Rankings – Email
Email Overview
Over the last ten years the single most potent tool the direct marketer has had is email. For the direct marketer email has had great lift, cost a fraction of alternative channels, and has been immensely trackable and accountable. Looking at the road ahead, however, things start to get bumpier.
Download a .pdf version here: theMarketingMojo – Email Pyramid
To a large degree, in the early days email was treated as a new broadcast channel. Similar strategies as to television were utilized which translated into pumping out email “blasts” in an effort to drive reach and impressions. The goal was simple, make sure your messages were reaching their target (minimize bounce backs) and send them out as quickly as possible. Throughput and deliverability were the rue de jour.
In the last couple of years as consumers have become more technologically savvy, however, they have increasingly found ways to opt out of advertising campaigns, not just in email, but across all channels. Where TiVo has given television audiences the power to skip commercials, email has had to compete with a number of challenges, such as: spam filters at the inbox, ISP spammer blacklists, and legislative efforts around CAN-SPAM and permission based campaigning. The cumulative impact of which, has predictably been the plateauing or even declining performance of email campaigns.
This is not to suggest, as some might, that email is destined to irrelevancy. People today spend more time than ever with email. Choose any advertising metric you like and email still ranks near the top. What needs to change is that email needs to embrace its potential of becoming a truly one-to-one marketing medium. To reengage growth, email campaigns are going to need to become more relevant and timely and the only way to do this is through increased smarts.
Across the email space this reality is self evident. Most vendors, and certainly the leaders, are all speaking to the need for greater relevancy, personalization, and timeliness. The ones who really get it, however, are the ones who are rapidly moving to deepen their analytics and warehousing capabilities. Ultimately, the ability to deliver a relevant message is tied to understanding and acting on data. The trajectory for email becomes a collision course with the automation space.
Moving forward there certainly will be considerable consolidation in the space. There are several deliverability specialists and they are going to need to invest heavily (Responsys), partner (Listrack) or acquire (SilverPop and Vtrenz) to remain relevant.
Capability Pyramid TM
Looking at the future of the email space success and competitiveness will be defined by a vendor’s multi-channel, relevancy, and delivery capabilities. These are defined below:
Email Capability Pyramid
Multi-Channel – while email is ubiquitous, the form of the inbox can be timed constrained in terms of the needs of the target audience. If I’m walking into a store for example, wondering which brand of television to buy, my email may not be as accessible as a text, or even voice. The message and creative content may be the same, but the channel is different. To account for timeliness need email will be morphed into new channels. In the near term look for SMS and MMS (texts), RSS and Twitter type of services, and voice calls (although the McCain presidential campaign robo-calls may have left a sour initial impression).
Relevancy – getting the email address and first and last name correct no longer represents personalization (if it ever did). As more and more things go digital, organizations have a wealth of information regarding their customers. This knowledge needs to be leveraged to craft messages that are of interest of the consumer (where today most is still preached from the perspective of the organization). The enablers to this will be robust analytical engines, coupled with scalable real time personalization technology. While efforts are moving forward on a number of fronts in this area, look for promising early returns in trigger based responses and automated lead scoring and routing.
Delivery – the rise in importance of relevancy and timeliness can be directly correlated to the improved performance of email platforms. As delivery has collectively accounted for bounce backs, created high throughput mail transfer agents (MTA), and negotiated terms with ISP’s and carriers, the space has been commoditized. This is not to say it has become unimportant – the delivery of the actual email will always be central. Moving forward, topics that will govern the future of the delivery dimension will focus on the impact of permission-based / opt-in campaigns.
Vendor Summaries
Following is a fairly comprehensive listing of vendors in the email space. Two notable areas of exception would be any rolled up capabilities in the large packaged app vendors (e.g., Oracle, SAP, Netsuite, or SalesForce) and the marketing automation platform vendors (e.g., Alterian, Eloqua, Neolane, etc.). However, given the trajectory of the email space offerings from the automation space should certainly be taken into consideration, especially when you consider the fact that players like Alterian actually deliver more emails than many players on this list.
Acxiom is somewhat the 100 lb gorilla in the space – they have house developed offerings that cover most aspects of a closed loop marketing space with email being no exception. They may not be a pure play leader, but they cover all the bases and work with the worlds largest companies across multiple verticals.
Blue Hornet is a very agency (e.g., they offer creative and execution services) feeling player. Yes, they speak to deliverability, spam management, and a robust, intelligent backend likened to a marketing automation vendor, but the execution piece is pretty unique.
Blue Sky offers a rudimentary email creation and delivery platform. They differentiate by offering creative and managed services. Beyond the name, certainly some similarities to Blue Hornet.
Bronto offers a nicely done, but limited in scope Saas email delivery platform. Their focus is on the smaller business.
Campaigner is an extreme entry level offering best for those just learning about the email space.
Come & Stay is a European provider who focuses on permission based delivery.
Datran has differentiated by leveraging media style ad-serving technology to deliver messages to email, but also multiple channels like social and mobile. This represents a fairly unique approach to managing deliverability, and it also puts them on solid relationship footing with the digital agencies.
eDialog is a solid email platform provider that understands list management and the importance of list management. They don’t have a lot of flash, but a focus on the core competencies.
EmailLabs was recently acquired by Lyris. On their own, EmailLabs had a sharp, easy to use, well executed email platform that was certainly a leader in the SMB space. If Lyris can integrate with their other strong offerings like ClickTracks and BidHero this will become a very compelling offering.
Emma is a very light weight web based email package. Upload your list, email and off you go.
Exact Target is a leading email vendor who covers core deliverability, has expanded into multiple channels (like voice and SMS) and is even now pushing into personalization and measurement. Certainly someone who should be in your consideration set.
Not a lot of folks of have heard of Goodmail, but their certified delivery technology is a critical ingredient of nearly every email vendor. If email delivery is central to your business you can contract with them directly.
iContact offers an inexpensive, introductory platform useful for sending pretty static offerings. Their pricing has also driven one of the largest install bases.
iPost is a small, but innovative campaign vendor who has (or is) developed a real time optimization tool they call Automater.
KnowledgeMarketing is a young firm with a strong message around integrated campaigns in the digital space.
Listrak is a smaller player, but they certainly are showing off some innovative ideas – like leveraging a SOA architecture to push the content library out through multiple channels.
Premier Global is a shared services vendor who also dabbles in the email business. Certainly more robust than offerings from the likes of Campaigner, but still pretty limited in the grand scheme of things.
puresend is a pureplay email delivery provider. Not a lot of thrills, just straight up delivery.
Responsys is a leader in the email space and a likely contender to emerge as a full fledged competitor in the marketing platform space. If email is important to you, this is a vendor that should be on your radar.
Another of the enterprise backbone email services that contract with email service providers (ESP), ISP’s, and institutional emailers.
SilverPop is an Email deliverability specialist. Deep history and relationships with digital agencies helped arm them with the wheretoall to acquire automation vendor Vtrenz. Beyond that, however, there does not seem to be a lot of innovation or thought leadership.
SmartSource has a small email deliver platform that differentiates by focusing on CAN-SPAM list management.
SocketLabs offers an on premises MTA backbone for institutional sized clients.
StrongMail is focused on email delivery and has patent pending technology based on their MTA platform. StrongMail has also built an email creation / campaign interface that is tailored to adopting the content of the email (e.g., enables A/B testing).
WhatCounts has a limited email platform offering, but where they differentiate is on the expertise of their services. If you need help crafting an overall email program then WhatCounts could be a valuable partner.
YesMail is one of the oldest and most established email providers. Historically they’ve had a lot of success driven by structuring their product offerings to parallel processes in the marketing organization. For example, they have email products based around brand, direct, lead gen, etc. Looking to the future, however, they don’t seem to be driving toward the type of technologies needed to keep email relevant.
Zrinity offers a robust delivery platform. Not a lot of frills, but they’ve signed up a number of major clients.
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