Not my favorite article, but some good points to live by as a database marketer. My main pet peeve is sending too many emails. This has slowly been getting better through the years, I don't find myself getting so many daily emails, which is a testament to analytics I would imagine.

There are a number of reasons, but there are several common ones. And there are a lot of reasons at different companies. But the main one that we've found is that customers receive too many emails. So, it's always important for an email marketer to understand [customers'] preferences—especially the mailing frequency that your customers prefer. It's always important not to overwhelm them with emails. When you send too many emails, you're causing them to tune out.... They'll look at them, and just ignore them.

Getting back a customer that has become inactive is very difficult, so have different strategies for customers that are trending toward inactivity. In my history I call these customers decliners and it is easier to save them before they become inactive.