The Rising Tide: An Interview with Will Devlin from MessageGears

This month’s edition of The Rising Tide featured our technology partner MessageGears, an Atlanta-based company that finds cutting-edge solutions for building data-driven email programs on a super-sized scale. They call themselves a hybrid email marketing platform for enterprise organizations because of the highly flexible model they use to consolidate Big Data.    We recently interviewed Will Devlin, senior director of marketing for MessageGears, about email,… Read more »

How to Derive Insights from a Mess of Data

In a recent blog post, we explained just how important reporting is to any marketing campaign. All the numbers and data collected from marketing efforts tell a story, but often there is too much noise to find the important information. In email marketing specifically, hundreds of thousands of data points are created with each mailing. Not all of this data is actually useful and it… Read more »

It’s Not You, It’s Them (Really, It’s All About Them…)

The concept of the sales funnel is well-ingrained in any marketer’s brain. We all ask ourselves how each initiative put into market is going to impact the bottom line. At the end of the day, we’re all beholden to the almighty dollar. But therein lies the problem at the heart of the funnel model. It’s all about US. How can WE make money? How can… Read more »

Thinking Outside the Inbox

Carefully curated strategy within email will only get you so far. Rather than the end-game, it’s more of an entry point from which a customer has to take another action (clicking) to then complete the desired conversion. Whether it be a purchase, event registration, file download or other action, the email is often only the first step of many in the customer’s journey. A disconnect… Read more »

Prepping the Attribution Funnel: Link Tagging

In a recent blog post, we began to scratch the surface of the wealth of information available in Google Analytics. It may seem strange to focus so much on web behavior when email is our channel. But, most emails seek to do one thing: elicit that elusive click. And then what? Where does the subscriber go? What do they do? Developing a link tagging structure… Read more »

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Change in ESPs

Our friends at Litmus have recently published some fascinating research on email service providers (ESPs), complete with handy tips for anyone hoping to level up their relevancy game. Back in August, they outlined some tips for crafting a better ESP RFP. Now, they’re taking a closer look at the challenges a company can expect to face once they’re in the process of switching. Considering more… Read more »

Falling Behind in Email? Add Another “P” to the Marketing Mix to Strengthen Relationships

  Email has seen a rebirth due to the explosion of data and marketing technologies. The old playbook is increasingly obsolete and new ways of utilizing the channel are emerging. Are you still attached to an older way of thinking about email? Let’s find out… If one of the 1960’s Mad Men had access to email as a marketing channel, it would likely end up… Read more »

How to Use Personalization Without Being a Creep

The following blog post was written by Movable Ink.   Customer data is the key to relevant marketing, and intelligent content is making personalization more accessible than it’s ever been. And while customers generally love to see content that’s tailored to them, there can be a huge disconnect is that content isn’t executed correctly. People don’t always realize that their taps, clicks, and cookies are creating a… Read more »

BrightWave Sheds Some Light on the ESP Selection Process

  Over 28% of brands are at least a little dissatisfied (sometimes a lot dissatisfied) with their email service provider (ESP). That’s not a great number. But when you consider the complexity of the ESP selection process, it’s also not too surprising. There are literally hundreds of email service providers. As a result of this massive ESP ecosystem, finding the right fit for your brand’s… Read more »

Why Email Marketers Should Care WAY More About Google Analytics

  BrightWave is a technology agnostic agency that works with virtually all of the major marketing clouds and email platforms, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud to enhance customer relationships. Our experience has given us a unique insight into how the Google Analytics 360 integration enhances the Salesforce Marketing Cloud offering as detailed below.   Last fall, Salesforce and Google announced a partnership integrating Google Analytics 360–… Read more »