Listen Up

E-MAIL EXECUTIVES ARE growing tired of the lack of attention and budget chief marketing officers give the channel.

While they understand that 90% of most marketing budgets are devoted to television, and that in turn TV draws most of the top execs’ notice, they argue that e-mail delivers the best return on investment of all media at a CMO’s disposal.

That was one of the themes which surfaced at this year’s e-mail marketing roundtable.

Participants also strongly cautioned that while the trade press has been relatively quiet about e-mail authentication for the last six months, inbox providers are increasingly adopting authentication standards. As a result, some marketers are going to start experiencing deliverability problems seemingly out of the blue in 2007.

Logistics forced Direct to conduct this year’s roundtable virtually and interview participants individually.

Participants included Josh Baer, chief technology officer at pay-for-performance marketing services firm Datran Media; Chris Baggott, CMO of e-mail software firm ExactTarget; George Bilbrey, vice president/general manager of Return Path’s delivery assurance division; Chris Marriott, vice president/general manager, Eastern Region, for e-mail service provider Acxiom Digital; Elaine O’Gorman, vice president for strategy at e-mail marketing software maker Silverpop; and John Rizzi, CEO of e-mail service provider e-Dialog.

DIRECT: What’s had the most profound impact on the e-mail marketing industry in the last year?

BILBREY: I think the increasing openness of ISPs to provide information via feedback loops or via Microsoft’s [Smart Network Data Services, where e-mailers can get deliverability information] are