In the lead up to the big night, it occurred to me that there’s a lot that email marketing can learn from the movies. Hollywood has long worked to master the art of setting theatergoers’ expectations before a movie’s release.

Following the same strategy can help email marketers to set expectations before consumers subscribe to your list, reducing complaints and improving your relationship with subscribers.

1. Know your audience –A preview for a grisly horror film before a kids’ movie will result in a lot of angry parents, and very few ticket sales. Similarly, promoting emails to the wrong audience will yield few subscribers. Of those subscribers, there’s likely to be a disconnect between what they want and what you offer, which can generate complaints.There are some places it just doesn’t make sense to promote your emails so think carefully about how and where you direct people to your sign up page. Some examples:
   • Lots of sites make use of every page to promote their list, which is a great idea. One place you might want to skip the call to action is on a complaints page if you have one. Wait until you’ve addressed their complaint to invite them to subscribe. Word to the Wise has a good post on this topic.
   • If you have multiple lists and different types of content on your site, consider customizing your call to action to reflect the content that the reader is on. For a health and fitness site, a body building newsletter isn’t likely to be of interest to someone reading about how to have a healthy pregnancy, but a women’s health email might.
2. It’s all about the preview – Movie previews give viewers a sense of the tone and quality of a film. They should leave the audience wanting more . . . but they also serve a much simpler purpose of providing information: things like who is in the movie, when it comes out, and how they learn more about it.
   Your sign up page should serve a similar function. Potential subscribers should understand what you offer, how often and when you will email them, and how they subscribe:
   • What: Explain what subscribers receive. If possible, link to a sample email to give a taste of the value you offer.
   • When: Spell out how often and when you send emails. If you allow subscribers to set a preference on how often they are mailed or when they receive emails, let them know their options here as well.
   • How: Make it easy for them to understand what they need to do to subscribe. If they need to activate or confirm their subscription by email, let know them know to expect that email and what to do if they don’t receive it.
3. Make it special – People go to the movies for a lot of reasons: because they like a specific director, to spend time with friends, or just because they like the popcorn. But the best experience is when they’re there for the movie, not the popcorn.In the same way, the best list is made of people who subscribed because they want what you offer, not because they wanted to win a contest or get a coupon. If you use extraneous incentives to encourage people to sign up for your list, consider keeping records who come in through those methods separate from the rest of your list. That way, you can monitor their response to ensure you keep them as engaged as the rest of your subscribers.
4. Make it easy– Movies are all about the watcher experience, and they never let logistics get in the way of immersing you in that experience. Email needs to focus on the user experience, and a registration process must NOT be painful.
   • Do not ask the end-user to fill in hundreds of field.
   • Do not include too many requirements that prevent your user from filling in the form
   • Accept +, _, and other special characters in emails
   • If possible:
     • Just ask for the email
     • Then come back to him/her on a regular basis to get to know them (think of it as a sequel): Tell us more about you. Are you male or female? When is your birthday?

   End-users are much more willing to successfully register when we ask little at the beginning, and they are willing to share additional personal data when asked in a friendly way when they are part of your list.

5. Deliver – Once someone has subscribed to your list, it’s important that you meet (or exceed) the expectations you set. People hate to see even a good movie when they expected a great one, and they’re likely to complain about it more than they would about a bad movie that they expected to be terrible.If you do need to make changes from the expectations you set, make changes slowly and monitor the response. Don’t change from monthly emails to daily ones immediately. Instead, slowly increase the frequency. If you see a spike in unsubscribes or complaints, you may need to take other measures before you can increase the frequency further (like re-permissioning the list with new expectations or allowing subscribers to set their frequency in a preference center).

What email marketing tips do you have that are inspired by the silver screen? Tell us in the comments.

Related articles
Why you shouldn’t fear the unsubscribe (if you maintain the health of your list!)
Why Acquisition Email Should Be Part of Your Revenue Generation Strategy
What Acquisition Email Can Learn from Retention: Be Bold!

*Photo courtesy of Van Ort

Lynn Dalsing
Lynn Dalsing develops marketing strategy and content within the U.S. market for ividence. She has several years of experience in marketing for both B2B and B2C audiences. While working at high-end maternity clothing manufacturer, Ingrid & Isabel, she oversaw the development and evolution of branding for the company’s highly successful launch into Target stores.

 Lynn has a passion for combining for outstanding messaging with reach and engagement statistics, once describing an ESP’s reporting dashboard as the “best toy a marketer could get.” She can be reached at ldalsing@ividence.com. 

There’s a short answer and a long answer to that question.

Short Answer: Done right, acquisition email should have an unsubscribe rate on par with retention email. You read that correctly. At ividence, the unsubscribe rate for campaigns we send is currently sitting below 0.1%.

Long answer: List owners have long been conditioned to fear unsubscribes, whether because of concern about email list growth goals, customer attrition, or effect on conversion rates. That’s understandable.

Nevertheless, that fear speaks to a potential misunderstanding of the reasons people unsubscribe and their potential alternatives. ExactTarget has an appropriately holiday-themed report out with information on those exact topics: The Social Media Break-Up.

Why do people unsubscribe? And what can you do about it?

Courtesy of ExactTarget’s Social Media Break-Up

While the ExactTarget report includes a number of responses, the top reasons break down into two basic categories:

• Email Overload– The right frequency can vary depending on the list and the subscriber. Email marketers should maintain a consistent schedule that matches the expectations they set for subscribers. For retention email, you may be able to overcome this by offering subscribers an easy way to access their preference center and change the frequency with which they are emailed.
  • What it means for acquisition email – This comes back to the concept of control. If you maintain control of your list, you can set the best frequency of emailing for your subscribers.
• Relevance – Subscribers’ circumstances change, your email content might no longer meet their needs, or there may be a disconnect between what they expected and what you offer. You may not be able to bridge the gap if a subscriber’s needs have changed, but you can enhance relevance by targeting your content to specific segments of your list, surveying subscribers to find out what topics most interest them, and setting expectations clearly when they subscribe.
  • What it means for acquisition email – Advertisers’ offers must always be of value to subscribers. Because email is such a trackable channel, behavioral targeting is an extremely effective way to do this. That way, subscribers’ responses help determine what they receive in the future.

As long as you follow best practices for both acquisition and retention emailing, you don’t need to fear unsubscribes. Enabling people to leave the list easily will result in a list of subscribers who want to receive your emails.

What other ways can subscribers disengage from email and why don’t I want them to?

While ExactTarget found that most people click unsubscribe when they are no longer interested in receiving a company’s emails, some respond in ways that are more damaging to your email program.

Courtesy of ExactTarget’s Social Media Break-Up

• Deleting, ignoring, or filtering – This may not sound terrible. Someone mightstill decide to open one of your emails this way, right? However, subscribers who drop out of your list rather than opting out lower engagement rates, making it harder to get into the inbox.
  • What it means for acquisition email – If subscribers are consistently not responding to offers, they likely don’t want third-party emails. If you work with an acquisition email partner, make sure that subscriber response is being taken into account for future campaigns. At ividence, this is a core part of our model.
• Clicking the “spam” button– Though this makes up only a small portion of those surveyed (6%), it’s important to avoid because complaints can quickly tank deliverability. A simple way to minimize complaints is to include an unsubscribe link at the top of your emails to make it easy to find.
  • What it means for acquisition email – Make sure it’s clear who the email is from, what’s in the email, why the subscriber is getting emails, and how they can stop receiving them. Being straightforward will reduce complaints and keep your list strong.
  • What you have to do on the techie side – Implement FBL (feedback loops). ISPs can provide you with the addresses that clicked on the spam button.Treat these immediately as unsubscribes. If you don’t do it, ISPs will hate you, and your sender reputation will quickly decrease.  Mequoda has a really helpful article on this.

It’s important to monitor unsubscribe and spam complaint rates to ensure that your list remains as healthy and happy as possible, but unsubscribes are not a bad thing in and of themselves because they leave you with a list that is interested in receiving your emails. If you have questions about how best to monitor and respond to these rates or how ividence does this, we’re happy to speak with you. Please contact us.

One last point, perhaps the most important one … a very bad practice in acquisition email is to respect the law (CAN-SPAM) but only the law… not the end-user.

The law requires that an advertiser unsubscribe link and postal address appear in each email. Because the law (in the USA) does not enforce an unsubscribe link from the publisher (the one who collected the email and that sends the advertisement email) too many publishers don’t include their name because they fear the unsubscribe rate they will get.  However, to maintain a strong list and to get the most out of an acquisition campaign, publishers and advertisers should keep these guidelines in mind:

Publishers: Don’t fool end-users. Everyone hates a phone call from someone who isn’t upfront about who they are, right? You know it’s a sales rep trying to sell you something, and you won’t take the call. Remind your end-users of your publisher name and the fact that they agreed to receive email, and offer them an easy-to-use unsubscribe link (from the list, in addition to the advertiser unsubscribe link).

Yes, you will get a higher unsubscribe rate for your first acquisition campaigns, but the remaining subscribers will open and click (for both your campaigns and third-party emails). And your sender reputation will be much higher. In the end, it creates a greater long-term and recurring revenue.

Advertisers: If you are proud of your brand (and of course you are!) check that all the publisher lists that you send acquisition email to respect this best practice. If not, your brand will be associated with poor behavior, and you will get unsubscribes. Not just people who no longer want your advertisement, but the ones that don’t want to be part of the publisher’s list, too.  And your sender reputation for your newsletter will also be impacted!

What have you found to be the best ways to maintain a healthy unsubscribe rate? And what have your challenges been in achieving that?

Kevin Deseuste

Kevin Deseuste joined the ividence team at the beginning of 2011 and directs the implementation and evaluation of advertiser campaigns and publisher lists for the U.S. market. He brings to the team an expertise in monitoring and enhancing deliverability and response rates from both the publisher and advertiser perspective. Prior to joining ividence, Kevin worked in Business Development at technology solutions provider SCC.

He can be reached at kd@ividence.com.

This is a great question, and we love to hear it! Publishers who ask this understand both the value of email marketing and the importance of respecting subscribers. The inbox is one of those rare places where customers’ trusted brands sit alongside trusted friends. As a result, list owners are justifiably wary of allowing someone else to send to their list.

However, done right, acquisition email brings in added revenue while maintaining the integrity and trust that your subscribers place in you. Here are the top reasons to consider including acquisition email in your revenue strategy (and tips on how to handle it properly):

Easily tap into a new revenue stream using skills you already have
If you already have an email list, sending a new type of email (one created and designed by an advertiser) to the list is relatively simple. You don’t need to find space for a new ad unit, create a new product to sell and promote, or invest in new software or staff to deploy the messages.

You also double your return on the maintenance of the list’s health. Deliverability and data-gathering efforts will improve performance and revenue for acquisition campaigns. Acquisition emails can even strengthen your list by preventing long gaps in messages from your brand, during which subscribers may forget they signed up to receive your emails.

Marketers plan to increase their spend in email this year
According to MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, 67% of marketers plan to increase their overall email marketing budget this year (with only 3% planning to decrease spending). This represents a clear shift toward a medium with a long history of success.

Open your list to acquisition campaigns in a responsible way, and you can gain a new revenue stream and take advantage of this market shift to acquire new and trusted advertising clients.

Using a one-to-one communication channel improves value for everyone
Because of the personal nature of email, you can target communications and send only relevant ads to each subscriber. This way, you unlock the full value by creating several niche lists out of one larger list.

On the flip side, advertisers send their message only to their target market with minimal waste, and subscribers receive only offers that make sense for them. Everyone can benefit from the interaction if the process is handled correctly.

How to do it right
As profitable as acquisition email can be, it’s not sustainable if you don’t approach it with your subscriber in mind. You can bring the same set of standards to acquisition email that you use in your retention campaigns:

1. Honesty: Sender information should include both your company’s brand (one that the subscriber will recognize) and the name of the advertiser. This reduces spam complaints and maintains the trust you have built with subscribers.
2. Value: Ensure emails add value by sending highly targeted ads from high-quality advertisers. Behavioral targeting, in particular, reacts to what a consumer has previously responded to. Demographic and geographic targeting can also help narrow in on the best audience.
3. Respect: Just like with retention, only email people who have given you permission to do so. You should also make it easy to unsubscribe or to reduce email frequency.
4. Control: Never (ever) hand over your list to an advertiser. You should be able to approve or reject any email that goes to your list.
5. Clarity: Be upfront with your subscribers at the beginning of each message in your acquisition email header. For example, “You subscribed to our list. Our services are free, and paid for by ads. We make our best effort to send you as few as possible, with the most relevancy. You can opt-out in one click at the bottom of this email, and it will be effective immediately. We promise!”

Get the right strategy: Acquisition email can be a great way to generate revenue for publishers, but it’s not easy to get everything right. You may choose to do it internally (which can be costly), to use a list manager (which can lack transparency), or to explore new paths like what ividence offers.

Whatever you decide, if you are considering an acquisition email strategy, we would be happy to answer any questions you have about the process. Email us or request info.

What other tips have you found for doing acquisition email right?

Related articles
What is Acquisition Email?

Two Core Principles of Acquisition Email for Publishers

Eric Didier
CEO & Co-Founder
Eric Didier is a successful serial entrepreneur with a broad background in enterprise software sales management, complex software development and product management for web technologies. He was the founder and CEO of Soamai in 2000, a metadata applications company which was acquired by Allen Systems Group in April 2004. He can be reached at ed@ividence.com. 

There are a number of email and digital marketing events on our radar this month, and we thought we would share.

ividence team members will be attending Online Marketing Summit, MarketingSherpa Email Summit, and Email Evolution Conference. If you’ll be attending and would like to meet with us, please email us at contact.us@ividence.com.

February 6 – 9: Online Marketing Summit
San Diego, CA
OMS is a conference for online marketing professionals to collaborate, network, and learn to execute on best practices.

February 7 – 10: MarketingSherpa Email Summit
Las Vegas, NV
Held this year at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the Email Summit is one of the world’s largest email marketing events.

February 15: eec Webinar – Cross-informing your email, social, and mobile campaigns
Presenters: Ari Osur, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research & Nicholas Einstein, VP, Strategic Services, PulsePoint

February 22 – 24: Email Evolution Conference
Hollywood, FL
Presented by the Email Experience Council, EEC 2012 focuses on the ever-changing world of email marketing.

The response, to paraphrase, was that improved deliverability increases revenue, reduces the chances of damage to sender reputation, and improves engagement rates.

In essence, Bilbrey says that to build lasting success in email, marketers should be bold and follow the hard data, rather than worrying about going against their gut or short-term gains.

I would challenge email marketers this year to bring that bold mindset to acquisition email and to focus on doing things right.

Be Bold . . .

The digital marketing industry is undergoing a sea change in its attitude toward acquisition email. As new technologies on the market make complex targeting feasible, the bold among the industry are blazing the trail from retention email to the acquisition email market.

Acquisition email can bring a number of benefits to a marketing program. Three significant benefits to consider are:

1. ROI – Email has a high ROI, and bringing that ROI to a customer acquisition channel can bring down overall acquisition costs.
2. Data – Email is highly trackable. After a successful campaign you can use your reporting data to scale out that success (both to other email campaigns and to other channels entirely).
3. Skill Transfer – This is the most important thing you can take away from this post. It is possible to bring the knowledge and skills you have amassed in retention email to acquisition email campaigns. Upholding the same rigorous standards for permission, targeting, and content will reward marketers in acquisition email as well.

Just as with any industry change, the first to adapt will see the greatest benefits, both in terms of ROI and in terms of knowledge gained. So be bold in 2012 and test out this new customer acquisition channel.

. . . But Do It Right

While email marketers can transfer much of their knowledge from retention campaigns to acquisition campaigns, there are critical differences in how you should approach this new market. One of the most important elements to get right is respecting subscribers.

Absolute musts – We say this a lot, but permission is especially key in acquisition email. This means working with third-party opt-in records only. You should also make it easy to opt-out of future mailings by making unsubscribe links visible and simple to use.

Honesty is another non-negotiable element. It should be clear to subscribers who you are, who owns the list you are mailing to, and what you are offering. You can (and should) make this clear before subscribers even open the email by using straightforward sender information and a clear, concise, and truthful subject line.

Raise the bar – IBM recently predicted that in the next five years, spam will become a thing of the past because email will be so targeted and relevant. Work to achieve that kind of relevancy by segmenting your mailing through demographic targeting (using information from the publisher) or behavioral targeting (using an email ad exchange platform, like ividence).

What are your goals for your email program this year? And what bold action will you take to achieve them?

Mary Byrne

Mary Byrne leads ividence’s sales and marketing team in the U.S. as SVP, Americas. She has nearly 15 years of experience in the technology sector, with special emphasis on advertising technology and email deliverability. Previously, Mary led the sales, marketing, and client services efforts at DoubleClick, Microsoft and Level 3 Communications. She can be reached at mb@ividence.com. 

What about advertisers? They need the right content and the right audience (and you know that audience perfectly well … but it’s not easy to find).

Content

To capture attention, email content must work on several levels.

Subject & Sender – I’m sure you write terrific subject lines that intrigue your audience (If not, Wikus Engelbrecht shares how to become a supreme being of great subject line writing).

However, sender information is also critical to open rates . No one opens email from guyIdontknow@somedomain.com. For acquisition email, it’s essential to make a good first impression with straightforward sender information. Identify both your brand and the owner of the list.

More importantly, TELL THE TRUTH! A good first impression is key… but not if it’s a lie. No “get rich in 10 seconds” to sell financials products or “date Lady Gaga” to sell cars.

Copy – How long should copy be? The simple, yet annoyingly vague answer is: as long as it takes get your message across. Explain what you have, why a customer wants it, and how they get it. All of that info should be short enough to fit above the fold.

That’s difficult when introducing yourself to a potential customer. Daily deal sites provide great inspiration for fitting it all in without being dull. It is, after all, what they do daily. A recent example from my inbox:

• Placement – In email (as in San Francisco), real estate at the top is valuable  because of the views. You have a few seconds to capture attention, and the space above the fold is where most of that time is spent. Put your most important information here.
• Branding –Display your logo near the top and maintain your brand’s style to make it clear who the email is from. This helps the reader feel comfortable when they visit your site.
• Interest – There are many ways to evoke interest through design: typography, imagery, color. Make your email stand out or your potential customer will move on.

This email could only have come from ThinkGeek and is proof sale-based emails needn’t be boring. The recognizable branding, quirky imagery, and their sale got my attention:

• Technical – Don’t forget most email client software (Webmail, Outlook…) shows a red X instead of images in previews. Like the subject, the snapshot of the content helps convince the recipient to “open” the email, (i.e., display images). Don’t use just a single image. Mix real text and images, and always use “background colors” for buttons, brands, etc…

Which email are you more willing to open? This one (almost images only)?

Or this one (content and background colors showing)?

So now, your content and design are great, but probably not “selling snow tires in the Caribbean” great. So getting the best results requires the best targeting.

Through the magic of email, you can target by demographic, geographic, or behavioral criteria. Not convinced that narrowing your search is important? Here are examples of how targeting can get you in front of the right people:

1. Demographic – A Whiskey of the Month Club can target only people of legal drinking age to avoid tricky legal situations.
2. Geographic – A New York–only chain can narrow their emailing by zip codes near their stores.
3. Behavioral – Got a great gift for kids? Demographic targeting may let you send only to parents. Targeting to users who recently opened similar emails would likely also reach grandparents, aunts, and the like.

At ividence, we’re big proponents of behavioral targeting because it minimizes waste by sending offers similar to those a subscriber previously interacted with. (And if you need more information about your target market, ividence will give you a full report of demographic info on who responded to your offer. See an example here.)

Regardless of how you target, remember with email less is truly more. So find a way to get your message in the inboxes of only people who want it.

So any key factors you think I missed?

Lynn Dalsing
Lynn Dalsing develops marketing strategy and content within the U.S. market for ividence. She has several years of experience in marketing for both B2B and B2C audiences. While working at high-end maternity clothing manufacturer, Ingrid & Isabel, she oversaw the development and evolution of branding for the company’s highly successful launch into Target stores.

 Lynn has a passion for combining for outstanding messaging with reach and engagement statistics, once describing an ESP’s reporting dashboard as the “best toy a marketer could get.” She can be reached at ldalsing@ividence.com. 

As a publisher or list owner, when you’re looking into monetizing your email list through acquisition campaigns, there are two core principles to follow. These are the two elements that complement each other and build the foundation of a successful strategy: Permission and Control.

Permission

Despite the adage, with email, it’s always better to ask permission than forgiveness. Permission, handled properly, is at the heart of a campaign’s performance and the effectiveness of your strategy.

For retention email, your list should include only records who opted in to your list. For more info, check out ExactTarget’s brief post on how to avoid permission issues for retention lists.

To send acquisition email ads to your list, you need additional permission: third-party permission. Your subscriber has given permission, either explicitly or implicitly through agreement with your terms and conditions, for you to send information from other companies to them. These are the only records for which you have permission to send acquisition email ads.

It’s important to note that although the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t explicitly require marketers to use permission-based email lists, consumers don’t much care about legal definitions of spam. If they didn’t sign up for it, they consider it spam and may report it that way. That can harm your credibility and your deliverability.

In real life, when you call or meet someone who isn’t a close friend, you always remind him when you last met or the reason for your call. Do the same in each email: add an explicit, visible header that reminds your end users that they opted in to this list and agreed to receive commercial emails.

You should also make it clear that they can unsubscribe from your list in one click. It’s always better to let uninterested prospects go rather than trying to keep them by making it difficult to find an unsubscribe link. Otherwise, they click on the spam button or speak badly of your company in online forums. (Andrew Kordek also had a great post on Deliverability.com about how important a visible unsubscribe link is.) A commercial relationship is all about trust and respect.

Control

Don’t sell your email list. Never. You worked hard to build it, and you should maintain the ability to supervise each and every email sent. Control rounds out the foundation to your program by keeping a focus on the trust that your subscribers placed in you when they gave you permission to email them.

To maintain control, publishers traditionally send email ads on behalf of advertisers. However, this also makes you responsible for reporting on results and for the content of the message. Spammy language or bad coding here can have a long-term impact on whether your own emails hit the inbox or the spam folder.

ividence reforms traditional market practices by offering an automated solution to these issues. Through its standalone email ad exchange, ividence allows publishers to approve or reject each email campaign. Advertisers’ email creatives are optimized for deliverability, and ividence handles sending, targeting, and reporting.  And ividence ensures that all headers and footers are clean, clear, and don’t fool the end-user.

Are there other elements that have been critical to your acquisition emailing strategy as a publisher?

Kevin Deseuste

Kevin Deseuste joined the ividence team at the beginning of 2011 and directs the implementation and evaluation of advertiser campaigns and publisher lists for the U.S. market. He brings to the team an expertise in monitoring and enhancing deliverability and response rates from both the publisher and advertiser perspective. Prior to joining ividence, Kevin worked in Business Development at technology solutions provider SCC.

He can be reached at kd@ividence.com.
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So . . . what is acquisition email?

Commercial email breaks down into two basic categories: retention and acquisition email.

Think of the newsletter you get from your favorite coffee shop or the sale email you get for being a loyal customer at a local boutique. That’s retention email.

Acquisition email, on the other hand, is a way to reach out to new customers through email to raise awareness of your brand, notify consumers about available offers, and ultimately, acquire new customers. (For marketers, this can mean what you would call registered members, subscribers, leads, prospects, or clients.)

Why use it?

Advertisers have a limited number of ways to reach new customers online. Of the top three online methods, according to the DMA, banners average an ROI of $2 on every $1 spent; keyword ads average $17; and email averages $40.

The numbers are quite clear: email offers a great return on investment compared to other forms of online advertising.

An email list can be one of a publisher’s most valuable assets. A company can supplement their revenue streams and provide added value by sending offers that are of interest to their list.

Most ecommerce websites, newsletters, blogs, and online services are email list owners. Many have opt-in addresses (subscribers that gave their authorization to receive commercial third-party emails). Only these opt-in subscribers can be sent acquisition email.

Then why isn’t everyone using it?

Put bluntly, creating a legally compliant, effective, and profitable acquisition email campaign from scratch is hard.

As an advertiser, you first have to find a list with email records you want to send to. Then, you negotiate pricing and terms to use the list. To get your email into inboxes, you need a strong understanding of creative and coding best practices, which can change daily.

All of that leaves hardly any time for what advertisers do best: finding a way to stand out in a crowded market and communicate a message in an interesting way. Demographic and behavioral segmentation that’s routinely used in retention campaigns is difficult and cumbersome here.

On top of that, the market isn’t really transparent. List owners will – or should – never give you their list. Instead, they always send  campaigns on your behalf. So you only get the results of your campaign via an excel document … which unfortunately may not always reflect the truth.

For list owners, the path is also daunting. You need to find and convince quality advertisers with interesting offers to send to your list or else messages may be marked as spam, tanking deliverability for your own email campaigns. Sending to the list as a whole can devalue certain records and segments, but segmenting too much can cause serious headaches and at a huge data-mining cost that advertisers are not always ready to pay.

ividence seeks to relieve some of the stress of acquisition campaigns by providing a transparent platform to connect advertisers and list owners. The platform uses behavioral targeting to send fewer emails only to people most likely to be interested, resulting in increased revenue for list owners and improved ROI for advertisers. It’s open, self-serve, and transparent … as it should always be in a business relationship.

Next, we’ll talk about the core principles of acquisition email for list owners.

Eric Didier
CEO & Co-Founder

Eric Didier is a successful serial entrepreneur with a broad background in enterprise software sales management, complex software development and product management for web technologies. He was the founder and CEO of Soamai in 2000, a metadata applications company which was acquired by Allen Systems Group in April 2004.

He continued at ASG on the Executive Management team as Worldwide Vice President of Sales, Product Management and Solution Marketing. As interim COO, he then helped two French companies in establishing their worldwide presence (Sunopsis, Viadeo).

Eric has extensive experience and skills in building teams dedicated to developing, selling and supporting high value added software solutions.

Eric holds a Doctoral Degree in Mathematics from Arts & Métiers, Paris, France.