Email Marketing in 2020:

20 Experts Share Their Vision of the Future of the Channel

For our Email Marketing in 2020 report, Litmus asked 20 experts to share their vision of what email marketing will look like in the year 2020.

Our email experts include…

Here are some of their predictions…

From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Email readers are going to get better and better at helping recipients

manage their email by factoring in contextual information and no longer

simply displaying email by an arbitrary factor like recency.

Daniel BursteinDirector of Editorial ContentMarketingSherpa

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The client-approval step will shift toward reviewing content modules, not full creative, and

signing off on targeting models, not customer segments.

Morgan StewartChief Executive OfficerTrendline Interactive

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

By 2020, hyper-personalization in marketing will reach a significant

level, along with rules-based triggers, assimilation of the mobile channel, and connecting data from

other channels and platforms.Jill LeMaire RedoVice President of Digital Strategy and Insights

Epsilon

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

We might not be far from achieving some of the 1-to-1 marketing that

appeared in Minority Report, but the impetus for change is going to come as leaders in the younger generation adapt to and evolve the incumbent technology.

Ryan PhelanVice President of Marketing InsightsAdestra

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Email will leverage every interaction from the Internet of

Things, location, behavioral data, and customer preferences to

deliver messages to the customer in exactly the right context.

Eric StahlSenior Vice President of Product MarketingSalesforce Marketing Cloud

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Machine intelligence will manage and control the messaging to each individual across channels, creating

the truly integrated experiences that are currently talked about a lot

but rarely delivered.Tim WatsonEmail Marketing ConsultantZettasphere

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

In the next 5 years, email will be seen as not just a high-ROI

channel by itself but rather a platform that integrates with and makes other

channels more successful.

Loren McDonaldMarketing EvangelistSilverpop, An IBM Company

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Subscribers will be able to make purchases right inside a marketing

campaign, without ever leaving their inboxes. Campaigns will offer more of

an app-like experience, too, with embedded video and other interactivity.

Tom KleinVice President of MarketingMailChimp

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Given current variable adoption of best practices, by 2020, systems will step marketers

through all the best practices for customised lifecycle marketing,

creative, and delivery.Dave ChaffeyChief Executive Officer & Co-founderSmart Insights

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

2020’s practitioners will be coveted assets. In fact, smart companies that recognize the value of email marketing will retain top talent by

offering tenured career opportunities within the company.

Kristin NaragonDirector of Email SolutionsAdobe

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

The convergence of marketing technology with advertising technology

is taking email marketing to another level. Email platforms will need to be able to integrate with platforms that

handle the anonymous marketing data.Chris LynchSenior Director of Product MarketingOracle Marketing Cloud

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

No longer will email work “just because.” Only smart, innovative, and highly

dynamic emails will drive interaction, and generic blasts will get weeded out of the subscribers’ priorities, if not outright

emotionally junked.Simms JenkinsChief Executive OfficerBrightWave

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

With many brands spending the past two years focusing on data

and integrations, I predict that the next several years will focus on

taking advantage of the single view of the customer.

Cara OlsonDirector of Direct Marketing and eCRMDEG

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

I believe email volume is going to increase dramatically by 2020, but

it won’t feel like it. Inboxes will prioritize messages, many email

interactions will be brief, and many emails won’t feel like emails at all.

Paul FarnellChief Executive Officer & Co-founderLitmus

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

By 2020, I expect the bulk of email marketing to be similar to the experience of Gmail’s Quick

Actions. The whole message will be the length of a current subject line

with a call-to-action.Dan DenneyFront-End DeveloperCode School

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

I’m optimistic about the second generation email platforms. These

platforms are the developer-friendly platforms of choice for startups and are well placed to take power from the late 90s vintage behemoths.

Elliot RossManaging DirectorAction Rocket

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

I see interactive as a huge shift in email development. Early

analytics have shown far greater engagement from users who receive interactive messages.

Mark RobbinsEmail DeveloperRebelmail

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

Where best practice dictates that permission, personalization, and

relevance are key to success today, in the future those tenets will barely

be considered a minimum acceptable standard.

Andrew BonarFounderDeliverability Ltd.

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

By 2020, ESPs being the authenticated senders won’t be enough for end users. ESP customers will have to authenticate

mail themselves. Overhead and management will increase for both

ESPs and their customers.

Laura AtkinsOwnerWord to the Wise

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

The Internet of Things has the potential to generate trillions of messages a day,

and this tidal wave of email could be laden with all kinds of personally

identifiable information (PII), requiring more and more security.

Len ShneyderVice President of Industry RelationsSparkPost

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From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

To see all of their predictions, downloadEmail Marketing in 2020 for free at: litmus.com/lp/email-marketing-in-2020

Other Free Reports by

Adapting to Consumers’ New Definition of Spam A 7-point plan for how marketers can avoid spam complaints and extend subscriber relationships>> Get the report

2016 State of Email A comprehensive look at the data, trends, and innovations for sending great email in 2016>> Get the report

State of Email ProductionA detailed look at how marketers build their teams, plan

and build their emails, use technology, and more >> Get the report

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