The familiar mantra - 'faster, better, cheaper' - is also email marketing's worst enemy. These very qualities tempt a cavalier approach most marketers wouldn't think of applying to other media. That's why the bulk of today's campaigns are still undifferentiated, one-to-many email blasts.

For the most direct, one-to-one medium yet invented, this leaves much of email's potential lying in the dustbin of your marketing department. The failure is in measurement - few marketers apply the discipline that they do to their direct mail campaigns. That is, they don't routinely plan, test, assign control groups, analyze results or refine future campaigns accordingly. If all you're risking is a few thousand dollars versus the tens or hundreds of thousands you might in a direct mail campaign, why bother?

The answer, of course, is ROI. Email's strength isn't its fundamental cheapness, but the fact you can leverage this low cost for truly spectacular results. Good measurement methodology makes this happen, but first you need to know what to measure and, more importantly, why.

While most can recite the basic open and click through rates of their campaigns, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Few marketers measure the impact of their email marketing programs, and a root cause is the lack of written plans and measurable objectives. If you don't predetermine what you want from a campaign, what is there to measure? The common practice is to simply cut to the chase, ask for the sale and forget that email is primarily a relational tool. No problem measuring the lack of success there.

Several years ago, one of our clients - a US consumer software company - wanted to up-sell its registration base of 1 million-email opt-ins. Although we had lots of learning on targeted email marketing for this company, the new marketing director decided just to blast the mass message every 2 weeks to the base. The results? Tragically low conversions surpassed only by the high opt-out rates.

This seat-of-the-pants approach to email is alarmingly common. Another Inbox client, a US packaged goods company, began sending an email newsletter to a list of 100,000 opt-in names gathered from a contest. Their format was long and text heavy. As good direct marketers, we proposed several content and design tests to determine the optimal control design but the ad agency couldn't sell the client on this methodology. Instead, they deployed monthly and soon grew dismayed by the poor results and lack of interest. Six months later, they bailed completely, squandering 100,000 direct relationships.

As a brilliant relational tool, the only worthwhile approach to email is long term. It is the most effective way to gently but consistently touch prospects and customers, provide information they have stated an interest in and record their changing needs and habits. Twinned with a robust marketing database, email is the communications backbone of lifecycle marketing. And this is where measurement plays the critical role. Once you commit to email for continuous client communications, what to measure and why becomes very obvious.

Finally, the most compelling reason to measure is the fact that others do, and in growing numbers. Best practices leaders - notably some Canadian banks - are quietly laying the infrastructure and pulling ahead of the rest of the pack by systematically testing, scaling and measuring at the front end and back ends of their email programs. This means that measurement won't be an option in a few short years, but the price of entry.