• Affiliate Marketing in the Dark, Part 3
    I got an interesting response from my last two columns: A brand manager wrote to tell me that there were even more reasons why many brands don't use e-mail. The reason he cited was lack of control of the e-mail creative.
  • Anatomy of an E-mail Report
    Is your institutional memory fading? If you're like many busy e-mail marketers, reviewing and reporting on past campaigns is a very low priority. But if you're not looking, you're not learning, and you'll miss the subtle lessons all that data can teach you.
  • Forgotten Statistics
    There is only so much you can track relative to an e-mail marketing campaign. Yet over the years, the industry has added a few statistics to the e-mail channel that are more easily accessed, though many people don't know what these stats really mean. I call them "the forgotten few."
  • Affiliate Marketing in the Dark, Part II
    I have seen prejudice against e-mail touted by many pundits in the affiliate marketing space, and I'm baffled, quite honestly. Why would anyone whose business is recommending programs to drive traffic via affiliates advocate cutting off the most successful marketing channel?
  • Don't Cut Off Active Opt-Ins
    Are you sending e-mail to everyone who has requested it? Of course I am, you think, silly question. But I have seen many cases where legitimate opt-ins are excluded from mailings, unbeknownst to the marketing team. Here's how to make sure it's not happening to you.
  • B-to-B Deliverability
    Remember the grand vision of developing one-to-one business-to-business communications, and leveraging e-mail to reach senior executives in corporate America? The vision looked great on paper -- until companies ran into the Great Wall of Administrators and Filtering Systems.
  • Affiliate Marketing In the Dark
    Today, I'm at the Casino Affiliate Conference in Las Vegas. In fact, I'm writing this article from the show floor, standing by our Email Analyst booth. It has been interesting in many ways, but the chief takeaway from me is just how little these casino brands (and I'm sure almost all brands) know about the affiliate traffic they receive, and how much of it comes from e-mail.
  • What I've Learned About Links, Part II
    Previously, I wrote about the mechanics of links. This column continues that theme, but with the focus on psychological factors.
  • Are All Clicks Created Equal?
    We live and die by metrics. We measure the success of our e-mail programs by metrics and justify our budgets based on these very sensitive variables, yet should they all be looked at the same way?
  • E-mails From the Eye of the Hurricane
    When our current e-mail and Internet system was being developed during the darkest days of the Cold War, it was designed to allow communications to flow freely in case of disaster. Never has the need for open, free, and unfettered communication been made more evident than the events of the last week. I spoke with Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and executive producer of CNN.com, who filled me on just how important e-mail has been in allowing victims, their families, and those that want to help communicate with each other.
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