• by David Goetzl , May 2, 2013

At the MediaPost Email Insider Summit, Amazon email chief Donald Parsons says "pace" is critical when considering relevancy at scale. Top of mind is maintaining customer tolerance.

He asks: "When does pace become a landslide?" When the customer says so!

Cadence is also important to be considered. TV and toothpaste offers generally can't be in the same email. He says "when you overpresent" it becomes a problem. But if you know customers are deal-seekers, messages about the two can be linked.

If a company has built trust with customers, you can include multiple messages.

How to define relevance? It's right messages, right timing and right customers.

But at Amazon, it's critical to remember the "customer decides" whether those tenets have led to a home run.

On the issue of the right time, Parsons says use "lift models and testing." Amazon has worked to not just offer books in emails it knows you may want, but some random ones in order to learn more about a customer.

Parsons says testing around when to send emails -- how much time between them -- can be benficial. 

As far as the right customer, Parsons says "let the data tell its story" -- let it have a voice. Customer segments at Amazon include "impluse buyers," "deal hunters" and "windown shoppers." To reach "impluse buyers," emails at Amazon offer messages conducive to window shopping -- i.e. picking up a candy bar or magazine at the checkout counter at the supermarket.