As the latest figures from the Direct Marketing Association reveal that email marketing is becoming more important than ever, the industry is turning to new technology such as programmatic to ensure that email is as personalised and relevant to consumers as the rest of the marketing mix.

Rapidly growing social media platform Snapchat, which allows users to send temporary videos and pictures to each other, has confirmed it is planning to roll out its own ecommerce platform. But it must not stray too far from its entertaining tone if it wants to keep its young user base engaged.

Mail Online achieved a new record average daily unique browser figure in January, according to ABC. Some 14.8m unique browsers visited the Mail Web site on the average day last month -- up 12% on December and 6% year-on-year.

Heineken, the Dutch brewer, has added 101 to its global roster to handle strategy and creative activity without a pitch. The agency is undertaking "global tasks" on Amstel and Desperados, but will also work on other Heineken brands. We Are Pi, the Amsterdam-based shop, picked up the global creative account for Desperados in November last year.

Havas has promoted Paul Frampton to UK & Ireland chief executive of Havas Media Group. He takes sole charge of all HMG's agencies in the region, including Havas Media, Arena, Forward Media, Havas Sport & Entertainment, AIS London and Arnold KLP.

Three has struck a deal with ad blocking company Shine Technologies with a view to rolling it out across the mobile operator's European operations. The deal will see Three's UK and Italian operations implement the technology, which differs from other ad-blocking technologies by preventing ads from being served to mobile users by blocking ads across cellular networks.

Apple has released a brace of new ads pushing the iPhone 6s, just as new analysis shows that iPhone sales are down for the first time ever. Gartner reported that in the fourth quarter of 2015 Apple saw its first ever smartphone sales decline, with iPhone sales down 4.4%. Apple sold some 71.5m handsets during the Christmas period, down from 74.8m iPhones in 2014.

Twitter is trying to make it easier for businesses to deal with customer service requests by introducing a quicker way to start a direct message. The site claims that millions of customer service-related interactions take place on the platform every month, with advertisers saying that over 80% of their inbound social customer service requests happen on Twitter.

British Airways has moved its U.K. social media account from SapientNitro to Cedar, the content marketing agency. SapientNitro was named the airline's digital agency of record in April last year after a competitive pitch that also included the incumbent, OgilvyOne. Bartle Bogle Hegarty handles creative and customer loyalty work for BA, while Carat oversees media.

Despite the rapid increase in social media ad budgets, many senior marketers remain unconvinced by its impact on their firm's overall performance. When asked to assess the impact of social media spend, 40% of marketing leaders said it made a "below average" contribution to their company's performance, while 49.8% said it had only an "average impact."