So, last-click attribution fails to give email it’s proper credit for the sales it drives. So what? Why should anyone care? The sales are still happening. Well, if email is driving more sales than it’s getting credit for, then folks across all of marketing and sales should be interested in rectifying the issue. Why? Because proper attribution clarifies how the various sales and marketing channels support one another. For example, suppose for an offline/online retailer, email drives more bricks-and-mortar purchases than it is given credit for. Hint: It pretty much always does.

In Part I, we examined the buying process, giving insight into why consumers buy and the behaviors exhibited before, during, and after purchases are made. Now, let’s talk about the impact of sales. Everybody loves a good sale. But why?

A simple review of daily sales figures has just shown that on days during which the company sends a lot of email, there is a significant boost in sales across all channels that can’t be accounted for any other way than email’s so-called halo effect. Since everyone in the organization presumably leaves their warm bed in the morning to make as much money as possible, the next move is simple, at least in concept: Make every day a high-volume email day.

Consumers like to feel smart. Any sense of achievement when shopping is a feather in their cap. The science of the sale is simple – it hypes consumer emotions. When people have emotional reactions, it’s something they want to talk about it. In retail, when they talk about it, it generates a buzz. It’s a simple process: Show value to your customers. They’ll engage and feel accomplished.

When it comes to commercial email there are usually two camps in a typical organization: the folks in sales who need to make their numbers and who tend to want to send more email, and the folks in marketing who want to protect the brand and who get squeamish about the possibility of annoying customers with too much messaging.

When the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation goes into force, the big unknown is how European regulators plan to enforce it, especially since there are 28 independent Data Protection Authorities or one for each member of the EU.