Asked about EFF's criticisms of the patent, an IBM spokesperson said that "IBM has decided to dedicate the patent to the public." The company notified USPTO today that it will forego its rights to the patent.

2017 is seeing an increase in monthly send rate, negatively impacting engagement across the board. Nearly every industry that has increased its sending frequency has seen a corresponding drop in engagement. On the flip side, industries that have decreased monthly send rate, like Retail and Insurance, have seen an increase in most of its engagement benchmarks.

As marketers, we are often looking at the result of our email campaigns: How much revenue did the email drive? But we can't get to purchases without clicks, and we can't get to clicks without opens. Campaigner figures show that for multichannel retailers, for example, open rates increased 37% when they used personalised subject lines.

What's the one mistake we all make? We indiscriminately send one email to our entire database. That's right -- many marketers don't segment their database, and they blast emails out to their entire list hoping that some percentage of readers will open, read, and take action. What actually happens when an audience member receives one of these irrelevant emails?