Author: Tony Macpherson

Another email old-timer, Tony joined Mike at e2 in 2000, co-launched EmailBureau and was co-founder of Inbox Warriors. Always looking to where email is headed next, he is often found helping clients take their email marketing to infinity and beyond. Tony likes music, movies and death by Ironman triathlon.

Your email open rates are changing

Posted by Tony Macpherson
October 6, 2021October 7, 2021

Unless you’ve been living on a remote island somewhere you’ll know that on September 20th Apple’s iOS 15 update was launched, containing a feature call Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) which – amongst other things – will eliminate the ability to accurately track email open rates. For the uninitiated, email opens are recorded using a tiny image in the email code. When the email is opened, that image loads, which tells the sender an email was opened, by whom, when, where and on what device. What Apple have done is add a ‘middle man’ into the mix, first routing emails through their own proxy servers to pre-load email content – including the tracking image – before serving the email to the…

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Does marketing to third party email data work?

Posted by Tony Macpherson
June 30, 2021

The answer is it very much depends on how you do it. Often seen as the dark side of email marketing, sending messages to email addresses who did not sign up directly to your brand is frowned upon by many. It’s easy to see why – my inbox is already a busy place and I can do without even more emails I didn’t ask for thank you very much. As with your email marketing efforts to your first party lists, there are a host of things to get as right and as tight as possible. Data is king Long term success needs good data. Third party lists should be collected fairly and with transparency. People need to understand what to…

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The end of the Privacy Shield and what it means for your data and email marketing

Posted by Tony Macpherson
July 22, 2020

Anyone sending data to the USA or working with a technology partner whose servers are located in the USA needs to review the impact of the latest judgement by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). As of July 16th, data flows between the EU and USA are no longer legal. Why is this? US surveillance laws don’t prevent US security organisations from surveilling companies’ data even if they were members of the Privacy Shield agreement. Neither is there is an effective way for EU citizens to file a complaint about this in the USA. The damning conclusion of the ECJ ruling states; “The requirements of US national security, public interest and law enforcement have primacy, thus condoning interference with the…

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Is it time to review your email strategy?

Posted by Tony Macpherson
August 28, 2019August 28, 2019

We all have an email strategy, whether it be sending regular newsletters or sales offers or more sophisticated automation programs catering for a range of content, personalisation and triggers. The digital world is fast moving and always changing, so a regular review of how you’re using emails to communicate with your customers and subscribers can help keep engagement levels high. Here are the some of the more common email communications and processes that should be regularly reviewed. TMI on sign up If your proposition requires more information from subscribers, such as a membership or access to resources with a value, consider a two stage sign-up process – the first is a quick and easy ‘add me to your email list’…

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Rules of engagement

Posted by Tony Macpherson
May 9, 2018June 18, 2018

Advances in technology continue at a relentless pace as does our use of – and reliance on – mobile devices. Everywhere you look, indoors and out, we’re buried in our small screens. We are the biggest captive audience ever but getting and keeping our attention is increasingly difficult. We are exposed to a huge array of social media destinations, emails, websites, apps and streaming services all competing for our eyes and our time. In many markets, retailer loyalty has been eroded by a best-price mentality and the ease at which we skip around places in our virtual worlds means getting the attention our products and marketing efforts deserve is ever more challenging. Marketers need to keep pace with consumers, ensuring…

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Making emails more useful part 2 – content marketing

Posted by Tony Macpherson
January 26, 2017

Previously I looked at making emails more useful for your subscribers in order to improve engagement through relevance and targeting. But you can become even more useful through content marketing. Sending helpful, informative, or entertaining information can help retain customers and increase customer lifetime value, which helps your bottom line. B2B companies have been using content marketing in emails for a while, this blog is an example as a summary will end up in our email newsletter. B2C emails have some catching up to do and should look to move away from the common layout of blocks of products available to buy. Paradoxically, despite a plethora of tracking tools and modelling algorithms, customer lifetime value is increasingly difficult to nail…

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Will you still love me tomorrow – how to use post-sales automated emails

Posted by Tony Macpherson
October 19, 2016

As email marketers, we all know it’s the channel that gives the best ROI and the emails which get the best open rates are ones sent after the transaction is complete. These include automated order confirmations and delivery notifications so it’s important to get right them right. Tinder culture In a world where retailers are a click away from a competitor, it’s tempting to keep jumping to the next option in the hope you’ll find a better deal. Most customers now have the attention span of around eight seconds so making sure you deliver them the right content immediately is critical to reduce distractions from a myriad of online things they can do. Today’s promotional environment has made shoppers highly…

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Here comes the sun

Posted by Tony Macpherson
June 24, 2016July 15, 2016

It’s fair to say that we are all used to receiving many marketing emails every day. None of us are sat there desperately waiting for marketing emails but we do care about some more than others – we open and read emails based on the sender, subject line, whether we have free time and our mood in general. On the marketing side of the fence, we’re looking for any angle that will inspire more user interaction with our emails – targeted content, irresistible offers, inspired design… Something else to consider is seasonality but it needs to be thought through, be relevant to your products or brand and stand out from what can often be a deluge of similar emails, many…

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What next for email marketing?

Posted by Tony Macpherson
May 20, 2016May 25, 2016

Messaging channels, both niche and mainstream will come and go and social networks, whilst making improvements with targeted advertising, are places most of us go to interact with friends. Email, on the other hand, is where our attention is more focused and a significant portion of our online time is spent – it’s still the top reason why most of us go online. Online activities ranked by regular usage in the UK (March 2016) Source statista.com The key is permission. When we sign up to receive emails from websites and brands it’s a deliberate choice, whether it be brand affinity, interesting or useful content or deals and offers we don’t want to miss. I can almost hear the sighs of…

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