What Agency Creatives Don't Know About Mobile Advertising 3 Minute Ad Age

Published: September 16, 2008

Creating and executing mobile-phone campaigns can get very complicated.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Do the creatives at your ad agency really understand mobile-phone advertising? While all emerging digital media have their complexities, mobile-phone communications can be unusually complicated because of the tangle of incompatible device sizes, proprietary standards and lengthy procedural requirements of all the different carriers. At the same time, the internal logistics of some agencies may effectively prevent creatives from acquiring the most basic materials and information needed to produce effective mobile ad campaigns.

U.S. E-mail Marketing Volume Will Reach 838 Billion Messages in 2013, Forrester Says

Published: September 21, 2008

E-mail's low cost and high ROI will drive e-mail marketing volumes upward. In fact, in the U.S. alone, volumes will reach 838 billion messages in 2013, according to a Forrester Research report published this summer titled "US Email Marketing Volume Forecast, 2008 To 2013."

In the report, Julie Katz points out the growth in e-mail messages will occur because of several factors, including:

• Small and medium-sized businesses are ramping up e-mail marketing. Small companies have been slower to adopt e-mail marketing, but they're now beginning to embrace it with gusto, according to the report.
  
• E-mail marketers are adopting more aggressive tactics. A battle for online dollars, especially in the retail sector, will spur e-mail marketers to increase the frequency with which they contact their subscribers, according to the report. Some high-end retailers have gone from sending two to three messages a week to e-mailing their subscriber bases daily.
• E-mail is getting cheaper. Although e-mail has been a historically inexpensive channel, it continues to get cheaper as marketers push e-mail service providers for volume discounts, the report points out. As a result, e-mail is an attractive option in rough economic times. During a slowing economy, marketers can succeed by focusing on retention rather than awareness — a perfect application for e-mail. Electronic messages are greener than paper mail. The report says pressure from consumers will drive direct marketers to substitute e-mail for regular mail because catalog and direct mail printing and delivery are so energy-intensive.
• Consumer behavior will prompt shifts to new e-mail formats, the report adds. Promotional e-mail, for example, is building to a saturation point, the report notes. What's more, 77 percent of online consumers said they were annoyed with e-mail volume and have begun to lessen their use of e-mail in favor of other communication channels, such as social networks and text messages.

As a result, marketers will embrace other types of e-mail communication — such as triggered and transactional e-mails, which are more likely to be opened and read than other message types, according to the report.

DM NEWS
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FORECAST FOR E-COMMERCE.  Some forecast a flush holiday season for online retail, as shoppers eschew gas-guzzling mall trips.  Considering the current economic malaise, few expect the 2008 holiday shopping season to be stellar.  But there are signs that some Internet retailers could see an uptick in sales during that period as con sumers look to save money on gas by doing their holiday shopping on the Web, and retailers may look to capitalize by spending more advertising dollars online.  “Last holiday season, when gas wasn’t as high as it is now, nearly a quarter of online shoppers said they were going online because of gas prices,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research.  This year, she continues, the trend should be even more pronounced, with retailers such as Amazon.com faring well.