"Email is a Global Identity Platform" (w/ Allen Nance, Emarsys)

According to Allen Nance email has transcended from a communication platform to a global source of identity for consumers the world over. The CMO of Emarsys sits down with us to talk about how this communication medium has a globally accepted protocol which may unlock the key to identity in a social and mobile commerce future. Listen now!

Show Notes

About Allen Nance (an "Email OG")

• Allen Nance was person in his family to graduate high school. He then attended Georgia Institute of Technology.

• After graduating, Allen founded one of the first ESP's (Email Service Providers) WhatCounts.

• After selling that company in 2010, he moved on to investing in ecommerce and marketing technology.

• When Emarsys entered the US market a few years ago, he met the founders and really loved their team and their platform. He joined their team shortly after.

Is email dead?

• Every few months, someone releases an article declaring, "EMAIL IS DEAD!"

• Nance says "Ignore those." It is one of only global ubiquitous communication platforms that has ever existed on earth. It will continue to be a dominant channel.

• Email is the social security number of the internet, our digital ID.

Email is the start of an omnichannel experience

• Don't think about email as a single channel. Email the single most valuable first party data identifier we have.

• This is essential for tying together Facebook Advertising, Google Display Network, mobile, and web experience.

• Email will endure because it is our greatest identifier online.

"Not so fast" said the Asian market

• In Asia, SMS is the standard identifier online.

• Despite this, email remains the dominant channel in commerce.

Mobile commerce is not growing at the same rate as mobile traffic

• In general, mobile traffic is increasing while web traffic is decreasing. But in commerce, mobile is only seeing this same exponential growth when it is in native interactions, like Uber or Apple Pay.

• As retailers define mobile first experience for commerce, email can move from a traffic channel to a transaction platform.

In the future, email is the destination, not the journey

• Most marketers use email to send traffic to a destination, but in the future, email can become a destination for transaction, where purchases are made in the email itself.

• This future is dependant on advances in content personalization and security.

Unleashing the "The Creative Renaissance"

• On the technology side of marketing, providers must develop their tools so that marketers only to develop strategy, develop content, and develop a creative experience.

• If software can become more industry specific and intelligent, the extra time spent on CSV files, dragging and dropping, and building campaigns, can be used to fuel creative work of marketers.

No more empty software

• Too much software is "empty," leaving marketers to configure many touchpoints that could be automated.

• Often you buy a power point presentation, but you receive a piece of empty software.

• Software companies need to utilize data to give retailers a head start.

• Emarsys updates over 100 million data points per day. Their goal is to use this vast amount of consumer data to create better solutions, not just empty software.

Allen Nance's near-term recommendations for marketers and merchants

• Understand that data is the single most valuable asset you have.

• People talk a lot about AI, but AI is not like Febreze. You can't spray AI on crappy data to make it smell good.

• It's better to have good data than a lot of data.

• Evaluate how you are using email as the digital identifier of your omnichannel strategy.

• How do I use email across point of sale, mobile, Facebook advertising, and Google Display Network?

What Allen is most excited about for the future

• The divergence of the gap between mobile growth and mobile commerce. This is a huge opportunity for companies that think about this challenge.

• First party data is going to become the most valuable thing that marketers have. The idea of a "data collective" will become more prevalent where a multitude of retailers will share their digital data with each other.

• Individualized pricing. Industries can use personalized data to custom cater pricing on a large scale.

Bring your voice to the conversation

• Have you experience empty software?

• What are you doing with your first party data?