Inbox Insider: E-mail marketing is going beyond e-mail

Some brands are expanding their view of e-mail marketing, reflecting that consumer inboxes now receive information from social media news feeds, RSS feeds, news sources and search ads.  

The concept of e-mail marketing is expanding to become more than just the delivery of messages to the inbox. It's now also about delivering a marketing message to a consumer's inbox in multiple formats. For instance, Google has long served text ad links based on Gmail conversations at the top of a user's inbox. Now that Yahoo's e-mail platform can be integrated with Tweets and Facebook news streams, brands are getting their social media messaging into Yahoo inboxes as well.

This past weekend, Macy's ran an expandable banner ad unit that delivered an insert media-style digital ad to the inbox. The retailer designed the ad to promote a Memorial Day sale. When clicked on, the banner ad expanded across the inbox, becoming an interactive insert-style ad. The company targeted the ad and tailored content by location and behavior.

As the concept of the inbox continues to expand, so too is the idea of e-mail marketing.