• by Ray Schultz , March 19, 2018

Email service providers (EPSs) are increasingly using contextual information to provide an improved customer experience, and they are showing other signs of progress, according to The Relevancy Ring – ESP Buyer's Guide, 2018 – Enterprise Edition," a study by The Relevancy Group.

The Relevancy Group surveyed 401 email marketers and performed an analysis of six vendors: Adobe, Cheetah Digital, Epsilon Agility Harmony, MessageGears, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Zeta Global.  

It found that ESPs are providing data-driven automation across every channel, using behavioral, attitudinal and other types of data, the report says.

In addition, AI and machine are now featured in many EPS solutions. Many enterprise ESPs are automating data integration and taking over tasks that marketers have had to perform 

The report also documents an increase in progressive profiling in which customer preferences are captured over time. Thanks to AI and machine learning, ESPs can help client segment customers at the individual level.