Daniel Burstein of MarektingSherpa recently chatted with Listrak’s Chief Privacy Officer James Koons for a post titled Email deliverability: 9 lessons about Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation. 

Find out the details of the lessons below by reading the post on the MarketingSherpa blog: 

1. A blog post is not a legal opinion

2. Don’t overreact

3. Keep doing the basics

4. Understand the two types of consent

5. Request further consent from some people on your list 

6. Take the opportunity to cleanse your list 

7. Evaluate your newsletters to see if they are promotional

8. Apply this law to other messages 

9. See the forest for the (maple) trees

And, as always, for more information, check outListrak’s CASL Resource Center.

Several weeks ago, we posted An early look at Gmail Field Trial Promotional Tabs. Today, we’re following up with even more insights, courtesy of Listrak Solutions Consultant and Account Manager Julie Wahl:

Gmail is conducting a field trial for a more visual promotional tab, similar to how Pinterest currently looks. We wanted to share some information that we’ve put together for your awareness and to consider when creating emails. 

There are some basics to understand including how this will affect the way the email looks in the inbox and how metrics might be interpreted differently. Below we’ve outlined what should be considered.

• You will need a verified Google + page to include your current logo and brand profile in the view. The sender’s image [logo] will be pulled directly from verified Google+ profiles for the sender. 
• The main image has to be 500-480px.
• Emails will now be represented by more than just text and symbols of your From Name, Subject Line and Preheader Text. This creates a completely visual experience to represent the brand.
• The number of characters to use is being limited to 20 characters for From Name and 75 characters for Subject Line.
• Animated GIFs used as the featured image will show as static.
• All featured images are cached in the same way that Gmail caches all images in an email.
• New engagement metrics will likely need to be considered with the new thumbnail view.
• Gmail is relying on what they are calling schemas. Schemas are being used to determine what image shows as the featured content. 
  
• If you choose not to use the particular code for schemas, then Gmail will arbitrarily determine what content to include and it could result in just text being chosen as the feature.
• Technical specifications will need to be altered appropriately.  This provides more information on technical specifications.

You can find more information on the trial that Google is running by clicking here.

A great question was sent in today during our webinar, Everything You Need to Know about Privacy and Deliverability, and I wanted to follow up and provide an answer.  I didn’t have the time to answer this during the presentation, but it’s an excellent question and one I get often.

Here is the question:  "What is the penalty for not abiding to these new (Canadian) CAN SPAM laws? Are these just best practices suggestions we should "try" to follow, or are there legal repercussions?"

Read more

Earlier today, Listrak Chief Privacy Officer James Koons presented a webinar on the important topics of privacy and deliverability as retailers enter the holiday planning season. The presentation is available on demand. 

Feel free to pass it along to others in your organization who might benefit from the information shared!

Yesterday, Listrak CEO Ross Kramer teamed up with Michael Harvey, COO of Corra, to present the webinar Holiday Preparation: Monthly Milestones to Prepare Your Company. During the hour-long presentation, Ross and Michael took a look back at Holiday 2013 and shared tips on what retailers should be doing now and throughout the summer and fall months to prepare both their email marketing programs and websites for a successful holiday season.

Below are a few key takeaways. The presentation in its entirety is also available on demand.  

Read more

In today’s Holiday 2014 post, our intern Jerica, who’s likely much like many of your subscribers, shares her thoughts on animation in email: 

Animation in email marketing can make you stand out from the crowd… when used correctly, of course. Here are four tips to remember when incorporating animation in your emails:

1.       Keep It Simple

Less is more. If you can get your point across with three frames instead of six, always use the shorter sequence. Something as simple as a blinking pelican can be enough to grab your readers’ attention.

Read more

July 15, 2014 - Listrak has expanded the capabilities of its single, integrated digital marketing platform to include email remarketing campaigns based on browse and abandonment data. The integrated platform allows retailers to do email, remarketing and personalization based on 360-degree shopper insights from a single login.  

In addition to allowing retailers to use shoppers’ browse and abandonment data to inform personalized product recommendations onsite and in email, using Listrak’s Product Recommender solution they can now also automatically trigger targeted remarketing messages based on that data.

Listak’s Browse & Abandon is a behaviorally-based remarketing solution that allows retailers to capture active visitors and nurture them back to a website to take action. The solution uses shoppers’ browse data to create personalized messages featuring products that have been viewed or related products based on “viewed this, viewed that” or “viewed this, purchased that” algorithms. In addition, Listrak Recommender allows marketers to control creative design and use custom fonts, rather than having to work within the standard HTML box.   

Listrak CEO Ross Kramer comments, “This new offering gives retailers yet another way to communicate with subscribers in a highly personalized and timely way to boost incremental revenue. Browse & Abandon campaigns are a powerful complement to our shopping cart abandonment solution that allows retailers to optimize the website visits of every subscriber.”

Kramer notes that many retailers benefit from an automated three message series that is timely and relevant and that establishes a friendly, service-oriented tone.

Check out our website to learn more about what you can do with our Product Recommender. 

Megan Ouellet

Retailers, the holidays are upon us. Soon your stores and warehouses will be well stocked with the hotttest holiday gifts. And while your goal is to sell off as much of the inventory as possible before having to discount the items in January, you also don’t want to run out of your most popular items too soon, forcing your customers to shop elsewhere.

Marketers face a real dilemma regarding out of stock items. Should you keep them on your site and continue to promote them even though they are unavailable to ship, or do you remove them altogether? Either way, you lose the sale.

Listrak’s newest solution solves this problem. The automated Back in Stock Alerts solution lets your customers sign up for notifications when items are restocked, boosting your email acquisition and giving you the opportunity to reach out to them with additional offers and eliminating the need for them to purchase the item elsewhere. Then, when the item is available, customers receive an automated message directing them to complete the purchase.

There is even a useful dashboard that helps inform demand planning with reports that help to identify the products your customers currently want.

• Most wanted categories
• Most wanted brands
• Most requested products
• Top sellers out of stock

There’s still plenty of time to implement this solution in time for the holiday rush. Want to see how it works? Visit www.listrak.com/savethesale or contact us today.