In his latest article, marketing leader Ryan Phelan describes the annoyance of receiving poorly personalized marketing messages. He writes: “An unsolicited magazine arrived at our house the other day. It wasn’t the direct-mail version of spam – it was about home building and design, and we’re doing both. And then my wife noticed the mailing label. The magazine was addressed to ‘Ryan Winter.’ Now, that’s half right because I am Ryan. But “Winter” was my wife’s name under her former husband. So ‘Ryan Winter’ doesn’t exist at our house.”

He describes the steps marketers need to take, not only to ensure their email marketing data is up-to-date, relevant and accurate but also discusses supplementing your data. “This will be like going on a shopping spree — seeing what information you can pick off the data shelves. Now is the time to do it before holiday 2021 descends and your data requests get lower priority. Smart marketers plan now for the holiday season. Putting these things in play now will pay off in the holiday season because you will have speedy access to the data you need.”

Ryan’s advice is timely. “Now is the best time to do both data and program audits. June through August are usually slow months — even this year when we’re just beginning to see how things have changed. Take this time to reflect on what you’re doing with your data and how to use it.”

Read more here.

With the demise of third-party cookies and re-evaluation of customer habits post-pandemic, this is the perfect opportunity to close gaps in consumer insights and understand how to build a data strategy to deliver meaningful experiences.

The effectiveness of marketing is tightly tethered to the quality of your data. For brands to proceed confidently, they must first take these steps.

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Emails don’t just get sent on their own. In fact, there is a robust list of elements you need to consider in order to have an effective email marketing infrastructure.

For starters, there’s the Domain Name System (Dn), known as the phonebook of the internet. The DNS maps a domain name to the IP (Ip) address hosting the website and the IP sending mail for a particular entity with a different domain name.

A Mail Transfer Agent (Mt) is the software that transfers electronic messages from one user to another by using a SMTP server (Ss) which enables outbound email. A Mail User Agent (UA) is the software that enables emails to be sent and received. These two separate pieces are key to getting emails through to your customers and prospects.

A Sender Policy Framework (Sf) is also required as an email authentication method that detects forged sender addresses during the delivery of your email. On the other end, the user’s inbox uses a POP3 Server (P3). When subscribers complain, Feedback Loops (Fl) ensure that these complaints are routed to the sender so they can be acted upon.

Typically, your IP address will be associated with a domain name or a subdomain through the Domain Name System. Subdomains (Sd) help your customers recognize your brand’s name through the top-level domain; this prevents phishing attempts.

If you are considering adding BIMI (see the Experimental section in the full report), two critical steps come first. Logo Trademark Ownership (Lt) is a key element that is necessary for implementing BIMI. You also need to apply for a Verified Mark Certificate (Vc). Lastly, for the brand’s logo to be displayed, the email must pass DMARC (Dm) authentication checks, ensuring that the organization’s domain has not been impersonated.

Get MarTech’s Email Marketing Periodic Table

Your lead engagement process involves a lot of moving parts. It requires harmony between people and technology to work properly. But reality gets in the way. Even the most thoughtfully designed lead engagement processes fall prey to Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong, will. Join us for this webinar to learn how Conversational AI helps Demand Gen and Marketing Ops leaders ward off Murphy’s Law; ensuring alignment between Sales and Marketing throughout the buyer’s journey and driving delightful experiences for prospects and customers.

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Google updated its algorithm to help victims of online slander, wrote Kashmir Hill and Daisuke Wakabayashi for the New York Times. “Websites solicit lurid, unverified complaints about supposed cheaters, sexual predators, deadbeats and scammers. People slander their enemies. The anonymous posts appear high in Google results for the names of victims. Then the websites charge the victims thousands of dollars to take the posts down,” said the NYT authors.

Google has already deployed changes to its algorithms but it plans to continue to make changes to catch these exploitative sites, the company told Search Engine Land. “We’ve had a policy in place for these sites for a number of years and a demotion signal based on valid page removals under this policy,” a spokesperson said.

Google will continue to improve these algorithms and you should see fewer exploitative or predatory websites surfacing in Google Search results for name queries. But, like anything in search, some sites will find methods around the current algorithms and Google will have to address those workarounds with new and improved preventative search algorithms.

Why we care. If you are in the online reputation management space, these algorithms may aid you in helping your clients with their reputation issues in Google Search.

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Join us online next week, Tuesday and Wednesday (June 15-16), for a deep-dive through the latest, most sophisticated SEO, PPC, and user experience topics and trends — plus serendipitous 1:1 networking, guided group discussions, and more! This is your final chance to attend SMX Advanced live in 2021. Don’t miss out!

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“If I tweet to a brand, and don’t get at least an acknowledgment, my brand perception decreases. There are still too many brands that believe social media is about marketing, and don’t recognize that it is a customer service channel first — marketing second.” Brett Rudy, Head of Marketing, MedSchoolCoach