UK Data Protection Update for Digital Marketers: Irritated Brits are a Force to be Reckoned With.

UK Data Protection Update for Digital Marketers: Irritated Brits are a Force to be Reckoned With.

Despite all the talk over here about the EU Data Protection Reform, with its unknown content and unknown timescales, we’ve been relatively calm and relaxed about the whole thing. After all, who has time to worry about something “12-24” months away when you have things which matter now?

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Spamtraps need to be Retired

Spamtraps need to be Retired

Spamtraps are considered by many as the gold standard in proving that someone is a spammer. Secret emails/honeypots/blackholes are the canary in the email coal mine- heretofore absolute proof that you’re a bad actor in the war against spam. We’ve all been taught to believe that spam traps can only end up on your list if you’re mailing old/dead addresses and/or purchasing lists.

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Integrating New Email Addresses into Your Database

Integrating New Email Addresses into Your Database

There may come a time in your career as an email marketer where you’ll be presented with a (legitimate) list that you need to integrate into your database; for example, your company could make an acquisition or you could be taking over marketing activities from another business unit. FierceMarkets has had a flurry of these kind of activities in the last 18 months, and we’ve developed a plan that has been successful so far. I’ll share the main points here to help with any integrations you may face.

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Email Marketing and the Hybrid Cloud

The proliferation of SaaS solutions into the massive and ever-growing cloud ecosystem has been godsend for digital marketers for more than 15 years. The days of expensive, IT intensive, on-premise solutions are largely a thing of the past. However, all the benefits of cloud solutions have not come without a significant...

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Email Marketers Don't Actually Care About Privacy and Permission - Here's Why

Email Marketers Don't Actually Care About Privacy and Permission - Here's Why

"The point I would like to make is that there is a double standard being applied to the email channel and bizarrely this double standard is often welcomed by the email industry. We never seem happier than when someone else moves the goal posts or makes our lives difficult. We seem to think that overcoming obstacles both real and perceived (e.g. being blocked by blacklists creating email addresses out of common misspellings of email address and then blocking you when a clumsy consumer mistypes on registration, Gmail constantly changing the rules) are evidence of how committed we are to permission and privacy. They do not."

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Energize Holiday Emails with Site Search Data

Energize Holiday Emails with Site Search Data

We’re almost there; Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and every other day from Thanksgiving to Christmas will fill up with online shoppers looking for those special gifts. Online businesses will ramp up marketing efforts and website optimization to capture all they can from floods of consumers scouring their inventories. Big and small companies, alike, will be looking for the advantage that makes them stand out this holiday season.

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Everything you Know about Relevancy is Wrong!

Everything you Know about Relevancy is Wrong!

"One of the joys in being a digital/email marketer is that you don’t have to rely on opinion. You can simply run some numbers and decide for yourself."

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CASL The Rebuttal:

CASL The Rebuttal:

Recently fellow influencer Bob Frady talked about “Why CASL is Bad Law“ and one that really isn’t going to stop spam.  Canada ranks as the number 7 global source for spam, producing about 4% of all the spam tracked in the world according to SpamRankings.net. While this pales in comparison to the 38.9% of Global Spam originating from the United States, it is still a major problem and represents a significant threat to consumer privacy.

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Why CASL is Bad Law

Why CASL is Bad Law

"While CASL seems well intended (What? You like spam so much that you won’t try to stop it? You must be a spammer!!!!) it’s a lousy piece of legislation. It’s akin to trying to kill a fly with a hammer. CASL is bad legislation for three simple reasons –"

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Mining for Gold: The Most Valuable Data Sources for the Email Marketer in Order of Importance

Mining for Gold: The Most Valuable Data Sources for the Email Marketer in Order of Importance

"the single most important piece of data for a successful email program is the email address. You may think, "Hey Bob, thanks for that blinding glimpse into the obvious." The truth is, this is a piece of data that if often beyond the control of the email team to actually gather, as this is usually a function of the web team. "

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Pulling the Trigger: Automation alone isn’t enough to drive results.

Pulling the Trigger: Automation alone isn’t enough to drive results.

"With leading marketing technologies already established and new technologies emerging on a seemingly daily basis, marketers are faced with making decisions about how to optimize and deliver results with their technologies of choice."

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Attribution and ROI

Attribution and ROI

"It’s a near certain fact that much of a marketer’s time is spent on analysing specific campaign ROI, or put another way, how much marketing spend was needed to generate a particular sale. It does seem to make sense that if a brand is employing a vast number of channels to reach a customer – PPC, social, email, display – it will want to know how to spend its limited resources, in order to optimise future campaigns. However, I am not convinced that campaign level ROI is the best metric for measuring campaign effectiveness."

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Preparing for CASL? 4 Must Dos!

Preparing for CASL? 4 Must Dos!

"Hopefully Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is not a surprise to you at this point. CASL’s enforcement start date is rapidly approaching on July 1, 2014 and to help you prepare I am offering 4 “Must Dos” for things to accomplish to help you get your Digital Marketing Programs ready and compliant with the legislation. These tips are based on many discussions with marketing professionals, legal professionals, Industry Canada and the CRTC."

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Triggered Email Messages: Evaluate Your Performance with these New Benchmarks

Triggered Email Messages: Evaluate Your Performance with these New Benchmarks

"Epsilon released its Q4 2013 Email Trends and Benchmarks Report earlier this month and there’s some exciting new data here on triggered messages that will help marketers evaluate their email programs." Epsilon released its Q4 2013 Email Trends and Benchmarks Report earlier this month and there’s some exciting new data here...

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Relevance is Irrelevant

Relevance is Irrelevant

"I call bullshit. Because - in email- relevance is irrelevant, once the consumer chooses you. (Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth music.) Why do I know this? Statistics."

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Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion Rate Optimization

"Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the technical term for strategically planning your tests. It’s the active process of defining the metric you’re trying to optimize, creating several hypotheses about what tweaks in your campaigns may increase your conversion rate, and measuring the effect of each hypothesis. It applies equally to email and landing pages, but I’ll limit the discussion here to email as much as possible."

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What’s next? Why Inbox data will fuel the next wave of email innovation

What’s next? Why Inbox data will fuel the next wave of email innovation

"Where are the big opportunities for email innovation over the next several years? My bet is on the Inbox."

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Leveraging Your Next Logical Product to Create Repeat Customers

Leveraging Your Next Logical Product to Create Repeat Customers

"If you’re a marketer, you’ve no doubt heard about the 80/20 rule. For those of you who haven’t, it’s simple: 80 percent of your revenue comes from 20 percent of your customer base.If that is indeed the rule, it means the vast majority of your business is coming from repeat customers....

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The Creepy Side of Email and Big Data

The Creepy Side of Email and Big Data

"Personalization is touted in email circles as a positive. I tell clients all the time that including a recipient's first name and other personal details in a message has been shown to increase engagement. But there are times when personalization can be creepy."

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Why Testing is Hard

Why Testing is Hard

"The question is, if everyone wants to test, then why isn’t everyone testing? The answer is that testing is simple in concept but really, really hard to execute. But not for the reasons you think."

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