• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 8, 2019

Marketers want to send personalized emails. But data integration is getting in the way, judging by Econsultancy’s 13th Email Marketing Industry Census, done in partnership with Upland Adestra.

Of the marketers polled by the UK company, 67% want to improve their personalization but are not able to do so to their satisfaction.

And 62% wish they could glean cross-channel data insights to see the bigger picture. That’s up from 55% last year.

In another leap, 53% crave marketing automation but are having trouble achieving it, versus 49% in 2015.

The only activity that seems to have improved is tailoring email for mobile. Only 16% say they are unable to get it right -- down from 22% in 2018.

What do they have to do to get the most out of mobile?

Of those polled, 66% created a responsive email template -- a result that is flat with last year. And 56% have adapted email design to have a simpler template that renders well on all services, down from 59% in 2018. 

However, 40% rate their strategy for driving email on different devices as basic at best, and 19% say it is nonexistent. Also, 31% are thinking “mobile first,” down from 40% last yer. 

Meanwhile, 55% are writing shorter subject lines, placing the key message in the first 30 characters, compared to 59% the last time around.

One of the few practices to see an increase is using a pre-header text for promotion — at 51%, up from 49%.

In addition, 41% are using analytics for scheduling, a 7% increase over last year. Another 28% have implemented automated email scheduling or tried the capability.

Despite these efforts, brands are missing many opportunities to engage by email. For instance, only 26% send emails to lapsed customers. 

In other negative findings, 49% want to be more agile in their marketing, up from 46% in the last census. And 46% desire integration with other marketing platforms, compared to 41%. 

Moreover, 33% crave more social integration, an increase of 4% over the prior year.   

Econsultancy surveyed 400 marketers.