A furious lowcostholidays customer was astonished to receive an insensitive email from the firm just two days after losing thousands on a holiday. Victoria Leonard, 35, booked a holiday with the cheap travel firm on July 14 -- only to find out her holiday was cancelled just hours later.

Now, you don't have to wait for the postcard from Google or figure out how to get the phone verification through your phone tree. Some can verify their local listing via email. Google seems to be allowing some business owners to verify their local listings within Google My Business through email verification.

According to Listrak's 'Welcome Series Study 2016', retailers that send more than one welcome email, send the first immediately, and offer a discount within the first, generate more sales than the rest. Listrak found that two-thirds (64%) of the top performers (those with the highest conversion rates) sent a "welcome series" consisting of three emails (18% sent two, 18% sent one).

Security services should only retain data from telephone calls and emails if it is used to fight serious crime, the European Court of Justice has ruled. The ECJ's advocate general, Henrik Saugmandsgaard Oe, said there was a "general obligation" that retaining data may be compatible with EU law. His preliminary ruling is likely to be followed by the full ECJ court.

Last month, reports surfaced that Google and Microsoft this year plan to update their policies related to DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) -- a change that could cause some brands' deliverability rates to plummet. Change is coming. DMARC authentication is becoming an important part of the email marketing landscape.

The federal appeals court decision favours Microsoft's decision to refuse federal government access to email hosted on a server in Ireland, despite the issuance of a warrant. The case may push Congress to revamp laws in an era where data is stored in the cloud.

A marketing technology start-up that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enable businesses to boost their email response rates has raised GBP1m seed funding in a bid to grow internationally. Digital communications firm Next 15 led the round alongside angel syndicate Galvanise Capital in exchange for a minority stake in the company.

DMA UK says that in 2015 about 50% of email subscribers read their messages on mobile devices, especially smartphones. This is why every email marketer has to be sure they know how their newsletter will display on smaller screens, but you can only find out by running inbox tests first.

The real problem for Mailchimp is making sure that those emails end up in people's inboxes, not their spam folders. What many people don't realize is that today's spam filters don't just scan an email for questionable keywords, like references to pharmaceuticals or porn. Nor do they look merely at the email address of the sender. Crucially, they also look at the servers sending the email.

The Big Brand league list comes from the responses of 1,000 consumers who took part in the DMA's Customer Engagement research, which explored what makes for excellent customer engagement today. Of the top 20 retail brands only three, Amazon, eBay, and ASOS, are online only. These three brands alone represent one-third (33%) of the total responses.