The report speaks volumes to the importance of personalization in email marketing efforts. Any marketer worth their salt wants to personalize, but many either don't have the resources or are unaware of the available tools. Deep personalization (to Sarah Nochimowski's point about lacking a definition) comes down to having the following:

• Accurate data collection on individuals;
• An engine capable of extracting relevant insights from that data and, most importantly;
• A real-time response platform that eliminates the manual intervention that digital marketers (to echo Mark Price) rarely have the time or resources to take on.

Underpinning all of this a point Sterling mentioned—getting personalization right across the customer journey often takes executive buy-in.

Brands that are shuttering that many retail locations will have a hard time creating demand solely for online, and they will also need to create an e-commerce experience that is more brand engaging than most e-commerce digital catalog experiences. On the first point, those store locations drove demand not only for brick and mortar, but also were constant billboards for growth and traffic of their e-commerce sites. In the absence of physical stores, brands will have to either spend a great deal more on digital advertising and re-marketing or they will see demand slowly ebb away. And on the second point, stores are incredibly supportive of the brand relationship. Most e-commerce sites lack that recognition and engagement and feel more like an order entry site. Those migrations for new digital only brands will have to go a long way to invest in relevant content as well as more individualized brand experiences so the shopper feels like they are known and recognized as loyal shoppers online.