ExactTarget's $95.5 million acquisition of marketing automation company Pardot last week reflects a maturing email services marketplace, where companies are aggregating increasingly sophisticated services into a single platform in order to obviate the customer need to piece together a best-of-breed solution with multiple providers. Marketing automation in particular underscores the move towards individually targeted emails, which reach customers at the peak of engagement and command higher click rates. 

New research from GetResponse has found that an email's open rate is highest within the first hour of receipt. During this period messages in the study saw a 23% open rate. The emails remaining unopened in the inbox between one and two hours saw the open rate plummet to 9.5%, and during the next hour to 6.3%. The research also found that the most responsive send times were between 8am - 10am, and 3pm - 4pm. 

Anyone who has emailed Paul Jones, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, since June 1, 2011 has received an auto-response informing the sender that he is no longer on email and not coming back. After analyzing all of the communications channels available, Professor Jones decided that email took the most time and yielded the least useful communication, and said that "holding onto email is like a bike racer on training wheels." Instead, he can be reached through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Skype, even YouTube - almost anyplace but the inbox. On Thursday of this week he will give a talk about …

StrongMail today announced the release of MessageStudio 7.1, enhanced with new CRM features. Third-party data overlay and enhanced lifestyle marketing capabilities highlight the new functionality.

Last year, 18% of shoppers made purchases on mobile phones, a figure that is expected to multiply this year. Retailers can be prepared for the mobile rush by designing emails with mobile users in mind, optimizing content and offers to engage users who are on-the-go and easily distracted, and understanding the crosschannel holiday consumer buying cycle. Read the full article at MultiChannel Merchant.

Facebook launched Custom Audience Ads three weeks ago, allowing marketers to retarget their existing customers and prospects on the site by uploading a list of their email addresses and/or phone numbers. Some early results are emerging, showing that the program is yielding worthwhile ROIs with respect to customer re-engagement and conversion. 

Any retailer already knows that email influences online holiday shopping. Well now we know how much - 80%. That is the percentage of respondents to a new survey by Yesmail who claim that email promotions "somewhat" or "strongly" influence their decision to buy online. Another key point in the study is that fully 1 in 5 have already begun their holiday shopping by October, which helps explain this year's season-creep.

Google faces another privacy related lawsuit this week, as two plaintiffs have sued the company for violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The plaintiffs allege that in order to insert targeted ads, Gmail intercepts their communications without permission. The law stipulates that a person must be doing the intercepting, which Google denies as its ad targeting is automated. The plaintiffs counter that for the purposes of the lawsuit Google's computers should be considered a person. 

After J.C. Penney has publicly jettisoned its coupon strategy after finding that it conditioned customers to only purchase with a sizable discount, a recent email from the retailer's CEO containing a barcode good for $10 off has raised industry watchers' eyebrows. While the company insists that the barcode is a "gift" and not a coupon, analysts are not so convinced and expect the retailer to backpedal from its every day low pricing and issue more coupons via email and other channels during the holiday season. 

Email marketing may be the least sexy topic in the search world today, but a strong email program can make meaningful contributions towards a small business' integrated marketing program, SEO included. Email helps with social media, local reputation management, backlinking and directory reviews. Read the full article at Search Engine Watch.