Personalized marketing is truly one-to-one, whereas customized is more "one-to-many," according to Sears Holding digital addressable marketer Ryan Deutsch during his opening keynote at the Email Marketing Summit this morning. "We don't have as many contacts to engage with in personalized experience, as we think," he said, noting that is what makes email marketing so different and significant. Another big difference, he said, is that whereas most other digital marketing channels -- like search or Web browsing -- rely leverage "explicit" intent signals from consumers, email marketing really relies on implied signals.

Quick! What's the difference between personalized and customized marketing? Ryan Deutsch, DVP of Digital Addressable Marketing at Sears Holdings Corporation, just quizzed attendees of MediaPost's Email Marketing Summit, on this fine Monday morning. The answer? It's a matter of one-to-one vs. one-to-many engagement, and, for Deutsch, it's a disappointing distinction because it highlights the fact that marketers can rarely reach as many customers (on a personalized level) as they think. You solution? First and foremost, "Your analytics teams have to admit that they don't know everything!" according to Deutsch. From there, you have to create "swim lanes" that are clearly …

Sears Holdings is using email as the central path to identify and customers and move from a siloed to a synchronized approach to marketing. In a keynote at the Email Insider Summit today, Ryan Deutsch, DVP, Digital Addressable Marketing, at Sears Holding Corporation, explained how the retailer uses frameworks to created a targeted marketing experience. At the core of the brand's marketing strategy is a framework which is used to "recognize, remember, relate and recommend." Sears uses these factors to communicate with customers across touch points. The brand uses its Shop Your Way rewards program as the cornerstone to capture …

That's the metaphor Email Marketing Insider Summit opening keynoter Ryan Deutsch, DVP, Digital Addressable Marketing, Sears Holdings Corporation, used to kick things off. Using a diagram of the solar system, Deutsch said the sun is "executive leadership," noting that email is the closest planet to the sun. While he didn't call it Mercury, that metaphor also would have been appropriate, because, well, you know, Mercury was a messenger. No, the reason email is closes to the executive leadership's sun, is because it the digital marketing communications channel that "integrates" into all of the other touchpoints. The other reason email is …

MediaPost chairman and publisher Ken Fadner kicked off the 20th Email Insider Summit on Kiawah Island, SC, this morning, noting that it's also the 10th year of the email summits, which have now blossomed into an array of vertical digital marketing summits -- "13 summits a year," in fact.