Although marketers collect large amounts of data, they struggle to apply that information to their campaigns, according to a study of global marketers by Unica, an analytics and integrated marketing firm.

Unilever's Ragu line of pasta sauces is conducting a contest targeting moms, as well as a digital campaign to promote it. The promotion, launched March 1, runs through August.

Retailer Men's Wearhouse is conducting a viral campaign to promote tuxedo rentals during prom season. The effort encourages teenagers to sign up to be a "prom rep" for the chance to win a free tuxedo or a Chevrolet Camaro. The effort, launched at the end of last month, runs through July.

Video in e-mail is a hot topic on the e-mail vendor side, but I haven't seen a ton of messages from brands with videos in them. The trend is starting slowly.

Customer reviews and other forms of word of mouth make great fodder for e-mail campaigns. When measured against identical campaigns that don't include word of mouth, they generally drive higher click-through rates and sales. Two key benefits of e-mail and user-generated content include driving community participation and using trusted words of customers to market products.

Bliss may be too strong a word when it comes to anything marketing-related, but according to the Direct Marketing Association, every dollar spent on e-mail marketing generates $43.62 in revenue. That, of course, is the average. Follow these rules and get better results from your e-mail campaigns.

Spammers are sly. So it's no wonder they take advantage of popular brands' reputations to pull one over on the consumer. This past week saw two spam attacks in which e-mails appeared to be from legitimate brands.

Ed Weiss, general manager of Movies Unlimited, discusses how the multichannel film retailer and cataloger used e-mail marketing to re-target past customers and boost sales

Scammers recently sought consumer information by distributing e-mail messages pretending to be from American Airlines. The phishing messages appeared to have been sent from American Airlines' AAdvantage frequent flyer program.

The social nature of the Internet is changing e-mail marketing for the better. The old mentality: "Just send it; it's cheap." The result: High subscriber fatigue, inconsistent inbox deliverability, declining response rates and virtually no ability to forecast or predict response.