• by Ray Schultz , September 18, 2017

Alterian has launched Real-Time Adaptive Email,  a tool designed to deliver relevant content based on all engagement and behaviors up to that moment.   

The technology allows the “brand to fill in the content in real time when the consumer opens the email,” says Jeff Hassemer, Alterian’s chief strategy officer.

In July, the Denver-based company introduced its Chameleon Adaptive Customer Experience Platform, a cloud-based solution with multiple capabilities, including email execution.   

These products enable brands to move beyond a mere triggered journey to a total customer experience, Hassemer adds.

Formally launched today, the Adaptive Email product can close the “relevance gap” between emails being delivered, opened and re-opened, the company claims.  

Hassemer has had a personal experience with a brand that failed to deliver timely content.

Shopping for a refrigerator, he “did the standard shopping cart thing,” and abandoned the cart after completing his research. He then went to the store on Friday evening to make the purchase. The next day -- too late to help him with this buy -- he received an email offering a 30% discount on all appliances in the store. That turned him from being a “super happy customer to an unhappy customer,” he adds.

The Saturday morning email should have been “about my delivery, how happy I am with the purchase, and the chance to upsell and cross-sell,” Hassemer contends.

The retailer should have been able to “read the fact I made the purchase in the store” he continues. Using Alterian’s technology, the retailer could have sent him a  real-time email, CMS or mobile app message.  

“I don’t how many times I’ve been retargeted for a purchase I’ve already made — chased across the Internet,” he says. Alterian’s analytics platform can define “who needs a discount and who responds to promotional content,” Hassemer says.

“We call it the combination of slow data and fast data,” he continues. 

Adaptive Email can be applied to multiple email formats, including dynamic offers; self-adjusting offers; timed offers; time from purchase; aggregated customer details; cross-channel clicks and browsing activity; upsell/cross-sell; weather; countdown timers; in-stock / out-of-stock; social media activity; and known and unknown customer email receipts.

Alterian CEO Bob Hale states that “marketers have long struggled to increase engagement because trigger-based email messaging has failed to stay relevant between the time it was sent and the time it gets opened and re-opened.”