CASL: A Year In Review

Since the Canadian Anti Spam Law came into effect on July 1, 2014 we have seen three major penalties enforced by the CRTC. These enforcements were not a joke. All three were significant fines against the companies for violating CASL. As we all now know, the CRTC is serious in their efforts to try and reduce spammy electronic communications as well as proper permission management processes.

There were a number of reasons why these companies were fined. Essentially, there are three rules that you must abide by in order to stay on the right side of the law and these companies did not abide by one or all three of these basic rules:

1. Consent has to be obtained and proven; implied or expressed.
2. The sender’s contact information must be provided.
3. An unsubscribe mechanism must be in place and unsubscribes must be processed within 10 days.

To dive into number 1 a little further, […]

We got a makeover: Check out the new itracMarketer!

At itracMarketer, we are constantly innovating to provide our customers with the leading edge tools that they want and need.

Our new Marketer Suite is sleeker, more user-friendly and contains additional functionality to help you achieve your marketing goals!

In addition, we are proud to announce a new name for our Digital Marketing platform – itracMarketer

Existing customers will see this new version the moment they login into the application on

Don’t worry if you’re already happy and comfortable with the existing version of our application. You can easily go back to our old version with a simple ‘Click’ at the Top of the Navigation Bar.

Check out our hot new features:

Navigation Bar – Make itrac more convenient for you! Configure your Navigation bar to easily access the tools that you use the most.

Home Dashboard – Want to check quick stats on your database or latest campaigns? Configure your Home dashboard to display the features and stats that you want to see when you first […]

To the Cloud! – How the lines between email marketing and marketing automation are disappearing

Email remains one the most effective and popular marketing communication paths in 2015. Consistently offering unique methods of delivering communications, and increasing ROI in a wide range of campaign styles, types and promotions; and yet, email is only getting more sophisticated.

Putting your company on the leading edge of technology requires leading edge tools to multiply your email marketing campaign into a fully automated, personalized and contextual marketing automation system. The success rates are undeniable, but many sales and marketers don’t realize that they could increase the power of email substantially with marketing automation.

Marketing automation allows companies to use their gathered intelligence, and existing or newly gathered customer data to create advanced automated workflows to (automate repetitive and difficult tasks that will) generate/promote leads and to compile useful and valuable customer data. This data is then used to provide a personalized, and customer aware campaign immediately relevant and specific to your promotion and communication.

The field of Marketing Automation is growing at […]

Engage new customers with a well thought out welcome process.

Getting new customers is hard. Landing pages, social media, and email marketing are valuable tools for acquiring new business leads and potential clients. It is important to establish a flow of communication between your business and the client using a well planned welcome campaign and ‘on-boarding’ emails. Convert your clients post-signup using the tools and tips from itracMarketer.

So you have acquired a new sign up on your site using a contact form, or sign-up option. What’s next? Our customers already know they can build an automated workflow to send custom, personalized replies – a properly welcomed new customer is an ideal candidate to activate for relationship building and advocacy time and time again. What to write? Check out our tips below.

Explain why you are sending an email, with a clear call to action – A welcome email should have a clear statement and purpose. If the receiver is expected to perform a certain action, it should be obvious, straightforward […]

4 Marketing Automation stats that will surprise you

You’ve heard about it. It’s the technology driving sales and customers to your business. In 2015, Marketing intelligence, automation, and advanced workflow automation software tools are one of the hottest trends to grow your business.

Marketing automation uses all the collected information from a customer; from clicks to emails to forms, surveys and meta-data; to deliver them the information they need to make a purchase at the best time and place.

1. 63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study)

2. Among CMOs, the most important criteria for a marketing automation system are ease-of-use (92%) and the ability to tie marketing performance to sales (72%). (Gleanster Marketing Automation Benchmark)

3. Companies that use marketing automation are 3 times more likely than companies without automation to track and attribute their content-marketing efforts to multiple touchpoints (36% to 11%). (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, 2013 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study)

4. 58% of […]

4 Factors To Consider When You are Planning An Email Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing is one of the most effective means of communicating with an audience to drive business.

If you’re not already using email marketing, I strongly suggest you hop on this band wagon.

For those of you who are already engaging in email marketing, there are a few things to consider before you start blasting out emails.

As with all marketing, you must first begin with an email marketing plan and strategy.

Here are four areas for digital marketers to consider as you plan out your email marketing campaigns:

1. Timing:

Deciding when to send out your emails is important. Sending out your emails at the right time will increase the likelihood that your emails will be opened and clicked. Essentially there is no exact time that will lead to successful email marketing campaign results all of the time, it all depends on a number of factors which are discussed below as well as some trial and error on your part. For example, if you test out different timing and […]

CASL Education – 6 things you need to know

Ever since the CRTC issued the Canadian Anti Spam Law (CASL) on July 1st 2014, digital marketers have been on edge. The new CASL law is not well understood and many have not spent the time to ensure that their email marketing practices are fully compliant. Once the CRTC slapped a 1.1 million dollar fine on Compu-Finer and then a $48,000 fine on Plentyoffish marketers were not only on edge, but they were spooked.

These two companies clearly violated the law, and they were punished for their mistakes. As a marketer you need to stay on the right side of the law.  Your email marketing efforts should keep the following six principles in mind in order to stay CASL compliant:

1. Confirmed Consent:

Using confirmed consent does not necessarily make your database CASL compliant. It’s an important part of being compliant, but there are other ways to ensure this by capturing the source and date of consent. Within the itracMarketer CASL compliance center, not only can […]

What is CRM and why do you need it?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. Sales and marketers already know the benefits of using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support on a single cloud-based platform. Maybe you have considered getting one, but you don’t know where to start. and besides, what can a CRM do for you?

Need a CRM right now? Get a Free Demo for itracMarketer CRM, marketing automation.

CRM is software used to manage every interaction you may have with current and future customers. Using itracMarketer for CRM, you can track a lead using custom analytics, create lead scores and conversion goals – itracMarketer’s all-in-one platform allows you to create a landing page, survey or form; manage lists and deploy large scale email marketing campaigns – and track your customers interactions as well as pass prospects directly to your sales team.

The benefit of having the entire client and prospect history […]

100 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Email Marketing

The average person picks up their smartphone 100 times a day. That’s once every 7 minutes or so.

Email has become a huge part of the mobile environment which means that you, as a marketer, have 100 opportunities each and every day to engage with your customers via their mobile device which they simply cannot live without.

Essentially, this means you can target your customers anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

It seems like only a few years ago when email was only accessible through your desktop/laptop and engagement was limited to the hours of the work day. Back then, emails could be ignored for hours or even days at a time. Now, consumers can’t ignore their emails as they carry them wherever they go.

With that being said, just because we know that our customers or potential customers have their email on them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week does not mean we can take advantage of them.

Email marketers must embrace the medium fully. This means […]

What is itracMarketer?

itracMarketer is a complete email marketing and CRM solution that can do everything from customer acquisition using lead generation features and tactics to ongoing customer management throughout the sales and marketing lifecycle.

You can create a landing page and form for your website, then combine with a multi-step drip email marketing campaign to create engagement and capture information on leads in order to turn them into customers.

Once a lead is in the itrac platform you can keep track of every interaction including their activity on your website as the iProfile is automatically populated. Send them professionally designed emails to notify them of opportunities and events. Ensure that your communications are CASL compliant by tagging the contact with the appropriate consent status; or set up a workflow to notify appropriate staff when a lead or customer makes a move that requires action. Discover hot prospects and manage leads with automation to stay on top of the sales cycle.

Need a solution to manage […]