Customer segmentation and personalization, along with better vendor selection, can help boost your e-mail marketing results.

By Reported Donna Loyle

Good reporting tools will help you see, for example, open rates and clickthroughs, thus helping you rate your e-mail campaigns. Finally, if you want to set up programs to send offers to specific customers at preset times (e.g., birthdays), look for ESPs that offer so-called triggering technology.

Says McDonald, a best practice in e-mail marketing is to smartly develop a road map outlining the role the channel is to play in your overall marketing strategy, and then following that plan to success.