Email Marketing Rules3 Benefits of a Customer Data Platform
Posted on February 29, 2024
Many brands are excitedly exploring ways to deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve their omnichannel experiences. However, most are quickly discovering serious limitations on their ability to move forward because of how scattered and fractured their customer data is.
It’s not hard to understand how we got to this place. Not only do customers interact with corporations through many different contexts and channels, but the operational platforms that manage those channels typically aren’t designed to communicate with each other or to access or assess customer data very well.
In order to make use of customer data to drive engagement and satisfaction, another kind of solution is required, one specifically architected to receive data from each of these operational platforms, standardize that data, interrelate it, and make it accessible. That solution is the customer data platform (CDP).
Let’s talk about the three major benefits that CDPs deliver.
Everybody Hates Your Brand podcast: Personalization & Its Limits
Posted on February 27, 2024
Personalization is perennially a top email marketing priority. Does that indicate a massive failure or is something else at work?
I join Everyone Hates Your Brand podcast host Rob Voase to talk about all things personalization. We talk about priorities, challenges, avoiding creepiness, and much more. Here’s a rundown of our conversation:
1:25 – My current role at Oracle Digital Experience Agency and my background
7:10 – Why personalization is perennially at the top of marketers’ to-do lists
9:05 – Why personalization and privacy aren’t in conflict
11:20 – How data availability undermines personalization efforts
14:40 – Content, frequency, and urgency expectation differences across channels
16:55 – Convincing marketers that personalization is worthwhile
19:30 – Using AI for personalization
22:40 – Avoiding creepy uses of customer data
27:45 – Recognizing that some topics are extra sensitive
29:00 – How A/B testing is a form of listening
31:05 – How brands go wrong with testing
34:40 – How to prioritize what you’re testing
36:00 – Testing to learn or testing to win
39:10 – People are weird
41:20 – Why keeping a log of testing is important for omnichannel optimization
43:40 – What I would like to banish from email marketing thinking
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or…
2024 State of Email Trends Report
Posted on February 22, 2024
Building on our long-running annual research on email marketing trends, Oracle Digital Experience Agency has partnered with Litmus on a new State of Email Trends report that brings to light valuable details and critical nuances around which email tactics and technologies marketers are using and the success they’re seeing.
The report examines dozens of email trends, helping you understand which might be best for your brand to pursue. It does this not only by sharing both the adoption and performance of each trend reported by nearly 500 marketers, but also by breaking those down across industries and organization size.
- Which email tactics and technologies are seeing the least adoption?
- Which ones are B2B brands using most?
- Are small businesses seeing success with generative AI?
The 2024 State of Email Trends report answers those questions and many more.
Surveys, Polls, Forms, & Progressive Profiling: Writing Questions that Deliver Valuable Insights
Posted on February 21, 2024
With the end of third-party cookies, brands are increasingly focusing on collecting more zero-party data directly from their customers and prospects so they can better understand their needs and wants. While larger surveys will play a role, most brands will gain insights a few answers at a time through signup forms, profile pages, polls, and other forms of progressive profiling.
It sounds simple, but writing a good question and collecting reliable answers is harder than it seems. Indeed, things can go wrong:
- Before you write a question
- When writing the question
- When writing answer choices
- Around the timing
- When analyzing the responses
- When repeating data collection
Let’s talk about best practices and things to look out for during each of those steps.
Email Marketing Trends for 2024: Competitive Differentiators
Posted on February 20, 2024
Email marketing is constantly evolving, so it can be difficult to know where to invest your time and energy from year to year. Just a few of the recent changes and challenges that email marketers have had to deal with include:
- Economic uncertainty caused by high interest rates
- New deliverability requirements from Google and Yahoo
- The 2-year anniversary Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection making inactivity management much more difficult
- Generative AI raising concerns and opportunities across the marketing spectrum
To help you prioritize your email marketing efforts this year, we surveyed some of Oracle Digital Experience Agency’s hundreds of digital marketing experts, asking them to rate the current adoption of a range of email marketing technologies and tactics, as well as the impact they predict each of them will have in 2024. We then mapped the results into adoption-impact quadrants.
In this post, we’re looking at the Competitive Differentiators, which are in the low adoption–high impact quadrant. The technologies and tactics in this quadrant are not completely proven, but some companies are already seeing great results from using them. They offer a significant competitive advantage with considerably less risk than our Unproven Opportunities.
But, there are still risks, including the acquisition of smaller providers, frequent process and feature changes as the technology stabilizes, frequent changes in best practices as knowledge grows, changing cost structures, scarcity of needed skills, and other issues. These hassles and expenses are easier to accept, however, because many adopters are already seeing sizable returns on their investments. Their willingness to accept some uncertainty in exchange for good returns gives them a distinct advantage over their competitors, most of whom have yet to embrace these tactics and technologies.
Of the 26 trends we surveyed our digital marketing experts about, seven of them were rated as being in the low adoption–high impact quadrant for 2024. Let’s talk about each of them in turn.
Email Marketing Trends for 2024: Unproven Opportunities
Posted on February 13, 2024
Email marketing is constantly evolving, so it can be difficult to know where to invest your time and energy from year to year. Just a few of the recent changes and challenges that email marketers have had to deal with include:
- Economic uncertainty caused by high interest rates
- New deliverability requirements from Google and Yahoo
- The 2-year anniversary Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection making inactivity management much more difficult
- Generative AI raising concerns and opportunities across the marketing spectrum
To help you prioritize your email marketing efforts this year, we surveyed some of Oracle Digital Experience Agency’s hundreds of digital marketing experts, asking them to rate the current adoption of a range of email marketing technologies and tactics, as well as the impact they predict each of them will have in 2024. We then mapped the results into adoption-impact quadrants.
In this post, we’re looking at the Unproven Opportunities, which are in the low adoption–low impact quadrant. The technologies and tactics here are not fully vetted and may not generate long-term adoption or impact. There are significant risks that could undermine your investment in part or entirely—including rejection by consumers, inadequate inbox provider support, inadequate digital marketing platform support, the passage of legislative impediments, and other issues.
Because of those risks, most brands will find that the best strategy is to wait and let others work out all the details, uncover the best practices, and stress-test the technologies. However, the pioneering companies who embrace these trends at this early stage may seize a sizable advantage over their competitors.
Of the 26 trends we surveyed our digital marketing experts about, three of them were rated as being in the low adoption–low impact quadrant for 2024. Let’s talk about each of them in turn.
AI Copyright Infringement: People vs. Machines
Posted on February 8, 2024
The New York Times and many other content creators and authors are suing generative AI pioneer OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming they trained their ChatGPT product on copyrighted material without permission nor compensation. These lawsuits have many people asking some variation on the question:
“Should we penalize a chatbot for doing what all human beings do—that is, assimilating information to inform responses—just because it does so more efficiently?”
I’m not a lawyer or legal scholar, but it seems like the answer is almost assuredly yes. That’s because superhuman efficiency and scale routinely leads to abuse. In fact, it’s easy to find compelling examples without even leaving the world of marketing. Let’s discuss a few.
Email’s Not Dead Podcast: The Latest Changes to Email Marketing
Posted on February 6, 2024
Email marketing is constantly changing, which was the driving force behind me writing a 4th Edition of “Email Marketing Rules.” I join Email’s Not Dead podcast hosts Jonathan Torres and Eric Trinidad to talk about the latest edition of my book and the major changes that have happened just since its release last March.
Here’s a rundown of our conversation during the 42-minute podcast:
1:50 – Why we rebranded to Oracle Digital Experience Agency
5:35 – What’s new in the 4th Edition of Email Marketing Rules, and how Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection impacted the writing of it
10:00 – How the two volumes of Email Marketing Rules are different and how they should each be used
18:00 – What’s changed in email marketing since the release of the 4th Edition, with a particular focus on Apple’s Link Tracking Protection
23:10 – The continuing deliverability and list management implications of Mail Privacy Protection as we pass the 2-year anniversary of its launch
29:30 – Why opens are not dead and brands should measure email engagement differently for their MPP-users and non-MPP-users
32:30 – The new Gmail and Yahoo deliverability requirements
Listen to this episode of Email’s Not Dead wherever you get your podcasts or…
The Last Word on January 2024
Posted on February 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
Don’t Be Too Quick to Dismiss Established Best Practices for Email (MarTech)
Data Regulator Fines HelloFresh £140k for Sending 80M+ Spams (The Register)
Three Words and Four Enemies of 2024 (Christopher S. Penn)
Google Is Making It Easier to Unsubscribe from Emails (The Verge)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
In my view, the greatest challenge we face today isn’t the rapid advancement of AI, but the erosion of our social fabric and the polarization within our society. Our fractured information ecosystems have triggered a dangerous backslide in our democracy, largely driven by the… pic.twitter.com/pwjt0ZaHPA
— Sinead Bovell (@sineadbovell) January 4, 2024
email isn’t always easy and sometimes it helps to outsource your user base, super happy they didn’t pick O365 or G+ but they did pick a previous giant, the Y! https://t.co/KeAetkAKhc pic.twitter.com/5QXfVhN7s0
— Keith Kouzmanoff (@emailmp) January 4, 2024
I see no problem here…
While it’s valid in principle, it’s not likely “your” email, or anyone else’s, it’d worth flagging as bad regardless.
— Matthew Vernhout – @emailkarma@deliverabililt.ie (@EmailKarma) January 2, 2024
Noteworthy subject lines
Nuts.com, 1/1 – New Year, New FREEBIE! 🎁
Omaha Steaks, 1/1 – Let’s start 2024 with $20.24 OFF & FREE shipping.
Clinique Online, 1/3 – Happy New Year! Kickstart a fresh routine.
NORDSTROM, 1/3 — Striking neutrals for 2024
Peloton, 1/14 – Peloton’s 2024 wellness trend predictions
Harley-Davidson, 1/16 – H-D Homecoming 2024 lineup just dropped 👇
kate spade, 1/8 – Welcome to the Year of the Dragon
Big Lots, 1/8 – Christmas Clearance 👉 Thousands of items up to 50% off!
😍 The Victoria’s Secret V-Day Shop, 1/22 – These Push-Ups = ALL The Glam
kate spade, 1/23 – It must be love
Uncommon Goods, 1/8 – 25 Valentine’s Day gift handmade with love
NORDSTROM, 1/16 – Your (gift) guide to love ❤️
Neiman Marcus, 1/25 – Valentine’s Day is almost here!
YETI, 1/25 – Last Chance For Free Valentine’s Day Customization
Scout from BARK, 1/30 – Alert: Your dog is expecting a Valentine’s Day gift 😬
Best Buy, 1/30 – Smart TVs as low as $69.99 is a tempting deal, isn’t it? Deck out your entertainment space
vineyard vines, 1/23 – New Sports Tees For 🏈 ⛷️ 🥍 🏂 🏒 Fans
Williams Sonoma, 1/3 – Now trending: 🍋🍋🍋
American Eagle, 1/8 – Just dropped! AE x Mean Girls 👚📒🔥🎀
The Company Store, 1/8 – Meet Our New Rifle Paper Co. Collection
Clinique Online, 1/13 – Ends soon! Clinique x Kate Spade New York gift.
West Elm, 1/22 – Incredible local designs taking the world by storm
Crate & Barrel, 1/11 – Ready to meet our 1600+ new arrivals?
Royal Caribbean, 1/10 – Icon of the Seas is here!
Patagonia, 1/2 – How to layer for the snow
Columbia Sportswear, 1/16 – Omni-Heat Infinity™ gear that’s good as gold.⭐
Chubbies, 1/16 – Nobody else is doing swim trunks like this
Huckberry, 1/9 – Ambiguous Dress Codes? Cue Smart Casual.
Gap, 1/30 – Loose is the MOVE
West Elm, 1/8 – Our best-selling sofa is curvy, sexy, cool
AutoZone, 1/4 – Overdue for new headlights?
Crate & Kids, 1/8 – Can you guess what our #1 furniture collection is?
Art.com, 1/14 – 📸See the most iconic images of the 20th century
Mike at Moosejaw, 1/8 – I’m giving you 20% off a full price item.
Abercrombie & Fitch, 1/5 — “Thanks, it has pockets!”
Eddie Bauer, 1/8 – Donate $1 And Plant A 🌲 With American Forests!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Email Geeks Show Podcast: The Trends Shaping the Future of Email Marketing
A Year of Email Subject Lines: Seasonal Inspiration from 2023
First Quarter 2024 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
Effective Customer Messaging during a Weather Emergency
How Testing & Marketing Optimization Drive Website Performance
Accessibility vs. Inclusive Design: 2 Approaches with Similar Goals
The Fifth Quarter: Navigating the Post-Holiday Season [with On-Demand Webinar]
Posted on February 1, 2024
The holiday season doesn’t end on Christmas Day—or even at the end of December. The ripple effects of the holidays can be felt well into the New Year. In acknowledgment of the special conditions that exist from the day after Christmas through mid to late January, many brands recognize this period as Q5, the fifth quarter.
Q5 is characterized by a variety of negative and positive events that all cross-influence each other, including:
- After-Christmas sales
- Gift returns
- Gift card redemptions
- Self-gifting
- The accumulation of holiday consumer debt
Let’s talk about ways to reduce the negative impacts and boost the positive impacts through smart marketing and other strategies, and end by sharing an on-demand webinar about email marketing performance during the 2023 holiday season.
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
