Unica Blog

Email Marketing – The Ride Is About To Get Bumpier.

Posted by on March 13, 2012

A few years ago, in a different life, I was privileged to work with the folks that first developed reputation engines for spam filtering. I spent 2 years before we rolled it out banging on the drum, warning marketers that Reputation Was Coming And It Would Change Everything. When it did finally arrive, it did… change everything, very fast, and most email marketers were left scrambling to adapt or have their email programs fail. For

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The Multi-Channel Implications of Mobile and Chris Silva’s Report on Mobile Strategies for Retail

Posted by on February 07, 2012

I spent the better part of the morning reading Altimeter Group’s report, “Make an App for That: Mobile Strategies for Retailers” [http://goo.gl/77JaT]. Chris Silva [http://www.altimetergroup.com/about/team/chris-silva…], the analyst who published the report, makes some thought-provoking points about the approaches that many retailers are taking toward engaging people on mobile devices. If you haven’t read the report yet, you should; the report is available to everyone as open research and I suspect it

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Some Thoughts on Altimeter’s Report on Mobile Strategies for Retailers

Posted by on February 07, 2012

When I was a kid growing up in California’s Central Valley (the “Big Valley” made famous by the eponymous 1960s TV show [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058791/…] with Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Majors and Linda Evans), I loved watching television. And despite the reference to a “western” show in the preceding sentence, I was actually a sucker for every sci-fi show known to humanity. I suppose you could say that westerns held little thrill for a kid growing

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DMARC – What Is It & Do You Need It?

Posted by on February 06, 2012

Recently, a new standard was published, called DMARC.… It has caused a lot of discussion and excitement, and people have been asking whether or not they need it.
In short, DMARC is an expansion on the existing DKIM and SPF specifications, designed to increase the effectiveness of anti-phishing programs. It standardizes the use of SPF and DKIM, allowing senders to experience a more consistent result of their authentication programs from ISPs that use DMARC, as

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IBM Named a Leader in Cross-Channel Campaign Management by Independent Research Firm

Posted by on February 06, 2012

IBM Named a Leader in Cross-Channel Campaign Management by Independent Research Firm
IBM was once again named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Q1 2012.  The report states that “IBM’s acquisition of both Unica and Coremetrics was a clear signal to many marketers that the technology giant intended to dominate the enterprise marketing technology landscape.” In fact, IBM had the highest score in the areas of campaign design, campaign execution and …

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Super Bowl Analysis Takes Us Beyond the Tweets

Posted by on February 02, 2012

One of the most dramatic NFL games ever played was Super Bowl XLII pitting the undefeated (18–0) New England Patriots led by record-setting quarterback Tom Brady against the surprising NY Giants with young, unproven Eli Manning at the helm.   A thrilling, some say shocking victory for the Giants ended the Patriots’ bid to be the only 19–0 undefeated champion in league history.   And now Super Bowl XLVI –  The Rematch —   anticipated to be the…

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Biopsy Of An HTML Email

Posted by on January 27, 2012

Biopsy Of An HTML Email

I feel compelled to say that I’m an avid reader of EaterSF; the recommendations have fueled numerous food adventures in and around San Francisco. That being said let me also state this is not meant to lambast or endorse the editors of this newsletter, only as a vehicle for creative analysis.…

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What Retailers Can Learn from Holiday Shopping Trends

Posted by on January 12, 2012

It’s January and the beginning of a bright, shiny new year. I like to start the new year thinking about what happened over the last year—those things that stayed with me and that are likely to continue to affect my life in some way.
Like most people, when I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away late last year, my first thoughts were for his grieving family. But then I started to think about the…

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2012 Through The Lens of 2011 Deliverability & Q4 Benchmarks

Posted by on January 12, 2012

2012 Through The Lens of 2011 Deliverability & Q4 Benchmarks

Let me start by saying happy New Year! We hope that the final days of 2011 were spent relaxing with friends and family and that whatever final marketing pushes you might’ve been engaged with went off smoothly and effortlessly. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way: welcome to 2012! What better way to start 2012 than by reviewing the last quarter of 2011? High points, low points, let’s soak up the learnings from…

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IBM to Acquire DemandTec, Inc.

Posted by on December 08, 2011

Today IBM announced its intent to acquire DemandTec, Inc.…, one of the leaders in cloud-based pricing, promotion, and merchandising analytics. This deal, which is of course subject to DemandTec shareholder approval and all of the usual closing conditions, will allow our Smarter Commerce customers to better define and deliver the best prices and product mix based on consumer buying trends.
The thinking behind the acquisition is simple: to help our clients succeed in a

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Marketing in the Age of the Empowered Consumer

Posted by on November 28, 2011

Thanksgiving has always fascinated me. It’s the one day a year that every American family is eating basically the same meal (with a few variations, of course) and watching football and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…. The entire country stops and collectively does the same thing.
Now we can add one more national activity to Thanksgiving Day: shopping. Who would have thought that Americans would actually want to shop on a national holiday? Actually,

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Why Social Commerce Matters on Black Friday (and Every Day)

Posted by on November 25, 2011

A couple of weeks ago when I wrote about online shopping trends and predictions for this holiday season, I focused largely on the rise of the mobile shopper…. Today in honor of Black Friday, I’d like to focus instead on social shopping.
Social shopping, as I’m sure most of you know, refers to those people who turn to their social networks for advice or research when they’re considering a purchase. Seems like a pretty

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Gearing Up For Holiday Deliverability

Posted by on November 21, 2011

Gearing Up For Holiday Deliverability

With the holiday week upon us marketers are kicking their programs into high in hopes of achieving maximum inbox placement, clicks and ultimately, conversion.  The economy has made the battle for holiday dollars fierce. Consumers are looking for the best deals and marketers are eager to pack their inboxes with as many relevant offers as they can.
It’s understandable that sending a volley of emails detailing fantastic products, promotions, specials, exclusive savings, buy one get…

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Q3, 2011 Email, Mobile & Social Benchmark

Posted by on November 14, 2011

Q3, 2011 Email, Mobile & Social Benchmark

As clocks roll back and the days grow shorter, we’re going to pause and review last quarter’s (Q3) deliverability across email, mobile and social messaging to get our bearings as we head into this holiday season. It’s more important than ever to mine data, extrapolate trends and make strategic decisions based on good tactical analysis as many marketers prepare for their most crucial marketing pushes of the year.
Deliverability Holds Strong in Q3…
Average deliverability across industries and mailers was measured at 83%. On average,

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Do They or Don’t They?

Posted by on November 14, 2011

I recently got an email asking me if I thought ISPs tighten the rules during the holidays to be more strict on senders. It’s a question I got quite often when I was at AOL, also.
So…do they??
In my opinion the answer is no, they don’t! There are a many reasons for this thought, but it all boils down to the fact that the holidays are a nightmare for ISP staff, and the last…

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IBM Unica is the recognized leader in marketing software solutions. Unica provides enterprise marketing management (EMM) and web analytics software for the worlds largest companies across a variety of industries. Unica's online marketing tool streamlines the entire marketing process for brand marketing, relationship marketing, interactive marketing and marketing operations. Offered on premise or on demand, Unica delivers key EMM capabilities including: web analytics and customer analytics, email marketing, lead management, event-based marketing, cross-channel marketing, marketing campaign management, predictive modeling, inbound marketing, and marketing resource management. Unica’s online marketing products uniquely provides a marketing system of record that enables marketers to easily manage marketing assets and information, rapidly assemble online and offline campaign components, and online marketing software to track marketing performance.

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