Overall, look for e-mail marketers to make a strong move into highly individualized marketing next year. As marketers pursue high relevance and high ROI, e-mail campaigns will evolve beyond basic targeting and even demographic-based dynamic content. Top marketers will begin using behavioral data both from previous e-mail campaigns as well as other sources like Web sites and e-commerce. Here are three trends to begin thinking about as you plan your 2008 online marketing initiatives.
The designation of spam vs. legitimate e-mail is becoming a community project as spam filters move beyond computer-based key filters toward high-end reputation systems that incorporate feedback data from hundreds of millions of e-mail users across the globe. This growing collaboration of what determines good and bad e-mail will continue to make the world better for legitimate marketers and their recipients.
Another big trend next year will be increased integration across marketing products, such as Web analytics, content management and e-mail. The increasing linkage and seamless integration between these tools results from a growing realization by marketers that the ability to understand customer and prospect multi-channel behavior provides for extremely high quality targeting for relevance