The latest innovation can shape the way you evaluate email platforms, but it’s not enough by itself to decide what will really work for your business. That’s part of the challenge when making field decisions.
Innovation can force you to reevaluate how you evaluate and choose technology to avoid heading in the wrong direction. I was thinking about this after talking to another vendor who was considering an RFP for an email platform.
As part of the background to setting up a useful RFP, I said it’s important to understand how the email industry has evolved and how core competencies have evolved. This is where you should start when considering new technology, especially before defining what you want from a platform.
Email is the foundation of every marketing plan. It has historically delivered the highest ROI and is the most effective channel.
Regardless of how the email appears, you also need to think about how to future-proof it and take a realistic approach to choosing a platform.
The golden age of ESP competition
Going back 20 or so years, the email technology industry had a handful of vendors. It was not like today, with market segments, categories and classes. Advertisers had few choices. It was like going back to the old days of television when you only had 3 channels and public TV. (You don’t remember that? Go ask your parents. Or maybe your grandparents. Man, I’m old.)
At that time, the main battle was between enterprise level ESPs like ExactTarget, Responsys and CheetahMail. Those competitive battles created fast and brutal innovation as each company tried to gain an edge over the others, win more RFPs and secure its future. Each had an idea, whether it was to attract a buyer with deep pockets or to go public and become the next big technology success story.
This has gained expertise in the middle market. The new processes and new developments that emerged from the enterprise-level race for leadership eventually trickled down to mid- and low-level companies, which were competing fiercely for their share of the email tech landscape.
That’s how divine innovation drives our industry forward. It should have started there because these top companies have the resources and staff to deal with the challenges that their clients bring to them.
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Technology comes to many people
Not that everyone needed the new answers they came up with. Back then, when I was working on RFPs, either as an end user or a technology provider or as a consultant helping my clients come up with successful plans, I went by one of several 80-20 rules.
One of these rules is that 80% of the tasks listed in the RFP are the same. Send email, report via email, track email. The user experience varied, but the technical requirements remained the same.
20% was good stuff: new technology that we could use to greet the consumer more effectively and that would give us new ways to grow our bottom line.
But we had to consider another 80-20 rule: that customers were only using about 20 percent of the functionality they had just purchased on their new platforms. They were not using all the good things that brought them to our place. They just used what they needed to get the emails out the door on time.
Today, I’m on the other side, helping clients create RFPs that will lead them to the right technology for their needs. I start from another point. First we check if they already have the functionality they need in an environment they are already paying for that would make their email systems better, simpler, faster and more profitable.
When the establishment is suspended after incorporation
I mentioned earlier that one goal of the most advanced email companies was to get. That started happening a few years after their innovation and revolutionized the industry.
Experian bought CheetahMail in 2004. In 2013, Oracle bought Responsys and Salesforce bought ExactTarget.
Innovation stops after that discovery. Companies have lost a competitive edge that forces them to pursue new technologies or think of new ways to reach customers.
What’s going on? Corporate ESPs have stepped back to strengthen their infrastructure and close their doors. Companies started focusing on ease of use, platform integration and APIs.
The new way started to backfire
The move to cloud-based mail transfer agencies (MTAs) has produced unexpected developments. We’re starting to see companies find new ways to manage customer data. This comes from the previous trend from flat files to relational data and how marketers can use that to add powerful content to emails and make them more relevant.
But technological innovation was still steady. The 80-20 rule changed to 95-5, with 95% of the platform remaining the same and 5% being new.
Innovation, when it happened, came from small startups that focused on a single challenge and developed technology to address it, such as adding real-time data to email campaigns. They faced a lower barrier to entry than large business firms and, as is often the case, entered large firms.
How AI has re-entered the conversation
In the last three to four years, the advent and adoption of AI has fueled the innovation engine. It started with the buzzword that dominated conversations far and wide: big data.
The question became, “How do we deal with big data?” It was important because many large companies have large databases, at least in the US Having 10 million, 20 million or 30 million records was not unusual.
Also fueling the discussion was the shift from relational data to schema-free data. Now, innovation is closer to the 80-20 balance we saw at the peak of email innovation, but we still haven’t seen the same level.
I say this because I always get the inside scoop from ESPs about the latest and greatest innovations. My answer is always the same: “Focus on what you do differently. I already know you can email and report on it. I want to know what you do differently.”
Now, with the 80-20 rule coming into play, what is that 80%? What is that push? That’s not just schema-less data. AI, integrated across all touch points.
Where AI actually drives change
Recently, Zeta announced the launch of Athena, a conversational AI agent on the Zeta Marketing Platform that uses AI to enable marketers to generate predictive insights, build audiences and launch campaigns using natural language information.
For many of us in the email space, this sounded a lot like IBM’s Watson platform, which also claimed to be using a precursor to today’s AI to manage and execute campaigns. That didn’t happen.
This time, it looks like we will finally realize that vision. I’m not praising Athena here, but my behind-the-scenes look makes me think we’ve opened the door to effective AI applications in email marketing. It could set a level of innovation that we haven’t seen in 20 years.
Back to the RFP
Now that you have the historical context, how can you use it to build your RFP or choose a technology platform? Consider the basic questions to ask: Can you do X? Can you do Y? Can you do Z? That’s 20% of your pitch where you need to focus.
I still look at AI products within ESP with a skeptical eye. Shar VanBoskirk of Forrester famously cuts through the hype in her Wave reports by saying, essentially, “It’s great you have the technology, but are customers using it and showing ROI?”
In a similar vein, Chris Marriott of Email-Connect.com has been consistent in declaring, “AI is not a feature to be tested, it’s a layer to be discovered. Where it sits in the architecture determines whether it drives results or just outputs.”
This is a proof test. When you look at the AI capabilities on the platform, ask yourself how realistic they seem.
- Does the innovation work?
- Does it add value?
- Will it help you make more money?
- Will it free up time to develop and refine your email strategy, add more testing or find other improvements to your system?
Things change a lot…
When they stay the same. You still have to deal with shortages of staff, budget and technical resources. You have to be realistic in your approach to adopting and using AI, asking whether you can make it work given your circumstances and other needs on your time.
Do your due diligence, too. Talk to customer or ESP references that are similar to your business. Look for people in the same boat, expertise- or resources and ask for their experience.
Be honest with yourself and your RFP, too. You can get suggestions on companies that will stand out from the rest based on their platforms and innovations.
But will you end up choosing an alternative to those advanced companies because you get frustrated? Or because you realize that you would like to have a simple platform, because the most important thing is the launch of campaigns?
Important when choosing an email platform
You may feel like you don’t have a say in the decision to choose a new platform. Sometimes you don’t because the decision makers live in a different group or the executive got a good deal from a friend or went to Cannes with the chairman of the board.
But you still need to claim a seat at the table, even if you don’t get the vote. Real-world, low-level perception is important, especially when it comes to AI. Make your case for whether AI will actually work given your constraints, such as data availability. Be the voice that asks if you can get back your investment.
You have many good options. Make sure you use all the resources available to you to do the right thing.
