A very long time ago — at least in “Technology Time,” where huge leaps of evolution can seem to happen practically overnight — businesses began to use email as a fundamental tool to reach and engage consumers. How they implemented it was pretty straightforward: They invested in their own on-premise software systems, so they could self-manage their email programs. But soon thereafter, those marketers began running up against deliverability issues. The root of the problem? Spam. To combat it, ISPs developed hurdles and safeguards designed to keep spam out of the inbox, but those measures made it more and more complicated for in-house email marketing systems to cope with the complexities that became an increasing part of ensuring deliverability. Even today, we see an average deliverability rate of 87 percent, which means 13 percent of potential revenue is getting left on the table. One View Of The Future: ESPs Cloud computing brought a promising potential solution: the Email Service Provider (ESP), which allowed companies to outsource their sending capabilities so they could concentrate on strategy and messaging, not on infrastructure challenges. ESPs offered flexibility, deliverability advances and the potential for getting beyond in-house infrastructure headaches. For many companies, they seemed to offer a perfect sending solution. But if anybody expected ESPs to be a panacea, they were wrong: Even with an ESP, deliverability can still be an issue. A business should never simply hand off its sending duties and expect optimum results without some degree of oversight. Using an ESP can […]
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