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Page | 1 The Relevancy Ring – ESP Buyer’s Guide 2016

Copyright © 2016 The Relevancy Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The Relevancy Ring – ESP Buyer’s Guide 2016 Research, Analysis and Writing by: David Daniels, Nicholas Einstein and Peggy Reinders

Foreword: About the Research

Welcome to The Relevancy Ring, a quantifiable measurement of 8 ESPs (Email Service Providers) and

Email Infrastructure vendors manifesting in leaders and contender vendor Rings. During the three-month

research process we spoke to marketers about their needs and aspirations. Then we evaluated how the

vendor solutions are poised to eradicate marketer challenges.

The report details the aspiration and hurdles that marketers face, the most desirable vendor features and

attributes, and in depth analysis of these eight vendors. This information is valuable for both vendors and

clients alike, as we uncover the necessity of what defines a positive and productive relationship. The

report combines a December 2015 executive survey of 402 email marketers; documented ESP demo of

four use cases; a vendor questionnaire that captures nearly 300 data points; and one-on-one phone

interviews with the marketers who use these tools.

I am very proud of our team, as well as its approach and unique methodology. Our process includes

collecting and analyzing slightly more than 1,000 data points per vendor, all of which are evaluated in our

objective data-driven scorecards. We used a collaborative objective process as opposed to a subjective

singular analyst-driven market evaluation. We created separation by ensuring that one of our analysts

objectively ran the demo scorecard, another one ran the reference satisfaction scorecard and three

analysts scored the questionnaire scorecard. The methodology details our entire recipe, but readers can

feel confident in knowing that our vendor evaluation process is objective and does not stem from one

analyst’s singular point of view. In 2016 we are delivering detailed vendor research that we believe is very

useful in the selection process of a new partner.

An excerpt of this research is presented in our digital magazine for marketers by marketers, The Marketer

Quarterly. Available for free with registration online, as well as through apps in iTunes, Google Play and

Amazon.

I hope you find this research useful and enlightening.

All the Best,

David Daniels, CEO & Founder, The Relevancy Group, LLC President, Publisher & Founder – The Marketer Quarterly, LLC

http://www.marketerquarterly.com/


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Table of Figures:

SECTION I – The Email Marketing Landscape and Outlook

Figure 1: Email Marketing Technology Utilized - December 2015 Figure 2: Utilization of Email Marketing Services – December 2015 Figure 3: Email Marketing Tactics – December 2015 Figure 4: Top 10 Challenges When Developing Email Campaigns – 2015 Figure 5: Top Five Email Marketing Priorities for 2016 SECTION II – Criteria to Select an ESP Figure 6: Top Ten ESP Selection Criteria – 2016 Figure 7: Top Ten Most Important ESP Product Features – 2016 Figure 8: Top Ten Desired ESP Features by Organization Size and Industry – 2016 Figure 9: Importance of ESP Infrastructure Features in purchasing Decision – 2016 Figure 10: The ESP Morphs from Email Service Provider to Everychannel Service Provider Figure 11: Length of Contract Terms 2013-2015 SECTION III – Evaluation of ESP Vendors Figure 12: Omnichannel Capabilities of Vendors Evaluated Figure 13: Testing Capabilities of Vendors Evaluated Figure 14: ESP Data Center and Maintenance Details Figure 15: ESP Services Details Figure 16: ESP Deliverability Details Figure 17: ESP Content and Personalization Tools Figure 18: ESP Reporting and Analytics Details Figure 19: The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards – ESPs 2016 Figure 20: The Relevancy Ring – Everychannel-Email Service Providers, 2016

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SECTION I – The Email Marketing Landscape and Outlook

Section Introduction: Email Marketing’s Complete Opportunity Remains Untapped Since the inception of commercial email marketing solutions over the last decade and a half there has been much progress, however marketers have yet to fully embrace the opportunity that this channel presents. Businesses know that email marketing is profitable. However these merits are not without their challenges and aspirations. Marketers are not using all of the tools that are available to them, and yet they aspire to move beyond email and implement omnichannel and real-time data initiatives.

While ESP Adoption is High, The Market of Technology Deployment Remains Highly Fragmented

The gap between those who do email marketing very well and those who just do email marketing

persists. These differences can in part be attributed to the divide in the tools that marketers are using to

deploy email campaigns. The Relevancy Group survey revealed that 23 percent of companies are still

deploying emails via custom homegrown email solutions (Figure 1). These in-house solutions are fine for

basic or triggered messages, as well as personalized messages but these solutions often miss the

necessary features (i.e. testing) to optimize marketing programs and meet stakeholder needs. However,

our survey reveals that the majority of marketers utilize an ESP (Email Marketing Service Provider) in

some fashion. There is an increasing number of marketers utilizing multiple ESPs (28 percent), which we

attribute to the growing number of niche solutions which deliver specialized triggered and/or predicative

email solutions such as Bluecore and Kahuna. This number is up five points from 23 percent in 2014.

Marketers are also turning to newer hybrid solutions, such as MessageGears that tie cloud-sending

infrastructure to existing database solutions. Still, it is SaaS/Cloud-based ESPs that continue to dominate

email marketing infrastructure deployments.

Figure 1: Email Marketing Technology Utilized - December 2015

Question Asked: What technology do you currently use to manage your email marketing? (Select all)

Source: The Relevancy Group, LLC/Executive Marketer Survey n=402, Mid-Market n=160, Enterprise n=242 12/15, US Only

23%

23%

25%

28%

44%

16%

17%

29%

18%

48%

28%

27%

23%

34%

41%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Custom Solution that was built internally

A Hybrid Solution part of the application is on-premise and sends in the cloud

Commercial On-Premise Software

Use multiple SaaS/Hosted ESPs

SaaS/Hosted ESP (Email Service Provider)

Enterprise Mid-Market Overall



Utilization of ESP Services Is High Among Email Marketers

Marketer utilization of services was strong in 2015 and we expect it to grow over the next twelve months.

While a heavy reliance on email production services is to be expected, the growing popularity of

outsourcing analytical and strategy services is evidenced not only by the percentage of marketers

currently using them, but also the number of marketers intending to do so over the next twelve months

(Figure 2). Email marketing’s complexity only continues to increase as marketers aspire to centralize

customer data, optimize mailings, and improve message relevancy. To be successful, marketers must

utilize a mix of services and clearly this aspect of email marketing signals good news for ESPs and their

agency services partner ecosystem, as demand will remain strong over the next twelve months.

Six of the eight vendors participating in this research offer in-house agency service offerings which

includes: Acxiom, Adobe, Epsilon, Experian, PostUp and Zeta Interactive. The other vendors; Maropost

and MessageGears offer limited services or rely on partners. Marketers seeking full-service ESPs should

look to Acxiom, Epsilon, Experian and Zeta Interactive: they all report that full-service clients make up

forty percent or more of their client base. Acxiom and Epsilon report that upwards of sixty to seventy

percent of their client base are full-service. Vendors such as Adobe and PostUp provide full service

offerings but the majority of their clients utilize services in a hybrid approach, which is also a

characteristic these two vendors have in common with nearly all of their peers. The MessageGears

offering is for the more technical marketer, they offer technical and deliverability services but partner

with Email Marketing Agencies to deliver the range of services depicted in Figure 2. Outside of delivery

services, Maropost’s self-service offering targets organizations that don’t need to rely on services.

Vendors across categories must realize the permanent and growing need for a wide range of services.

Each evaluated vendor delivers services in varying levels of completeness either natively or via partners.

Figure 2: Utilization of Email Marketing Services – December 2015

64% 64% 60% 59% 59% 54%

29%22% 29% 26% 27% 32%

7%14% 11% 15% 14% 14%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Email MarketingAnalyticalServices

Email MarketingDeliverability

Services

Email MarketingStrategic Services

Email MarketingCreative Services

Email MarketingProduction

Services

Email MarketingTechnical

IntegrationServices

Do not use and no plans to implement within the next 12 months Plan to implement within the next 12 months Currently Use

Question Asked: Please indicate if you currently utilize email marketing services, if you plan to utilize them or have no plans to utilize them? (Select one)



More Email Marketers Are Retargeting Subscribers With Online Ads Than Utilizing Testing

Nearly a third of email marketers report that they target or retarget email subscribers in online

advertising and a near equal number are doing the practice based on website behavior (Figure 3). This

increasingly popular tactic to target or retarget abandoned visitors has become easier over the last year

by a crop of boutique vendors that offer recommendation and targeting solutions. While this method is

efficient and effective, more email marketers are implementing this approach than proven email tactics

including: testing, dynamic content, live/adaptive content and triggered lifecycle messages. As ESPs

prioritize product investments they must be realistic in regards to the utilization of such features and

have an eye towards site advertising targeting and retargeting solutions. Many of the vendors in this

research currently offer such a solution either natively or via partnerships (Figure 12). In 2015 more than

$100 million in venture capital money was spent on start-ups in this emerging sector, offering services

including: recommendation, targeting and retargeting solutions. In 2016 this will continue to be an area

of focus and growth for the marketplace.

These relevant email marketing tactics are not being implemented not because of a lack of tools but

instead due to a lack of time, staff and access to data. Marketers struggle with data management as

evident in the following numbers:

Just 30 percent of marketers report to have centralized/integrated client data repository

Only 24 percent centralize customer data across channels to provide a complete view of the

customer

Twenty-three percent practice data hygiene, indicating most marketers operate with noisy data

The complexity of these staff and data issues underscores the need for an ESP with experienced services

and comprehensive product functionality.

Figure 3: Email Marketing Tactics – December 2015

Question Asked: From the following list, please select the statement or statements that best describe the email marketing

tactics that you regularly utilize? (Select all) Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

14%

15%

19%

19%

19%

20%

21%

21%

22%

23%

25%

26%

26%

28%

29%

32%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Utilize QR (Quick Response) codes

Utilize an SMS short code for mobile opt-in

Utilize triggered, lifecycle marketing across multiple channels

Use adaptive content to change content at the time of open

Utilize send-time optimization

Measure lift vs. control

Use paid search to grow our marketing database

Conduct multi-variant testing

Use video in email campaigns

Target our customers utilizing life-stage marketing tactics

Place offers/ads in transactional email marketing messages

Utilize dynamic content

Conduct A/B testing for email marketing

Have a mobile application for our clients

Target our customers based on web-site behavior

Target or retarget email subscribers in advertising



Marketers Are Challenged to Coordinate Data, Campaigns & Content Across Channels

Email marketer challenges go beyond how they are (or are not) using available data and tools to better

enhance their email campaigns. Our survey reveals that the challenges fall into three broad buckets:

Analysis: Analyzing campaigns, optimizing message frequency.

Coordination: Coordinating, managing and optimizing campaigns across channels, brands.

People: Lack of automation, having adequate staff, IT support and coordinating those resources.

The number one challenge—analyzing campaign results (Figure 4)—can result from failure in all three

areas. None of these challenges are impossible to address, however, partnering with the right ESP can

ease these obstacles. Such a remedy requires budget—a challenge for 15 percent of the survey

respondents.

Despite increased budgets and the growing power of the CMO within the organization, these challenges

signal that legacy marketing automation technology or a lack of it, as well as siloed marketing

organizations continue to haunt the progress and sophistication of marketing. When we asked about

organizational structure, the familiar silos that inhibit collaboration surfaced once again:

Common Goals: Just 36 percent of marketers state their marketing department shares common

goals.

Ownership: Only 28 percent report that there is central ownership of marketing programs across

all channels thus attributing to the fragmented non-coordinated view of the customer.

Team Rewards: Under a quarter (23 percent) report that their marketing department is rewarded

with common personal incentives, indicating the team receives few rewards for overall marketing

performance.

Marketers must embrace a culture of change to eradicate these challenges.

Figure 4: Top 10 Challenges When Developing Email Campaigns – 2015

Question: What are your greatest challenges when developing email marketing campaigns? (Select all)

Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

17%

17%

17%

17%

17%

17%

18%

18%

19%

21%

22%

23%

24%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Moving data in a timely fashion between us and our ESP

Email deliverability, getting messages to the inbox

Knowing where to begin to optimize our marketing

Managing our marketing offers across multiple campaigns

Having adequate staffing resources to manage our programs

List turnover (i.e. subscriber data churning and going bad)

Having adequate IT support for marketing applications

Creative content development

Coordinating marketing across departments/brands

Managing the frequency across all marketing channels

Ability to automate campaigns

Coordinating campaigns across channels

Analyzing campaign results



In 2016 Marketers Are Focused on Improving Attribution, Real-Time Data Utilization and Relevancy

Priorities for 2016 signal the maturation and growing aspirations of the email marketer. Marketers are

self-aware and have set goals to improve the ROI in 2016. When asked about their top five priorities for

improving the ROI of their email marketing program in 2016, marketers said they are focused on

improving response attribution (Figure 5). These attainable, yet lofty 2016 aspirations include:

Attribution Accuracy: Marketers are focused on the need to improve response attribution. This is

their top priority for 2016. While many attribution methods exist, we have witnessed a number

of ESPs that are investing in this area. Many of these companies, including Adobe, Experian and

Zeta Interactive, offer packaged remedies. This is the first time attribution has surfaced in the

top five.

Driving Relevancy: A perennial priority, marketers seek to improve segmentation and targeting in

order to improve the relevancy of their messages.

Investing in Moment Marketing: Leveraging real-time data is easier in most ESP platforms than it

had previously been (Section III). Marketers seek to use real-time data based on context from

mobile devices, location, inventory, system events and even weather.

Analytical Optimization: ESPs and marketers are well aligned here as both are making significant

investments in their analytical prowess. From services-driven deliverables to improved analytical

tools, marketers have many robust ESP offerings to select from in 2016 (Section III).

Data Centralization: Data integration and centralization is key to driving all of the above

priorities and this feature is imperative to a competent vendor solution (Section III).

Figure 5: Top Five Email Marketing Priorities for 2016

Question: What are your top five priorities for improving the ROI of your email marketing programs in 2016? (Select one)

Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

26%

32%

33%

34%

36%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Centralizing our customer data and making itactionable

Greater use of analytics in order to optimize ourcommunications

Utilize real-time data

Improving segmentation and targeting

Improving response attribution



SECTION II – Criteria to Select an ESP

Section Introduction: The Email Marketer Evolution Manifests in New Vendor Selection Priorities Despite the fact that email marketers are not embracing proven marketing tactics such as testing, their requirements and interest in selecting an ESP partner reveals new priorities and aspirations that we haven’t seen in the past. While some lasting themes are present, our executive survey exposes a heightened sensitivity to security/reliability, analytics and omnichannel marketing features. In this section, as differences appear, we will highlight contrasts by industry and or market-size.

Industry Expertise, Deliverability, Analytics and Reliability Drive ESP Vendor Selection When beginning to assess ESPs, marketers’ top criteria are based on the vendor’s expertise in the prospective buyer’s industry (Figure 6). Vendors should not underestimate this consideration. When asked what their most important considerations are when selecting an ESP, marketers specifically cite the vendor’s industry expertise, email deliverability features and services, reporting/analytics, data security, and the overall reputation of the provider.

Deliverability forever: Deliverability will always be an important criteria for vendor selection, in part because inbox placement is necessary to drive results. In addition, the continued changes in ISP deliverability rules and inbox functionality require up-to-date expertise.

Beyond Email: Top considerations of an ESP include items that are not Email Marketing features. Twenty-six percent of marketers state the need for Social Marketing features and 24 percent identified the importance of Mobile Marketing features in their overall consideration when selecting an ESP.

Services are not skipped: The quality of the vendor’s staff, follow the sun support and analytical services all round out the top ten considerations. The vendor selection is being firmly placed on the significance of the relationship with the prospective ESP, further underscoring the need for high quality services and account management.

Figure 6: Top Ten ESP Selection Criteria – 2016

Question Asked: What are your most important considerations when selecting an email marketing service provider (ESP)

application? (Select all) Top Ten Selected Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

22%

23%

23%

24%

25%

26%

26%

30%

31%

33%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Analytic services to improve marketing results

24/7 follow the sun customer support

Quality of the vendor's staff

Mobile marketing features

Reputation of provider

Social marketing features

Data security and reliability track record of the vendor

Reporting, analytics and measurement

Email deliverability features and services

Expertise in our industry



Top Desired ESP Features Transcends Email to Include Omnichannel Functionality While security/reliability, analytics and deliverability all appear in the top ten most important features

when selecting an ESP, we find that many of the features sought go beyond email marketing functionality

to other channels (Figure 7). Here the aforementioned marketer aspirations, challenges and overall ESP

selection criteria surface in specific application features. Thirty-six percent of marketers stated that social

marketing features and 35 percent stated mobile marketing features were top ten features when

selecting an ESP. Desire for display retargeting solutions from Email Marketing vendors is on the rise: 35

percent of marketers seek this feature, signaling new table stakes for ESPs as they must marry Adtech,

Martech, and customer identity together. In 2016, a new era for ESPs will be ushered in, in which the

most competent vendors will not only be judged by their core email functionality, but Everychannel and

what is most important to buyers, Security/Reliability, that ability to offer zero down time in a redundant

infrastructure. Our interviews and work with buyers confirms these survey results. This is not an

aspirational need, but rather a shift to the most complex marketing we have ever witnessed. We doubt

the notion that this may be an echo chamber driven by the frenzy of acquisitions and product

development among vendors that have now transitioned from pure email functionality to multichannel

messaging platforms with omnichannel features such as display retargeting. The demand is real and

vendors and marketers alike must have consistent plans to keep pace with their peers as competitive

solutions and omnichannel campaigns will become better coordinated and increasingly more effective.

Marketers are appropriately focused on features such as data integration, redundancy (i.e. Tier IV), and

data center security, as well as optimization features to improve workflow and inbox placement. There

are unfortunate examples of system outages and data breaches at crucial times of the year for certain

industries or vendors that opted not to participate in this research. Clearly the industry has taken notice

and is properly prioritizing infrastructure proficiency in the vendor selection process.

Figure 7: Top Ten Most Important ESP Product Features – 2016

Question: What are the ten most important product features when selecting an ESP application (Email Marketing Service

Provider)? Top 12 shown. Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

34%

34%

34%

34%

35%

35%

35%

35%

36%

36%

42%

42%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Dynamic Content

Custom workflow support for multiple users and depts.

Responsive Design

Scalability, upload large amounts of data and burst sending

Deliverability reporting, details on inbox placement

Display retargeting-Target ads on web-sites to match customers

Ability to directly integrate to our internal database, CRM system

Mobile marketing features-push messaging, SMS, build apps

Social marketing features-launch Twitter, Facebook + others

Deliverability tools, i.e. message rendering, inbox seeding

Business intelligence analytical reporting tools

Security/Reliability, Tier IV datacenters, fault tolerant, 99.95% avail.



Top Ten ESP Desired Features Differ By Organization Size and Industry

When viewing the top ten desired features by market segments and industry we find many similarities

but noteworthy contrasts in the prioritization of these ESP functions (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Top Ten Desired ESP Features by Organization Size and Industry – 2016

Question: What are the ten most important product features when selecting an ESP application (Email Marketing Service

Provider)? Top 10 shown. Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only. Mid-Market n=160, Enterprise

n=242, Consumer Products n=42, Financial Services n=50, Media and Publishing n=39, Retail and eCommerce n=100



ESP Infrastructure Features Are Driving Marketing Purchasing Decisions

Email marketers are increasingly sensitive to uptime, security and overall disaster recovery planning.

Such infrastructure sentiments are driven by the value of email marketing and the need for companies to

engage with their audience through the most widely deployed and effective marketing channel of all

time: email. The channel needs to work all of the time. Accordingly marketers are sensitive to following:

“Cloud” and Data Encrypted At Rest: While 57 percent of marketers cite this as extremely

important in their ESP purchasing decision, only 32 percent of respondent’s state that having

the hosted technology as a cloud computing based solution is just as important. Buyers are

often confused as this rest encryption feature is typically exclusive to true a cloud computing

infrastructure. This indicates that marketers love the idea of data encryption at rest but don’t

fully grasp the technical underpinnings necessary. This is driven by the misplaced use of the

word “cloud,” which is compounded by the many ESPs and vendors that tack the word “cloud”

on the end of their branding when in fact none or very little of their solution is actually cloud

computing. Because of this misuse, we have much disdain for the word and vendors that use it

without such infrastructure underpinnings. ESPs do not confuse marketers with this word,

unless you have that technology. Marketers, if ESPs use that word; please understand those

implications fully.

Disaster Recovery Plan: The 54 percent of marketers that prioritize a disaster recovery plan,

further underscores the aforementioned reliability point. Marketers expect redundancy, 36

percent expect ESPs to have multiple data centers. (Figure 9)

Zero Maintenance: Just as with any relationship, those ESP-marketer relations that are high maintenance often get booted. Fifty percent state zero down time including maintenance is extremely important.

Behind Firewalls and API’s: Marketers emphasize these features too. ESPs have massively different capabilities in these all-important areas. (We will cover this further in Section III).

Figure 9: Importance of ESP Infrastructure Features in Purchase Decision – 2016

Question: When selecting an Email Marketing Solution how important are the following features in your purchasing decision?

(Select one for each option) Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only.

57% 54% 50% 43% 36% 34% 32%

37% 40% 44%47% 53% 57% 56%

6% 7% 6% 10% 11% 9% 13%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Your data isencrypted at

rest

They have adisaster

recovery plan

Zero downtime even for

productmaintenance

Ability todeploy onpremise

behind yourfirewall

Multiple datacenters

API is based onopen

standards i.e.REST, JSON,

etc.

The hostedtechnology is a

CloudComputing

based solution

Extremely Important Somewhat Important Not Important At All



The New ESP Morphing from “Email Service Provider” to “Everychannel Service Provider”

The traditional “Email Service Provider” must adapt to become an “Everychannel Service Provider,” given

the growing requirement among marketers to centralize their messaging and omnichannel marketing

needs into one solution. The organization will remain siloed and purchasing decisions will remain

channel-specific. To master this influx of real-time omnichannel data, vendors and marketers must

remain agile. How are Everychannel Service Providers and Email Service Providers different?

Email Service Provider – For these companies, it is all about email execution, inbox placement

(deliverability), wrapped with services and some level of reporting that often falls short of multi-

dimensional analysis. Data is not centralized and it is a pain point of integration or constant

uploading, requiring the marketer to chase the ever transient data exchange. From a data exchange

perspective, this process makes many email marketing solutions no more elegant than something

like Dropbox with an MTA (mail transfer agent) stapled to it (Figure 10).

Everychannel Service Provider – Data, services and analysis are central to the offering of these

providers. Data lives in or is fed into the solution via restful real-time smart integration tactics, taking

the burden off the marketer. These providers focus on real-time optimization, as well as services and

machine-based learnings in order to predict the best customer offers and paths across multiple

channels. These companies use the digital omnichannel powerhouse channels: email, mobile, social,

and display. These channels can be further enriched with data service and analysis. Attribution is

central to this deployment option, not an afterthought. In this scenario, intelligence is centralized

and execution channels act from the combined knowledge the marketer or automation tools

prescribe. Lastly, the Everychannel Service Provider addresses identity.

Figure 10: The ESP Morphs from Email Service Provider to Everychannel Service Provider

Source: The Relevancy Group, LLC 2/15 & 1/16



ESPs Must Remove Integration Illusions and Demonstrate Real-Time Open API Integration

We often hear from ESPs that they can meet a particular client need if all of the data resides in their

platform. Marketers seek integration from a disparate set of databases and do not wish to replicate data.

However, it is integration _NOT_ replication that remains the keyword for success. The notion of dated

old APIs and the tired flat file FTP drop are omnipresent in ESP solutions. Vendors that will win are those

that can demonstrate elegant, scalable, efficient and effective capabilities based on open current scalable

API standards (i.e. SOAP, REST, JSON).

Number of Long Term ESP Contracts Are Increasing Marketers are increasing the length of their contracts with ESPs, which is reducing the frenzied ESP revolving door that had become commonplace in years past. This is good news for both suppliers and marketers, as longer dealings benefit from deeper integration and collaborative vendor/client relations. Most contracts are in two-year commitments with termination clauses that essentially allow for a new vendor in the event that critical SLAs are not met. Thirty percent of marketers continued to hold two-year contracts in 2015 (as they did in 2014). We identified a shift away from month-to-month and one-year agreements to longer engagements (Figure 11). Only eight percent of marketers state that they are on month-to-month contracts, indicating that some marketers have out clauses allowing them to move on quickly. The contract language of such an out clause is one thing, but the reality of switching vendors rapidly is quite another.

There is, however, a stark rise in the number of three-year contracts, growing from 8 percent in 2013 to 14 percent in 2015. Incentives to increase contract length largely revolve around discounted CPMs and services pricing. Most notably several vendors are reducing or removing start-up fees for longer contracts. Thirty-eight percent of marketing executives surveyed stated they would sign longer contracts for more favorable pricing and 28 percent noted that data integration capabilities would increase contract length. That said, integration capabilities and leveraging real-time data with open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are table stakes features for any ESP.

Figure 11: Length of Contract Terms 2013-2015

Question Asked: What is your present contract term with your Email Marketing Technology? (Select one) Source: The Relevancy

Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only. The Relevancy Group, Executive Marketer Survey n=353 12/14, US Only. The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey n=419 11/13, US Only

14%

7%

14%

30%

27%

8%

8%

9%

11%

30%

30%

13%

24%

4%

8%

17%

31%

16%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Not Sure

Four Years or Longer

Three Years

Two Years

One Year

Month to Month

2013 2014 2015



SECTION III – Evaluation of ESP Vendors

Section III Introduction: The Relevancy Ring Evaluation and The Relevancy Group Approach

The eight vendors reviewed include: Acxiom Impact, Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian

Marketing Services, Maropost, MessageGears, PostUp and Zeta Interactive. These companies all serve

enterprise and mid-market senders. In the analysis, each vendor was given a score in the major category

areas including: vendor-reported data; detailed use case-driven product demos; product roadmap

reviews; as well as an inspection of client satisfaction and examination of services offerings. All vendors

paid a fee to be included in this research and advertise in our digital magazine, The Marketer Quarterly.

For more details, consult the methodology at the end of this report.

The New ESP – “Everychannel Service Providers” Rise To Satisfy Omnichannel Needs

The shift of ESPs transforming into Everychannel Service Providers is already occurring (Figure 12). The

options for marketers that desire an omnichannel Everychannel solution are increasing. Marketers that

simply seek email services should consider the very capable vendors that solely focus on that channel.

Marketers aspiring for omnichannel services should seek an Everychannel ESP, one that has the

necessary feature stack to satisfy the organization beyond email (Figure 12). Note that the features

marked below as native may incur additional costs.

Figure 12: Omnichannel Capabilities of Vendors Evaluated

Source: The Relevancy Group-Relevancy Ring ESP Questionnaire 12/15



Despite Differences in Success Metrics, Great Parity Exists With Testing Functionality Across ESPs

Testing is one of the bedrock principals of marketing yet we continue to find that only a minority of email

marketers utilize this necessary tactic. Traditional testing methods imply rework, in that after learning

what is successful, marketers have to go back and recast the winning version. This issue is not for a lack

of tools, as all of the ESPs examined in this research have testing capabilities. All ESPs evaluated have the

capability to deploy automated tests, which feature the ability to automatically send the winning version

if it meets or exceeds a predetermined metric. There are great differences in metrics that can be utilized

to determine the automated winner. Most ESPs can use familiar metrics including open and click-through

rate, which are useful for publishers, but fewer offer retail-oriented metrics such as conversion and

revenue. While most ESPs can implement conversion and revenue tracking through customization, this

comes at a cost. Marketers seeking revenue-based testing optimization are advised to consider providers

with the flexibility to leverage metrics beyond opens and clicks (Figure 13). There are significant

differences in the ease-of-use in automation tools, particularly when using it in lifecycle campaigns. In our

demos we found Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian Marketing Systems and Zeta

Interactive to be particularly intuitive. Given these usability differences, marketers are urged to get a

demonstration of these features.

Figure 13: Testing Capabilities of Vendors Evaluated




Place Emphasis on Vendor Reputation, Infrastructure Security and Uptime Performance

As evident in Section II, we know that ESP infrastructure features are driving marketing purchasing

decisions. Given the mission critical nature of email marketing, particularly in many industries such a

financial services, retail and travel, none of the technical prowess or user experience of an application

matters unless it is running 24/7 365 days a year. Marketers must ensure that they are working with a

vendor that has redundancy and can guarantee that they have redundant secure data centers.

Such peace of mind not only makes for good sleep, but also ensures that email messages that may dictate

industry compliance for some and revenue for others will continue to manifest. Vendors that almost

perfectly met our requirements in this category include: Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony,

Experian Marketing Services, Maropost, MessageGears and Zeta Interactive. We suggest that you dig into

this area to meet your organization’s specific requirements and tolerance for service level pain. Real

differences exist based on need in data center numbers, types and the ability to be fully redundant

(Figure 14).

Figure 14: ESP Data Center and Maintenance Details




Not All Email Service Providers Offer Services

Is ‘services’ a misnomer in the categorization of email marketing vendors? Perhaps, but not really since

the industry has matured as the balance of self/hybrid to full-service has leveled off. Email application

has also changed and it has different uses for different companies. For Uber and Facebook for instance,

email has become a purely transactional application. Expedia, on the other hand, has amassed

tremendous email marketing talent that they have become an email service agency to their own internal

clients. Data indicates that services remain relevant. As the complexity for Everychannel omnichannel

marketing increases so does the need for outside guidance and support. Marketers need to assess their

own internal capabilities, and consider the following categorization:

ESPs that lead with a services and technology approach include: Acxiom Impact, Epsilon Agility

Harmony, Experian Marketing Services and Zeta Interactive (Figure 15).

ESPs that offer services internally or via partnership include: Adobe Campaign and PostUp. Both

have internal services, but Adobe relies on external specialist agency partners to round out their

offerings. Adobe Campaign works with many credible providers, e.g. Merkle and Epsilon.

ESPs that lead with technology first: Beyond deliverability and technical/integration services

vendors such as Maropost and MessageGears are focused on their technology solution first.

Figure 15: ESP Services Details




Some Variance in Delivery Tools & Services – All Are Robust

Enterprise email marketers of all types require a certain level of delivery tools and support to launch and

manage their programs. All nine of the vendors in this evaluation can meet the needs of high volume

senders. Enterprise marketers reported that when selecting an email service provider ‘email deliverability

features and services’ was their second most important consideration behind ‘industry expertise.’

Undelivered messages don’t deliver business value. All vendors in the report offer the basic services

required to register, authenticate, and ‘warm’ or ‘ramp’ IPs, as well as provide some level of ongoing

delivery support and mitigation services (Figure 16). Not surprisingly, the providers that focus more on

services, have deeper offerings in the area of deliverability consulting. Every platform reviewed offers

some level of pre-send rendering, and most partner with either Return Path, 250OK, or both, to provide

additional delivery insights such as inbox rate, and domain-level delivery metrics. Several vendors partner

with eDataSource for competitive intelligence information, while PostUp uses Return Path’s Insight

product. In previous guides, we have recognized more variance in delivery tools, but The Relevancy

Group believes that the vendors reviewed in the latest Relevancy Ring Report have allocated appropriate

resources in the area of delivery tools and services. We concur that most enterprise marketers would be

well served by any of the reviewed vendors.

Figure 16: ESP Delivery Tool & Services




Content and Personalization Tools Blossoming with Partnerships

To help their clients meet the needs of an increasingly demanding consumer, many of the email service

providers reviewed have made significant investments in the areas of dynamic content and deep

personalization. Through partnerships and integrations with adaptive content vendors like LiveClicker,

Moveable Ink, and PowerInbox, many of the vendors evaluated have augmented their tools with the

ability to more efficiently leverage real-time and contextual data. Research published by TRG in 2015

highlighted that brands who incorporate real-time data in their outbound email programs can realize a 3x

lift in program performance – so this additional functionality is welcome. MessageGears is the only

provider in this report that does not have formal partnerships with adaptive content providers.

Marketers looking for a partner with deep functionality in coupon creation and syndication should

consider Acxiom Impact, Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian Marketing Services or Zeta

Interactive. Each of these vendors has the ability to natively generate barcodes in emails, as well as

manage single-use coupons. Only Experian Marketing Services has native Apple Passbook functionality,

but most of the providers can send passbook coupons through a custom effort with a third party.

Figure 17: ESP Content and Personalization Tools




There is a Wide Variance in ESP Reporting Tools and Services

Reporting and analytics was a top priority for marketers in 2015 and continues to be an area of major

focus in 2016. We see relatively wide variance in the vendors we reviewed in this area (Figure 18).

Maropost, and MessageGears – the less ‘service-oriented’ providers – all give clients access to a suite of

reporting tools, but provide little to no services in the area of analytics. The other vendors do provide

various levels of strategic and analytic services at a predetermined hourly rate.

Many of the providers who are focused on campaign management and omnichannel integration support

multi-touch, cross channel attribution models. Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian

Marketing Services, and Zeta Interactive allow marketers to implement more sophisticated models that

look beyond the last click in order to better understand and optimize campaigns. Many of the other

vendors can meet this functionality through custom work and partnerships.

There have been exciting developments in data visualization over the last year. Several vendors are

allocating resources to make our troves of email data easier to analyze, understand, and act on, through

more powerful data visualization tools. Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian Marketing

Services and Zeta Interactive have offerings that allow for some data manipulation and visualization.

PostUp is the first ESP to integrate Tableau into their platform. For no additional cost, PostUp clients can

seamlessly load and manipulate their email data in arguably the best data visualization tool in the market

– a real plus.

All of the vendors offer a rich set of APIs that allow marketers to pull reporting data into other in-house

analytics tools.

Figure 18: ESP Reporting and Analytics Details




The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards

Client satisfaction can’t be simulated. The Relevancy Group spoke with three reference clients for each

ESP evaluated. On top of these interviews, we leveraged our email marketer survey panel to collect

anonymous satisfaction data from buyers of these solutions. While we weight this panel data in our final

analysis, this data highlights the customer’s pure voice. The Relevancy Group is proud to present the Gold

and Silver Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards, which is a measure of client satisfaction across 15

categories. (Figure 19). These client affirmations signal the trust and respect that clients have for their

ESP vendor partners in these categories.

Note that there are ties, as in some cases the mathematical differences were so slight in the No. 1 Gold

position or in the No. 2 Silver position that we couldn’t distinguish a clear winner. We find that client

satisfaction and overall vendor reputation often drives vendor selection.

Figure 19: The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards – ESPs 2016

The Relevancy Ring Client

Satisfaction Award

Categories

Gold Award Silver Award

Product Innovation Zeta Interactive Tie: MessageGears, Adobe Campaign

Infrastructure/Stability MessageGears Maropost

Campaign Execution Tie: Adobe Campaign, Epsilon Agility

Harmony

Experian Marketing Services

Deliverability Tools & Services PostUp Tie: Epsilon Agility Harmony,

Maropost, MessageGears

Educational Resources Zeta Interactive Epsilon Agility Harmony

Account Management Tie: Zeta Interactive, Epsilon Agility

Harmony

Tie: Adobe Campaign, Experian

Marketing Services

Strategic Services Tie: Zeta Interactive, Epsilon Agility

Harmony

Tie: Acxiom Impact, PostUp

Production Services Tie: Acxiom Impact, Epsilon Agility

Harmony

Experian Marketing Services

Technical Services Tie: MessageGears, PostUp Tie: Adobe Campaign, Zeta Interactive

Creative Services Acxiom Impact Zeta Interactive

Omnichannel Marketing Tie: Adobe Campaign, Zeta Interactive Tie: Epsilon Agility Harmony, Experian

Marketing Services

Integration Capabilities Tie: Adobe Campaign, Zeta Interactive Tie: Experian Marketing Services,

MessageGears

Technical and Customer

Support

MessageGears Tie: Adobe Campaign, PostUp, Zeta

Interactive

Usability Epsilon Agility Harmony Experian Marketing Services

Overall Value Tie: Experian Marketing Services,

MessageGears

PostUp

Source: The Relevancy Group-Relevancy Ring ESP Reference Client Interviews 12/15

The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=402 12/15 US Only 12/15



The Relevancy Ring Vendor Success Metric – The ESP Buyer’s Guide

The Relevancy Ring Vendor Success metric for Everychannel-Email Service Providers is measured by

four categories: Client Satisfaction, Services Capabilities, Functionality, and Innovation. The figures in

this report specify the strengths of each vendor. We have rolled up the collected data to recognize

vendors in the leader ring and the contender ring. Eighty percent of Y-axis is a measure of client

satisfaction and the remaining 20% measures services capabilities. The X-axis is a measure of product

functionality and innovation, which is based on our analysis of the vendor questionnaire and demo use

case scorecards. The bubble size represents the company size, which is based on email volume,

headcount and client count. Leaders scored above 70 percent on both the X and Y Axis. This figure

includes the omnichannel, social, mobile capabilities that are in addition to the core email marketing

functionality evaluated. Figure 20 and the vendor descriptions provide additional insight.

Figure 20: The Relevancy Ring – Everychannel-Email Service Providers, 2016

Source: The Relevancy Group, LLC “The Relevancy Ring – ESP Buyers Guide” 2/16

Vendor Profiles - Vendor Profile Icon Map

TRG Analyst Take The Client Take Innovation Award

About The Company

Deployment Options Primary and Ideal Industries



Acxiom Impact – http://www.acxiomimpact.com/ Marketers seeking a full service provider with global support should certainly consider Acxiom

Impact. Clients benefit from an experienced services team: the average employee tenure is 10.7

years which is in part responsible for their high client retention rate (reported at 98 percent). To maintain

competitive services rates they service clients out of Nashville, TN and Poland but also New York and San

Francisco. Their distributed global service has had a positive impact on their client satisfaction. Under the

direction of new leadership, the Impact tool has seen great enhancements over the last year including a

new UI. While they have a strong services approach to implement lifecycle campaigns across channels,

they prefer to implement best of breed as a technology strategy. For example, Acxiom brought in their

partner RedPoint to satisfy our multichannel lifecycle use case. Given Acxiom’s acquisition of LiveRamp,

there are solid plans on their roadmap to integrate that offering to improve retargeting and data

utilization across the massive LiveRamp network of partners. These upgrades will surely benefit Acxiom

clients and make their multichannel offering that much more competent. Consider Acxiom Impact.

Acxiom Impact’s clients talked about their great satisfaction with campaign execution services,

deliverability services support, and responsiveness of their account teams when issues would

arise. “Great on quick turnarounds”, “high inbox rates”, “willingness to help”, and “great at getting

programs out the door” were the words specifically expressed. Most clients were also extremely happy

with the infrastructure of their platform. Which services were clients not so happy with? Educational

services and product innovation. Clients felt the vendor could do a better job as an industry thought

leader by pushing out research, news articles, blogs, and other educational tools. Some felt the firm

lacked industry-specific expertise. Best client quote? “My Acxiom ESP team is great!”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Acxiom Impact has updated their legacy analytics to a new

“Bring Your Own BI Tool” making it easy for marketers to plug marketing data into a wide variety

of business intelligence tools, such as Tableau and other cutting edge visualization tools.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold – Creative Services; Tied for

Gold – Production Services; Tied for Silver – Strategic Services

About The Company – Acxiom serves some of the largest businesses in the world including 51 of

the Fortune 100. They have three U.S. offices and three international offices supporting email

across the UK, Poland and Asia.

Deployment Options – Acxiom Impact is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution

Primary and Ideal Industries – Financial Services, Automotive, Media, Travel, Communications,

Retail and Transportation

http://www.acxiomimpact.com/



Adobe Campaign – http://www.adobe.com/campaign Adobe Campaign is one of the few ESPs to offer flexible deployment options, including: On

Premise, Hybrid and a Managed Service. Clients benefit from their vertical approach, which

ensures that their dedicated account teams offer industry-specific strategies, tactics, use cases and

workflows. Adobe Campaign is integrated into their marketing cloud allowing centralized data and assets

to flow roundtrip to target and retarget a subscriber in any other online or offline channel from an

abandon event. Clients of Adobe Analytics and Experience Manager will benefit from a persistent view of

their customer audiences, as all data sits in the same format and can be shared across Adobe Marketing

Cloud. We found their API and ability to process real-time bi-directional data to be very thorough. The

usability of their lifecycle workflow editor and dynamic content reporting also stood out. Adobe

Campaign is well suited for marketers desiring to move up the sophistication ladder and deploy

contextual moment marketing-oriented campaigns. Campaign relies on Adobe Analytics and Adobe

Target to deliver predictive analytics and recommendations, which is an area they can enhance in 2016.

Marketers seeking robust features and flexible deployment options should certainly consider Adobe

Campaign.

‘Scale’ and ‘powerful’ are the words clients used to describe Adobe’s platform. Most clients “dig

the flexibility” and feel that Adobe overall is very tech savvy. Their technical services team also

got high remarks. One client mentioned they’re the best tech group he’s ever worked with and another

said “their dev team is awesome!” Account management teams were reported as extremely responsive.

Where could Adobe improve? All clients would love to see better integration with the rest of the Adobe

marketing cloud, specifically Experience Manager. Adobe could also improve on the services front.

Strategic services was described as “extremely expensive.” Best client quote? “Their platform has been

eye-opening in scale!”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Similar to triggered lifecycle campaigns, Adobe’s Data

Management Workflows are constantly updated and can inform attributes such as what is the

preferred or best channel to use for client interactions.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Tied for Gold – Campaign

Execution, Omnichannel Marketing, Integration Capabilities; Tied for Silver – Product Innovation,

Account Management, Technical Services, Technical and Customer Support

About The Company – Adobe Campaign targets global clients across market sectors: 24 percent

of Adobe Campaign clients are based in the US and 76 percent are based in Europe, Asia, and

South America collectively. Adobe has global locations including headquarters in San Jose, CA, and offices

in Boston, Washington D.C., NY, Seattle, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Ottawa Canada.

Deployment Options – Adobe Campaign has three deployment options: On-premise, Hybrid

model (on-premise and SaaS) as well as a Managed Service.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Retail, Media & Entertainment, Financial Services, Travel and

Hospitality, Manufacturing with a focus on cross-channel organizations.

http://www.adobe.com/campaign



Epsilon Agility Harmony – http://www.agilityharmony.com/

For marketers looking for a global enterprise solution with high capacity agency services that

seek to deliver complex omnichannel campaigns, Epsilon’s latest version of Agility Harmony is

one to review. Harmony provides marketers with the freedom and flexibility to use any type of data

through Epsilon’s robust APIs and polyglot persistence database. Epsilon has added a new data center for

Agility Harmony making it fully redundant. Epsilon’s send-time optimization offering, ‘Email Response

Network’ is now integrated into the product and renamed ‘Scheduling Intelligence’. While Epsilon is

building a partnership with PowerInbox, they are also filling product gaps with Harmony Live, a live

adaptive content offering for including social feeds, maps and other widgets. Those that enjoy writing

segments in SQL won’t love Agility Harmony as its native coding language is JSON, but an easy-to-use

visual editor is also available. Their automated testing solution is based on opens and clicks, but the

needed revenue attribute is coming in 2016, as is a welcome overhaul of the analytics offering. Consider

this solution for its ability to easily add subscribers into a lifecycle path and execute large complex data

queries.

Epsilon received high marks for all aspects of their services. In regards to Account Management,

one client was “Extremely!” satisfied with her team’s ability to be proactive and advance the

sophistication of their program. Clients were also extremely satisfied with Epsilon’s role as an industry

thought leader, saying, “One of my favorite things about them. They send me more information than I

can consume.” In terms of improvement, most clients felt that the ideas and direction coming from

strategic services was strong, but there was an opportunity to provide more. Clients approved of the

creative services team, but felt the actual creative output could be improved. Best client quote?

“Campaign execution is an extension of my team. They’re my gold standard for agencies. They blow every

other agency out of the water!”

What’s innovative for the marketer? The system creates an Omnichannel Customer Key, so that

subscribers can be recognized for future and past behavior across channels (i.e. email, SMS,

mobile push).

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold – Usability, Tied for Gold –

Campaign Execution, Account Management, Strategic Services, Production Services; Silver –

Educational Resources, Tied for Silver – Deliverability Tools & Services, Omnichannel Marketing

About The Company – Epsilon began servicing email marketing in 2005 via acquisitions. The

vendor has 70 office locations globally: all support email marketing. More than 1,000 employees

are dedicated to email marketing offerings globally. Eighty percent of clients are enterprise, 55 percent of

which are multinational.

Deployment Options – Agility Harmony is deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Automotive, Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Financial

Services, Telco, Technology

http://www.agilityharmony.com/



Experian Marketing Services – http://www.experian.com/marketing-services

As the largest ESP, Experian Marketing Services is focused on driving intelligent interactions

across channels. Since our last review they have done an excellent job of bringing together the

formerly disparate pieces of their marketing suite – Identity, Interactions and Intelligence Managers. Not

only are they aspiring to where the market is headed across Everychannel, they are well aligned. The

company actually has an offering that impressively addresses the coordination of marketing and

advertising that includes features for online, offline and addressable TV. They have the capability to

identify the known and unknown users, process enormous data at scale, and in the last year they sent

350 billion digital messages. We find the tool easy to use, even when it comes to building or matching

complex audiences to any one of their 20+ direct advertising partners. They satisfied all of our use cases,

particularly threading email and mobile channels across a campaign or customer lifecycle. An area where

the solution needs improvement is the ability to immediately target a segment found in the reporting

tool without having to manually recreate the logic in their filter tool. Marketers that seek a strategic

partner to provide a blend of services, data and technology across complex campaigns should consider

Experian Marketing Services.

Clients named many aspects as the best parts of their relationship with Experian Marketing Services.

One liked the responsiveness and commitment of their account management team. Another said the

tool was best, yet another data capabilities and execution. The one thing that all clients mentioned they loved

about Experian Marketing Services was the partnership they shared. Every client we talked to felt that each

party had a mutual level of respect and overall desire to make the business better. As one client said, “We’re

true partners in the business. We couldn’t do it without each other.” Experian Marketing Services is not

without their challenges. Clients felt their customer support teams could do a better job proactively spotting

issues. Some clients expressed the need for better communication between their tech and account teams. Best

client quote? “We’re both better companies through the partnership. We’re excited to grow with them as a

partner!”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Experian Marketing Service’s built-in attribution analytics are

particularly well designed. Based on fractional attribution, they deliver beautiful and useful insights on

response data across channels.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Tied for Gold – Overall Value; Silver

– Usability; Tied for Silver – Campaign Execution, Account Management, Production Services,

Omnichannel Marketing, Integration Capabilities

About The Company – Experian has 31 office locations globally, any of which can support email

marketing, and over 1200 employees dedicated to email marketing offerings. Sixty-six percent of

clients are enterprise and 20 percent of these clients are multinational organizations.

Deployment Options – The Marketing Suite can be deployed via SaaS or via Managed Service.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Retail, Travel/Hospitality, Financial Services, and Media/Publishing,

Technology

http://www.experian.com/marketing-services



Maropost – http://maropost.com/

Maropost is a relative newcomer to the industry but is growing at a tremendous rate, reminding our

analysts of the early days of then start-up ExactTarget blazing onto the scene. Maropost added 184

new clients in 2015. Maropost’s hyper growth can be attributed to its no-nonsense pricing, easy to use and

fairly feature complete ESP offering. They deploy quickly and do not charge for implementation or anything

additional to the CPM, other than dedicated IP addresses. While they lack traditional ESP services, which will be

necessary for Maropost to move up market, they have stable client satisfaction results. Support relies on 24x7

in-app chat support, yet the CEO and growing leadership team remain engaged with clients. However, this area

must scale to keep up with current growth. Proofing content and rendering is done via Email on Acid what had

been a separate login, but it’s now fully integrated. The product is competent, and built on a relational

database, however the reporting module needs updating, which is expected in 2016. They have a usable

lifecycle workflow tool perfectly suited for email and SMS channels, but not omnichannel as it lacks output to

print and mobile push messaging. Marketers seeking a cost-effective feature-rich self-service email marketing

tool should consider Maropost.

Responsive is the word every client used to describe Maropost. Their customer service and

deliverability teams were called out as being “very responsive” and easy to contact. Clients are also

happy with the responsiveness around feature requests, product feedback, and flexibility in making product

changes to suit their needs. They felt Maropost is doing a phenomenal job adding functionality and

enhancements on a consistent basis. “They’re quick to get features in!” The other word every client mentioned

was Ross. All clients we interviewed have access to Ross, the CEO, if issues arise. Maropost does not offer

account management services. One client expressed initial hesitation about not having an account rep.

However, he now feels this is a benefit saying that account reps are a formality and he’s never experienced one

that really knew his business. For improvement, clients would like to see better reporting. They feel the focus

has been on marketing features and as a result, reporting is not as advanced as other platforms. Best client

quote? “Maropost is a close-knit company. We like being a big fish in a small pond.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Maropost’s Priority Send delivers email to the most engaged

subscribers first.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Silver – Infrastructure/Stability;

Tied for Silver – Deliverability Tools & Services

About The Company – Founded in 2011, the company has 44 employees and offices in Toronto,

Canada; the U.S. and India. The firm has 335 clients across segments, primarily in the mid-

market. Approximately 10 percent of clients are enterprise.

Deployment Options – Maropost is deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

Primary and Ideal Industries – The firm has no vertical focus, but has an abundance of clients in

publishing and e-commerce.

http://maropost.com/



MessageGears – http://messagegears.com/

MessageGears’ hybrid email marketing solution may be the answer for clients concerned with data

security and/or with massive amounts of ever-changing data. This hybrid solution allows clients to

keep their data behind a firewall and under their control simply by connecting the on-premise application to a

cloud solution. The firm is small, so any client may have a big fish in a small pond feeling, which is consistent

with satisfaction data. Since our last evaluation, MessageGears added new messaging modalities including SMS,

mobile push and app page push. The solution is ideal for enterprise marketers that do not want to move or

outsource data to an ESP. With robust APIs that are easy to set up, and a cloud infrastructure built on AWS

(Amazon Web Services), the solution is built for scale. Winning Expedia – a high volume sender of massive

complexity – is evidence of this scale. The solution is built for the more technical marketer, but utilizes Apache

FreeMarker template authoring tool, which is familiar for most template coders. They have done a fine job

building Litmus rendering into their tool, but setting up multi-step lifecycle messages is much more complex

than other vendor solutions. Beyond technical and delivery services, the vendor is not a services-based ESP so

clients looking for services will have to partner with an email services agency. Marketers with internal services

resources and/or database marketing investments that do not wish to replicate data should give MessageGears

serious consideration.

MessageGears got rave reviews for their hybrid approach. Clients love their tool’s scale,

flexibility, ability to plug in to just about anything, and overall value in the marketplace. One

client felt they had the best enterprise tech stack in the marketplace. Another expressed how accessible

and generous MessageGears is about sharing knowledge and expertise. Another felt the company is a

strong thought leader in email technology with great technical documentation. Where could they

improve? Reporting. Most clients felt reporting was not feature-rich. They could also improve service

consistency with account management teams. Clients felt account managers are more proactive in the

beginning of the relationship. Best client quote? “Excellent business partner. Excellent team. Better than

anybody in the industry.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Their ability to _not_ replicate data. Clients can connect to as many internal databases as they like within a given installation, sharing the same account and delivery infrastructure in the MessageGears Cloud.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold – Technical and Customer

Support, Tied for Gold – Infrastructure/Stability, Technical Services, Overall Value; Tied for Silver

– Product Innovation, Deliverability & Services, Integration Capabilities

About The Company – Based in Atlanta, GA, MessageGears began servicing email marketing in 2010. They are focused on data-centric enterprises sending a high volume of email.

Deployment Options – Hybrid, APIs. The Hybrid integration platform combines on-premise

software with cloud-based delivery.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Travel, Financial, Retail, Marketing Automation.

http://messagegears.com/



PostUp – http://www.postup.com/

PostUp is focused on driving optimization for publishing and media companies, through their

own proprietary email and SMS tool and an affordable suite built on integrated partnerships with

best of breed technology. Those partnerships include companies such as Tableau, Boomtrain and

LiveIntent, that in many cases PostUp provides to the marketer at no additional cost. We like their laser

focus on email and their ability to build, support and commit to outcome ROI models for their clients and

prospects. They pride themselves on reliably predicting the outcome of their client’s metrics. While their

email tool is capable it is in need of a usability refresh. That said, their emphasis on capturing email

addresses via a variety of methods is indeed driving list growth for their clients. While publishers are their

main clients, any marketer could benefit from their massively flexible rule-based system that presents

lightboxes and other email acquisition tactics. Clients benefit from the deep integration with Return Path

as the entire suite is integrated into the tool. The omnichannel capabilities are lighter than peers, but

mobile push, a new user interface, and a lifecycle automation visualization tool are on the roadmap for

2016. The Tableau analytics are a tremendous value and marketers seeking a more email- focused

solution should consider PostUp.

Clients love PostUp. All gave rave reviews of their people, tool, service, and overall value. Clients

recognized PostUp for their low employee turnover, stating that they love the continuity of

service. Account management teams were noted as being extremely proactive and helping to advance

the sophistication of their email programs. “Great people”, “great service”, “they listen and react” were

all direct quotes given about their teams. Where could they improve? Product innovation. Clients want

to see more rapid feature development in response to evolving technology. PostUp has worked to

integrate innovative partners, but when it comes to new product innovations, many clients mentioned

the company was more nimble in the past. Best client quote? “Best system on the market by far, and I've

used them all.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Fully integrated Tableau business intelligence analytics

solution is included at no additional cost for the marketer.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Tied for Gold – Deliverability Tools

& Services, Technical Services; Tied for Silver – Strategic Services, Technical and Customer

Support, Overall Value

About The Company – Based in Austin, TX, PostUp began servicing email marketing in 1996. They

focus on mid-market but also have a handful of enterprise clients.

Deployment Options – PostUp offers a hosted platform (SaaS) or install software on the client’s

servers as part of an on-premise licensed installation.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Publishing, Media and Entertainment

http://www.postup.com/



Zeta Interactive – http://zetainteractive.com/

Since our last evaluation, Zeta Interactive completed their acquisition and client migration of

ClickSquared. Zeta also recently closed the acquisition of eBay Enterprise Marketing’s CRM

assets, which includes the massive full-service retail-focused ESP business once known as e-Dialog, as

well as database marketing firm MBS. This latest acquisition provides backend scale to the email sending

environment and brings data processing aspects of the very capable Zeta Hub to eBay clients. Zeta is

proving that they can continue to innovate through acquisition, as well as retain and migrate clients to

their latest offering versus maintaining legacy stacks. Like their enterprise-focused peers, Zeta, now with

more people and volume, leads with services and has a capable offering, a rich recommendation

technology and service-driven lifecycle persona capabilities. The solution is user friendly and more than

capable. Nuances such as Email on Acid rendering are built into the tool without a separate sign-on and

most importantly the UI is built on a robust API that can process real-time data at volume and velocity.

We contemplate Zeta’s ability to quickly integrate acquisitions, retain, grow, and innovate at the same

time. Marketers seeking scale, follow-the-sun services and innovation should be sure to give Zeta

Interactive consideration.

Zeta Interactive clients love their vast capabilities and new technologies. All clients plan to

increase usage in 2016. One client said that Zeta’s strategies for warming up IPs was fantastic

throughout the onboarding process. Clients found responsiveness to be one of the firm’s greatest

strengths. The deliverability team’s expertise was described as “phenomenal” and their customer service

was “tops!” Clients loved that they could have a personal relationship with their Zeta teams, all the way

up to the C- level. Other clients stated they were very satisfied with the infrastructure stability and speed

of product innovation. The system was called out for being a bit cumbersome, especially reporting. But

overall clients were happy with Zeta Interactive’s price, product and service teams. Best client quote?

“They’re accurate and reliable. Our team is great!”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Zeta’s internal modeling is based off massive data points

(such as past behavior) to develop specific models, such as “next best channel” for the

marketer’s list.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold – Product Innovation,

Educational Resources; Tied for Gold – Account Management, Strategic Services, Omnichannel

Marketing, Integration Capabilities; Silver – Creative Services; Tied for Silver – Technical Services,

Technical and Customer Support

About The Company – Founded in 2000, Zeta Interactive recently acquired ClickSquared and the

CRM assets of eBay Enterprise Marketing. They have eight offices in the U.S. offices and four

overseas. Eighty percent of clients are enterprise.

Deployment Options – Zeta offers SaaS and Managed Services solutions. They selectively

consider on-premise engagements based on scale and customer requirements.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Travel & Hospitality, Financial Services, Retail, Luxury Retail, Healthcare,

Media & Entertainment, Education

http://zetainteractive.com/



Additional ESPs – The Following Were Invited and Elected Not to Participate In Our Research

dotMailer – With a large presence in the UK, dotMailer has been successfully expanding into The

United States. They were named a contender in our 2014 research.

IBM Silverpop – They offer an email marketing solution that integrates into other IBM offerings.

Most of their clients are primarily self-service. They were named a leader in 2015.

Oracle Responsys – A standalone email solution, Responsys offers worldwide support and

promises to integrate it into the vast Oracle holdings. They have always declined to participate.

Sailthru – Focused on email, they rely on site tagging and a predictive analytics in a non-SQL

environment. They were named a contender in our 2015 ESP Buyer’s Guide.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud – A suite of marketing applications that address Everychannel, they

were named a leader in our 2015 Guide.

SparkPost – They sell different editions of their SparkPost SaaS product as well as on-premise

MTA solutions. They were named a contender in our 2015 ESP Buyer’s Guide.

WhatCounts – A self-service offering that is solely focused on email, they provide on-premise and

SaaS deployment options. They were named a contender in our 2015 research.

Yesmail – Backed by agency services and their third-party data offering, Yesmail is an email

solution with an array of Everychannel features. They were named a leader in our 2015 Guide.

METHODOLOGY STATEMENT

Over the fourth quarter of 2015, The Relevancy Group completed research in order to capture the state

of the email marketing industry and evaluate nine ESPs that elected to participate in this research.

Inclusion in the Research: The ESPs that participated in this research paid the same fee to be evaluated

and advertise in The Marketer Quarterly digital magazine. While we invited dozens of ESPs to participate,

those that did understood that this fee covered research costs as well as ensured equal footing,

regardless of their client relationship with The Relevancy Group. The participating companies understand

this fair and balanced approach based on a data-driven objective analysis of the market.

The Email Marketer Survey: In December 2015 The Relevancy Group conducted a survey that resulted in

402 completed and qualified email marketing executives. We qualified respondents based on their

sending volume, familiarity of their email marketing program and other attributes such as the individuals’

role/title. Respondents self-identified their company size and market sector category. We collected

descriptive information about these organizations including revenue, budgets as well as items such as the

size of the marketer’s customer database. The survey utilized skip ordering and randomization and

screener questions. Survey data was used for anonymous satisfaction reference data and to inform the

weighting placed on features evaluated in the vendor questionnaire.

The Vendor Questionnaire: The Relevancy Group designed a questionnaire that mimics the requirements

documents that are utilize when conducting ESP RFP (Request for Proposal) vendor selection. This

questionnaire contained just under 300 questions that provided detail on the vendor’s company,

strategy, products, staff and infrastructure. Questionnaire responses were scored against The Relevancy



Group’s 5 point capabilities scale. Product, infrastructure and services information was then weighted by

marketer survey responses. This ensured that the weighting drove the importance of specific attributes

and product features that reflected the priorities of surveyed email marketers.

Client Satisfaction Data: The Relevancy Group interviewed 3 reference clients for each vendor. These

references were provided by the vendor. The interviews occurred over the phone and each followed the

same reference questionnaire. We asked reference accounts to score vendors on a scale of 1 to 5 across

several attributes that scored their satisfaction with the vendor’s product, infrastructure, services and

support. These interviews also included a general discussion related to the client’s relationship with their

vendor. Client Satisfaction data was further enriched with anonymous satisfaction data from the vendor’s

clients that participated in the aforementioned email marketer survey. This survey data included the

same questions and satisfaction scale that were used in the reference questionnaire. The Relevancy

Group utilized this combined reference data to inform The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction awards and

scores that made up eighty percent of the Y Axis of The Relevancy Ring Graphic (Figure 20).

Use cases: The Relevancy Group allotted each vendor 90 minutes to demo their platform and satisfy 4

specific use cases. These use cases detailed categorical product functionality against our prescribed

scenarios. Every vendor participant was given the same four use cases in advance so that they had time

to prepare as well as ask any clarifying questions before these demos. Two TRG Analysts participated in

the demos and scored the vendors on their ability to satisfy the use cases on a scale of 1 to 5. We also

scored the quality of the demo, innovation, product roadmap and overall quality of the presentation.

Reproduction and Copyright: Reproduction by any method or unauthorized circulation is strictly

prohibited. Distribution rights are available for purchase. The Relevancy Group’s reports are intended for

the sole use of their clients. Press see our citation policy http://www.relevancygroup.com/press. All

opinions and projections are based on The Relevancy Group’s judgment at the time of the publication

and are subject to change. Copyright © 2016, The Relevancy Group, LLC.

About The Relevancy Group, LLC | www.relevancygroup.com | (877) 972-6886 | [email protected]

Founded in 2010 and led by tenured industry analyst and marketer David Daniels, The Relevancy Group

(TRG) provides market research and advisory services. We measure consumer and executive behaviors to

develop strategies that optimize a return on marketing investments. Each Analyst has a minimum 15

years of experience in digital marketing. We are a trusted advisor to leading technology organizations and

familiar brands. TRG is dedicated to educating the market on emerging trends and the imperative tactics

needed to foster trust with customers in order to improve an organization's relevance within the broader

on and offline connected economy. We deliver unique market research and services.

In addition to working with some of the top brands and vendors in the digital marketing economy, TRG

produces dozens of surveys, research reports and webinars each year. Team members remain highly

sought after public speakers that continue to entertain and enlighten audiences at conferences around

the world. We also publish the digital magazine for marketers by marketers, The Marketer Quarterly.

Available for free with registration online, and through the MQ app on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon.

http://www.relevancygroup.com/press

http://www.relevancygroup.com/

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the relevancy ring - experian...figure 20: the relevancy ring – everychannel-email service...

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