Email in Online Marketing

During our first lecture, our class also discussed the use of email in online marketing. First, email is the root of almost all internet advertising; it is a terrific way to execute sophisticated marketing campaigns. Almost all interactions between the buyer and seller are recorded via email. To list a few examples, through email, vendors can confirm product purchases, send newsletters, verify a subscriber’s authenticity, distribute discounts to “friends and family,” and of course market themselves. Email marketing expenditures are particularly unique in that the marginal cost of an additional email sent is essential zero, although the cost of the systems that customize and launch emails is high. Given that email expenditures are mostly fixed, marketers strive to maximize the number of emails sent from one system. Considered one of the most important marketing channels, email depends on three types of expenditures: customer retention, customer acquisition, and customer-vendor transaction. Email is also key to consumer authentication and relationship management; one usually has to confirm his or her email’s accuracy to form a relationship with a vendor. Professor Kagan introduced us to some more lingo related to e-mail: Mailbox Provider, Email Service Provider (ESP), Inbox, Junk or Bulk email Folder, Bounce. We will be studying this topic in greater detail during the semester.