• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 6, 2011

Keeping email relevant is more difficult than ever with finicky consumers, who are bombarded with messages -- and poor judgment can bring a widely seen backlash. “People are a lot more selective and … if they're not happy with what they're (receiving), not only will they unsubscribe, but they may tweet about it or post it on Facebook,” said Marketfish Chief Privacy and Deliverability Officer David Fowler.

At the Email Insider Summit, Fowler said it is important to keep mining data looking for relevance insight, which can be time-consuming and expensive, but "a necessary evil." 

Savings.com executive Jacob Shin said that with Facebook and instant tweets, “we definitely need to try and personalize” messages more. He said his company tries to use a "true one-to-one marketing strategy with email” and mine users' onsite behavior and preference center selections looking to customize deal messages sent their way.