To earn loyal customers in the era of multichannel communications, retailers are finding that they must satisfy customers across all of the channels through which they are in contact. According to a new report from research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics, which examined customer satisfaction with mobile commerce, consumers are more likely to recommend a business if they have a good experience across channels. The research looked at customer experiences at Walmart.com, Target, and Best Buy and found that Target offered a good experience in every channel and also had the most loyal customers. The research concluded that it is …

Giftly, an online transaction engine that lets consumers send accepts credit or debit cards for gifts sent on social networks, is now allowing consumers to use its e-commerce site or mobile app to send funds via Facebook. Consumers can send the gift by choosing a Facebook friend, phone contacts or another Giftly member. Senders can write a note and choose how they want it delivered, via email, text or Facebook. The recipient must create a Giftly account to accept the funds.

Sixty-five and a half percent of teenagers in the UK say that they are writing and reading emails when they go online, according to new research from K&A BrandResearch. The oganization surveyed 12- to 17-year-old Internet users in the UK during October 2012, about what they like to do online. Search ranked as the most popular activity, followed by using social networks, listening to music, playing games and looking things up. Email was No. 6 on the list, ahead of Wikipedia, watching online videos, visiting brand sites and watching TV.

Emails sent late at night earn the highest revenue, according to Experian's CheetahMail Q4 2012 report. The report discovered that emails sent between 8pm and 12am generated higher open and click through rates, more transactions, larger orders, and greater revenue per email than emails sent at other times of the day. Emails sent during this evening time period averaged 48 cents per email ROI, more than triple the overall average of 14 cents per email.

Revolve Clothing, an e-comerce company that sells fashions to men and women, has discovered the using customer data in emails will make a one-time customer turn into a repeat buyer. Last May, the retailer began to integrate analytics from its marketing analytics vendor Custora with its ExactTarget e-mail service to begin sending personalized emails. Since then, the company has found that 33 percent of its one-time customers have become repeat buyers, thanks to email.

The University of Illinois' email domain has been blacklisted after scammers compromised the email addresses of dozens of students and staff of the university. At least 36 email addresses were spoofed after a spammer gained access to them. Scammers gained access by sending spam messages that encouraged users to share their account details on a malicious site. Email spam attacks against universities have been on the rise in the past two months.

Small and midsized businesses are spending the largest share of their marketing budgets on email marketing programs, according to a new study commissioned by iContact. The report, which iContact created in conjunction with Edge Research, more than half of small businesses are spending up to 20 percent of their total marketing budgets on email marketing. On average, 15 percent of a small business' marketing budget goes to email, which is the highest amount spent in any one channel.

The University of Southern California is experiencing what its Information Technology Services department is calling "email performance issues." The issues began on Tuesday and the university issued a statement explaining that they are working on the problem. The email interruption has frustrated a number of USC students. USC junior Nicole Jamal, told Annenberg TV News, "I use it for networking and it's really frustrating to me, because I can't communicate with people that I need to reach." Who says millennials don't use email?

Yahoo has integrated Dropbox into its email platform to make it easier for users to add attachments to emails. The integration lets Yahoo email clients send, receive, and manage Dropbox files within Yahoo Mail. With the click of a button, users can access their Dropbox accounts from within Yahoo Mail and add to add any files to their email. In addition, they can save any attachments they receive via email into their Dropbox account.

B-to-b emails have the highest open rates at 27.97, according to a study from eConsultancy. This is one of 23 email marketing insights that Business2Community has put together from recent reports done by email marketing companies including: Experian, iContact, ReturnPath, Adestra and eConsultancy, among others. The list also revealed that revenue per email grew 8 percent at the end of Q12 and that commercial emails account for 70% of spam complaints.