This past weekend I held a garage sale with a dear friend and neighbor. It was the first garage sale I had done in 20 years, and I will not likely have one for another 20 years. It was painful -- not because it was a a garage sale, but because it was something I don't do very often. To put it bluntly, I didn't know what the hell I was doing! I can admit it. All my garage sale-ing friends had all kinds of "after-the-fact advice" (like, Thursday is the best day for a garage sale -- uh, …

Creative folks who find themselves in the email industry are spoiled by incomparable access to performance metrics offering immediate feedback on creative choices. We see many organizations engage in sporadic testing, and more often than not, the organizations aren't appropriately staffed to review the results or send them to their creative team. Testing is only valuable when email teams can use the results to inform subsequent campaigns. So, what can organizations do to ensure meaningful testing? Get scientific with it!

Last week my company reviewed data from marketers around the world to determine how much email actually makes it to the inboxes. Frankly, the news wasn't great. We did see a slight uptick in inbox placement rates (IPR) for North American marketers. It now stands at about 86%. The increase since we first began publishing this data is so small as to be barely statistically significant. In fact, I think it's fair to say the number basically hasn't moved. Which is surprising, given that the industry in the U.S. has been discussing deliverability for more than six years …

As we head into the high season of shopping-cart abandonment, a new study reports this fact of ecommerce life has become a regular stage in the online shopping process, something that opens up new opportunities to use email marketing to close the deal. We already know email reminders can bring shoppers back to purchase. However, this study, by remarketing technology provider SeeWhy (Disclosure: SeeWhy is a Silverpop technology partner), delves deeper into why shoppers don't buy right away and the value they represent to retailers.

It's easy to point out the ways in which email and social media are different, and how it is possible to conclude that a company that has built its communications program on email should not move resources into social. That email marketers make excellent social media marketers is one very good reason to supplement communications through social. Still, there are many counter arguments I come across, some less defensible than others. Here are a few of the most frequently cited, each in need of a little mythbusting:

I do a lot of travel for work, where I often get the chance to discuss email marketing best practices with experts from other areas of digital marketing who have some level of responsibility to email marketing as a discipline. Often, what strikes me is the "best practices" and recommendations that are being made to clients. During a recent speaking opportunity, I got some pretty funny questions from attendees that I am obviously compelled to share.

The email inbox is a competitive place. Success is not only dependent on stacking up favorably against your competitors in the marketplace; it is dependent on stacking up favorably against every other brand in the inbox. Historically marketers have been trained to evaluate competitors selling the same types of products or services. Under Armour looks at Nike. Target looks at Walmart. You get the point.The problem is that consumers don't look at their inbox in the same way. Their decision is not whether they should open the Gap email or the American Eagle email, it is whether your email is …

Ten months ago, I predicted that SWYN adoption would hit 50% by the end of 2011. I was wrong. Really wrong.

There is a difference between what we deem loyal and repeat customers. Loyalty is about creating purchasing habits to a point to which an emotional connection between the brand and the customer are the proxy. The challenge is that marketers in many cases believe that repeat customers have developed loyalty traits and index them accordingly.

Now that September is here, you're probably deep into planning your holiday marketing program. In the spirit of "the season to shop," here are some old and familiar ideas, along with some new ones, to help retailers get the most out of their email marketing efforts.