The From Line

Despite enormous efforts on the part of marketers, email deliverability rates have halted after the first half of 2011, coming in at 81%, according to a study released on September 20th by Return Path. 

Although reasons for this are numerous and often situational, a certain amount of blame in this case can be placed on “priority inbox”. This lovely little tool, created last year by Google, essentially puts a brain within your email account. It sees and records every action and configures message placement accordingly. So what we’re seeing are high reported delivery rates that don’t necessarily reflect the number of messages actually delivered. Technically the provider may have accepted it, but it doesn’t mean it’s landed in the customers’ inbox.

Say goodbye to the days of needing a routing number or credit card to pay a store or vendor electronically. Say hello to a real game changer in electronic payments that combines mobile email, SMS and QR codes. Big banks are partnering to allow phone-to-phone, bank-to-bank payments.

Read more to learn what this means for merchants, e-tailers and marketers...

Marketing Trend:

Social media sharing has given marketers a treasure chest of insight into customer opinions and discussions. But tools that measure social media sentiment have their limits. The human element, such as the use of slang, can throw off reports.

This week's trend discusses better ways to be engaging while gaining feedback and valuable marketing data.

This week we look at a way for marketing campaigns to increase their exposure through better timing of tweets. Automated tweeting of an email message or blog post is common. But there are ways to repurpose that same tweet for better engagement, more retweets and increased subscriber/follower base. Tools to help you test are available, and various tweet methods can be used to find the right timing for your business.

TREND:

In growing efforts to combat email SPAM, ISPs continue to put more power into consumers’ hands. Consumer desire for controlling SPAM (or perceived spam) is what drove Gmail and Hotmail to introduce priority in-boxes, a way for the user’s interaction with emails to be used to determine future in-box placement.

The key word in this trend is “perceived.” Many marketers following email best practices still find themselves managing SPAM complaints through feedback loops. So why is this happening?