Commercial e-mail remains a cost-effective way to reach consumers, especially for businesses that are eager to reach out to their existing or past customers.
For marketers eager to reach new audiences, however, the need to get creative to get the message out has spurred the creation of new techniques and the leveraging of new technologies. From desktop widgets to video e-mail and mobile text messages, marketers are eager to continue to leverage the interactive channel, where results can be tracked easily and where the overall cost of reaching consumers remain low.
Each new innovation brings its own new challenges, however, and privacy groups continue to express concern about the tactics of marketers, who are increasingly leveraging data about Web users to better target messages.
