LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Contact Us
LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Log in Contact Us
  • Blog Homepage
  • Programmatic Advertising
  • Email Monetization
  • Identity Resolution
  • LiveIntent Culture
  • Real Time Banter
  • LiveIntentional
  • Subscribe

What Facebook and Salesforce’s recent acquisitions mean for email

    • Email Monetization
    • Programmatic Advertising
  • January 11, 2021
Victoria de Leon
Director, content marketing

Before we closed the door on 2020, a couple of last-minute changes swooped in to shake up the marketing world. You know, along with the other big changes that already made waves in the past year.

First, Salesforce acquired Slack, a business communication platform – its biggest acquisition to date. And Facebook acquired Kustomer, a CRM platform.

Curious about what these changes mean for email and growth marketers?

Us, too.

Here’s what’s going on.

Email is here to stay for marketers

Slack has ambitions to replace email, but it’s not likely to happen. Sure, the platform connects colleagues and helps them collaborate on teams and projects. But when it comes to interactions with brands and publishers, if anything, Slack is making email stronger.

As Kerel Cooper, LiveIntent CMO, told MediaPost: “Email remains the top-performing channel for brands and marketers, but their marketing efforts can get buried when inboxes become overloaded. [As] the adoption of productivity tools like Slack lighten the email load and make work more efficient, the opportunity for publishers who send email with marketing units in them or brands who send marketing messages grows.”

Consider this: During the workday, people spend an average of 3.5 hours checking their work email and 2.4 hours checking their personal email. Also, less than half are able to clear their inbox and reach that elusive state of “inbox zero.” With Slack promising to handle many of the workday interactions, there’ll be more room in the inbox for customers to engage with their opt-in content and consume messaging from their favorite brands.

Email is still the best for driving loyalty and retention

Facebook may be investing in chat apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. But its acquisition of Kustomer proves how much the social media platform understands the power of email in building customer loyalty and engagement.

Cooper said of Kustomer: “Their CRM dexterity is built on top of the email address, the workhorse of CRM and the fulcrum of identity in a world where the third-party cookie is going away. Facebook’s efforts to bring commerce and advertising to their messaging system looks a lot like email, the original people-based marketing channel. What’s old is new again.”

As eMarketer reported, email is consumers’ preferred channel for receiving messages from retailers, beating out apps, social media, websites, and texts. Even (or especially) throughout the chaos of 2020, people clung to email, driving up subscriptions so they could access quality content, informational news updates, and helpful deals from brands they’ve built relationships with.

“As we’ve seen with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and essentially all holiday promotions since October,” Cooper said, “Email is the tried-and-true tool that brands and marketers turn to re-engage their customers, offer support, and drive loyalty.”

Channel diversification is important

More than ever, channel diversification is essential. Even a giant like Facebook realizes that, as evidenced by its purchase of Kustomer. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you set yourself up to fail if that one basket (i.e. channel) changes its algorithm, owns your audience, and keeps your data locked inside a walled garden. Channel diversification also helps you reach customers across touchpoints and build a more comprehensive view of their experiences.

That’s why leveraging email as a first-party data source and communication channel is critical. It allows you to collect data that you own and then use that data to reach customers with personalized content.

So, basically, there’s a hidden message within the news of these two acquisitions: Email remains an incredibly valuable channel for building customer experiences and growing audiences. Acquisitions may come and go, but email is forever.

0
Tweet 0
Victoria de Leon
Director, content marketing

Must-Read Content

    • Programmatic Advertising

3 factors that affect email list quality

  • Victoria de Leon
  • January 18, 2023
Email Acquisition
    • Programmatic Advertising

Best practices for running email acquisition campaigns

  • Victoria de Leon
  • January 10, 2023
3 publishing priorities
    • Email Monetization

3 publishing priorities for 2023

  • Mano Pillai
  • December 21, 2022
Learn more about Email Monetization, Programmatic Advertising.
3 marketing priorities for 2023
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

3 marketing priorities for 2023

  • Mano Pillai
  • December 13, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Staking a claim in $61.15bn in digital ad spend

  • Chris Hartley
  • December 13, 2022
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

Your holiday checklist for campaign success

  • Cassie Parker
  • December 1, 2022
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

Email advertising is the key to surviving the next recession

  • Victoria de Leon
  • November 9, 2022
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

Native Curated Packages: Driving relevance and engagement for advertisers

  • Jennie Conway
  • September 8, 2022
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

Brand awareness: A marketer’s guide

  • Victoria de Leon
  • August 9, 2022
View Post
  • Programmatic Advertising

Why performance marketing alone won’t grow your brand

  • Victoria de Leon
  • August 3, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Why email is crucial to local publisher monetization strategies

  • Victoria de Leon
  • July 14, 2022
LiveIntent Blog
Think outside the inbox and discover all the innovative ways email can help you grow your business.
© LiveIntent 2022
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
    • People-Based audiences
    • Publisher solutions
    • Identity data solutions
    • Identity framework
  • Company
    • Our Story
    • Careers
    • Employee Resource Groups
    • Press
    • Events
    • Contact us
  • Resources
    • Case studies
    • Blog
    • Knowledge base
    • Brand assets
  • Legal
    • Powered by
    • Content policy
    • Website privacy policy
    • Services privacy policy
    • Do not sell my info
    • Ad choices
© LiveIntent 2022
Popular topics
  • People-Based Marketing
  • Meet-a-LiveIntenter
  • Email Revenue
  • Identity Graph
  • Subscriber Acquisition
  • First-Party Data
  • Direct-to-Consumer
  • Cookie Apocalypse