Victoria’s Secret was lucky not to lose a customer. In fact, when word trickles back to headquarters about what happened with a recent email promotion, new quality control might be implemented. Recent college grad Amy Piggott scours her email for special offers from her favorite retailers -- one of which is Victoria’s Secret. She did appreciate the marketing newsletters she received from the company. But then something curious happened. She received a message promoting the last day of a sale for an item she wanted on VictoriasSecret.com. Then the next day, she got the same exact email. …

In a discussion featuring college grads entering the workforce, one panelist said --passionately -- that she's more likely to make an online purchase if free shipping is involved. She finds out about those offers via email. A new report shows marketers may agree -- and are following that tack during the holiday season. ComScore says during the week of Nov. 22, transactions with free shipping accounted for 50% of online sales -- 11% higher than the same week a year ago. Also for every week since Nov. 8, online transactions with free shipping have been higher than …

The panel this morning started to talk about the impact of social marketing on email marketing ROI, but turned into a discussion of what metrics are actually important. Turns out that very few of us (at least among the audience here) are doing a great job of measuring and optimizing email marketing based on the data we have now -- opens/renders, clicks and conversions. As a contribution to overall revenue, social marketing seems to just add depth and breadth to those metrics, rather than having to introduce brand new measures. The impact of social marketing seems to be in …

Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey offered up a mantra last week that could go on the wall of every email marketer: “Let them hear what you have to say. And say what they want to hear” Think about it, it's at the core of the business: Make sure the message is delivered to the right target, and is relevant to it. (Silverpop is an Email Insider Summit sponsor.)

Some topics that may pique interest over the next two days not discussed in-depth yet: --When will technology allowing video to be easily embedded in emails start to be used widely? --How to capitalize on share-to-social opportunities. --Best ways to use pre-header “real estate.” --The impact of Adobe’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture. --For several years in Japan, people have been using their mobile phones to scan bar codes on billboards and magazine ads. And related marketing messages are sent right to their handsets. When will this reach critical mass in the U.S.? --With …

Hotmail product manager David Barlin does a quick two tiered survey of the audience in his keynote this morning. He first asks if we as consumers use email to talk about subjects like social arrangements, cars, fashion, travel, electronics etc. Lots of us do. Then he asks if we send marketing messages about those topics. Not many hands raised. Then he asks if we as consumers tend to use personal email in the mornings or throughout the day. Response varies in the room. That's consistent with Hotmail research showing that consumers have widely disparate patterns around access time and …

David Barlin, senior product manager at Microsoft, is releasing data from a company study about email user habits. He should have some insight, since he oversees Hotmail and Messenger. Some findings: The top five topics people tend to talk about in email: 1) social and entertainment arrangements 2) travel 3) career 4) education 5) electronics Is email dying because of social networks? Microsoft’s belief: “That’s not the case, certainly email is evolving.” More data: For received emails (note: not actually what people read): -37% is from person to person communications -6% …

Do you know how your subscribers consume your email marketing messages? I am sitting here https://www.mediapost.com/blogs/raw/?p=1753 of the Q&A session of the "Consumer Panel: College Grads Entering the Workforce." The interesting insights (and killer quotes) are flowing. Michelle Prieb, Project Manager, Research and Communications at Ball State University is the moderator. One question she asked was, "What companies do you receive email from and how often do you view them?" The answers were fascinating (not verbatim): *I minimize amount of marketing I get through email. I tend to keep a few around if they offer …

A theme that is emerging â€" and maybe not surprisingly â€" is people appreciate email that offers special offers, coupons, discounts, etc. Merkle’s Kirby in his keynote cited a campaign by Outback Steakhouse for its Bloomin’ Onion. The company offered a free one to the first 5,000 people who became its Facebook friends. And the promotion led to an explosion, with 24,000 fans coming in one week, and more in the following weeks. McDonald’s still has the most friends among restaurants, but Outback closed the gap. Kirby said tongue-in-cheek he figured out Outback gave away 1 trillion …

Attention email marketers: Consumers are wise to us. The consumer panel at the Email Insider Summit this morning includes five recent graduates, and believe me. They get it. They don't really want to see our email marketing, but they sure appreciate the deals we send. That seems consistent with every consumer survey I've ever seen about advertising, "I hate ads but I can sing the jingles." The dependence on discounts and offers is a bit disturbing. Does this mean that email will never get out of the margin-cutting game that we suffer in now?! We also heard …