Messaging News - August 2008 - (Page 27) What Every Marketer Should Know About Transactional Email by Melisa LaBancz-Bleasdale “With the higher open rates afforded by transactional emails, imagine the impact on the same retailer that is able to track interest in product up-sell and cross-sell offers within transactional emails via click tracking statistics.” —Ryan Deutsch, StrongMail Systems s every seasoned marketer knows, the ideal outbound email is personalized, targeted to the recipient’s specific interests and most importantly expected. Meeting all of the above requirements, transactional email is fast-becoming the mechanism of choice for businesses looking to make deeper, more meaningful connections with their customers. The FTC CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, defines a transactional or relationship message as an ‘email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction A or updates a customer in an existing business relationship’ and further states that such messages, ‘may not contain false or misleading routing information, and is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.’ Although the basic definition of “transactional” is made clear, the absence of restrictions leaves the door wide open for interpretation— a task marketers are embracing with gusto. According to ExactTarget, sending an email to an individual in response to an event is widespread across organizations, from customer service to sales. Classified as transactional emails, these messages have historically been: • Sent by business systems not controlled by marketing (IT or the external email service provider (ESP) handles content edits and delivery). • Text-based, with no pictures, links, personalization strings, dynamic content or marketing messages. • Sent “into the dark” without any analysis of deliverability or effectiveness. It comes as no surprise that the historical approach to sending messagingnews.com 27 http://www.messagingnews.com
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