Good email campaigns absolutely require positive and consistent brand experiences, experts hammered home to attendees of MediaPost's Email Insider Summit on Friday. "If [customers] open an email piece and it looks very different than their cruise experience, that's not a good thing," warned Roger Foisy, Senior Manager of Email Marketing at Carnival Cruise Lines. If nothing else, "the experience is a very sensible driver," Ilana Rabinowitz, VP of Marketing at Lion Brand Yarns, agreed. As Wacarra Yeomans, Director of Creative Services at Responsys put it, email marketers have to remember: "You're a brand first, and a channel second."

"Creating Breakout Email Content" marks the final panel of the Email Insider Summit's Friday session. Question: Is an editorial calendar a content strategy? No, says Wacarra Yeomans. "It should be the manifestation of your content strategy," she says.

American Airlines' Kay Kerman offered up an interesting quote to start her presentation at the Email Insider Summit. Maybe there's a Chamber of Commerce campaign in it akin to "The Second City, First In Business."

American Airlines' Kay Kerman is delivering a presentation at the Email Insider Summit on abandoned shopping carts. Lots of people search for flights on AA.com and then don't buy a flight.

Email marketers manage and use a lot of data, and so are a logical choice for leading a data governance program for the organization.

In case there was any doubt, Stephanie Miller of the Direct Marketing Association made clear that the trade group doesn't like some of the privacy proposals floating on Capitol Hill. "We'd all be dead in the water if some of this stuff gets passed," Miller said this morning.

Regulations on data-driven marketing vary between the E.U., U.S. (state and federal levels), Canada, etc. It can be thorny.

You probably won't hear about the politics of data-driven marketing on "Morning Joe," but it's increasingly critical in the email marketing industry. Oracle's brilliant Dennis Dayman, who recently made a lobbying trip to Washington, was to moderate a panel on the issue, but is suffering from allergies, so the Direct Marketing Association's equally astute Stephanie Miller has stepped in at the Email Insider Summit.

Email marketing in Vegas doesn't have to stay in Vegas. Palms Casino Resort's Erin Levzow says at the Email Insider Summit segmentation is critical for her business. Half of its customers are local, older-skewing, slot-machine-playing types, so direct mail is employed to reach them. The other half are "party all night, let's get crazy"-types, so mobile messaging can work.

On a panel on multi-channel marketing at the Email Insider Summit, Erin Levzow said her company (Palms Casino Resort) looks to follow consumers "through their journey" and target them with a relevant message. They can be different based on whether they're using social media, SMS, mobile, mobile, email, etc.