Through ividence‘s role as an acquisition email technology platform, we are able to learn more about the email and acquisition email markets every day. We are thrilled to launch this blog and take advantage of the opportunity to share that knowledge with you.

So . . . what is acquisition email?

Commercial email breaks down into two basic categories: retention and acquisition email.

Think of the newsletter you get from your favorite coffee shop or the sale email you get for being a loyal customer at a local boutique. That’s retention email.

Acquisition email, on the other hand, is a way to reach out to new customers through email to raise awareness of your brand, notify consumers about available offers, and ultimately, acquire new customers. (For marketers, this can mean what you would call registered members, subscribers, leads, prospects, or clients.)

Why use it?

Advertisers have a limited number of ways to reach new customers online. Of the top three online methods, according to the DMA, banners average an ROI of $2 on every $1 spent; keyword ads average $17; and email averages $40.

The numbers are quite clear: email offers a great return on investment compared to other forms of online advertising.

An email list can be one of a publisher’s most valuable assets. A company can supplement their revenue streams and provide added value by sending offers that are of interest to their list.

Most ecommerce websites, newsletters, blogs, and online services are email list owners. Many have opt-in addresses (subscribers that gave their authorization to receive commercial third-party emails). Only these opt-in subscribers can be sent acquisition email.

Then why isn’t everyone using it?

Put bluntly, creating a legally compliant, effective, and profitable acquisition email campaign from scratch is hard.

As an advertiser, you first have to find a list with email records you want to send to. Then, you negotiate pricing and terms to use the list. To get your email into inboxes, you need a strong understanding of creative and coding best practices, which can change daily.

All of that leaves hardly any time for what advertisers do best: finding a way to stand out in a crowded market and communicate a message in an interesting way. Demographic and behavioral segmentation that’s routinely used in retention campaigns is difficult and cumbersome here.

On top of that, the market isn’t really transparent. List owners will – or should – never give you their list. Instead, they always send  campaigns on your behalf. So you only get the results of your campaign via an excel document … which unfortunately may not always reflect the truth.

For list owners, the path is also daunting. You need to find and convince quality advertisers with interesting offers to send to your list or else messages may be marked as spam, tanking deliverability for your own email campaigns. Sending to the list as a whole can devalue certain records and segments, but segmenting too much can cause serious headaches and at a huge data-mining cost that advertisers are not always ready to pay.

ividence seeks to relieve some of the stress of acquisition campaigns by providing a transparent platform to connect advertisers and list owners. The platform uses behavioral targeting to send fewer emails only to people most likely to be interested, resulting in increased revenue for list owners and improved ROI for advertisers. It’s open, self-serve, and transparent … as it should always be in a business relationship.

Next, we’ll talk about the core principles of acquisition email for list owners.

Eric Didier
CEO & Co-Founder

Eric Didier is a successful serial entrepreneur with a broad background in enterprise software sales management, complex software development and product management for web technologies. He was the founder and CEO of Soamai in 2000, a metadata applications company which was acquired by Allen Systems Group in April 2004.

He continued at ASG on the Executive Management team as Worldwide Vice President of Sales, Product Management and Solution Marketing. As interim COO, he then helped two French companies in establishing their worldwide presence (Sunopsis, Viadeo).

Eric has extensive experience and skills in building teams dedicated to developing, selling and supporting high value added software solutions.

Eric holds a Doctoral Degree in Mathematics from Arts & Métiers, Paris, France.