Of all of the digital media tactics, the easiest to get right is email. How can something so easy to get right, be so wrong most of the time?

The components are simple:

There are pitfalls at each stage but it's also pretty easy to swing over each of the pits. There is loads of wisdom on subject lines and engagement strategies ... that many ignore ... but what really boggles the mind is the actual content and design.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deliver content to an audience via email. You do it every day to friends and family. I have one friend who will say every email is TL;DR but normal people have learned over decades how to compose an email.

If you are sending business emails, check them against the three core needs -- readable, comprehendable and fulfills the promise. If it doesn't, change what you are doing. Your audience will appreciate it.

Admittedly, it's kind of bold to talk about how to do email correctly in an email. If you have thoughts on how to make this one better, let me know!

EMAIL: It's always good to check your subject lines against tactics that trip spam filters. MORE ... Click segmentation is among the tactics we should be doing to be better and smarter with digital. MORE ... Grow trust, communicate based on the data you have, build value with every new subscriber and know privacy rules. MORE ... Here are 22 blogs devoted to email marketing. MORE ... Here's a resource to inspire your next email design. MORE

SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter is beta testing the ability to schedule your tweets. Admittedly, anyone who wants to accomplish this action just uses a third-party, like Hootsuite. MORE ... Twitter is also launching a new retweet mechanism on iOS. MORE ... Instagram is the top social platform marketers want to invest heavier in 2020. MORE ... When your Facebook ads tank, there might be simple answers. MORE ... LinkedIn is getting into the live-streaming arena. It's a natural but probably too late for them. MORE ... Facebook paid $52 million to its moderator force for the pain and suffering inflicted by the posts they have to moderate. If seeing these moderated posts cause this much harm, we are all glad they are doing that work. MORE ... Facebook avatars have reached the United States. MORE

CONTENT MARKETING: What do you do if the topic is just BORING? There are still ways to use it. MORE ... Does your content strategy answer the what, where, who, why, when and how? MORE ... A combination of evergreen content and content based on current events or trends is the best approach. MORE

DIGITAL MARKETING: Google is testing its first post-cookie-era cookie successor. MORE

RESEARCH: While marketers know research is important, not many believe they are any good at it. MORE ... There are a number of ways that decisions are made. What is the best route? Hint, it's not executive opinion. MORE

PROGRAMMATIC: Some publishers are holding back inventory to avoid decreasing cpms. Smart. There is a point where the revenue has less ROI than house ads or blank white space. MORE ... A recent study showed publishers reap a little more than thought of the programmatic spend . The fees were divided up between media agencies, demand-side platforms, demand-side technology, sell-side platforms and supply-side technology. MORE ... The study has created an uproar over some missing money, as much as 15 percent. MORE ... Programmatic display has fallen below $2 cpm and premium video is sitting at roughly $21. Skippable video is around $10. MORE

SEARCH: The wisdom on SEO strategy keeps getting more and more basic. This is SEO for recently born dummies. MORE ... On the other hand, uber-technical answers to simple needs can get in the way of indexing. MORE ... Grow, reach and defend with your search strategy. MORE ... Compiling keywords and phrases isn't complete without compiling the negative terms. MORE

MARKETING: Most believe April was the bottom of the budget slashing related to ad spending. MORE

DATA: The murky landscape of third-party data is sometimes necessary. There are loads of promises, but which sources are legit? Judge them based on accuracy, precision, recency, coverage and deployability. Common sense doesn't always win here because the truth is often hidden. MORE ... The excitement over a new tool can't outweigh your data compliance strategy. MORE

VIDEO: YouTube receives only 15 percent of its traffic from U.S. sources. MORE. 75 percent of broadband households subscribe to a streaming service. MORE ... Digital video has a benefit over TV in that the viewer is likely watching. Paying attention? Not so much. MORE

AUDIO: From creating Facebook groups to running paid ads to asking questions and getting answers on social media, here are a number of ideas that extend the reach and power of podcasts. MORE

ANALYTICS: Oh gosh. The first encouragement here (in the post-cookie world) is to trust and use vendor metrics? Scary. Surely we will come up with a better answer! MORE

PRIVACY: With the pandemic placing a greater pressure on digital tools, calls for greater privacy legislation are already being heard. MORE