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

By Reported Donna Loyle

Loren McDonald, vice president of marketing at e-mail service provider EmailLabs in Redwood City, Calif., notes three common ways to segment an e-mail housefile:

Demographics. But look beyond mere gender and geography, he says. Track the ISP the recipient uses. “AOL users will act differently with your e-mails than others,” McDonald explains. You also want to know how each customer came onto your file, whether through your retail channel, catalog, search engine, referral, etc. “Where did your relationship with that customer begin? That information will tell you a lot about the customer,” he notes.