This article is for general informational purposes and isn’t legal advice. As the sender, you remain responsible for your own compliance. We advise you to work with your legal or privacy team to confirm how these requirements apply to your marketing communications.

If you send marketing emails to contacts in France or Italy, the rules on tracking pixels have changed. According to regulators CNIL (in France) and Garante (in Italy), the tracking pixel behind your email open rate now needs its own consent. This tracking consent is separate to the opt-in consent your audience gave to receive emails initially.

We’ve collated information on what each regulator is asking for, go-live timings, and how the Dotdigital platform supports these changes – to help you stay ahead.

TLDR

You can no longer combine email tracking consent with your general marketing consent. You need to provide an easy way for people to opt-out of email tracking, and be able to switch this tracking pixel off for those contacts in France and Italy who choose to opt-out. 

So, what’s actually changing…

First, the basics. A tracking pixel is a tiny, invisible image that loads when someone opens your email. It’s how open rates get measured, and it’s been sitting quietly in the background of email marketing for years. The CNIL and the Garante now treat it the same way they treat a cookie: as something that can be used to identify a person, which requires their permission.

Consent to send a marketing email and consent to track if the email has been opened are now two separate considerations that need to be treated differently. Contacts also need an easy way to opt-out of open rate tracking without unsubscribing from your emails altogether.

Both regulators use the same underlying structure, but the go-live dates differ by country. Your contacts fall into one of three groups, with each group requiring a slightly different course of action.

1. Existing contacts, collected before the new consent requirements were published. This group falls within a transition period, so tracking can continue for now, but contacts need to be notified of the changes and given a way to opt-out by a set deadline
2. Contacts collected during the gap between the new consent requirements being published and the compliance deadline. There is no transition period for this group. You need to provide an affirmative opt-in before you can track the email opens for this segment, with tracking staying off until consent is received
3. New contacts, collected after the compliance deadline: consent needs to be captured at sign-up, before any tracked email goes out

Here’s how those three groups map to publication dates in each country. 

France: the CNIL’s timeline

The CNIL’s recommendation took effect in stages between April and July 2026, and the last of those dates, 14 July, has already passed. In practice, that now leaves two groups:

• Contacts you notified and gave a chance to opt-out before 14 July 2026, who didn’t object: you can keep tracking their opens

• Everyone else, meaning contacts who weren’t notified before July 14th, contacts you collected after 14 April 2026, or anyone new: turn off open rate tracking for this group until they opt-in

If you haven’t already removed tracking pixels on email open rates, you are now required to take that step for contacts in France (the rule came into force on July 14th 2026).

Italy: the Garante’s timeline

The Garante published its own guidelines (Provvedimento n. 284) in April 2026, with a six-month runway. Contacts within this region are grouped as follows:

• Contacts collected before April 29th 2026: Transition group
  You can keep the open rate tracking pixel on for now, but notify them and give them a way to opt-out of tracking (separate from unsubscribing entirely) by 28 October 2026

• Contacts collected from April 29th 2026 and onwards: No transition
  This applies immediately, not just after 28 October. Turn off tracking for these contacts until you’ve got their affirmative opt-in

• Contacts collected from October 28th 2026 onward: New sign-ups
  Consent needs to be captured at sign-up, before any tracked email is sent

What we’ve changed in Dotdigital

The Dotdigital Marketing platform has been updated to help you meet these new requirements. 

• You can now turn on a setting that allows contacts to opt-out of tracking, via a link in your campaigns

• Open rate tracking consent can be updated in bulk for each audience segment, so once you’ve identified your France and/or Italy contacts, you can opt them all out with one action

• Every consent change is logged against the contact, providing a record of what changed and when

This broadly covers off the requirements set by CNIL and the Garante, tracking consent that’s kept separate from marketing consent, and an easy way to manage it. Whether that’s a contact setting their own preference, or a marketing team updating entire segments at once.

However, you will still need to check the compliance of your own marketing programs with your legal and/or privacy teams to check the individual considerations for your organization.

What to do now

1. Read our help centre article on managing open tracking consent. It gives step-by-step guidance on activating the new settings, adding the opt-out link, and updating consent in bulk
2. Talk to your privacy team about which of your contacts are in scope, and how you will inform your audience of any necessary changes
3. Build a segment of the contacts that require permission updates (such as contacts based in France and Italy) and update their open tracking consent in bulk
4. Add the open tracking opt-out link to your campaign footers, next to your unsubscribe link

If you have any questions about the new guidance (we know, it’s a tricky one), reach out to us through Live Chat within the platform, or on the Dotdigital website, or talk to your Account Manager.  We’re happy to help you work through it.

Go too early and you risk giving away margin, overwhelming your audience, or prompting unsubscribes. Wait too long and your competitors may have already captured attention and sales. There’s real pressure in getting this timing right, that’s where data can make all the difference.

Because all kinds of brands send campaigns through the Dotdigital platform every year, we can see exactly when marketers begin referencing key holidays in their subject lines.

We’ve analyzed the last three years of holiday email sends to see how early brands are starting their campaigns. See how this differs by region, looking at the UK and Europe, the United States, and Australia and how this behavior is changing year-on-year. The result is a clear, numbers-led guide you can use to time your holiday emails with precision.

Valentine’s Day email marketing stats

Valentine’s Day has one of the shortest run-ups of any major holiday in this list, and it’s getting shorter each year. In 2025, brands began referencing Valentine’s Day in subject lines an average of 9 days before.

When to send

That short window also creates an opportunity. Because most brands move late, you don’t need weeks of build-up to be competitive, but you do need to be ready. If you can get into inboxes a few days earlier than the pack, you give yourself more room to influence buying decisions before the noise peaks.

What to send

Valentine’s is a perfect excuse to show some love to your subscribers. Take the opportunity to offer something just for them like:

• Early access to your Valentine’s Day sale
• A stackable discount to layer onto your website offers
• Free shipping or a free gift

Perks like this reinforce that being subscribed has real value and builds loyalty long after the holiday has passed.

With a short promotional window, urgency-led messaging and promotions like flash sales or free next-day delivery will encourage conversions in the moment.

Valentine’s Day marketing email marketing campaign statistics

The number of days before Valentine’s Day that brands begin referencing the holiday in subject lines.

2023

• Global average: 11
• APAC: 13
• EMEA: 10
• Americas: 12

2024

• Global average: 10
• APAC: 11
• EMEA: 10
• Americas: 9

2025

• Global average: 9
• APAC: 10
• EMEA: 10
• Americas: 8

Halloween email marketing stats

Falling on the last day of the month, October is the official spooky season. Europe and America both begin sending around 23-28 days before Halloween, and this is consistent over recent years. However, Australia has changed how early Halloween campaigns are sent, with a steady year-on-year decline and 2025 seeing a much shorter lead-up of around 13 days.

When to send

Your audience, your product, and the offers you have to share will all influence when to start sending, but you won’t be creating jump scares in your audience’s inbox if you send any time within October.

What to send

Halloween gives you tons of room to have fun with your email design. There are lots of ways to lean into a Halloween styling, even if you don’t have Halloween product imagery. Get five frightfully good Halloween email campaign ideas in this blog. We share how to make your campaigns captivating, no matter what industry you’re in.

Halloween email marketing campaign statistics

The number of days before Halloween that brands begin referencing the holiday in subject lines.

2023

• Global average: 26
• APAC: 28
• EMEA: 25
• Americas: 28

2024

• Global average: 23
• APAC: 17
• EMEA: 24
• Americas: 26

2025

• Global average: 23
• APAC: 13
• EMEA: 23
• Americas: 28

Black Friday email marketing stats

Black Friday originally began as an in-store discount event in the US, marking the day after Thanksgiving. Now, it’s a worldwide sales holiday that is very much online, blurring the lines with Cyber Monday. This overspill of the day has led to terms like ‘The cyber five’ and even ‘Black Friday month’.

The data shows that around two weeks before is the sweet spot for brands. This is consistent across the three regions studied, proving that Black Friday is cemented as a global sales holiday.

When to send

Aim for two weeks before Black Friday itself, and use the lead-up to encourage people to subscribe to mobile marketing channels like SMS, MMS and WhatsApp. This gives you another direct line to your audience on one of the busiest weeks for email inboxes.

What to send

Get inspiration for Black Friday campaigns with this lookbook full of inspiration and tips from the 2025 season.

Black Friday email marketing campaign statistics

The number of days before Black Friday that brands begin referencing the holiday in subject lines.

2023

• Global average: 9
• APAC: 8
• EMEA: 8
• Americas: 15

2024

• Global average: 12
• APAC: 9
• EMEA: 12
• Americas: 16

2025

• Global average: 12
• APAC: 14
• EMEA: 11
• Americas: 16

Cyber Monday email marketing stats

Cyber Monday was the online equivalent of Black Friday, bookending the holiday weekend. It’s now simply a continuation of the sales weekend. Cyber Monday has a much shorter lead-up than Black Friday, with 3 days being the average lead-up. This tracks as you don’t want to cannibalize your Black Friday traffic by jumping ahead to Cyber Monday.

When to send

As soon as the clock strikes midnight and Black Friday ends, it’s Cyber Monday lead-up time. In the US, brands tend to start earlier than in other regions. Use this window to warm up shoppers ahead of the peak. Set expectations for what’s coming, and encourage customers to follow you on social media or sign up for mobile marketing so they’re first to know when Cyber Monday offers go live.

What to send

Mix up your promotions and messaging so that it doesn’t feel like a diluted version of Black Friday. For design, brands often lean into a silver color palette to evoke the ‘cyber’ theme of the sales event.

Cyber Monday email marketing campaign statistics

The number of days before Cyber Monday that brands begin referencing the holiday in subject lines.

2023

• Global average: 3
• APAC: 3
• EMEA: 3
• Americas: 4

2024

• Global average: 4
• APAC: 2
• EMEA: 3
• Americas: 10

2025

• Global average: 3
• APAC: 1
• EMEA: 2
• Americas: 7

Christmas email marketing stats

Christmas is the biggest moment in the retail calendar, so it’s no surprise it has the longest build-up of any holiday in this blog. What’s interesting is how consistent this pattern is year-on-year, the timing barely changes. That tells us this isn’t a one-off trend, it’s become an industry norm.

In 2025, the global average time brands began referencing Christmas in email subject lines was 65 days before December 25. In 2026, that puts the starting line at Wednesday, October 21. Meaning, many brands are talking about Christmas before Halloween has even happened.

When to send

If you wait until November to think about Christmas, you’re already behind a large part of the market. Even if you don’t go full festive in October, this is the moment to start warming up your audience with early access, wish lists, or “coming soon” messaging, so you’re not playing catch-up when the peak hits.

What to send

Christmas campaigns work best when they build momentum over time. Start with low-pressure messages like gift guides, wish lists, or early-access collections to help shoppers plan ahead. As the season progresses, layer in urgency with delivery cut-offs, limited stock reminders, and last-chance messaging.

Segment where you can, tailor recommendations, and use clear, helpful messaging to make decision-making easier during the busiest shopping period of the year.

Christmas email marketing campaign statistics

The number of days before Christmas Day that brands begin referencing the holiday in subject lines.

2023

• Global average: 58
• APAC: 41
• EMEA: 59
• Americas: 69

2024

• Global average: 58
• APAC: 46
• EMEA: 59
• Americas: 64

2025

• Global average: 65
• APAC: 43
• EMEA: 67
• Americas: 68

Conclusion

Holidays and sales events are great opportunities to grab engagement and orders, as consumers are often in the mood to shop and are actively looking for discounts. The data in this blog gives you a clear view of when most brands ramp up their sending so that you can plan your promotional email calendar with confidence to time it perfectly. Use this data as your baseline, then test around it to find what works best for your audience.

If you want more exclusive email performance data, check out our Global benchmark report 2026 to add insight to your planning and see how your competition performs.

Not only are marketers grappling with tight budgets and leaner teams, we’re also getting less information from our audience. Zero-click behavior is rising and privacy changes like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection mean some metrics are less reliable than they used to be.

At Dotdigital, we are all about making marketers’ lives easier. Data is something we all need more of. Each year, we create our Global benchmark report, full of marketing data, sourced from our platform, that you can use straight away. In this blog, we’ll outline four ways you can put these benchmarks to work.

How to use marketing benchmarks

Benchmarks are more than ‘nice to know’ numbers. Used well, they become:

• Your closest source of competitor insight
• A guide for smarter strategy
• A tool for setting realistic goals
• Evidence for business cases, budget, and headcount
• Proof of impact at review time

Now let’s explore some simple, practical ways to use benchmarks to drive better results for your business and boost your own career.

1: Use benchmarks to set expectations

Whether you’re launching a new channel or refreshing the strategy for an existing one, benchmarks answer a crucial question: “What’s realistic here?”

The Dotdigital Global benchmark report can tell you:

• See what “good” looks like in your industry and region
• Understand the typical performance of each channel
• Set goals that are ambitious but achievable

In 2026, we know that email continues to be a strong, reliable channel. However, the data also tells us that while opens are rising, click-to-open rates are falling year over year. So we know that engagement is still there, but other channels are often better placed when you have important calls to action.

This is where mobile marketing channels come in. SMS and WhatsApp drive dramatically higher click-through rates, 7x and 14x email, respectively, making them ideal for driving action.

What changes when you use benchmarks this way

You stop planning in the dark and begin every project with valuable context. Accurate and achievable goal-setting means you‘ll have more confidence in your strategy and there will be fewer surprises in your results. Your work gets the time it needs to perform, without pressure to panic and pivot if initial numbers aren’t as strong as you’d hoped.

2: Use benchmarks to prioritize your strategy

Most marketing teams are stretched, and you can’t do everything at once. Benchmarks help you decide what’s worth doing next.

The Dotdigital Global benchmark report can show you:

• Which channels are underutilized in your mix
• Where the biggest performance gaps are
• Which improvements are likely to deliver the biggest returns

You can see where the biggest opportunities lie for your business and focus there first. For example, you might see that your email open rates are below average and that working on subject line optimization could improve them – hopefully adding a knock-on effect of better click rates too.

Or, you might see that your email engagement rates are above average across the board, indicating that you should look to strengthen elsewhere by adding WhatsApp to your marketing mix to get more conversions.

What changes when you use benchmarks this way

Your roadmap becomes evidence-led, based on tangible potential, and you can be confident in your approach. You’ll have clearer justification for every decision and see results quicker as you’re able to direct your attention to the biggest opportunities first.

3: Use benchmarks to win buy-in

Starting a new channel or investing in new technology can feel risky, especially to people outside marketing. Benchmarks remove the guesswork and give a tangible outcome before you make the leap.

Instead of saying, “We want to try X as we think this could work, ” you can say, “Here’s what brands like ours are achieving today.”

With industry-specific data, you can:

• Show what’s possible before you invest
• Reduce perceived risk
• Frame marketing as predictable, not experimental
• Build stronger business cases

This data makes it far easier for people outside marketing to understand the potential return on investment and weigh it against the risk. Whether you’re asking for more budget, additional headcount, or smarter marketing technology, benchmarks give your ideas credibility.

If you’re considering Dotdigital for the first time, our report is especially powerful: every benchmark comes from real Dotdigital customers, so you’re not seeing what might be possible, you’re seeing what’s already being achieved.

Appeal to C-Suite and Senior Leaders

You can take this a step further by translating benchmarks into revenue. Calculate the uplift you could generate by hitting higher targets and tie that directly to business goals. Our survey of 1,500 marketers found that the C-suite’s top priority this year is more qualified leads, while senior leaders are most focused on improving profitability. Adding these benchmarks and the impact they’ll have to your business case helps you speak their language.

What changes when you use benchmarks this way

Our survey also found that HR, IT, and Finance are the teams marketers feel have the least understanding of the value of marketing. They’re also the departments many find hardest to collaborate with.

By adding in solid numbers, relationships and understanding between these teams will improve, making approvals easier and creating more trust in marketing as a business function moving forward.

4: Use benchmarks to prove your marketing impact

Many marketers know they’re doing good work, but struggle to prove it – especially as tech companies restrict tracking and customers are interacting less. Benchmarks give your performance meaning.

They allow you to say:

• “We’re outperforming our industry”
• “We’ve closed the gap by X% in six months”
• “We’re now in the top quartile for engagement”

That’s powerful in:

• Monthly and quarterly reports
• Budget discussions
• Performance reviews
• Bonus and appraisal conversations

You’re no longer just reporting numbers without context, but showing progress, impact, and value. You can show your own growth month-on-month and year-on-year, and also give a powerful view of how your performance compares to competitors. Speaking marketer to marketer, they’re also a great reference point to add to job applications.

What changes when you use benchmarks this way

Your work becomes visible, grounded in evidence, and easier to understand. Benchmarks turn your results into something the wider business can clearly see and trust. Not just your team, but the C-suite, HR, and Finance too.

That visibility brings recognition, credibility, and leverage. It helps the people who influence promotions, bonuses, and pay increases understand the real impact of your work, and the value you bring to the business.

Turning numbers into an advantage

Benchmarks aren’t about chasing averages or copying what everyone else is doing. They’re about giving you a clearer picture of where you are, what’s possible, and where your effort will matter most. Used well, they help you make better decisions and tell a more confident story about the impact of your work.

The data is available now and hopefully you’ve identified a few new ways to use it. If you’d like to explore the numbers for your industry, your region, and every major channel, you can download the 2026 Global benchmark report here.

Both are essential, both are demanding, and all too often, one comes at the expense of the other.

It’s no surprise that so many teams feel stretched thin, especially when you consider that 1 in 10 marketers is the sole marketer in their business. With limited time and resources, balancing creativity with the growing demands of data-driven marketing can feel like an impossible task.

So how do you deliver measurable ROI without losing the creative spark that makes marketing memorable?

Creativity vs. data

Marketing is about connection. It’s people talking to people, and no machine can fully replicate that. A platform can tell you that someone clicked an email, but it can’t know why. AI can suggest the right send time, but it can’t build a story that makes a customer feel seen and understood.

Creativity, empathy, and storytelling are what make a campaign resonate. It’s what makes a welcome email feel warm, a seasonal promotion spark excitement, or a customer feel valued when they receive a thank you message. These moments are the heart and soul of marketing.

But carving out the space for creativity is easier said than done when you’re juggling reporting, performance metrics, and the sheer operational demand that comes with creating cross-channel marketing journeys.

That’s where technology steps in to lend a helping hand.

• Automation ensures no customer is forgotten
• AI and analytics turn mountains of data into actionable insights
• Cross-channel orchestration helps you meet customers wherever they are, with the consistency they expect

It is important to note that not every marketer sees this as entirely beneficial to them or their team. According to our research in ‘The secret lives of marketing teams’, 13% of marketers fear AI will replace their role within the next 12 months, while 22% say the hype around AI makes it feel like their job could be at risk.

But technology isn’t here to replace your role. It’s here to take the weight of complex data crunching and decision making off your shoulders, giving you the headspace to focus on the things only humans can do. It gives you the room to be creative.

The pressure to find a balance

There’s often a disconnect between creative ambitions and leadership expectations.  ‘The secret lives of marketing teams’  report found that while engagement is the top metric most marketing teams track, senior leaders emphasize profitability and revenue-linked outcomes. Junior marketers focus on brand awareness and social media, while leaders cite generating more qualified leads, followed by profitability, as their top priority.

This tug-of-war is one reason marketing feels like an increasingly data-driven discipline. But customer expectations are also changing the game. Customers want personalized, frictionless experiences, and delivering that requires mastering customer data, automation, and cross-channel journeys. Without the right tools and support, it’s an overwhelming ask.

That leaves marketers in a Catch-22. Creative, people-led initiatives often get deprioritized unless they can prove measurable impact. Yet, if you lean too heavily on technology, campaigns end up feeling robotic and disengaging. Rely only on people, and the workload quickly becomes unsustainable.

The answer lies in finding balance where creativity and data complement one another. Technology handles the heavy lifting and simplifies complexity, while you and your team bring the strategy, creativity, and human insight.

5 steps to help balance creativity and data-driven marketing

1. Acknowledge the challenge

First, it’s okay to admit it’s tough. Many marketers feel the strain of competing priorities: the need to be both an artist and an analyst, a storyteller and a data scientist. You’re not imagining it; marketing today really does ask you to wear all these hats.

And while 49% of marketers say they balance data and creativity, only 26% lean toward creativity, with senior leaders much more likely to favor data-driven decisions.

Recognizing the struggle is the first step. The solution isn’t to choose one side. It’s to create a system where creativity and data feed into each other instead of fighting one another.

2. Use data to power your creativity

Data doesn’t have to stifle creativity; it should fuel it. Customer insights about behavior, preferences, and timing give you the foundations to design campaigns that truly resonate.

• Use segmentation to ensure your creative hits the right audience
• Let performance data guide experimentation, not limit it
• Lean on AI to uncover opportunities you might miss on your own

When you use data to understand your customers, your creative ideas will land with more precision and impact.

3. Automate the complicated stuff

Too often, marketers lose hours wrestling with workflows and reporting instead of focusing on strategy or creative work. Automation changes that.

• Automate repetitive journeys like welcome or re-engagement campaigns
• Use cross-channel automation to design seamless experiences across channels
• Let AI flag your most valuable or at-risk customers and build segments automatically

This frees up your time and mental space, giving you the freedom to think big and create something special.

4. Add a human touch every step of the way

Technology makes execution possible, but you bring campaigns to life. Empathy, creativity, and context can’t be automated. That’s why balance also means ensuring you have space to add a human touch and tweak your brand voice.

Regularly review campaign performance not just by the numbers, but through the lens of customer sentiment. Ask yourself, “Does this still feel human?” This is especially important when using AI for content generation. The best results come when people refine, contextualize, and inject brand voice into AI-generated outputs.

5. Partner for success

Finding balance doesn’t have to be something you tackle alone. Choosing the right tools is only half the battle; ensuring you have the right skills and support to use them to their full potential is just as important. That’s where your technology partner should step up.

At Dotdigital, we see every customer not just as a user of our platform, but as a partner. We’re a platform powered by people, committed to giving you the knowledge, confidence, and guidance you need to get the very best out of your marketing.

With 40% of marketers admitting they aren’t using their tools to their full potential, it’s our responsibility to help close that gap. That’s why we have dedicated teams and resources designed to empower you every step of the way.

Here’s how we help:

• Customer Success Managers to guide you through best practices
• The Dotdigital Academy offers courses and certifications to upskill your team
• Training programs to build your confidence and skills on the platform
• Creative services to ensure your campaigns don’t just work, but truly stand out
• Strategy consultancy to connect everyday activity with long-term business outcomes

Finding your balance

Creative and data-driven marketing can both be achieved if you’re ready to embrace new ways of working. By letting data fuel your creativity, using automation to strip away complexity, and keeping human insight at the center, you can build campaigns that both inspire and deliver measurable results.

And with Dotdigital’s people and platform, you don’t have to choose between creativity and data; you can have both, working in harmony.

We’re introducing new features designed to simplify your workflows, expand your reach, and maximize your marketing campaigns, so you can focus on what matters most: growing your business.

Scale smarter and sharper

Creating effective marketing programs involves a lot of work. You might find yourself rebuilding programs repeatedly, which can waste valuable time. With Dotdigital, you can achieve quicker results. Imagine not starting campaigns from scratch whenever you want to promote new products, reach new audiences, or develop new brands. 

What’s new

Copy programs, journeys, and content across accounts

We’re excited to introduce the ability to copy programs, segments, pages, and more in bulk across related accounts. For example, if you have a parent account for your main brand and child accounts for individual stores or regions, you can now copy a successful email campaign template from the parent account to all child accounts in just a few clicks. 

If you have an especially effective segment, you can now share it with any of your accounts. This feature will save you hours of repetitive work, allowing you to concentrate on optimizing your growth strategy. You now can:

• Copy easily: Transfer program templates, campaigns, segments, and custom building blocks across all your accounts with ease.
• Be flexible: Move content between accounts in any direction you choose.
• Select in bulk: Choose multiple pieces of content to copy across various accounts and sync them automatically with just a few clicks.

Dotdigital and Shopify Markets

Expanding into new markets just got easier. Our Shopify Markets integration empowers you to personalize the customer journey across borders, driving international growth and boosting global sales. 

By connecting Dotdigital’s personalization engine with Shopify Markets, you can manage all your international sales from a single Shopify store, creating seamless, localized experiences for every customer. With this integration, you can:

• Simplify global sales: Manage all your international sales from one Shopify store.
• Sync pricing accurately: Keep pricing automatically updated to ensure a consistent and accurate customer experience across all markets.
• Create localized experiences: Import market-specific pricing and translations with just a few clicks.

Smarter data, better results

87% of marketers know data is important, but turning it into effective action can be a challenge. Dotdigital empowers you to turn your data into action. We surface the insights you need to stay ahead of the competition and drive better results.

What’s new

Data Firehose (preview)

Data should drive your growth strategy, not slow it down. Empower your data and marketing teams to operate quickly and efficiently with our new Data Firehose. This powerful tool enables the automatic export of your Dotdigital engagement data directly into your data warehouse, ensuring your teams have instant access to the information they need.

You can sync raw engagement data—such as opens, clicks, and sends from your email and SMS campaigns—into your Amazon S3, FTP server, or other data warehouses.

Why is this helpful? Having all your data in one place gives you a much clearer picture of your customer’s journey so you can optimize in real-time. With this complete view, you can:

• Spot trends: Easily see patterns in your customer’s behavior.
• Understand purchase intent: Get a better idea of what your customers will likely buy.
• Improve recommendations: Give your sales and marketing teams the insights they need to boost revenue.
• Connect to your tech stack: Seamlessly integrate with your data warehouses and customer data platforms (CDPs).

Trustpilot Service Reviews

We’ve improved our Trustpilot integration, making it easier than ever to collect and use customer feedback. You can now work with both Service Reviews (for your overall business) and Product Reviews directly within Dotdigital. This means automating the entire feedback process and putting those reviews to work.

Here’s what you can do:

• Automated review requests: Send automatic invitations for service or product reviews straight from Dotdigital.
• Sync product reviews: Bring verified product reviews into Dotdigital and use them as contact data for smarter segmentation and automation.
• Show reviews in emails: Easily drag and drop recent reviews into your email campaigns.

What does this mean for you?

• Import all reviews: Import service reviews, product reviews, or both into Dotdigital for powerful segmentation.
• Target reviewers: Automatically enroll verified reviewers into specific programs based on their feedback.
• Boost credibility: Use positive reviews as social proof in your campaigns to build trust with potential customers.

Expand your reach

With your audience spending an average of five hours a day on their phones, it’s essential to adopt a mobile-first strategy. By diversifying your channel approach, you can effectively engage a broader audience and drive growth. Dotdigital’s latest features empower you to connect with customers across various platforms, maximizing your outreach.

What’s new

SMS click-to-unsubscribe

We’re making sure you aren’t wasting your marketing budget by streamlining the unsubscribe process for your contacts. Now available in supported regions, each campaign includes now includes a simple, personalized link that allows your contacts to automatically unsubscribe with just one click. The benefits include:

• Cost savings: Reduce costs, particularly if you are sending to multiple regions. 
• Improved customer experience: Offer a hassle-free unsubscribe option for contacts.

For those sending SMS worldwide, this significantly reduces the cost of getting started, especially if your business operates across multiple countries.

TikTok Audiences 

TikTok Audiences help you understand your followers better, so you can improve your social strategy. Here are some of the new features:

• Get new analytics to track your performance.
• Receive a daily summary of any new or removed contacts, along with info about any sync issues you might have.

Enhanced product recommendations 

Our AI-powered recommendation system now takes into account product variants, which are different versions of a base product (e.g., size, color, style).

• Similar products: The AI system assesses all products and their variants to suggest the most similar items to shoppers. You have control over merchandising rules and can create tag blends to highlight variations in color, size, or material.
• Purchased with products: Recommendations accurately display the relevant product variants that customers have purchased together.

Dotdigital App blocks

Sending hyper-personalized emails has never been easier. You can now edit SmartBlocks right within the Dotdigital platform. Enhance your email campaigns without the need for team training or switching between platforms. You can now:

• Effortless editing: Craft eye-catching personalized banners, enticing coupons, dynamic countdown timers, advanced product recommendations, and engaging weather widgets with just a few clicks.
• User-friendly interface: Our email builder makes it a breeze to incorporate content—no technical skills required.
• All-in-one experience: Enjoy a seamless, unified journey across all of Dotdigital’s products.

WhatsApp (preview)

Want to see the power of WhatsApp marketing firsthand? We’re bringing the world’s most popular messaging channel to Dotdigital, opening up a world of possibilities for your customer engagement.

Imagine reaching customers in 180 countries, engaging them in rich conversations, all without being limited by character counts. This is the potential of WhatsApp.

Interested in WhatsApp marketing? Visit our WhatsApp page for launch updates.

Other integrations and updates

We’ve been busy adding even more value with some exciting new integrations and updates:

What’s new

Migrating from Klaviyo to Dotdigital?

Feeling the pinch of Klaviyo’s recent price changes? Now’s the perfect time to explore a more powerful alternative. Switching to Dotdigital is easier than ever with our new Klaviyo migration tool. We’ll help you make a smooth, seamless transition, so you can get back to what matters most: growing your business.

Our Klaviyo migration tool lets you:

• Select and sync lists: Choose the specific lists you want to bring over from Klaviyo and sync them directly into Dotdigital.
• Map data fields: Select the data fields you need and easily map them to the corresponding fields in Dotdigital, or create new ones as needed.
• Sync unsubscribes and suppressions: Ensure a clean and compliant transition by automatically syncing your unsubscribes and suppressions.

No manual data transfer is required. Plus, take advantage of our exclusive offer for Klaviyo migrators. We’re proud to be the platform that fuels your growth.

Raiser’s Edge NXT

We’re thrilled to announce a direct integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT, available on the Blackbaud Marketplace. This exclusive integration (one of only two available) gives Dotdigital users a significant advantage. 

With automatic syncing, contacts, and customer details are seamlessly pulled from Raiser’s Edge into Dotdigital, making it easier than ever to manage your communications.

That’s why we are excited to introduce a suite of powerful tools designed to enhance your marketing efforts across all channels.

Whether you want to capture attention on TikTok, personalize at scale, or gain deeper customer insights, our updates work seamlessly with your existing tech stack to help you achieve one goal: delivering experiences that convert.

Drive repeat sales with social retargeting

TikTok’s explosive growth has created a massive audience of over 1 billion users worldwide. This presents a unique opportunity to reconnect with customers and boost repeat sales. Our latest TikTok integration allows you to easily transfer valuable leads to Dotdigital, enabling you to deliver highly personalized experiences based on their interests.

What’s new

TikTok lead forms integration

Convert more leads from your TikTok ads by automatically passing them into Dotdigital and enrolling them in dedicated programs. Benefits include:

• Save time by automatically syncing data from TikTok forms to Dotdigital, you can automatically create high-intent audiences ready to push into a campaign and convert.
• One-click pre-filled forms with profile information pulled from TikTok
• Increased conversion rates for shoppers scrolling through their feed

TikTok audience retargeting

Eliminate guesswork when building your TikTok ads audience by syncing and targeting your most engaged Dotdigital contacts. This feature allows you to:

• Create hyper-personalized ad experiences faster
• Sync segmented groups of contacts directly to TikTok
• Maximize your TikTok ad spend by targeting your most valuable audience. 

Whether you’re re-engaging past customers or capturing new leads, our TikTok integration provides the tools you need to drive repeat sales in today’s social-first marketplace.

Cut through the noise with hyper-personalization

Delivering personalized experiences is essential for standing out. Our personalization platform empowers you to create consistent and tailored experiences across your website, emails, and more.

What’s new

Global expansion

We are thrilled to announce the global expansion of Personalization is now available in the JAPAC region, with a US launch coming soon. This expansion enables businesses worldwide to leverage hyper-personalization and enhance customer engagement.

Improved user experience

To enhance user experience, we have revamped our table user interface, making it cleaner and easier to navigate. This update ensures that you can access and interpret your data more efficiently, leading to better decision-making and optimized campaigns.

SmartBlocks integrated within Dotdigital

You can now edit Personalization SmartBlocks directly within Dotdigital. This feature allows you to create personalized banners, coupons, countdown timers, and advanced product recommendations without the need for extensive training or switching between platforms.

With these updates, creating hyper-personalized experiences has never been easier. As you prepare for busy periods like Black Friday, Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year sales, our tools will help you cut through the noise and deliver compelling messages that resonate with your audience. 

Drive better results with advanced reporting

In our latest update, we’ve introduced powerful new reporting features to help you better understand and optimize your marketing efforts. These enhancements are designed to save you time, provide deeper insights, and inform your marketing strategy.

What’s new

Revenue per recipient (RPR) metric

We’re excited to introduce the revenue per recipient (RPR) metric, a game-changing addition to our reporting suite:

• This new metric helps you easily calculate the return on investment per recipient of your marketing efforts
• RPR saves time on manual calculations, freeing you up to focus on strategy

Whether you’re analyzing email campaigns or reviewing cross-account performance, RPR reporting helps you understand the true revenue impact of every send, regardless of audience size.

Enhanced program reporting

We’ve significantly expanded our program reporting capabilities to give you a more comprehensive view of your automated journeys:

• 19 new metrics across email and SMS
• Key performance metrics including direct orders, conversion rates, and revenue per recipient

Convert more without lifting a finger

As Black Friday approaches, it’s important to save time and concentrate on what truly matters. Our latest updates are designed to streamline your marketing efforts into a seamless, automated experience. This will help you convert more customers during this busy sales period while you concentrate on growing your business.

What’s new

Improved product recommendations

Our new hybrid product recommendation system, powered by AI, intelligently selects the best-performing model to showcase the most relevant products. This ensures a tailored shopping experience for both new and returning customers.

Additionally, you can preview results from your entire catalog, making it easier to optimize offerings during the cart and pre-checkout phases across both email and website channels.

Abandoned cart and browse enrolment 

With the Dotdigital tag, you can enroll customers in abandoned cart programs almost in real-time. This feature allows you to set default abandoned session timings that range from just 30 minutes to 12 hours, giving you the flexibility you need during busy sales periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Wishlist functionality 

We are excited to introduce a new wishlist feature that improves your customers’ shopping experience. With our integration with Wishlist.io, customers can create personalized wishlists to show what they want to buy later.

Through this integration, you can easily add wishlist product blocks to your emails, enabling you to create tailored content based on customer preferences and behavior.

Other integrations and updates

Enhanced security with time-based two-factor authentication (2FA)

Cyber security threats continue to evolve and intensify. To help protect your business and customer data, we’ve strengthened our security offerings with 2FA across all Dotdigital products. 

• Introduced time-based one-time password (TOTP) option for two-factor authentication
• Offers enhanced security by requiring authentication via an authenticator app
• Provides an additional, time-sensitive security barrier against unauthorized access

Customer reply addresses

We’ve launched a feature to personalize and streamline customer support messages:

• Set reply-to addresses: Customize at both account and campaign levels.
• Direct replies: Route emails to specific support members, improving ticket management and customer interactions.

Program enhancements

Recognizing that programs can be complex and time-consuming to set up, especially if you have multiple accounts with Dotdigital, we’ve introduced:

• Copy programs between accounts (preview): Easily replicate programs across multiple accounts, saving time and minimizing errors, especially for those managing multiple brands or regions. Speak to your Customer Success Manager to join the preview.
• Multi-account management: Simplify account administration for large teams with our enhanced team management tools.

Raisers Edge integration

Streamline your donor management by synchronizing data between Raiser’s Edge and Dotdigital. This integration saves time and effort, enabling you to focus on what truly matters – strengthening donor relationships.

We’re also releasing an improved way of working with webhooks, new integrations, and improved reporting based on your feedback. Let’s get started.

Advanced cross-channel personalization

Our new advanced personalization pack gives you access to all of the tools you could ever need to ensure that the journey of a prospect or customer is highly personalized and engaging across web and email.

You can utilize an individual’s behavior, location, weather, and their price preferences to deliver a hyper-personalized web experience before you even know their name. The next step is to automatically capture personal data, to empower you to deliver memorable one-to-one interactions via email, at scale. You’re then able to deliver real-time dynamic content and combine it with key features such as countdown timers and individual coupons to drive urgency and conversions.

What’s new

Access to advanced website and email personalization functionality, including:

• Countdown timers
• Weather tools
• Website easy-editor
• Image personalization
• Advanced popovers
• Advanced product recommendations

Deliver an engaging and reliable cross-channel experience

New self-serve webhooks

Ensure your entire customer journey is joined up with webhooks. We’ve made creating webhooks easier and faster than ever and if you are on our CXDP plan, you can now set up these webhooks yourself. Webhooks allow you to programmatically push data to other platforms to create your bespoke customer journey, whether that’s into your CRM or to fuel a direct mail campaign.

Free mobile app push

Cross-channel experiences are crucial to maintain engagement in today’s fast-paced world and mobile app push notifications are a really strong way to get your message out there. As of today, if you’re on the CXDP plan, you can send mobile app push notifications without drawing down on your messaging allowance.

Connect your complete tech stack

Enable deeper personalization

With our latest integrations, you can connect more of your tech stack to feed more actionable insights into Dotdigital and enable deeper personalization. We are launching brand new integrations with Hyvä, Centra, Retail Express, Cin7, EC Force, and Microsoft Entra ID. Plus, we have improved our existing integrations with BigCommerce (multi-store front), Zapier, Gorgias, and Trustpilot.

What’s new

New ecommerce integrations:

• Microsoft Entra ID: Sync your employee list to send internal communications via Dotdigital.
• Hyvä: Merchants using a Hyvä theme for their Magento store can now benefit from full Dotdigital functionality.
• Centra: Syncs contact data, order data, and products.
• Retail Express: A new point-of-sale (POS) platform integration available for customers in the APAC region.
• Cin7: An ecommerce connector primarily for inventory, POS, and warehouse management available for customers in the APAC region.
• EC Force: Syncs contact data, order data, and products for customers in Japan.

Improved existing integrations:

• Zapier: New support for unified contacts and new actions can be created for email or SMS contacts.
• Gorgias: It is now possible to create tickets in Gorgias based on SMS replies.
• Trustpilot: Review invites are now able to be sent out via SMS.
• Coming soon: BigCommerce – new multi-store front options allow BigCommerce merchants to have multiple accounts from one backend page work seamlessly with Dotdigital.

Improve your reporting

We’ve listened to your feedback and made it easier for you to show off all the great results you’ve delivered through your Dotdigital campaigns. With this release, you can understand the revenue impact of your campaigns quicker, dive into cross-account revenue analytics, export more reports, and save time with a raft of other reporting improvements.

What’s new

• Attributed revenue will now be displayed on account analytics and the email dashboard.
• Improvements to reporting:
  • Percentages for date ranges: We’ve added percentage metrics for date ranges as a Beta on email reports.
  • Triggered campaign reporting: You can now see the campaign type filter (triggered vs. standard campaign) as a Beta in email reports.
  • Export options: Download the top requested reports (including SMS report, link click report, and daily breakdown) on a Beta page.
  • Campaign identifying data: Send dates, subject lines, campaign tags, and campaign types have been added to the most used reports, to help you identify your campaigns.
  • Report view: Now all reports across the entire platform will remember the date range filters you’ve applied.

Dotdigital personalization updates

We’ve made some improvements to features based on feedback from our customers. You’ll also now see a design that matches Dotdigital’s platform, and we’ve improved the usability thanks to some clever design tweaks.

We’ve also made some changes to the ways you can get support. Users can now contact support using live chat, and the knowledge base has been updated with improved documentation to make it easier for you to get the answers you need fast.

What’s new

• Create personalized SmartBlocks using custom data:
  • Reduces time and complexity when creating personalized SmartBlocks.
  • Allows for the easier storage of data.
  • Provides additional design flexibility.
  • Use case: For travel brands, banners can be adjusted to customers’ favorite destinations.

• Improved coupon management:
  • Notifications for low remaining coupon codes.
  • Ability to see which codes have been uploaded in order to update and modify them.
  • Create coupons faster with five new customizable and responsive best practice templates.
  • Ability to copy and paste coupon codes from coupon images.

We hope you find the functionality in our latest release useful. You’re now all set to create end-to-end personalized experiences for your customers.

As we began planning this release, we knew it was vital that we understand the challenges you’ll be facing soon. That meant thinking about the economic uncertainty facing marketing teams around the world.  

So, with this release, we bring you advanced features to navigate the rocky road ahead. The threat of a global recession is looming over economies everywhere. As intelligent marketers you need to be able to: 

• Demonstrate the ROI of your marketing efforts 
• Report on successes and optimize where necessary 
• Reach audiences at the right moment to drive conversion 
• Generate new leads efficiently and effectively 
• Adapt to the changing demands of your audience 

Our latest feature update aims to make all this possible and so much more.  

Let’s dive in.  

Multi-touch revenue attribution 

From today, you will be able to gain greater insights into the customer journey and demonstrate the genuine value delivered by your marketing efforts.  

How has Dotdigital’s revenue attribution changed?  

Dotdigital’s previous advanced revenue attribution feature was an inference-based, last-click model. This model attributed the completion of a sale to the final engagement point customers made when purchasing from you.  

How does multi-touch attribution work?  

Our new multi-touch revenue attribution model goes even further by taking into account all touchpoints in your customers’ journey and assigning credit to each. By assigning “assisted revenue” to each email campaign your customer interacted with before a purchase you will get a holistic understanding of the marketing lifecycle and can demonstrate the full value of your efforts. 

Why is multi-touch revenue attribution important?  

Multi-touch revenue attribution gives you an overview of what campaigns have the highest level of influence on each sale you make.  

There is an argument that first- or last-touch is more important. First-touch attributes value to the product, page, offering, or campaign that first attracted your customer. Last-touch focuses on the moment when a customer commits to purchasing from your business. It’s simpler, certainly, but simple isn’t always the best. 

Only focusing on first- or last-touch revenue attribution could result in you planning your marketing spend based on skewed data. Multi-touch attribution gives credit where credit’s due. First- and last-touch attribution doesn’t explain how a customer can land on your website looking at Crockpots but ends up purchasing an Air Fryer. Multi-touch does, and it reveals the value behind every stage of your marketing campaign.  

The insights you’ll gain from using multi-touch attribution will enable you to make more effective and efficient decisions when it comes to the allocation of budgets, plus the planning of your future campaigns. And as a bonus, it allows you to tweak those campaigns already in action.  

How to get started with multi-touch attribution 

Our new multi-touch revenue attribution feature is available to all ecommerce marketers who have access to the ecommerce area of Dotdigital.  

Facebook lead ads  

In our latest update, you can now sync contacts from your Facebook lead ads directly into your Dotdigital account. This means you can now easily add them to nurture and re-engagement campaigns to efficiently grow your marketing lists and engage new audiences.  

How does Dotdigital’s new Facebook ad sync work?  

Dotdigitial’s new integration with Facebook lead ads sync contacts automatically from your Facebook account into your Dotdigital account. Live lead ads on Facebook are linked to an ‘instant form’ which collects customer information such as email, phone number, and custom preferences. Once they’ve clicked on your advert and filled in this form, data is seamlessly synced, so you have everything you need to deliver personalized marketing. 

How will Facebook ads sync improve your marketing?  

With an economic downturn facing consumers all over the world, they’re becoming understandably picky about where and with whom they spend their money. Simultaneously, with budget cuts looming and attention focusing on profits and ROI, you need to rethink your acquisition strategies to make them more cost-efficient.  

Our new integration with Facebook lead ads makes it easier for you to pivot and discover new customers and bring them into your marketing audience. With it, you can:  

• Identify potential new customers for your business 
• Collect vital subscriber information for personalized communications  
• Understand the behaviors and interests of your potential clients
• Encourage the download of brochures or whitepapers 
• Get prospects to enroll in your automation programs 

All-in-all, this update will save your team time and money by removing all manual workflows and providing you with the vital information you need to deliver conversion-driving campaigns.  

How to get started with Facebook lead ads 

Good news, our Facebook lead ads integration is ready to go. All you need to do to get started is go into your Dotdigital account and install the integration from the self-serve integration tab, in the “social” section. After this, you can connect your business’ Facebook account to Dotdigital by logging into your brand’s Facebook account and begin syncing data. 

Shopify Hydrogen 

The pressure is on for ecommerce brands to stand out from the crowd and meet customers where they are – on any device. Hydrogen, Shopify’s headless commerce framework, makes this possible. For this release, we’re giving existing Shopify merchants early access to our brand-new Hydrogen integration.  

How does Dotdigital work with headless commerce solutions?  

Headless commerce solutions separate your frontend store from the backend to deliver more agile and consistent experiences for customers. Traditional commerce solutions can connect with third-party integrations but can cause problems to the storefront due to poor architecture or code bloat. This problem is solved with headless commerce which allows data to flow seamlessly from both the front and backend into Dotdigital.  

How to achieve a seamless marketing-to-store handover?  

Dotdigital’s new toolkit for Shopify Hydrogen means you can now craft outstanding customer experiences that range from their first touchpoint to their final purchase and beyond. Simply set up the integration, enable the automatic data flow, and reap the benefit from Dotdigital’s suite of ecommerce features.  

What does early access to Dotdigital’s Hydrogen integration mean for Shopify merchants?  

By giving Shopify merchants access to a live demo Hydrogen storefront, we want to make the transition to headless commerce as smooth as possible for our customers.  

This means, rather than having to start from scratch, you’ll be able to see how we’ve set up programs such as an abandoned cart, web behavior tracking, and live chat in a Hydrogen-powered store. Through this, you’ll be able to set up your store and store-based automations quicker and easier than starting from square one.  

How to get started with the Hydrogen integration 

When we’re Hydrogen-ready be able to find us in the Shopify app store. Our partners and developers can get their hands on the toolkit through GitHub. For more information, check in with your Customer Success Manager or Sales representative.  

Push notifications 

Catching the attention of your customers is not an easy feat. At Dotdigital, we understand this, and that’s why our platform helps you tap into and automate every channel at your fingertips. In this release, we’ve made some important changes to push notifications to ensure they work for you, every time. 

How have we improved push notifications? 

Push notifications aren’t new, but they haven’t always been the most seamless of experiences for many customers. Think of that moment when your favorite fast-food delivery service sends you a discount to be used that very day. You click on the notification but nothing happens. There’s no link to what they told you about.  

So, what have we done about it? We’ve enabled deep linking for your notifications. That means customers who click on your notification will be taken directly to the appropriate page. That 15% discount can finally be claimed and conversions will increase. 

As well as improving deep linking, we’ve enabled the ability for notifications to link directly to a website or landing page if the deep linking function doesn’t give the experience you want. Reporting on all campaigns is essential, no matter the channel, so we’ve ensured you can get full analytics of your push campaigns. By monitoring your push notification interaction rates you can use your performance data to optimize your campaigns. 

How to get started with Push notifications? 

If you’re new to push or want to find out more about how to get started with Dotdigital’s push functionality, you can read all about it in our help center. 

Also coming in this release 

Consolidated analytics 

Account analytics for email and SMS provides you with a bird’s-eye view of your account in one place. This enables you to easily see performance stats across the board. All your KPIs are available at-a-glance, with the ability to deep dive into your results to optimize your marketing for standout results. Previously launched as cross-account analytics our new consolidated analytics is now available for all, to give you better insight into your overall performance. 

As part of this, the previous email-focused dashboard is being replaced with an analytics landing page which will include data for SMS as well as email. 

Tagging and filtering 

When cross-account analytics first launched in May 2022, it gave businesses with multiple child accounts the ability to pull together insights from various accounts. In this update, we have launched the ability to tag and group your accounts with custom tags, giving you the ability to filter and compare campaign performance in a way that matters most to you.