Hi David, tell us about yourself and your background.
I started my career as a direct marketer in magazine circulation. That means I was running a subscription business well before ‘software as a service’ and doing the kinds of analysis that today is common when analyzing online advertising results.
Email services company iContact is expanding into search engine marketing with the purchase of Moz. iContact is owned by J2 Global, which owns dozens of companies including email providers Campaigner, Communicator, SMTP, and Kickbox.
Big Tech is under attack from many directions these days. The latest blow was landed in France, which reached an $268 million anti-trust settlement with Google that also requires changes to give competing ad platforms equal access to Google’s ad server and Ad-X ad exchange. Critics felt the fine was too small to matter.
Just over half of consumers (54%) like to receive personalized messages because they show the consumers are known to the brand, plus they can be time savers. The rest (46%) find it at best unimportant, at worst creepy. Relevance far outstrips personalization when it comes to driving email opens (54% vs. 19%). Takeaway: treat each customer the way they prefer.