Inbox Insider: E-mail couponing that changes in real time

Targeting plays a key role for e-mail marketers and, this week, targeting offerings have improved for small to midsize businesses using e-mail.

This week, at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas, ExactTarget released LiveOffers, a new couponing platform that lets retailers render discounts when an e-mail is opened — not just when it is sent.

This means that retailers can change the offer in the e-mail to better target the coupon. For example, if there are 1,000 subscribers designated to receive a 20% off coupon and the retailer only wants 100 coupons to be redeemed, the application will provide a unique code to the first 100 subscribers who open the e-mail coupon. The remaining customers would see an "offer unavailable" image. Or, if no one seems to be redeeming a coupon, the retailer can up the offer to 50% off when the e-mail is opened to get more people to engage.

The Live Offers feature works in conjunction with the basic ExactTarget platform, which includes lead generation data, e-mail transactional data history and purchase history so that the offer is more personalized and targeted to the consumer.

IPost is also trying to make targeting easier for small to midsize businesses. Today, the e-mail service provider released Autotarget Version 2.0, a predictive analytic e-mail tool that works across e-mail platforms. It allows e-mail marketers to predict customer behavior from past actions and targets e-mails based on these behaviors.