“How will email marketing change by the end of the decade?” That’s the question we posed to 20 experts for our Email Marketing in 2020 report. Their answers predict dramatic changes in personalization, automation, interactivity, compliance, and much more. In this presentation, we’ve selected our favorite prediction from each of our 20 contributors, and made it easy for you to tweet the ones you find intriguing or agree with. Enjoy this peek at the future of email marketing!

1. Email Marketing in 2020:
20 Experts Share Their Vision of the Future of the Channel

2. For our Email Marketing in 2020 report,
Litmus asked 20 experts to share their
vision of what email marketing will look
like in the year 2020.
Our email experts include…

3. Here are some of their predictions…

4. From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by
Email readers are going to get better
and better at helping recipients
manage their email by factoring in
contextual information and no longer
simply displaying email by an arbitrary
factor like recency.
Daniel Burstein
Director of Editorial Content
MarketingSherpa
CLICK TO TWEET
THIS PREDICTION

5. The client-approval step will
shift toward reviewing content
modules, not full creative, and
signing off on targeting models,
not customer segments.
Morgan Stewart
Chief Executive Officer
Trendline Interactive
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

6. By 2020, hyper-personalization in
marketing will reach a significant
level, along with rules-based
triggers, assimilation of the mobile
channel, and connecting data from
other channels and platforms.
Jill LeMaire Redo
Vice President of
Digital Strategy and Insights
Epsilon
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

7. We might not be far from achieving
some of the 1-to-1 marketing that
appeared in Minority Report, but the
impetus for change is going to come as
leaders in the younger generation adapt
to and evolve the incumbent technology.
Ryan Phelan
Vice President of
Marketing Insights
Adestra
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

8. Email will leverage every
interaction from the Internet of
Things, location, behavioral data,
and customer preferences to
deliver messages to the customer
in exactly the right context.
Eric Stahl
Senior Vice President of
Product Marketing
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

9. Machine intelligence will manage
and control the messaging to each
individual across channels, creating
the truly integrated experiences
that are currently talked about a lot
but rarely delivered.
Tim Watson
Email Marketing Consultant
Zettasphere
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

10. In the next 5 years, email will
be seen as not just a high-ROI
channel by itself but rather a platform
that integrates with and makes other
channels more successful.
Loren McDonald
Marketing Evangelist
Silverpop, An IBM Company
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

11. Subscribers will be able to make
purchases right inside a marketing
campaign, without ever leaving their
inboxes. Campaigns will offer more of
an app-like experience, too, with
embedded video and other interactivity.
Tom Klein
Vice President of Marketing
MailChimp
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

12. Given current variable adoption
of best practices, by 2020,
systems will step marketers
through all the best practices for
customised lifecycle marketing,
creative, and delivery.
Dave Chaffey
Chief Executive Officer
& Co-founder
Smart Insights
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

13. 2020’s practitioners will be coveted
assets. In fact, smart companies
that recognize the value of email
marketing will retain top talent by
offering tenured career
opportunities within the company.
Kristin Naragon
Director of Email Solutions
Adobe
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

14. The convergence of marketing
technology with advertising technology
is taking email marketing to another
level. Email platforms will need to be
able to integrate with platforms that
handle the anonymous marketing data.
Chris Lynch
Senior Director of
Product Marketing
Oracle Marketing Cloud
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

15. No longer will email work “just because.”
Only smart, innovative, and highly
dynamic emails will drive interaction,
and generic blasts will get weeded out
of the subscribers’ priorities, if not
outright emotionally junked.
Simms Jenkins
Chief Executive Officer
BrightWave
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

16. With many brands spending the
past two years focusing on data
and integrations, I predict that the
next several years will focus on
taking advantage of the
single view of the customer.
Cara Olson
Director of Direct Marketing
and eCRM
DEG
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

17. I believe email volume is going to
increase dramatically by 2020, but
it won’t feel like it. Inboxes will
prioritize messages, many email
interactions will be brief, and many
emails won’t feel like emails at all.
Paul Farnell
Chief Executive Officer
& Co-founder
Litmus
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

18. By 2020, I expect the bulk of email
marketing to be similar to the
experience of Gmail’s Quick
Actions. The whole message will be
the length of a current subject line
with a call-to-action.
Dan Denney
Front-End Developer
Code School
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

19. I’m optimistic about the second
generation email platforms. These
platforms are the developer-friendly
platforms of choice for startups and
are well placed to take power from
the late 90s vintage behemoths.
Elliot Ross
Managing Director
Action Rocket
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

20. I see interactive as a huge shift
in email development. Early
analytics have shown far greater
engagement from users who
receive interactive messages.
Mark Robbins
Email Developer
Rebelmail
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

21. Where best practice dictates that
permission, personalization, and
relevance are key to success today,
in the future those tenets will barely
be considered a minimum
acceptable standard.
Andrew Bonar
Founder
Deliverability Ltd.
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

22. By 2020, ESPs being the authenticated
senders won’t be enough for end users.
ESP customers will have to authenticate
mail themselves. Overhead and
management will increase for both
ESPs and their customers.
Laura Atkins
Owner
Word to the Wise
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

23. The Internet of Things has the potential
to generate trillions of messages a day,
and this tidal wave of email could be
laden with all kinds of personally
identifiable information (PII), requiring
more and more security.
Len Shneyder
Vice President of
Industry Relations
SparkPost
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THIS PREDICTION
From the Email Marketing in 2020 report by

24. To see all of their
predictions, download
Email Marketing in
2020 for free at:
litmus.com/lp/email-marketing-in-
2020

25. Other Free Reports by
Adapting to Consumers’ New Definition of Spam
A 7-point plan for how marketers can avoid spam
complaints and extend subscriber relationships
>> Get the report
2016 State of Email
A comprehensive look at the data, trends, and
innovations for sending great email in 2016
>> Get the report
State of Email Production
A detailed look at how marketers build their teams, plan
and build their emails, use technology, and more
>> Get the report

26. To get more insights
into the present &
future of email
marketing, subscribe
to Litmus’ newsletter:
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