Getting into the inbox has become more challenging than ever at Gmail. Many email marketers have seen their inbox placement rates fall over the last few quarters at this important mailbox provider. The general consensus about how Gmail makes inbox placement decisions is "engagement," in addition to more traditional reputation.

You need to proactively try to prevent problems that could develop into a brand embarrassment, potentially causing revenue loss and increased customer attrition. Here are four audit practices to perform on your email program on a quarterly or biannual basis.

Last week at a conference, a marketer asked, "How do I get started with email marketing in my new role?" That's a great question. Every time you start a new job, you need to figure out once again how to proceed with email. The details will be different depending on the industry you are in and how advanced your new company is.

Forrester Research says intelligent agents (cognitive marketing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbots, etc.) will eliminate 6% of U.S. jobs by 2021. But machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are already making inroads in marketing areas usually reserved for humans. Is it time to push the panic button? Will marketer jobs as we know them today become obsolete in five, 10 or 15 years?

Spring has arrived, along with the inevitable tasks that always follow the farewell to winter. Bring that spirit of renewal to work by focusing on your email and cross-channel marketing program.

I like to think that kidnappers A/B test their ransom notes. For one thing, there's money on the line. Also, the tedious process of cutting and pasting letters from various periodicals into a ransom note gives kidnappers plenty of opportunity to think carefully about the words they want to use. With ransom notes, the message is everything, and the design serves only to conceal the sender's identity.