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Do consumers hate email append?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Al Iverson
It sure looks like they do. Morgan Stewart breaks it down. It looks to me, as it does to Morgan, that consumers are not pleased when a company they've done business with, but not provided an email address to, suddenly start emailing you. When they put you on a mailing list without consent. When a company falsely assumes that a business relationship equates to permission.

Seriously, can somebody explain to me, why would you ever engage in a marketing practice that is going to upset a good 50% of the people who end up on your list?

It's nice to see the data on consumer expectations. It backs up the deliverability side of the equation, the elephant in the room that people have been dancing around for years: Email append grows your lists, grows them into big, dirty beasts that get you blocked and bulked. The biggest, the worst, the most significant deliverability and marketing strategy issues I've dealt with over the past years, they are all due to email append. A company, some well meaning big brand, tells me their list is all opt-in, everybody asked for this mail, and they're just plain stumped as to why the big ISPs don't want to allow it to the inbox. Many discussions and much head scratching later, it comes out that they had done some big email append and magically grew their list by a couple million addresses. And gee, if you back that append data out, suddenly their deliverability improves. (Most of the time it has been Just That Simple.)

As Morgan says, "The belief that marketers can send email to their customers based on a ‘prior existing relationship’—the premise for email appends—is dead. Customers don’t want the practice to continue."

Comments (1)

Real Email Threat #3: Lax Permission

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Morgan Stewart
The issue of permission presents one of the greatest threats to the future of email marketing. According to data shared by Julie Katz at Connections ’09, consumers want greater control over email. They want control over SPAM, they want to be able to unsubscribe from email more easily, and they want greater control over the frequency of commercial email coming to their inboxes.

Click to Enlarge
 
In both 2008 and 2009 we asked consumers to indicate how acceptable it was for them to be contacted via email for “Promotional messages (i.e., sale, special offers) from companies whom you regularly conduct business, but have not specifically asked for ongoing information.” As we outlined in the 2009 Channel Preference Study, consumers’ attitude toward non-permission communications from known companies is souring quickly. In 2009, 50% of consumers considered these messages with unacceptable, nearly doubled from 26% in 2008. The belief that marketers can send email to their customers based on a ‘prior existing relationship’—the premise for email appends—is dead. Customers don’t want the practice to continue.

Click to Enlarge

Nevertheless, the industry continues to allow embarrassing practices like email appending and list rental. Not surprisingly, the only people that fully endorse these practices are those that profit directly from them. The rest of us squirm and manage to squeak out the words, “It can work, if you do it right.” However, few believe that it ever will be done right on a consistent basis. After all, we've been writing about this for quite a while.

There are three interrelated reasons for this. First, as I mentioned in my first post in this series, email is too easy and too cheap. It’s simply easier to do email appends and list rental incorrectly, using an opt-out model that has no regard for permission. The numbers are more impressive--and let's face it, big lists still sound better than little ones. Second, pricing models are still based on match rates and list sizes. These models favor sending to the masses, which in turn favor the opt-out model. Third, since there are still enough suckers out there who will pay to do it incorrectly, email append and list rental vendors have no incentive to change their revenue model. Given that opt-in revenue models are likely to be less lucrative, it won't change until the issue is forced.

But it may already be too late for email append and list rental companies.

While the industry has failed to police itself, two entities with the ability to make real changes have lined up with consumers. First, ISPs continue to serve the best interests of their customers by increasingly relying on reputation systems that include engagement measures such as opens and clicks to determine if messages should be routed to the spam folder (see What’s in store at the ISPs 2009-2010 from Pivotal Veracity). Second, Canadian Parliament continues to push forward Canadian Electronic Commerce Protection Bill C-27 which mandates an opt-in standard.

Comparatively, US CAN-SPAM laws are notoriously weak, making the joke that US CAN-SPAM laws say, “yes, you can spam consumers so long as they can opt-out.” Unfortunately,  Unfortunately, many companies use this law to condone their continued distribution of non-permission email. In short, the US Law falls short of meeting customer expectations—again more than half of consumers believe non-permission email is unacceptable, even when it's from a known company. This doesn’t support an opt-out standard. I interpret this as, “there is no excuse for sending email without the express consent of consumers. Period.”

Interestingly, in the same comparison of opt-in promotions from 2008 to 2009, there was no change. Consumers believe permission-based email is highly acceptable. In fact, given the choice, 75% of US consumers (see the 2009 Channel Preferences Study) and 74% of UK consumers (see Strategy Meets Customer Expectations) prefer to receive permission based promotional messages through email.

It’s simply that we need to draw a hard and fast line. Opt-in permission should be the only standard by which we live. Not supporting efforts to eliminate questionable practices in our industry reflects poorly on the industry as a whole. After all, as Matt Blumberg, CEO of ReturnPath, recently wrote, “What's good for consumers is great for direct marketers. Marketing is not what it used to be, the lines between good and bad actors have been blurred, and the consumer is now in charge.” Amen!

It's time we completely honor consumers' preference for an opt-in standard. We can no longer afford to lend any support, even passively through silence, those who don't.
Comments (2)

What is ExactTarget Embedded?

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Eric Hensley
As one of the newest members of the ExactTarget Partner organization, I am tasked with managing and growing relationships with ExactTarget’s Embedded Partners.  On its surface, that sounds pretty straightforward.  However, for the past several months, I have been trying to better define around what an “Embedded” partner truly is.  There are multiple ways to define the topic, depending on who you ask.   And, in my experience, most of the answers I have heard are right in some way or another.

However, the official definition is that ExactTarget Embedded Partners are typically ISVs that go to market with messaging as a part of their platform. As an Embedded Partner, your software product's user interface contains features and functionality that enable your customers to manage the process of creating and executing email campaigns (as well as SMS and Voice).  This is about the most comprehensive and accurate description I can come up with myself.  But, with the growth in popularity of “Cloud Computing”, I believe it is and will be much more than that.

Cloud computing has garnered a lot of media attention in the past year or so as the next big technological breakthrough.  But, in my opinion, the concept isn’t really all that new.  Companies have always looked for ways to combine technology services in a more commoditized way to drive efficiency and cost savings.  Amazon.com has been doing cloud computing within the company for a long time.  Essentially, that is the exact same goal for cloud computing.  I think the biggest difference with cloud computing is that the concept is getting turned outward to the Internet, hence the “cloud” tagline. As more companies sign on to utilize these services, the less they will be inclined to build internal infrastructure to support corporate applications. 

Think of the advantages:

    *No capex/low capex to get started

    *Highly scalable with on-demand allocation of resources

    *Reliability of multi-location architectures

So how does messaging fit into the cloud?  I see integrated messaging becoming its own service or platform in the cloud.  Just like clients are looking to Salesforce.com to quickly and efficiently deploy CRM as a service, why not for marketing and other communications?  It even makes more sense when you look at what the future of ISVs might be.  More and more we are seeing a drive towards SaaS applications.  Do you think it makes sense for a CRM or Print-on-Demand application provider to build their own messaging infrastructure?  Probably not for several reasons, the most obvious being, it’s not their core competency.  They will continue to be focused on what pays the bills.  But, will they be eager to provide a marketing communication platform to their customers….absolutely.  These companies will turn to partners that are similar to them…on-demand/SaaS/Cloud Computing…whatever the tagline of the week is.  Why, because it provides the same advantages to them as to their clients, mainly low/no capex, highly scalable, and reliable service.  This is where ExactTarget Embedded becomes the Messaging as a Service platform for the cloud.

Obviously the push towards SaaS and Cloud Computing is real.   As the industry continues to evolve, so will ExactTarget Embedded and our partners.  Our robust and flexible integration capabilities will allow ExactTarget to become the industry leader in Messaging as a Service.
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E-Mail Plus is the Key to Success

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Kevin Nuest
Our very own Joel Book recently wrote an article that was featured in Online Strategies Magazine. The article, E-Mail Plus, addresses how to integrate your email efforts with other vital marketing campaigns, platforms, and tools to drive extraordinary results.

In the article, Joel talks about how companies like Johnston & Murphy, Pet Place, and the Cable Shopping Network leverage Email + Analytics. Also discussed is how companies like Carmax, Powell's Books, and Dreamfields Pasta successfully integrate a Email + Social Media strategy into their marketing efforts.

To see more amazing examples, you can check out Joel's posts about Motorcycle SuperStore, Mike's Carwash, and Gordman's.
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The Nightmare Before Christmas

Friday, October 23, 2009 by Karen Balle

When my nephew was much younger, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas together on VHS until the tape broke.  He even thought his name was Jack the Pumpkin King!  The soundtrack will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. 

Not only is this one of the best movies of all time, but it's a wonderful commentary on the state of email marketing during the holiday season.  I don't just mean that trying to get email delivered is a nightmare starting around Halloween or that marketers find themselves in somewhat different situations than they're used to during the rest of the year.  The flow of the movie and the soundtrack fit with how email marketing happens during the holiday season.  It happens every year. 

There's a dramatic uptick in all email marketing, be it legitimate email marketing or spam, that starts when the weather gets cold.  Some years, it triples or quadruples normal email volume.  And that means slower mail servers, more filters, more complaints, and slower response times.  It also means overworked, cranky mail and abuse admins.  I know.  I've been one of those cranky abuse admins.

The rules surrounding email deliverability, which are confusing enough, get more complicated during this time of year.  It feels like every company you have ever driven past and every partner of theirs is vying for your attention.  There are a lot of little things that you can do, from holiday ramp-up strategies to promoting special holiday-only marketing campaigns that draw customers in.


I'll leave you for now with this very important thought.

Engagement is more important than ever.  If you don't get the attention of your recipients, you'll find your email in the spam folder or blocked during your most crucial sales period.

As I've been writing this, the song "Making Christmas" has been running through my head.  It makes me want to ask which mindset do you have for your email campaigns, going into this holiday season?

"Snakes and mice get wrapped up so nice with spider legs and pretty bows. 
It's ours this time."
(Your focus is on your ideas of what your recipients should want.  You reach years back into your subscriber database.  You send out email to people who didn't give you permission.)

Or
"This thing will never make a present.  It's been dead now for much too long.
Try something fresher, something pleasant."
(Your focus is on what your customers are really interested in.  You're interested in actively engaged subscribers rather than the number of subscribers on your list.  You use dynamic content to create a one-to-one experience for your customers.)
 

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Across the Pond

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Amanda Cross
I can hardly believe I work in a multi-national company.

I mean, I've worked in multi-national companies before--my last company had an office in Exeter, England--but I wasn't there when it happened. Back then, it just meant that I had to come into the office early to get one phone calls with them and learn to drop the serial comma when I edited their documents. Now, it means I have actual friends there who will show me around if I ever get a chance to visit.

ExactTarget expanded into England via the acquisition of Keymail Marketing, already an established partner in Europe. Our application already supported multiple character sets for your email and landing pages messages in languages other than English, as well as sending SMS and voice messages to many different countries. But with this move, ExactTarget becomes an even better partner for your multi-national marketing campaigns.

Because we're there man.
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Is Mobile Email Driving Consumers to a Disappointing Experience?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Morgan Stewart
As outlined in our recent whitepaper, Is Email Marketing Endangered?, Smartphones are a major force behind consumers increasing consumption of email. As such, the importance of mobile email for email marketers will continue to increase. While the solutions remain less than ideal, Mark Brownlow has done a wonderful job of summarizing the challenges of mobile email and linking to useful resources on the topic.

But getting mobile email to work is only the first step. Assuming your email is successful in getting consumers to your site, they need to be able to actually do something. This appears to be a challenge. According to new research from Equation Research commissioned by Gomez Inc., end users are disappointed with their mobile web experience.

Among findings of the report:

60% of consumers have encountered a problem when accessing a website from their mobile phone during the past 12 months

The number one reason cited was slow load times (73%). There are a number of factors that may impact load times that are out of marketers’ control. However, the other top reasons are all things that marketers should be able to test and rectify:
 
    * 51% experienced errors or crashes on the mobile site
    * 48% said formatting of the mobile site made it difficult to use
    * 45% had issues with the site functioning as expected

Among common formatting errors, the study identified content that is too large or too small for the screen, links that do not work, and overlapping or illegible text and graphics.

Poor mobile experiences impact brand perception
Consumers have high expectations of mobile sites—they should load quickly, look good, and function properly. The consequences of not meeting these expectations are also high. While it makes sense that consumers would be less likely to visit the site again (61%) and that they would visit a competitors site (40%), the negative impact on the brand at large is more alarming:

* 23% would be less likely to purchase from that company
* 19% would have a negative overall impression of the company
* 18% would be less likely to go to the company’s website on their regular computer

If mobile experiences impact consumers’ willingness to interact with companies at large, we can’t think of mobile as simply another channel. It is part of the communication landscape at large. It is not about developing mobile campaigns, it is about facilitating users ability to get the information they need at their convenience.

Thus, not only do optimizing mobile email and optimizing the mobile web go hand in hand, but both of these go hand in hand with optimizing our traditional email and web experiences as well. It’s all connected.

Take a look at the full report Why the Mobile Web is Disappointing End-Users.
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Do people really report legitimate email as spam?

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Karen Balle

Gmail and MSN Hotmail have recently started offering an unsubscribe link instead of a report spam button for some permission-based mailing lists, using the hidden X-List-Unsubscribe header that many email marketers and ESPs include in their emails.  It makes sense, as many people use the This is Spam button instead of unsubscribing from opt-in email. 

A customer asked us for some solid numbers on their unsubscribes, as they're trying to make some internal decisions on how to handle their unsubscribe process.  I knew the number of subscribers who click on the spam button was significant, but the numbers were eye-opening.  I looked at data for almost 80,000,000 emails sent (Yes, 80 MILLION emails), with complaint rates that never came near where an ISP would block and bounce rates that would make you drool. 

17% of unsubscribes came from customers who hit reply and asked to be removed.
43% of unsubscribes came from customers who followed the unsubscribe link in the email.
40% of unsubscribes came from customers who clicked the This is Spam button.

That's right.  40% of legitimate unsubscribes came through the feedback loop as a complaint.  ISPs take this figure into account, but it should give you something to think about next time you look to expand your email campaign. 

Even though they recognized the brand.

Even though they signed up for the email.

Even though they recently purchased from the company.

Even though many of them will continue to purchase services from this company.

On a list with engaged and active subscribers, 40% of the subscribers who no longer wanted to receive promotional materials that they had signed up for used the spam button instead of the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

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Google's Kind of a (B2B) Big Deal

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Al Iverson
Google employees Tom Oliveri and Vivian Leung point out over on Google's blog that Google Apps has gotten very popular in the B2B email hosting space. Google Apps, if you're not aware, is basically private-label Gmail for your domain.

I've been using it to host my personal email domain for a few years now, and I love it. And I'm apparently not the only one -- Google says that "over two million business and 20 million users in over 100 countries and more than 40 languages" have adopted Google Apps.

What does that mean to you? It means that Gmail's spam filtering matters to you if you're a B2B sender. Lots and lots of companies use Google Apps for email, and the spam filtering is exactly the same as Gmail's spam filtering. (And engagement rules at Gmail!)

(H/T: Mark Brownlow via Tamara Gielen)

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Live Blog: Financial Services Solution Showcase

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Cross
We've got quite a change of pace in the ol' developer track conference room. Chris Murray of ExactTarget is the emcee for the Financial Services Solution Showcase.

He starts by introducing the first segment:

Beyond Deliverability: Consumer Choice & Control
Authentication, Privacy, and Policy
by Craig Spiezle
https://otalliance.org

The Online Trust Alliance is concerned with security in online activity, especially financial services. Spoofed email, phishing, and online exploits are a major challenge for financial organizations that operate online.

Craig said that government regulations are likely to come about in the next few weeks as a result of the identity theft incidents that we've heard of recently. Craig said that the United States is actually behind other parts of the world in consumer production.

Craig discussed extended validation certificates. In order to get one of these certificates, the business must prove that it's registered with a local tax authority. While this can't verify that the business has good business practices, but it does require that the business be a real business. When a business has this certificate, it turns the address bar in your browser green when you visit their site. If the address bar isn't green, you know that it's a spoofed site.

He continued to talk about the business value of authentication. Not only does this help protect your business from being spoofed, but also improves your deliverability.

Of the top 100 financial institutions in North America, only 43% have protections in place for consumers.

Craig talked about the problem with unsubscribe: an unsubscribe link in the footer of the email is required by CAN-SPAM, but consumers are warned not to click links in emails they don't want for fear that they'll alert spammers that they're a real person. An unsubscribe header allow ISPs to render an unsubscribe link in their client so that people can unsubscribe without clicking the "report as spam" link and degrading your reputation. About this time, someone from ExactTarget piped up to mention that ExactTarget email already does this automatically.

Addressing Email Security Concerns
Matt Burton - GMAC/Ally Bank

Matt talked about Ally bank and the fact that its customers were receiving more spoof emails that were pretending to be from Ally as they were receiving from the real bank.

Ally Bank, like many places, would love for there to be a "silver bullet" that would solve the problem, but in fact the best way to protect consumers is with a combination of proactive monitoring, excellent deliverability of your legit content, and customer education.

Governance, while unpopular, is critical. If your company has multiple business units, ALL of them have to have successful security.

Some financial institutions do not include links in their emails, instead telling consumers to go to the website. This is problematic because it requires more copy and results in fewer site hits. Also, this doesn't prevent phishing emails from including links in their emails.

Security tools, such as ISP Phish Blocking and Certified Mail, are available to help prevent risk and increase confidence in your message respectively.

Education of consumers can be tricky. Sending emails that tells customers how to tell whether your email is real might make it look like you're a spoofer trying to set them up to trust fraudulent email in the future. Better to just remain consistent in your sending so that consumers become accustomed to your style and learn to identify spoofs on their own.

To wrap up, Matt recommended proactive risk diminuation rather than waiting for a problem happens and only responding then.

Technology Solution
e-statements at Nationwide
Brian Jaffe - Nationwide Insurance

Nationwide was facing a "statement challenge"--sending statements to customers on email. The address this issue, they created an elegant solution.
  • Governance - As part of this process, they codified their program for sending emails.
  • Preference management - allow customers to specify their preferences. Brian recommends double opt in.
  • Billing format - recreate view of paper statement
  • Send mode - bulk or single send. You probably batch up your bills, but some might do individual sends.
  • Data preparation - attributes or data extensions? what is the unique subscriber key? You need to understand your extremes (what happens if you have an extremely large amount of data?) and your data-display issues.
  • Deliverability - decisions about IP and Domain. Learn from your deliverability team!
  • Feedback - decisions about bounce management, reply management. If people unsubscribe and then try to sign up, you could have technical problems sending emails. Make sure you understand how your unsubscribes are managed. And be ready to monitor replies, even if you tell people not to reply to a message.
  • Inserting marketing messages into transactional emails - CAN-SPAM does allow you include marketing messages into your transactional emails under certain circumstances.
Paperless statements can create issues. For example, what if customers call in saying that they never received their statement. Customer service needs to be able to access tracking to see whether the subscriber ever opened the email and have other strategies to deal with these complaints. Customer service needs to be able to resend statements.

Nationwide includes quite a bit of personal information in their emails so that subscribers know that the email must be legit, since a phishing scam wouldn't have access to so much personal information. Watch out for links to log-in pages, since phishing emails like to send very similar emails that direct to their own "login page."

Having a protocol to deal with bounces is wise. In their case, if a subscriber soft-bounces, they put the subscriber back into the paper stream for one cycle and try paperless again for the next cycle. If they run into a hard-bounce, they put the subscriber back into the paper stream indefinitely until the subscriber re-enrolls themselves in the paperless process.

Nationwide's solution is based on the ExactTarget SOAP API. Their OMS (outbound messaging service) is a middleware layer of abstraction that actually sits behind their firewall. Between the OMS and ExactTarget much communication occurs to get the statements out to subscribers.

The content of the eStatement itself uses AMPscript to build the bill by parsing concatenated attributes and dynamically displaying content in appropriate data tables.

Michael Murdza (ExactTarget) took us through the technical aspect of the eStatement data flow. A sophisticated decision tree weave through the Nationwide database and ExactTarget application, using XML, AMPscript, and API calls.

And then the presentation wrapped up, and everyone started getting ready for the evening entertainment. I've really enjoyed live blogging the technology track for everyone today, and I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing it. See you between the lines :)
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Mobile Developers Solution Showcase

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Ratul Shah is the presenter for the first part of the solution showcase. Unlike every other presenter that's talked in this room so far today, Ratul is maneuvering through the crowd with the hand-held mic. What a showman. :)

Industry Standard Terms
  • SMS = short message service, aka text messaging. It has a 160 character limit.
  • MO = mobile originated = a message sent FROM a phone
  • MT = mobile terminated = a message sent TO a phone
  • short code = a 5- or 6-digit number that you buy from a carrier to send messages to your customers. http://www.usshortcodes.com
  • vanity short code = a short code that spells something out, such as our, ETSMS
  • random short code = a short code that doesn't intentionally spell anything. These cost slightly less.
  • private short code = only your traffic goes through this code
  • shared short code = a code that you share with other SMS users. Keywords differentiate your traffic from the traffic of other people on the shared short codes.
  • MMA = Mobile Marketing Association http://mmaglobal.com/policies. A group that creates guidelines for United States mobile marketing.
  • Aggregator = a third party company that maintains connections between the carriers and the content providers. When we provisioning a short code for you, we work with an aggregator to get you approved for all carriers.
ExactTarget SMS Architecture
You create JOIN, VOTE, HELP, UNSUBSCRIBE and other kinds of actions that subscribers use to send you MO messages to get in on your mobile messages.

Unfortunately, you can't create keywords or actions in the API at this point. You can initiate SMS sends through the API, however.

System Terms
  • Subscriber key = unique identifier for subscribers. Allows you to identify subscribers by phone number instead of email address.
  • Publication list = contains subscribers who opt-in using their mobile device
  • Data extension = contains subscribers whom you import through the GUI or the API  
Implementing Text
  • Keyword response - text in and receive a response
  • Mobile capture - captures email address for list growth
  • Vote and check vote count - submit your vote. poll the response
  • Outbound (with opt-in) - a message from ExactTarget to the mobile device
  • Custom campaigns
Wow, Ratul goes through a lot of content fast, and a lot of these slides are very graphics heavy and difficult to translate to blog. Thankfully, everyone at the conference is supposed to be able to get the slides.

FanMail Solution

Dave DeVore - CEO FanMail marketing
Josiah Kaiser - Senior Operations and Solutions Consultant
Tim Kauble - ExactTarget product specialist and world-class AMPscript guru

FanMail Marketing is using SMS to capture email addresses. Initially they were asking subscriber to text their email addresses in this format:

krohn email@example.com to 88769

but they found that customers found this confusing and made errors that prevented the system from capturing their information. So for the next phase, they made it into a 2-stage process to make it more like a conversation. In the new setup, subscribers text in in this format:

stubbs to 88769

then the system sends back an text saying something to the effect of, "Thanks for your interest. Reply to this message with your email address to join our mailing list." When the subscriber responds with the email address, it is added to the email list. The customer gets an email immediately welcoming them to the list, and then any future mailings to that list.

The SMS message that was sent back after the first message included AMPscript to trigger the welcome email.

The first use case resulted in more errors than the second, and people weren't willing to try to sign up more than once. A limitation of both use cases is that it only captures people's email addresses, omitting other important subscriber information that would be useful for relevant messaging .

In the third phase of FanMail's SMS evolution, they integrated their SMS with landing pages to allow the capture of more subscriber information. People text in:

butter to 88769

The system responds with a message saying to respond with an email address. When the subscriber replies with the email address, the system sends them an email with a link to a landing page built with the Smart Capture feature.  People complete the Smart Capture form and now the system has information to send really personalized information. For example, this band (Hot Buttered Rum) uses the subscriber's ZIP code to let the subscriber know about upcoming concerts in their area.

What FanMail discovered was that going through this process aggregated higher quality subscribers who were more likely to be engaged with the marketing campaigns and therefore higher ROI on their marketing efforts.

The future phases of this SMS evolution may allow subscriber to provide attribute information via SMS, such as ZIP code to empower the functionality above.

Another thing that FanMail has discovered is that subscribers are willing to send you SMS messages if they're interested in what you have to offer, but they don't like for you to begin the SMS conversation.

Custom Use Case
Tim Kauble took the stage for the final portion of this presentation. Poor Tim--his phone junked out on him this morning and his data connection didn't work, so we're seeing a modified version of his presentation. Typical of technology!

Tim talked about designing a system to allow him to manage his own tasks using text messages. He wanted to accomplish the following:
  • Accept tasks
  • Assign those tasks
  • Assign priority, including deadlines
  • Expose the tasks to landing pages so that he could see them all
  • Support multiple methods of input, such a forwarding emails to an endpoint that generates a task with the content of the email.
Tim demonstrated texting in to the system to find out how many tasks he had. He had 30, by the way, plus the system also sent him a message to stop messing around with text messages and get back to work. :)

Tim also brought up the landing page where we could see his lengthy task list--such is the life of the ExactTarget employee!
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Live Blog: SMS Text Messaging for Marketers Helps Increase Subscriber Engagement

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Berkey
Text MessagingToday at Connections 2009, I spoke on an industry panel about how SMS Text Messaging fits into the one-to-one marketing campaigns. We had four customers on the panel share their mature SMS marketing strategies. Hearing from the US Navy, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Pier 1 Imports, and Hyperdrive Interactive, the attendees heard one common element throughout each story. In every case, text messages were used to improve subscriber engagement, marked with explicit permission.

The reason why SMS mobile marketing is so successful is because people always have their mobile phones with them, but they may not have their computers handy. People don't leave home without their mobile phones. And as marketers are looking for ways to set themselves apart in the marketplace, SMS mobile marketing can help give them an edge.

Based on the 2009 Channel Preference Study whitepaper, consumers surveyed say they want to receive SMS mobile messages with expressed permission for companies to send transactional messages, time-sensitive alerts such as flight notifications, and operational alerts such as banking messages for suspicious account activities. The key learning for marketers to is understand which messaging channel their subscribers prefer for different types of messages.

A best practice to solve this challenge is to collect your subscriber's preference for marketing channels they prefer for various message types in the future. For marketers considering SMS text messaging, the first step is supporting inbound Text to capture new subscribers to your future drip marketing campaigns.

Capitalizing on real-time interest when you have prospects' attention at a live event or retail location, gives the marketer new possibilities. Seasoned marketers know that offering incentives to potential texters helps drive people to participate in these new campaigns.

When Pier 1 launched their first SMS campaign they captured new subscribers in a younger demographic for future email marketing campaigns. Subsequent drip marketing emails featured a message with a youthful tone and unique offers to help drive conversion. Read more from their story in Mobile Marketer. Texters were incented to engage in order to enter the sweepstakes to win a free Pier 1 Papasan Chair.

Text messaging is all over Connections this year, powered by ExactTarget Text. Check out SMS marketing program examples.

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Live Blog: Best Practices for Utilizing ExactTarget's SOAP APIs

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Cross
We've got a rather thin crowd for the Best Practices for Utilizing ExactTarget's SOAP APIs session. Apparently everyone is already implementing the API in the best possible way...or think they are :)

Manager of the Product Specialist department Dale McCrory returns to the stage for this presentation and starts the session by asking people what topics they would like to see covered today. The first question was on documentation.

YAY! I love when people care about the documentation!

Web Service API Documentation
Dale brings up http://wiki.memberlandingpages.com to demonstrate all of the wonderful web service API documentation that's available there. He takes the group through a technical article on asynchronous processing, the CREATE method, an object, and a property. Bryan Wade, the embedded expert at ExactTarget and emcee of the session, asks how many people in the room have been to the wiki before, and about half of the room had already visited. I think the rest will visit before too long.

Content Management
The second question is about content management and best practices for it. Dale pulls up the AMPscript page in the documentation wiki to find the HTTPGet() function. This function performs a get call against a URL and brings back the content. This tool can be used to interact with an outside system in include the content in the emails.

AMPscript also support XSLT now, so you can interact with ExactTarget with you XML content. The BuildRowSetFromXML() function extends this capability.

Slide Presentation
With the two questions addressed, Bryan prods Dale to get  back to the slideshow. The slides cover:
  • Security
  • Reliability
  • Robustness
  • Flexibility
  • Messaging content
  • Stats retrieval - tracking events

Security
Standards-based SOAP security to support authentication

All calls transmit over an SSL connection. The API supports two forms of security:
  1. Plain text username token. This is what everyone's using right now.
  2. X509 certificate encryption for the username token will be available in the 135 release.
.NET, Java, and PHP work the best with our security. Perl is OK. Ruby, ColdFusion, and ASP have troubles dealing with it because they don't deal well with the standards-based security.

Reliability
In this section, we're talking about synchronous versus asynchronous API processing again. Asynchronous processing adds all calls to a queue to be processed when the system is ready, which prevents API calls from being lost if the server is unavailable for any reason.

Other benefits include:
  • The fact that you get a sub-second response to the fact that the call has been received.
  • You have multiple options to receive results: HTTP post, Email, and the RETRIEVE API call.
  • The ConversationID concept that's used with asynch API processing allows you to resend the same call without worrying that it will actually be processed twice if the system had already queued the request.
Question from the floor: sounds like we need to improve our XML API documentation. That product hasn't been enhanced for quite a while, so the doc has gotten a little stale. There's an item for my to-do list.

Robustness
Dale quotes Wikipedia: "Robustness is the quality of being able to withstand stresses, pressures, or changes in procedure or circumstance."

Triggered sends represent the quickest way to get an email sent from the ExactTarget system. Key points help decide whether to use user-initiated (list-based) sends or triggered sends:
  • How do you want to aggregate tracking?
    List based sends aggregate tracking by job. Triggered sends aggregate tracking over a time period when the triggered send was running.
  • How will email content be made available to the ExactTarget system?
  • How are unsubscribes managed?
    List based sends record unsubs at the list level, or at the All Subscribers level. If a person unsubscribes from a triggered send, they can be unsubscribed from all triggered sends.
  • How large are your lists?
    If you have 1.5 million subscribers, you should start with list based. If you are sending individual messages in response to customer activity, triggered sends are the way to go.
You can keep your subscriber information in lists or data extensions. To help you decide:
  • Are attribute sets going to be the same for all sends? 
    If so, you can use lists because you set up attributes for all lists together. If you need different attribute sets for different subsets of clients, then you want data extensions.
  • Is import performance critical?
    If you have 1.5 million subscribers to import, you can import them into a data extension in 10 minutes versus 1-2 hours for a list (this is an approximation...the number of attributes has a big effect on performance as well).
  • How will unsubscribes be managed?
    Each list maintains its own unsubscribes. Data extensions maintain unsubscribes in publication lists.
  • Bonus point not in the slide: if you are a partner building an application, you probably want to build on lists if possible, because they cost less.

Flexibility
This topic starts with a discussion of data extensions. Data extension are
  • The only way to use the API to do "rich" queries of data
  • The way you can add relational models of data en masse or row-by-row
  • Very fast
  • Tables in our database schema that are specific to your account
The DataExtension WS API object
  • Allows the use of upsert
  • Ties to the DataExtension by CustomerKey (called "external key" in the GUI)
  • Allows specification of Keys and Nulls
  • There's also a DataExtensionObject that you can retrieve to bring back a row in the data extension.
Messaging Content
Email, images, and files, oh my!

Text-only email will be supported with 135, in addition to the HTML and HTML/Text multi-part formats.

The Portfolio object allows you to host files in ExactTarget. Images and files that you import into our system are hosted by Akamai, so when people hit these files, they are highly available and don't use your company's bandwidth.

Using AMPscript, you can attach files to your email, but you should use this feature with caution. There's a page for the documentation that's going to be published very soon that talks about best practices for attachments so that you can protect your deliverability while using this feature.

Stats Retrieval and Tracking Events
We ran out of time for the stats retrieval, so we went straight to question and answer, which went by too fast for me to keep up, especially while I"m still on this documentation cloud. :)
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Brought to you LIVE: ExactTarget’s API Vision and Roadmap - Past, Present, and Future

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Caitilin Landrigan

10:58 am  So excited! The ExactTarget API enables the extension of our software and some incredible functionality.  Scott McCorkle is going to be speaking, along with Michael Ciancio-Bunch. They have some incredible insight. I am not technical, so I’ll do my best to convey the information presented here.

11:01 am Bryan Wade is introducing Michael Cianco-Bunch and Scott McCorkle.  McCorkle is speaking about our dedication to integration, improving our user experience, and how the API is key with CARBON-check it out online!

11:03 am Michael is on. We are a young company, but our API has a history. XML API (2002) was created originally only for content management. A bulk Asynchronous API was introduced in 2004.  Our SOAP API was launched in 2007—this is the foundation for our web services …

11:05 am … and actually, the Asynchronous Web Service API became available in 2008.  It seems that not many people are using it right now. Its advantages include quicker calls, better status reporting, and correlating conversation IDs. Start using!

11:07 am First thing we did in 2009 was support compression…coming your way in a release! We’re also beta testing API streaming, which helps with large packets.

11: 09 am Bryan Wade is highlighting current functionality. 

11: 10 am Michael is focusing in on streaming sends: we can send as we receive via the API, with triggered sends for example, instead of waiting until a certain number are received before sending.

11:11 am Did you know API calls are up 1.5x from last year? “This amount of use is a testament to the fact that the API is now better. More people are able to use it.”-Michael.

11:13 am What does the future of the API look like? The API is a platform to help customers and partners to integrate.  Michael is saying that there are a number of tools that allow us to integrate, extend, and embed ExactTarget.  These tools support functions not possible with just the API.  Here are a few of the tools: Programs, landing pages, AMPscript … the list goes on.

11:15 am There was a huge “Hoorah!” from someone when Michael announced the introduction of a REST API.  File based API and Authenticated Asynchronous API Results Callbacks are on the horizon as well.

11:17 am A user is asking about tracking a file that is sent with new API functionality … You could give the file a conversation or correlation ID so you don’t have to worry about re-using file names.

11:18 am Why is the Authenticated Asynchronous API Results Callback so great? You don’t have to fish for errors with queries! BIG question…what is the timeline for delivering these advancements? … Next year! Be on the lookout!

11:19 am We’re changing topics to landing pages and their use for creating Profile Centers, subscriber capture, and promotion pages. The beauty of landing pages is that they extend the user interface and can be integrated with ET.

11:23 am More on landing pages! You can embed them within your application. Sign-up forms are an example.

11:25 am ExactTarget’s API roadmap … One set of items is pre-built templates “encapsulating some application function (e.g. Send Wizard, Data Extensions, etc).” … There is so much more information to convey here …. Trying to get it all down!

11:26 am Java will be supported on landing pages.  This is great news!

11:27 am “AMPscript is the future!” says Michael … just kidding … Java is going to eventually replace it. ExactTarget also wants to introduce JavaScript activities like data transformation and user defined functions. There is a lot on this roadmap! It is clear that ET is truly focusing on product development.

11:30 am Looking now at Data Integration … We want users to be able to import from external systems and export to them as well.  Data cleansing is also on the horizon, in addition to a number of other functionalities to help users integrate data. We have our sight on breaking down barriers that keep us from being an open platform.

11:34 am Again, we have a lot of information here! I strongly recommend reaching out to some of our developers while you are here.

UI Extensibility: even more features are coming. As a user, you will have the ability to define a custom home page, add buttons, add tabs to our toolbars, and add custom fields to forms.  McCorkle talked about building a user experience in our user interface. What a concept! It will allow a great degree of customization in each user’s account.

11:38  am The Program feature is going to be further developed as well. Whoa - EXCITING: templates will also be available for programs.  For example, there will be a template for a birthday program in the user interface.   This functionality will be extremely helpful for marketers and programmers with limited resources. 

11:41 am Question time! Yes folks, the API is almost too good to be true … and yet it is!

11:43 am Now we’re talking about Enterprise 2.0. With the API you can do things in the application “on behalf” of users without exceeding their permissions.  You will also be able to access objects in multiple business units via the API in 2.0. 

11:49 am And in closing…share your ideas! Let ExactTarget know how, as a developer, we can improve 3sixty for your use. Quite a few people in the crowd here use 3sixty and some of those are members of the Developer Community.  This community needs to be more active. We have deliver 100+ ideas on 3sixty so far…let your voice be heard!

Coming to you live from Connections ’09!  Enjoy the rest of the conference!

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Connections 09: More Subscribers Rule

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Shelly Griffin
This  morning I am attending Connections 09 breakout session focused on growing your email marketing subscriber base with Morgan Stewart serving as commentator.  This concept is a great follow-up to my recent posts on how to grow your email marketing list.

8:30am - 50% of consumers consider non-permission email from companies that they are familiar with as Spam...that number has doubled year over year.

8:45am - what are they keys to growing your subscriber base?  Asking basic questions of your subscribers...do they want to receive email from you and what kind of email do they want to receive?  Then what?  Make sure you have a strong follow-up after registration.  Don't leave your subscribers hanging. 

9:00am - Email and social networking...building stronger relationships through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.  You can offer exclusive discounts through these networks to drive subscribers to your email list.  Ensure that the process is a closed loop...getting subscribers to a landing page with good creative and a good call to action and then getting the data you need to be able to market to that subscriber.  Knowing the source from where your subscribers some...whether from co-registration pages, social networks, referrals (forward-to-a-friend).  Between the source and the data, you can drive the right message to each subscriber and stop "marketing to the masses".

9:10am - List append is "bad"...it may make you money but you just left the taste of spam in your subscribers mouth. 

9:15am - the number of tactics and touch-points that can be used to grow ur subscriber list can and should be many...your subscribers are not just sitting at their computers looking through the internet.  They are on the go, so you need to be where they are - mobile, Facebook, Twitter, print - everywhere.
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Scary: Organizational Identity Theft through Email

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Amanda Cross
According to KHOU.com, the website component of channel 11 News in Houston, Texas, someone posing as a local religious group sent a broadcast email attacking a local mayoral candidate. The religious group apparently had nothing to do with the email.

As a result of the scam, the group's president, Rev. Willie Write Jr., "has received hate calls from people who told him they no longer want to be associated with his group."

At the same time that this is scary, it also demonstrates what a big impact a group's email communications have on the people who receive them. It's a worthwhile investment to partner with an excellent email communication company that helps protect and assists you in portraying your brand the way you want it to.
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The Success of Behavioral Targeting: Earning Consumer Trust

Friday, October 9, 2009 by Caitilin Landrigan

A recent study performed by the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center reports that Americans believe marketers should not advertise to them based on preferences and behavioral data…But why?  In a marketplace of abundant information and almost innumerable and varied products, why don’t consumers desire some assistance to narrow down their selection?  Why don’t people appreciate that marketers want to provide them with relevant advertising?  If I am going to see advertisements on a website…and there is no question that I will…I would much rather see advertisements that pertain to my interests.  Wouldn’t you? 

The Annenberg/Berkeley study reports that 66% of Americans do not want to see website ads that are tailored to their interests.  This sounds discouraging, but I believe the information provided by this study offers valuable insight for marketers seeking to capitalize on relevant, 1 to 1 marketing efforts.  This study’s stats highlight consumers’ desire for control and trust—observations that can inform behavioral web and email marketing strategy.

Advertising preference is not the only metric this study provides, as eMarketer’s article “Behavioral Targeting Misses Mark” points-out.  There are several other, seemingly contradictory metrics this study reports that can help us solve this puzzle.  For example, close to 50% of Americans would like websites to give them discounts specific to their interests.  Hmmm…So you don’t want to see the ads, but you do want the coupons presented in those ads?  Puzzling…let’s dig deeper. 


eMarketer highlights another Annenberg/Berkeley metric: 67% of all Americans feel that they have “lost control over how their personal information is collected and used by companies,” and at the same time 54% of Americans believe that “existing laws and organizational practices provide a reasonable level of protection for consumer privacy.” 

This issue is one of trust, not necessarily the failure of behavioral marketing.  Consumers like discounts, but people feel as if they have lost control over their personal information, and no one likes to feel like they have lost control. As a Catapult at ExactTarget, I spent two days in Chicago with fellow Catapults, interviewing people on their marketing preferences. Overwhelmingly, people expressed that they felt their personal information was abused by spammers and companies they had no relationship with.  Yes, there are “reasonable” laws regarding consumer privacy, but consumers ask, “Why do I get so much spam?!”  “How did they get my email address?  My phone number?” 

When asked how they felt about tracking on “websites in general,” people stated that they felt behavioral tracking was creepy and “Big Brother-like.”  On the flipside, when given a concrete example, like Amazon.com’s personalized product recommendations that appear when browsing the website, interviewees’ tone changed: “Yes, I find that helpful, but they don’t send me a million emails after I buy something and pester me all the time. And, I have a relationship with them.”

Lesson learned: people want to feel safe, respected, and protected.  Amazon.com is not scary, because they have a trustworthy reputation.  As marketers, we cannot neglect that relationships are the foundation for business.  Leverage your landing pages, emails, voicemails, and SMS organically to build trust with clients, at point of sale, for example.  In your emails, provide a reminder of how clients signed-up.  Provide a link in your emails to a page on your website that explains how you use subscriber information.  Perhaps you should only advertise on trusted websites.  Finally, don’t be abusive: be cognizant of email frequency and content.

I encourage you to check out our whitepapers on building quality lists direct marketing channel preferences. Use our List Growth Advisor for custom recommendations on how to responsibly grow your subscriber lists so that you can leverage subscriber data respectfully and effectively. Behavioral tracking does not have to "miss the mark."

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User engagement. What does it mean?

Friday, October 9, 2009 by Karen Balle

Al Iverson and I spend a lot of time talking about user engagement.  It's been around for a very long time, but it's now a standard for inbox delivery.  How do you define engagement?  Quality over quantity.  Targeted email marketing.  True one to one communication.  But what does it really mean to you?  How does it make for a more effective email marketing campaign?  If permission is king, engagement is emperor.

How do you create an effective marketing campaign that keeps your customers coming  back in the age of DVRs, satellite radio, and short attention spans?  How do you get your customers to pay attention?  This is vital now for inbox delivery.  Yahoo has started measuring whether or not your recipients are spending time reading your email, whether they're looking for you in the spam folder, how vital you are to their daily lives.

I found a gentleman today who gets what it means to really engage with your customers.  You can visit Bob Gilbreath over at Marketing with Meaning and download a chapter of his book, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning.

He gets it.  This concept of engagement, and he calls it meaning.  Marketing now, whether it is effective offline or effective email marketing, can no longer be interruptive to your customers' lives.  Your communications with them need to be not only permission-based but need to add some value to their daily lives. 

When you create email campaigns, what do you do to add value?  How do your targeted email marketing campaigns add to your recipients daily lives?  What do you put in your marketing campaign or to your email newsletter that drives your recipients to want to spend time with your company?

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Indy Integrated

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by Scott Dorsey

It’s never been clearer that the technology industry is thriving in the Hoosier state!  Last week I had the opportunity to participate in Indianapolis’ annual Tech Point Innovation Summit and was elated to see the great high-tech Indiana companies all coming together to learn, grow and thrive as a collective team. 

 

ExactTarget is proud to call Indiana home and partner with our fellow Indiana tech companies like Vontoo, Cantaloupe and Compendium to extend our world-class communications technology to their platforms via the ExactTarget Extensions Network.  The great news is our list of Hoosier integrated partners continues to grow.  Indianapolis-based FormSpring is now Extensions Network certified, making their easy-to-use web collection tools available to all ExactTarget users.  The integration of FormSpring provides our clients a great way to add new subscribers and attributes directly to their ExactTarget account.

 

It’s great to be a part of the Indiana high-tech team and to partner to deliver technologies that are truly making a difference to clients around the globe.

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Get Personal: One-to-One Marketing with Personalized Product Recommendations

Friday, October 2, 2009 by Joel Book
An article in the October issue of Internet Retailer, observes that “although the Internet makes it possible to personalize offers to shoppers, most e-retailers and other online businesses are failing to optimize web site content to improve the chances that shoppers will become buyers.”

Mike Chertudi, vice president of demand and online marketing for Omniture notes, “The majority of businesses aren’t optimizing their on-site conversion,” Omniture has teamed with Marketing Experiments to conduct the 2009 Online Conversion Benchmark Survey. The purpose of the survey, which began in June, is to help online marketers better understand best practices in onsite conversion, and know how they compare to their peers. Data is being compiled from more than 1,000 companies, of which more than half are retailers. Among the findings as of late August: About 80% of retailers don’t present personalized content based on shoppers’ interests suggested by analytics and clickstream data.

One-to-One Merchandising Works for Motorcycle Superstore

Webtrends analytics integration with ExactTargetProving that personalized product recommendations work, Motorcycle Superstore saw a 21.7% revenue increase in the first week after launching an email campaign on September 21st that incorporated personalized product recommendations.

Motorcycle Superstore uses behavioral data -- gathered with WebTrends technology combined with its e-mail marketing application from ExactTarget -- to send email messages with personalized product recommendations. These items appear as “Your Picks” in the lower part of the email and are based on the customer’s website visiting habits over the previous two weeks.

Commenting on the power of data-driven offer personalization, Erick Barney, vice president of marketing at Motorcycle Superstore, says “I believe this feature is so effective because rather than guessing at a handful of products to appeal to our entire customer base, we can merchandise products directly related to each customer’s historical interaction with our store.” Motorcycle Superstore is No. 223 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Learn more about combining precision one-to-one communications and comprehensive web analytics by integrating ExactTarget and Webtrends.
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