At the Email Insider Summit, Beyond.com's Geri Weltz says the company has an in-house content management system. She advises email marketers to take advantage of transactional mail data and give
people something else interesting to bring them back to the site, based on what you know consumers are interested in.
AdStack's Evan Reiser says real-time email can allow detection of what
devices an email will be opened on and customization with banner ads or links to the Apple app store for an iPhone user or a link to the Goolge Play store for others. The customized emails has helped
bring increases in app downloads, Reiser said.
He says real-time in-box operations can use technology that can be built on top of an ESP, so costs aren't astronomical. One barrier to entry is
a fear among an email team about disruption.
Movable Ink's Jordan Cohen agreed and said a hurdle is to overcome concerns about the process being challenging. In general, he said real-time
in-box users tend to be big brands who want to be in the "avant garde" and take advanatge of new technologies.
As far as performance metrics, Reiser says the "best metric you can use is
revenue." Conversions and click-through rates are important, but it's all about ROI and incremental revenue.
Cohen said over the long term, marketers are starting to think how to be more
sophisticated. Talk about targeting, Radio Shack has been looking at selling different accessories based on what device an email is opened on.
Verizon's Paige Henke said there are easy things
to do to move into the space such as a countdown to New Year's in an email. It's easy to do, but engaging with potential to increase click-throughs, she said.