Digital marketing services company Acxiom has introduced a new Audience Operating System, a platform that gives marketers the ability to combine data from various places into one dashboard. The tool will pool first-party and third-party, as well as structured and unstructured data into one location. The goal is to give marketers a more holistic view of customers and deliver more targeted marketing messages such as personalized emails.

The average e-commerce shopping cart abandonment rate hit 73.6% in Q1 2013, up from 70.7% in Q4 2012, according to a report from SaleCycle. The report found that most abandoned sales took place 8-9pm. Thursdays were the most common day for this to happen. The report also revealed that 48.1% of abandoned emails were opened, which was up from 45.9% in Q4. In addition, 33.3% of these opened emails turned into conversions, up from 30.1% in Q4.

Yahoo has plans to introduce a new "Not My Email" button which would give the owners of recycled email addresses the ability to return to sender messages that were not meant for them. The button will roll out this week. The news comes as reports about the privacy risks of the new program have been circulating. For instance, one IT professional was able to access the personal information of the former email address owner after signing up to take over the once dormant email address.

Almost 1 in 5 (19%) U.S. employees that work in an office have opened an email at work that they suspected was spam without notifying the IT department, according to a new report from Harris Interactive conducted on behalf of Courion Corporation. The report looked at employee email behaviors in the U.S. in May and June. The report also revealed that 23% of employees don't know why their employees ask them to change passwords on a regular basis.

About 2 million people in Orange County, CA will receive an email, call or push notification as part of the local government's emergency preparedness drill. The system is aimed to test the communications platform which the county will use in case of a widespread emergency. The message will urge all residents to register their email addresses and cell phone numbers in the case of a real disaster.

IT security professional Tom Jenkins has discovered a glitch in Yahoo's new recycled email addresses. Ever since he signed up for one of these accounts, he has been receiving emails intended for the former owner including emails from Boost Mobile, Pandora and Facebook, all of which would allow him to access the former Yahoo email owner's personal accounts. Jenkins points out that he has even seen emails containing the former email address owner's phone number, address, and his children's names.

Thirty-three percent of brands require just an email address to opt-in to their email lists this year, which is up from 20 percent back in 2008, according to a new report by email services company Return Path. The Email Subscriber Experience 2008-2013 report looked at the email practices of 61 companies from five years ago and compared these practices with what businesses are doing today. The report found that 25% of brands offer an opt-down alternative today. Back in 2008, only 3% of senders did so. The report also revealed that today 80% of brands send welcome emails, up from …

Gmail users experienced some delivery delays late yesterday and the company has apologized for the issue. The company admitted on Monday evening that "less than 50 percent" of Gmail's user base experienced slow email delivery and issues with attachments. Today the company said that 71 percent of email messages were not affected. Emails that did experience issues had an average delivery delay of 2.6 seconds. The company also admitted that about 1.5 percent of messages look two or more hours to deliver.

Thirty-two percent of consumers think that email marketers have gotten better at sending relevant communications over the past five years, services, according to a new report from email services company Kentico. The report also revealed that 31 percent of those surveyed believe email marketing has gotten worse, while 36 percent say it has remained about the same. According to the report, 37 percent of respondents said that they willfully subscribe to 1-5 email lists. Thirty-one percent will subscribe to 6-10 lists, and 14 percent subscribe to 11-15 lists. Seven percent subscribe to 16-20 lists, and 5 percent subscribe to more …

Vertical Response, Constant Contact and MailChimp were the Top 3 vendors in the 2013 Sellers Choice Awards. Vertical Response came in first place with an overall score of 8.4. Constant Contact came in second place with an overall score of 7.4. MailChimp came in third place with an overall score of 7.0.