of the present and for predictions of the future. >> Read my entire…

Few Retailers Respond to Abandoned Carts on Cyber Monday

In my second guest column for ClickZ this holiday season (here’s the first), I take a deeper dive into the cart abandonment email research that’s highlighted in our Email Insights & Trends from Thanksgiving, Black Friday & Cyber Monday #Infographic. On Cyber Monday, ExactTarget clicked through the promotional emails sent that day…

Infographic: Email Insights & Trends from Thanksgiving, Black Friday & Cyber Monday

The Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend includes some of the busiest email marketing days of the year, including top email day Cyber Monday, famed Black Friday, and the up-and-comer Thanksgiving Day. However, consumers behave differently on each of these days, which means retailers have to use different approaches on each day. Based on our…

More Insights on Birthday Email Programs

Our Birthday Emails Infographic clearly showed that there’s a big opportunity for brands to collect birth dates and use that information to send triggered birthday emails. In this follow-up, I share five more insights from our research, which involved more than 180 B2C brands: A lack of follow-up on birthday email offers….

Infographic: Happy Birthday, Dear Subscriber

Have you ever gotten an unexpected birthday gift? Feels great, right? And you probably ended up giving more time and attention to the gift-giver as a result. That’s the opportunity that triggered birthday emails offer. It’s a winning tactic that generates an outsized return on investment. ExactTarget research involving more than 180…

Turn Challenges into Opportunities with Retail Touchpoints Optimized

Retailers face distinctive challenges throughout the customer lifecycle, but with every challenge comes an opportunity. Start using your marketing challenges to your brand’s advantage and break through the noise and clutter. In Retail Touchpoints Optimized, we’ve broken down the retail customer’s lifecycle into five touchpoints—acquisition, onboarding, promotion, abandonment, and post-purchase—and explained cross-channel…

Watch “The 5 Design Trends behind ‘The Best of the Email Swipe File'” Webinar

If you missed the webinar that Andrea Smith and I did yesterday on “The 5 Design Trends behind ‘The Best of the Email Swipe File,’” the slides (with notes) and a recording of the 45-minute webinar are now available. View the slides on SlideShare >> Watch the webinar recording (registration required) >>…

The Long and Short of Progressive Profiling

Data is the fuel for all targeted and tailored messaging. Getting good information is the tricky part. The best sources of intel comes directly from your subscribers. Much can be inferred by your subscribers’ purchases, browsing and other interactions with your brand, but there’s also value in asking your subscribers directly about…

Watch ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Best’ Webinar

If you missed my webinar, “The Good, the Bad, and the Best: Practices for a Post-Wild West Email Marketing World” earlier this week, the slides (with notes) and a recording of the hour-long webinar are now available. View the slides on SlideShare >> Watch the webinar recording (registration required) >> Adopting email…