Essence of Email Weekly

Hey there!

After a short holiday break, we’re back and ready to rock! As usual, expect hand-picked email marketing and eCommerce news delivered to your inbox each Friday.

And to start the new year right, we’ve created another Essence of Email Quarterly report! In this edition, we’ve compiled all the relevant news, innovations, and events from 2021. Digital marketing trends, email marketing, email service providers news, cybersecurity, innovations that can help email marketers in 2022, it’s all there.

The report will be out next Friday, so make sure you check your inboxes on January 21.

Cheers!

Email marketing is constantly changing. Even more so since the pandemic started. With the rise of online shopping and home deliveries, the number of emails sent has been consistently increasing, but it’s expected that the number of emails that will be sent every day in 2022 is estimated to be 333.2 billion — astonishing!

What’s it all about: This means that the competition in people’s inboxes has never been stronger. However, there are ways to stand out with smart planning, segmentation, and content. Here are some useful insights to get email marketers informed and ready for 2022.

With Apple’s privacy update that went into effect in September, open rates became less reliable. Marketers will need to focus on clicks and overall email engagement if they want to get a clear picture of how their emails are performing.

And in 2022, the emphasis will be on 1-on-1 communication with subscribers and customers. The notion that email marketing is a one-way form of communication will have to be changed. Marketers are suggested to encourage interactivity, ask for replies, and make communication with audiences a two-way street.

During the course of one year, about a quarter of an email list goes bad. But in 2020 and 2021, email lists have been churning even faster.

There are plenty of reasons why this happens, but an important factor is that many people had their employment situation changed. In “The Great Resignation”, millions of people left their jobs or retired early. Their work email addresses needed to be deactivated, which is one of the reasons for a considerable acceleration in data decay.

It’s important to note that because of this, emails might easily go to spam. That’s why it’s crucial to periodically organize a list cleaning and get rid of these contacts to save your sending reputation.

Static emails will be a no-no in 2022. Since all the focus will be on click rates and other engagement rates, marketers need to create engaging emails. Interactive elements will not only boost engagement rates but will also help obtain zero and first-party data. Which is, bearing in mind the increasing privacy regulations, very important.

Marketers can use different interactive elements such as quizzes, carousels of images people can swipe, videos, sliders, games, etc.

Keep in mind we’re entering the third year of the pandemic, and things are still unpredictable. Make sure to stay in the loop and monitor the market and customer behavior, as being vigilant and flexible is the only way to stand out from the competition.

Constant Contact, a Massachusetts-based digital marketing platform, is acquiring Vision6, a provider of SMS and email marketing software based in Brisbane, Australia. The terms were not disclosed and the deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2022.

Zoom in: The acquisition brings together two companies focused on serving government agencies, marketing agencies, small businesses, and nonprofits. It’s also Constant Contact’s attempt to achieve growth in the Australian market while Vision6 hopes to leverage the “depth” of Constant Contact’s solutions.

“The acquisition brings us a strong management team with a deep commitment to serving Australian customers,” said Frank Vella, Constant Contact CEO.

Rewind: Vision6 was founded in 2001 and provides marketing tools combined with data security to thousands of clients. Constant Contact, on the other hand, went from being an email marketing company to a firm that helps small businesses with social media, SEO, and other channels. They rebranded and created several eCommerce and website tools back in 2020.

The big picture: Marketing technology is evolving and raising expectations for consumers when it comes to their engagement with small businesses and nonprofits. To meet the demands, the solutions need to be one-stop, which is exactly what this acquisition provides. It will come in handy for users who want all of their channels taken care of in one place, by one company.

Ecommerce brands, attention!

Microsoft Advertising announced it added new enhancements to Shopping campaign reporting. Other advertising features will be expanded this month.

The deets: The Shopping campaigns reports have been enhanced for the products tab with two new enhancements — Performance and Conversions. Performance will let advertisers see metrics such as clicks, impressions, average CPC, average CPM, and spend. Conversions will let them monitor conversions, revenue, return on ad spend, and all conversions.

What else is new? Additionally, Microsoft has removed the minimum spend requirement to use Customer Match targeting with email match. It said that the removal “makes it possible for more of you to use this feature that plays an important role in moving into the cookieless world.”

Customer Match lets brands use the email addresses customers have shared to re-engage with those customers across the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network. For now, the feature is available in all markets except the European Union, UK, and CN.

Finally, Microsoft made Audience Ads available to all customers in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

Interactive elements in your emails have the power to capture recipients’ attention and make them take action. This, in turn, creates an outstanding buyer experience.

Basically, recipients are making the switch. They go from passive recipients of information to active participants in the email experience who are able to make their own choices regarding the email you sent and the action that needs to be taken.

This email by Royal Caribbean International is a nice example of how to achieve this. The interactivity, the colors, the copy — all the elements have come together to create a pleasurable and informative email experience.

Such an email might be a bit more time-consuming to create, but it pays off. Great work!