People-based marketing is the hot marketing topic of 2018, but email was the original addressable media. In a range of product categories we explore how email IDs and data are being integrated into cross-channel customer data profiles. How are marketers building profiles that drive business goals rather than distract with irrelevant data? How are companies eroding those old silos to build this so-called "Single point of truth?" and who will control the data trove?

But where is the next good lead coming from, and how are marketers distinguishing among the many data and platform providers to locate the lead gen and customer acquisition? We ask two marketers to quiz vendors on how their solutions to the great customer acquisition problem map against their own brands' needs, hope to integrate with internal systems, and even differentiate themselves from one another. 

The lapsed subscriber, the dormant customer, the quiet reader of your emails who hasn't clicked in ages - these are all sleeping prospects just waiting for the right wake-up call. What is driving successful re-engagement programs - messaging, personalized appeals, discounting? And how are marketers making smarter use of smarter data trails to determine winning tactics? Can re-engagement be a strategy now?

Fail fast, but fail well. Sometimes the best lessons come from the biggest crash and burns. We ask our panel of marketing vets to fess up. Where did they learn most from failure? How do you explain these oopsies internally? More importantly, however, we ask how they implemented the lesson to improve the process. 

Re-Engagement Tactics - Sian Desmond, Global Email Marketing Manager, InterContinental Hotels Group
Mastering Email Interactivity - Ryan Phelan, VP, Marketing Adestra 
Failing Upward - Richard Mastriani, Director- Digital Marketing, AmTrust Financial
Attribution - Dela Quist, CEO Alchemy, Worx 

Email automation and message triggering have always relied in some measure on AI, but what is so different about the new capabilities being touted by the current wave of AI hype? We ask our panel of marketers experienced with various levels of email AI to advise on how to start incrementally. Where can machine learning tech and techniques be applied first to personalized drop timings, product recommendations, customer analytics? How should marketers be assessing the new tech offerings and how they integrate with their own stack? Let’s be intelligent about implementing AI.

After all of the technology, segmentation, and in-box interactive razzle-dazzle, if a brand doesn't have a compelling story to tell about itself, your email is not serving the long term interests of the company or the customer. Two true believers int he value of great in-box content discuss how they keep their programs on message.