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EDITORIAL
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Duuo by Co‑operators announced the launch of its Embedded Insurance Report.
This new study breaks down the concept of embedded insurance and highlights the way non-insurance brands can get in on the action. Key findings throughout the report make it clear that embedded insurance has the potential to create new growth channels for Canadian brands that add insurance to their overall value proposition.
“There’s been so much buzz around embedded insurance over the last few years, and this report gives Canadian brands direct insight into the ways they can benefit from an embedded insurance solution, especially when they have the right partner,” says Ryan Spinner, Vice President of Duuo by Co - operators.
He continued, “While most Canadians probably aren’t familiar with the term yet, our research shows a clear interest in purchasing insurance through embedded experiences, which is really encouraging.”
Focusing on the home and auto industries, the report examines Canadians’ growing expectations from their favourite brands, including the desire for additional rewards and services. It also showcases Canadians’ openness to exploring new insurance options from trusted brands.
Whether an organization creates its own insurance brand or leverages the brand of an insurance partner, the report makes it clear that Canadians need to feel confident that they’ll be supported.
Duuo by Co - operators is actively working with Canadian brands and is eager to connect with more organizations with high brand trust, digital scalability, and organic customer journey connections.
Established in 2018, Duuo by Co - operators is an embedded insurance leader with a focus on partnership distribution. Through APIs, partners can seamlessly embed the insurance experience directly into their app, platform, or website. Clients purchasing coverage through partnered platforms enjoy easy access to reliable coverage, all backed by over
75 years of proven insurance expertise and award-winning service. Embedded Insurance sales become a brand strategy. Duuo by Cooperators Embedded Insurance Report 2025 is a research report on Canadian consumer preferences and embedded insurance. With so much buzz around the innovations in embedded insurance, They decided to survey over 1,200 Canadians to connect the dots betTheyen consumer preferences and the opportunities for non-insurance brands to jump into this emerging space.
First of all, what is “embedded insurance”? When They say “embedded insurance” They’re referring to any situation where an insurance purchase journey is seamlessly placed (embedded) into a partner’s app, platform, or Theybsite.
For example, the last time you purchased plane tickets you They’re likely offered travel insurance just before the digital checkout. In this case, the airline has embedded an insurance offering directly into their journey, precisely at their customer’s moment of need.
Why is embedded insurance trending? In short, because the technology has finally caught up to the vision. Now that customers can simply select an insurance package and “add to cart” with their plane tickets, it’s a game-changer for all parties involved:
1. It fulfils a job the customer wants done. 2. It expands the overall value prop of the airline.
3. It opens a new distribution channel for the insurance partner.
What does this report show Canadian brands?
From buying a home to insuring a car, there will always be a need to protect the assets They value most. What is changing is how Canadians can access insurance coverage. In leveraging consumer insights, They’re able to expand on the potential embedded insurance has to create new revenue and increase customer retention for Canadian brands that add insurance to their overall value proposition.
While the average Canadian has probably never heard the term “embedded insurance”, there are driving indicators They can focus on to determine if the embedded insurance value proposition appeals to them.
With this in mind, Duuo by Co-operators surveyed over 1,200 Canadians (ages 21-65) to gauge interest. They heard from 75 percent car owners, 52 percent homeowners, and 48 percent tenants.
Here’s what they learned Canadians want more control over their insurance rates; Canadians want to be
rewarded more for their brand loyalty; Canadians need to trust a brand before buying insurance; Canadians are open to purchasing insurance through embedded experiences.
A few key metrics
❯ 95 percent of Canadians would be more likely to stay loyal to a brand if they received additional rewards and services.
❯ 81 percent of Canadians would be willing to try a new insurance brand to gain more control over the cost of their coverage.
❯ 85 percent of Canadians would be more likely to make additional purchases from brands that reward them with loyalty points.
❯ 67 percent of Canadians would prefer to purchase auto and home insurance the same way they get insurance for their flight tickets.
Established in 2018, Duuo by Co - operators is an embedded insurance leader with a focus on partnership distribution. Through APIs, partners can seamlessly embed the insurance experience directly into their app, platform, or website. Clients purchasing coverage through partnered platforms enjoy easy access to reliable coverage, all backed by over 75 years of proven insurance expertise and award-winning service. Embedded Insurance sales become a brand strategy. Duuo by Cooperators Embedded Insurance Report 2025 is a research report on Canadian consumer preferences and embedded insurance. With so much buzz around the innovations in embedded insurance, They decided to survey over 1,200 Canadians to connect the dots between consumer preferences and the opportunities for non-insurance brands to jump into this emerging space.
Canada’s Credit Unions Celebrate 20th Consecutive Win for Best Customer Service at the 2024 Ipsos Financial Service Excellence Awards.
For the 20th consecutive year, Canada’s credit unions have been recognized as the recipient of the Ipsos Financial Service Excellence Award 2024 for Customer Service Excellence among all financial institutions. This incredible
two-decade streak reinforces the credit union sector’s longstanding commitment to delivering outstanding, member-centric service and its pivotal role in fostering strong community relationships.
“Winning this award for 20 years in a row is a testament to the relentless focus credit unions place on serving their members. It highlights our dedication to going beyond financial services, emphasizing personal connections and member financial wellbeing,” said Jeff Guthrie, President & CEO of the Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA). “The recognition from Ipsos underscores that our Profits-for-People approach continues to set us apart in the financial sector.”
In addition to being honoured for Customer Service Excellence, Canada’s credit unions were acknowledged in several other categories this year, securing a total of six Ipsos awards, reflecting the diverse and exceptional service they provide to members across the country.
patients. The integration of AI into cleft care, currently being piloted, supports our mission to create sustainable solutions and reinforces our commitment to drive innovation in global healthcare. We are excited to be one of the 12 organizations featured in the Beyond the Code series for driving transformative change.”
Operation Smile is a leading global nonprofit bridging the gap in access to essential surgeries and health care, starting with cleft surgery and comprehensive care. We provide medical expertise, training, mentorship, research and care through our dedicated staff and volunteers around the world, working alongside local governments, nonprofits, and health systems, and supported by our generous donors and corporate partners.
Award categories include:
❯ Customer Service Excellence (solo win)
❯ Values My Business (solo win)
❯ Financial Planning & Advice
❯ Branch Service Excellence (solo win)
❯ Online Banking Excellence
❯ Live Agent Telephone Banking Excellence
These accolades highlight the innovative, community-focused approach that credit unions continue to bring to the financial services industry.
The Ipsos 2024 Financial Service Excellence Awards are derived from the combined program year results of quarterly Customer Service Index (CSI) surveys ending September 2024. Sample size for the total 2024 CSI program year was 47,946 completed surveys yielding 71,649 institution ratings. The CSI survey has been conducted since 1987.
The Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA) is the national trade association for Canada’s credit unions, caisses populaires (outside Quebec), and regional Centrals. Representing 185 credit unions and caisses populaires with $312 billion in assets, CCUA provides advocacy, research, education, compliance and other support to its members. CCUA is dedicated to the success of credit unions and promoting their values of supporting local communities.
Operation Smile Featured in “Beyond the Code,” a New Branded Series that Explores How AI Is Driving Transformative Change.
Global nonprofit Operation Smile today announced its involvement in Beyond the
Code, a new branded series presented by Partnership on AI (PAI) and produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions. The first of its kind, this online series — which includes a story produced for Operation Smile of how AI is improving healthcare — uncovers the ways that AI is impacting people’s lives and contributing to a more sustainable environment.
BBC StoryWorks filmed with Operation Smile in Musanze, Rwanda, to capture the innovative use of AI in the surgical evaluation process for patients with cleft conditions.
The 5-minute film follows a Rwandan family whose child received life-changing surgery and showcases the profound impact of Operation Smile’s work on patients and their communities.
“We are proud to be part of Beyond the Code,” said Dr. Billy Magee, Chief Medical Officer, Operation Smile. “The story produced for Operation Smile highlights our pioneering use of AI technology to enhance healthcare delivery. By integrating AI into our planning and evaluation processes, we are not only raising the standard of care but also building local capacity, bringing life-changing surgical care closer to the communities we serve.”
Operation Smile has an ongoing commitment to increase access to sustainable, high-quality care, starting with cleft surgery. The incorporation of AI into evaluation processes helps ensure that every surgery is evaluated based on consistent, measurable criteria, providing high-quality care in regions where specialized cleft surgeons are scarce.
“If I could describe Operation Smile in one word it would be ‘evolving,’” said Dr. Caroline Yao, Plastic Surgeon and SVP Patient Metrics & Evaluation, Operation Smile. “We are constantly evolving to best serve our
eCampusOntario Launches Digital Campus Canada.
In a groundbreaking development for higher education in Canada, eCampusOntario has officially launched Digital Campus Canada, a comprehensive suite of value-added services designed to support Digital Transformation (Dx) for postsecondary institutions. Digital Transformation (Dx) is the use of digital technologies and pedagogies, informed by research and evidence, to support learners across the entire learning lifecycle. Canada’s higher education institutions are increasingly embracing Dx, changing the way Canadians learn, upskill, connect with employers, and advance their careers.
“Learners have high expectations for their postsecondary experience,” said Robert Luke, CEO of eCampusOntario, “Not only do learners want career-focused education, they are looking for digital-first learning. We’re here to help postsecondary institutions give learners what they need to be competitive in the future job market.”
Celebrating its 10th anniversary on October 3, eCampusOntario has a long history of providing the essential supports for member institutions to enable the growth of highquality digital learning in the province. With the launch of Digital Campus Canada, the same services are now available to both members
and non-members across the country.
“Increasingly, we’ve been asked to provide our services to non-members outside of Ontario. Digital Campus Canada helps enable the expansion of our Dx supports nation-wide,” said Rich Louttet, Head of Sector Transformation at eCampusOntario, “Institutions are looking to strengthen their competitive advantage to offer the best learning experience for their students. Through Digital Campus Canada we enable all institutions to embrace Dx and leverage platforms that enhance connections to employers, while reducing costs and increasing revenue.”
Digital Campus Canada’s inaugural offerings include Strategic Foresight and Executive Consultation, innovative professional development opportunities, future-forward workshops, and platforms-as-a-service to facilitate strategic partnerships. In advance of the launch of Digital Campus Canada, eCampusOntario released its Digital Transformation Guides in 2023.
“Dx helps institutions align supports for learners, educators, institutions, and employers,” said Robert Luke, “We’re excited to be in a position to support institutions making this important change that will be such a benefit to students.”
eCampusOntario is a provincially funded non-profit organization that leads a consortium of the province’s publicly funded colleges, universities and indigenous institutes to develop and test online learning tools to advance the use of education technology and digital learning environments.
Growing concerns in Canada and United States about data privacy and ethical data practices: TELUS poll.
A new TELUS Data & Trust survey reveals that an overwhelming majority of Americans (82 percent) and Canadians (79 percent) believe data privacy matters more to them now
than ever before, with many (74 percent of Americans and 72 percent of Canadians) expressing worry about how organizations handle their personal data. The survey, which examined Americans’ and Canadians’ attitudes towards data privacy, trust in organizations, and expectations for responsible data practices, highlights the critical need for companies to prioritize ethical data management and transparency as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technology rapidly evolves.
trust is the cornerstone of the relationship with our customers and communities, which is why we integrate trustworthy practices into everything we do, ensuring that as technology such as AI evolves, our commitment to respecting our customers’ data and protecting their privacy remains unwavering.”
Artificial intelligence needs to be developed carefully
It is no surprise that there are strong feelings
Key findings from the TELUS Data & Trust Survey 2024 include:
Reputation matters: 88 percent of American and 87 percent of Canadian respondents consider a company’s reputation for data handling important when deciding whether to do business with them.
Trust inspires action: Americans and Canadians equally agree (86 percent) that their trust in a business inspires them to buy or use that company’s products and services. What’s more, two-thirds of respondents (67 percent American and 66 percent Canadian) will advocate for brands they trust, telling friends and family, posting on social media and sharing reviews.
Worries remain about data: Americans and Canadians both expressed concerns about what organizations do with their personal data (74 percent and 72 percent respectively).
Privacy on our minds: 52 percent of Americans and 42 percent of Canadians think about their data privacy on a daily basis, indicating a high level of awareness and concern.
“As technology continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, it’s clear that people on both sides of the border are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned about their data,” said Pam Snively, TELUS’ Chief Data & Trust Officer. “At TELUS, we recognize that
about AI and its development when it comes to trust and technology. Ninety per cent of Canadians and 86 percent of Americans want to see AI developed with care. Having AI presented with clarity and transparency is important to Canadians (82 percent) and Americans (81 percent). Finally, 74 percent of respondents in both countries want AI development done in consultation with everyday people, not just academics or technologists.
“We recognize the importance of developing technology with trustworthy practices and the value of engaging diverse voices in the development of our AI tools and services,” said Snively. “People are telling us what they need to trust data and AI: they want companies to ask for and listen to customer input, for data ethics experts to be involved, and for transparency in the explanations on how AI is used in a way that is understandable to everyone. Organizations need to listen and act on these concerns.”
The 2024 Data & Trust Survey was conducted among 1,000 Canadians and 1,000 Americans representative of the general population of adults, weighted on age, gender, and region according to the 2021 census figures for the Canadian sample, and the 2020 census figures for the American sample. For more information about TELUS’ commitment to data trust and privacy and to learn more, please visit telus.com/trust
BY MIKE FORD
In today’s digital landscape, lookalike modeling has emerged as a powerful tool for marketers seeking to optimize their targeting strategies. By leveraging the potential of data-driven insights, businesses can identify audiences similar to their existing customers, leading to improved customer acquisition, engagement, and overall business growth.
Lookalike modeling is a technique that involves identifying and targeting audiences who share similar attributes and characteristics to your current customer base. By analyzing data, such as demographics, purchase behavior, and interests, businesses can uncover valuable insights and create audience segments that closely resemble their best customers. Lookalike models help marketers increase reach by creating larger audiences that “look like” a smaller audience. Typically the smaller audience has known, deterministic attributes based on 1st party data or trusted 3rd party data. The larger look-alike audience has similar attributes but the known confidence level of those attributes is typically less than the smaller audience.
Process of Lookalike Modeling
1. Data Collection: To initiate the lookalike modeling process, businesses gather relevant data points about their existing customers, such as age, location, interests, and purchasing history. Best practices for creating lookalike models start with a trusted data set, typically first party CRM data a marketer knows. Skydeo uses a variety of deterministic attributes to create high value seed audiences which can then be expanded by look-alike modeling. Attributes include: apps owned, locations history, age, gender,
income, purchase history and device information.
2. Data Analysis: Statistical algorithms analyze the collected data to identify patterns and similarities among customers, allowing businesses to uncover key attributes.
3. Audience Segmentation: Based on the identified attributes, businesses segment their audience into groups with shared characteristics, forming the foundation for lookalike modeling.
4. Lookalike Model Creation:
Using advanced machine learning algorithms, businesses build lookalike models that match the attributes of their ideal customers, enabling targeted outreach to similar audiences.
5. Targeting and Outreach: Armed with the lookalike model, businesses can effectively target and engage with audiences that exhibit traits similar to their existing customers, maximizing the chances of conversions and engagement.
Benefits of Lookalike Modeling
Increased Reach: Lookalike modeling expands the target audience beyond existing customers, diving into untapped potential and reaching new prospects.
Higher Conversion Rates: By focusing on audiences similar to the best customers, businesses can optimize their marketing efforts and increase the likelihood of conversions.
Cost Efficiency: Lookalike modeling ensures that marketing spend is directed towards audiences with a higher probability of conversion, maximizing the return on investment.
Improved Personalization: By tailoring marketing messages to specific customer segments identified through lookalike modeling, businesses can enhance personalization and relevance, resonating with their target audience.
Lookalike Modeling in Action:
For example, a marketer may want to target people who use the McDonalds mobile app or who have visited a McDonalds in the last 30 days. That audience in Skydeo yields a finite number of approximately 2.3 million people. We can expand reach by creating a look-alike model based on apps and places with high affinity to the original McDonald’s audience to 7-8 million people. This would offer a higher degree of accurate targeting than just targeting all
fast food buyers. By loosening the targeting criteria a marketer can expand the scale and reach of their campaigns intelligently.
The issue with look-alike modeling is that the desire for increased reach sacrifices targeting. Look-alike modeling, specifically in Facebook, can be over used to the extent the campaign isn’t really targeted at all. In the case of Facebook, marketers don’t really know which attributes are being used to expand the lookalike model.
Lookalike modeling revolutionizes the way businesses target their audience, enabling them to unlock new growth opportunities and maximize their marketing efforts. By leveraging the power of data-driven insights, businesses can harness the potential of lookalike modeling to drive customer acquisition, improve engagement, and achieve tangible business results.
MIKE FORD is Founder & CEO of Skydeo. Skydeo provides mobile audiences, insights and measurement to brands and agencies serving auto, retail, tech and mobile gaming clients. Prior to this, Ford was the Founder & CEO of TownConnect, a social media startup dedicated to organizing and uniting families, friends and organization in local communities. Ford has been a guest speaker for Inc. Magazine’s CEO Conference, Webmaster World, and Boston College.
An
Allison Hartsoe is a leading expert on customer-centricity and the author of “The Age of Customer Equity: Data-driven Strategies to Build a Sustainable Company”.
BY STEPHEN SHAW
The story is a familiar one, played out year after year, decade after decade. Under pressure by investors to drive up earnings, companies keep spending a disproportionate amount of time and resources trying to acquire new customers.
This obsession with short-term growth obliges marketers to focus on the only metric that corporate bosses care about: a bigger slice of market share. Preoccupied by that one measure of success, marketers lose sight of the fact that the surest path to growth is not finding more and more buyers, most of whom are one-anddone purchasers unlikely to buy again, it is getting longtime customers to spend more, more often. Yet repeat customers continue to get treated as an afterthought while the largest share of marketing dollars goes toward buying ads.
As long ago as the 1980s a contrary belief began to take shape amongst marketing academics, calling for a shift in focus from driving demand to managing customer relationships. Customers should be regarded as financial assets, they argued, whose value can be counted on to grow over time. To unlock the unrealized potential within the customer base, marketers needed to invest more proactively in developing the relationship, and that demanded a more equitable balance between acquisition and retention spending. The health of any business, they declared, could be judged by the aggregate lifetime value of all customers which they came to call “customer equity”.1
By the mid-to-late 1990s, as CRM systems were installed to manage sales and service interactions with customers, and as marketing database technology grew more powerful and sophisticated, the individual value of a customer was suddenly visible to anyone who cared to look. Now marketers could say with absolute certainty: the longer a customer remained a buyer, the more valuable they became. In fact, active retained customers were often found to be worth on average three to five times the cost of acquiring them. Yet over the years the concept of customer equity never gained much of a foothold on the corporate performance scorecard. It is still viewed to this day as an intangible metric, undeserving of executive attention.
One problem, of course, is there is no designated line on the corporate balance sheet for a customer equity calculation. Even the generally accepted idea of brand equity is tucked under the nebulous heading of “goodwill”. The other problem is that customer lifetime value is defined in a few different ways. Sure, there is the version you find in most textbooks, dating back to when catalog marketing was in its heyday, but its operational application using actual transactional detail is all over the place. But what really holds customer equity back as a recognized corporate yardstick is the tricky exercise of coming up with a cost attribution formula that everyone can live with. No one enjoys negotiating with finance, least of all marketing. And if finance isn’t onside, customer equity
remains just another bit of marketing jargon. Despite its drawbacks, customer equity can be a vital barometer of company success, according to Allison Hartsoe, whose book “The Age of Customer Equity” spells out how companies can operationalize the concept. Healthy companies have happy customers, she believes, and customer equity is a proxy for the health of the relationship. As a longtime data analytics leader and consultant, she has built a proven AI-powered Customer Equity predictive analytics engine to identify the most promising growth opportunities within the customer base while finding pockets of excess spending. She is a recognized thought leader on customer-centricity and the strategic use of customer data to drive growth.
I kept thinking, why don’t we have a stronger connection to the boardroom?
ALISON HARTSOE (AH): In the early days of my companies, I’d be sitting in the boardroom listening to the conversations of investors and they’d be talking about how many deals they’ve closed and about the metrics they typically care about. I worked with Gary Angel2 at the time, who is just a fantastic leader in the digital analytics world, and he had some groundbreaking ideas about how you analyze and understand the data. At the time we were using large data sets, trying to find pockets of value. And I kept thinking, why don’t we have a stronger connection to the boardroom? We have all this good data, but the minute an analyst comes running in and talks about what they’ve found, they’re speaking another language that the boardroom doesn’t understand. So I went on a bit of a quest, trying to bridge the two. Now, early on, I could see that the customer was that bridge. And so through the 2000s we got more and more data where we could make that bridge. So then I spent a little time understanding private equity and lo and behold, they’re talking about the customer, but talking about it in a much different way, talking about it as averages, talking about it as trends, like,
your industry does 6 percent, so you should do 6 percent growth. Very, very large estimations. And that’s when I realized this is the place for me, because I can make that bridge between the strategic and the tactical. And so I think there’s a real value in being able to have a constructive conversation with your investors about why you believe certain actions are the right things to do, but in terms they understand.
SS: So let’s just go back in time a little bit. The language of customer equity first emerged in the mid nineties. But underlying it is the idea of customer lifetime value, which has been in the toolset of direct marketers, mail order marketers, credit card companies, practically forever. Is the concept of customer equity synonymous with customer lifetime value, or is it broader than that?
AH: I think about customer equity as the total of the future customer lifetime values, up to 15 years within the base. So I use that as the strategic North Star.
SS: I don’t know if you know Neil Bendel3, but he thinks that the term customer equity is a bit of a misnomer. He says that the strict accounting definition of equity is assets minus liabilities. So he makes the case that customer equity doesn’t really conform to financial reporting standards. And if accountants won’t use it, does that limit it to marketing as a segmentation tool?
AH: Yeah, I think there’s some truth to what he says. And I didn’t understand that until I really got into how you build a financial model to purchase a business. As I was going through that, I was like, wow, there’s a whole lot of flexibility in the numbers when we go to calculate goodwill, which is basically a plug on the balance sheet. I think it’s very important that we lean into how we can take advantage of those numbers without getting wrapped around the axle on where it fits on the balance sheet. I know that’s a contrarian view, because we do need to have a sense of the cost. But I don’t think you need to go all the way down to exactly which dollar goes to which line item in order to get there.
SS: But it does speak to the immense divide between finance and marketing and their inability to speak one another’s language.
AH: I think that’s true, but I think that’s also why I focus on the CEO and the COO, because you have to rise above that. The strategy has to fit the CEO’s mindset, and then the tactics roll down as opposed to trying to define all the tactics and roll up to the strategy.
SS: But is that the orientation of most CEOs today? All they seem to care about is maximizing shareholder value.
AH: Yeah. So I call that financial engineering. Let me give you an example. Friendly’s was a great restaurant that I grew up with and totally enjoyed as a kid. It became a victim of
financial engineering. You had two founders who loved their customers with all their heart, and they built this business and grew it into a tremendous asset. And then financiers came in and made them pay rent, drove up the expenses, and drove the customers away. So, Friendly’s went of business. Now, the world that I want is a world where there are more Friendly’s out there. And we want those CEOs to be armed with the right information that helps them become the next Friendly’s. Today CEOs miss a lot of signals in the data that is already at their fingertips. And the private equity firms don’t see it either, because they only care about financial engineering. That’s how we get shrinkflation, and that’s how we get all of these maneuvers that make people unhappy. Now, add a little bit of AI to that, and suddenly we’ve got the kind of world that I’m not sure I would be happy in. I want the kind of world that’s really focused on making my world, my life, better, easier, more convenient, and having the companies and their products be of service to me, not have me be the product.
SS: You’re touching on the crux of what’s going on in society today. On one side is the ethos of customer first thinking, and the other is bottom line thinking.
AH: Yeah, but, you know, it’s a balance. You can’t do one without the other. The company has to have the right economics to stay in business. And so, there’s a place for financial engineering. There can be waste on the balance sheet. But there’s also a place for the customer. And I don’t think we should have one without the other.
SS: Yeah, it’s interesting with your Friendly’s example, because that’s exactly what Red Lobster has gone through, of course.
AH: Spot on. Everybody blames it on the shrimp.
SS: There’s a massive body of literature around managing customers as investments and the concept of customer valuation. What’s your preferred definition of customer lifetime value?
AH: It’s the future values of your customers projected out to 15 years. You want to be able to see around corners for where your business is headed. I tend to not use the language of customer lifetime value a lot because I think LTV, CLV, it’s very muddy. And I cannot tell you how many times I have pulled up, not necessarily an algorithm, but just a mathematical model, and they are essentially doing recency frequency modeling. They’re just looking backward. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to run my business by looking backward. I have to run it looking forward.
So that’s one thing. The other thing I sometimes see is these compressed aggregates. Whenever somebody tries to model the entire customer base in an Excel sheet — just, no! Unless you have 100 customers, no, you’re not doing it right. You cannot model this in a spreadsheet. You have to look at each individual. So we take into account discount rate, we take
into account future projection, we take into account margin. And I take a big breath on that last one because that’s where we start to get into cost allocation. I think it makes sense to put a cost in there, so you get some sense of unit economics. But like I said before, I don’t want to get wrapped around the axle on cost. Why spend six months trying to allocate the costs correctly?
SS: Is it an historical model that just looks at past purchases and then tries to estimate potential value, or is it a predictive value based on behavioural analysis?
AH: It’s always predictive.
Our job is to get more creative about ways that we drive value creation.
SS: So you’ve talked about 15 years being the horizon — explain to me how you get to that number. Some companies plug in a reasonable horizon of, say, five years. Others actually try to work backwards to look at cohorts and the actual average lifetime of active customers. Why 15 years?
AH: It’s the point at which we hit infinity. It’s so far out in the future, one more year doesn’t make a difference. Fifteen years is the customer equity number. So if I want to ask, “Did I make a difference by taking this action?”, there’s two ways to measure it. You can measure it as what happened within the next two years: Did I pull that revenue forward? Or you can look at how much value will I create in the total customer base?
SS: I think about the recurring revenue that you can reliably expect year over year from your customers. There is the unrealized potential — the share of wallet going to the competition. And then there’s revenue that can come from selling new products and services that might not even have been imagined yet. How do you model for potential growth?
AH: I only look at the goodness of the base. If you cannot create a sustainable company on the backs of your existing customers, you don’t really have a company. The durability of the business is what I care about. And that’s why the subtitle of my book is “Data Driven Strategies for A Sustainable Business”. It doesn’t mean sustainable like ESG. It means sustainable as in you can control when you take financing and when you don’t.
SS: The other approach floating around, certainly as far as CLV goes, is you have a separate model for acquisition versus existing customers. In other words, factoring into your model future customers that you don’t even have yet.
AH: So I do pick out new customers in the base as a separate group for special treatment, but I don’t look at it as future acquisition of phantom customers. I look at it as, how do I feed a lookalike model? So if these are the pockets where solid revenue exists, what are the attributes that correlate with good revenue? And so I I’m a little less speculative. I stick to the durability of the customer base and then I go fishing for more people like that.
SS: So, I want to dive into another area that’s always been a bit of a mystery to me and that is the whole concept of retention, which is obviously a key part of the calculation. But here’s the thing: Retention rates can vary, right? Does the calculation adjust based on the varying longevity of a customer?
AH: When I run the models, I run them again, and again, and again, and again. So the model doesn’t just run once a year or once a quarter, it’s running all the time. So, that’s already picked up in the model as they change over time. So, you bought two years ago, you haven’t bought again: You’ve got a little red light on that says there’s a problem here. That’s hard to pick up in the data when you’re just looking at product sales.
SS: Sometimes the revenue loss is masked because the company has raised prices. Meanwhile, their core customers are fleeing to the competition.
AH: And that’s so important. What you’ve alluded to is the quality of the customer base, and that quality is what we look for, what we seek. That’s what I mean by durability.
SS: CLV is usually based on a net margin calculation. Going back to the question of costs, do you take into account net margin at the individual level?
AH: So, technically, if I’m from the Wharton School, the answer is yes, this is how we calculate CLV, we’ve got to put in the costs. So let’s say you’re operating on a net margin basis and you’re projecting forward as best you can. Will you see the love of your customers as easily as you might if you gave more weight to the top line? Because I find that for most businesses, an excess of revenue solves a lot of problems. Our job is to get more creative about ways that we drive value creation. So, yes, you can put in all kinds of operational costs. But why? Yes, you could be very, very precise. But I’m not talking to the CFO. I’m talking to the CEO, the COO. I’m talking to people who want to drive value creation. If I let them get wrapped around the axle about all those different costs, at the end of the day, it might not even matter when they go to sell their company.
SS: Marketers continue to be challenged on why they deserve 8 percent or 12 percent of the budget. CLV might be the answer if the marketer can say they’ve increased the average value of a customer by a certain amount over a specific period of time instead of trying to prove ROI campaign by campaign. AH: Yeah, exactly. So I’m lifting the quality of the customer base every year by a certain amount, and that is a much better way to have a marketing conversation. And then the CFO can worry about cost attribution. If I’m the marketer I’d be looking with a critical eye at loyalty programs, coupons, discounting, anything that can officially erode a customer base: You know, I need more sales, I’ll go push out a coupon offer, versus really getting to know the customer base and finding what they need and what they want from you. That’s a slightly different calculation.
SS: Well, it’s short term versus long term thinking. You build relationships over time. AH: That’s the word: Relationships.
SS: So I want to ask you about Fred Reichheld’s idea of earned growth rate4 where he talks about building in the value of a customer’s referral value into the CLV calculation. Do you actually factor in word of mouth in building your models as well? AH: I think referral value makes sense because you’re always looking for word of mouth as the most cost effective acquisition technique. We know that companies which have great referral value tend to do incredibly well. Yet when it comes to a data centric point of view, you want to know, were they already planning to buy, or were they not planning to buy?
SS: Should CLV be thought of as an absolute measure or should it be thought of as a relative measure? Is it a way to rank and stratify customers? Too simplistic?
AH: No, I don’t think so at all. I think that is exactly how we want to be thinking about it. If we’re projecting outward into the future, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Neither do you. It’s a probability. So, it’s a guess and it should be treated as a guess. Is it going up? Is it going down? What’s causing it to go up or down? That’s a great way to unpack your business.
SS: You’ve actually built a predictive analytics model using AI to do exactly what you’ve been describing today. Without giving away any of the secret sauce, you’ve obviously got some magic going on. How does it work exactly?
AH: I always start with the core data. So you need a date, you need a time, you need what was purchased, how much was spent, and you need a customer identifier. So you need four pieces. Well, three pieces of data technically. But if you’re going to do anything at all with it, then you need to add some other fundamentals, like what was the address? Or what was the product that was purchased?
Now, where it gets more complicated is, and this is the question every company should be thinking about, what are you going to do with that data? Are you going to go after reducing costs? Are you going to route people differently in your call centre? Are you going to think about how you make a better recommendation?
So there’s a lot of different facets to execute and that controls how many other pieces go alongside the core data. But there’s nothing that says that you can’t start with one or two and build, and build, and build. Because again, my approach is iterative. The more data you give it, the better it gets to why.
SS: But you need a pretty good historical footprint, I would imagine.
AH: I need about three years worth of data. So it does depend a little bit on the kind of company and how customer centric they are.
SS: Well, let’s take a bank as an example. They have multiple lines of business, each of which has different behavioural patterns which suggest different lifespans across different products, whether it’s credit cards or mortgages.
AH: Yeah, but that’s just a dimension. And here you’re touching on product centric versus customer centric thinking. So, a company will often come in thinking about those lines of business, right? But as a customer I am not a checking account. I am a person, and I have a lot of different needs. So you have to shift that thinking. You have to make product a subset of the customer calculation.
SS: But is it conceivable that built into the model would be projections based on those individual lines of business?
AH: It’s a dimension. So when you run the calculation, you look at the overall customer, and then you describe the customer by things within that value calculation. So they might have product A, B, and C, or some set of products. That product is a secondary model.
SS: From a marketing planning perspective, how should CLV be operationalized?
AH: So if I’m a marketer, I want to say I’m going after a customer group that is worth $X million according to my CLV calculation and set out as a goal to increase that value. My baseline measurement is my current customer equity projection. Then after a period of time I’m going to measure it again to determine if I achieved that goal. That’s the number I take back to the CFO. But that is not a 15 year number. That’s more of a two year, three year number, depending on the purchase cycle.
SS: That number should presumably guide how many dollars get assigned to acquisition versus retention. And companies today, I would argue, still underfund their customer strategy in favor of acquisition because the emphasis is on growth and more growth.
AH: Yes, I would say that’s true. Most companies don’t believe that there might be a limit as to how many customers they can acquire. In an Agentic AI5 world, you might not be able to reach me as easily as you can reach me today. You might want to spend a lot more time thinking about your current customer base.
SS: Let’s go back to tying customer equity number calculations back to market capitalization or company valuation. What’s your perspective on that?
AH: If I’m the CEO and I want to have a good conversation about the value of my business, I want to be armed with a number that gives me the strongest ability to say my customer base is worth X. And then the conversation that happens with the private equity firms or the venture capitalists is “Here’s what I believe: Tell me why you think that’s wrong”, as opposed to what happens today, which is the firms come in and they do a bottom up financial calculation. And in that calculation you get aggregates and they’re using average percentages. So even though the customer equity number might not be an approved accounting measure, I think the ability to negotiate from a position of strength is valuable.
SS: You state in your book that customer equity is a way to measure the “goodness” of a company. What you mean by that?
AH: If you are constantly satisfying your customers and they’re happy with you and you’re happy with them, you will see this ongoing durability that’s reflected in the customer equity number. So I like to think about customer equity as a “U” shaped curve where, when we don’t pay enough attention to it, we’re overspending, we’re not optimizing our business. The efficiency is way too low. And then as we come through the bottom of the “U”, we start getting resonance and efficiencies that are really beautiful. And then as you get to the other side of the “U”, that’s the time where innovation has to take over and you need to start thinking out of the box.
1. The term was first coined in a 1996 Harvard Business article called “Manage Marketing by the Customer Equity Test” by Robert C. Blattberg and John Deighton.
2. Gary Angel is currently CEO and Founder at Digital Mortar which provides advanced measurement and analytics tools for optimizing physical spaces. Previously, he managed EY’s Digital Analytics Center of Excellence.
3. Neil Bendle is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. In addition he is Director of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB).
4. Earned growth rate measures the revenue growth generated by returning customers and their referrals.
5. Agentic AI are AI systems designed to autonomously pursue complex goals and workflows with limited direct supervision.
STEPHEN SHAW is the Chief Strategy Officer of Kenna, a marketing solutions provider specializing in delivering a more unified customer experience. He is also the host of the Customer First Thinking podcast. Stephen can be reached via e-mail at sshaw@kenna.ca
BY DAVE BURNETT
Influencer marketing has become an essential part of many brands’ digital marketing strategies. However, developing a well-rounded influencer marketing strategy requires more than just partnering with popular influencers. To achieve success, you need to define clear goals, identify the right influencers, craft authentic campaigns, and measure your results effectively. This guide outlines the key steps to help you create a successful influencer marketing strategy that drives real impact.
Before reaching out to influencers, the first and most critical step in your influencer marketing strategy is to define your campaign goals. What do you want to achieve through influencer partnerships? Understanding your objectives will shape the direction of your campaign and influence every other step.
Some common goals for influencer campaigns include:
Increasing brand awareness: If your goal is to increase visibility, partnering with influencers who have a broad reach and a large following will help boost awareness of your brand.
Boosting sales: If sales are your priority, focus on influencers who have a strong track record of driving conversions. Look for influencers who create engaging product reviews or tutorials that showcase the product’s value.
Driving website traffic: For campaigns focused on traffic, use influencers who excel at creating compelling content with strong calls-to-action (CTAs), such as “swipe up” links or bio links that direct followers to your website.
Growing social media following: If building your social media presence is the goal, consider influencers who can encourage followers to engage with your brand’s profile through contests, giveaways, or shoutouts.
Clear goals will not only help you
identify the right influencers but also guide the type of content that is most effective for your campaign.
Choosing the right influencers is perhaps the most important step in executing a successful influencer marketing strategy. A misaligned influencer partnership can lead to a wasted budget and missed opportunities. Here are a few key considerations when identifying influencers:
Audience Alignment: The influencer’s followers should match your target audience. Analyze their demographics, interests, and behaviors to ensure they align with your brand’s ideal customers. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, partnering with influencers in the health and wellness space is crucial.
Brand Values: Collaborating with influencers who share your brand’s values is vital. Authenticity is the driving force behind successful influencer marketing, and followers can quickly spot partnerships that feel forced or insincere. Influencers who resonate with your brand message will be able to naturally promote your products in a way that feels genuine.
Engagement Rates: Engagement is more important than follower count. An influencer with 100,000 followers but low engagement is less valuable than one with 10,000 highly engaged followers. Tools like Instagram Insights, or platforms like HypeAuditor, can help you gauge an influencer’s engagement rate.
Content Quality: Look for influencers whose content aligns with your brand’s image and aesthetic. Influencers with a cohesive, high-quality feed will likely produce better content for your campaign. Evaluate their past posts to see if they can produce creative, visually appealing, and engaging content that reflects your brand.
Relevance in Your Niche: Ensure the influencer is relevant within your industry or niche. Influencers with niche audiences tend to have a deeper connection with their followers, which results in higher trust and authenticity.
Influencer marketing can range from inexpensive campaigns using nano-influencers to highbudget campaigns featuring mega-influencers. Setting a budget upfront is essential to avoid overspending. Consider the following costs when determining your budget: Influencer Fees: Compensation varies significantly depending on the influencer’s following,
engagement rate, and the scope of the collaboration. Megainfluencers with millions of followers charge higher rates, while micro- and nano-influencers may be more affordable but still highly effective in niche markets.
Content Creation Costs: Some influencers may include content creation as part of their fee, while others may charge separately. Make sure you understand what’s included in the partnership—will the influencer create a set number of posts, videos, or stories? Will
they provide additional content for use on your brand’s platforms?
Agency Fees or Platform Costs: If you’re using an influencer marketing platform or agency, factor in additional fees for managing the campaign. These services may streamline the process of finding and managing influencers, but they come at a cost.
When negotiating terms, ensure that the agreement is clear regarding deliverables, deadlines, and usage rights. Influencers should know exactly what is expected of them, and brands should have a clear understanding of how the content can be used beyond social media (e.g., website, ads, etc.).
Authenticity is the cornerstone of any successful influencer marketing strategy. The key to influencer success is the trust and credibility they’ve built with their followers. Followers expect influencers to provide real, honest recommendations rather than scripted advertisements.
Here’s how you can ensure your campaign feels authentic: Give Creative Freedom: While it’s important to communicate your brand’s goals and key messages, influencers should have the creative freedom to craft content that aligns with their style and voice. Authentic content feels genuine when it reflects the influencer’s personality, not just the brand.
Collaborative Content: Work with influencers to co-create content. This could involve discussing ideas for posts, product placements, or themes that align with both the influencer’s audience and your brand.
Avoid Overly Scripted Content: Followers can tell when content feels forced or too scripted. Instead of providing word-for-word scripts, give influencers the flexibility to speak naturally about your product. This leads to more organic promotions that resonate with their audience.
The final step in creating a successful influencer marketing strategy is measuring your results. Without clear metrics, it’s impossible to know if your campaign was a success or what improvements are needed for future campaigns. Metrics will vary depending on your initial goals:
Engagement Rates: Track likes, comments, shares, and saves to see how much interaction your posts are generating. High engagement means that your content is resonating with the influencer’s followers.
Click-Through Rates (CTR): For campaigns that include links to your website or online store, measure how many clicks come from the influencer’s content.
Conversions and Sales: If the goal of your campaign is to increase sales, tracking conversions is critical. Use custom discount codes or affiliate links to see how many purchases can be attributed to the influencer.
Follower Growth: For campaigns aimed at increasing your social media following, track the number of new followers gained during the campaign.
Return on Investment (ROI): Finally, calculate the overall return on investment by comparing the cost of the campaign to the revenue generated. Was the campaign cost-effective, and did it meet or exceed expectations?
Creating a successful influencer marketing strategy requires careful planning, thoughtful execution, and ongoing measurement. By defining clear goals, selecting the right influencers, crafting authentic campaigns, and tracking relevant metrics, your brand can harness the power of influencers to drive meaningful results. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, or boost sales, influencer marketing offers a flexible and highly effective way to reach your target audience.
Anew research study by CarTrawler reveals a $20 billion opportunity for loyalty programs to boost member engagement and generate new revenue by incorporating car rentals.
The Driving Loyalty: Market Insights on Car Rentals & Rewards report, based on a survey of over 3,500 U.S. consumers, highlights how loyalty programs can diversify rewards, capture more travel spending, and enhance member satisfaction by offering car rentals as earn-andredeem or discounted options within their rewards framework.
Key findings show that 45 percent of respondents are likely to rent a car through a loyalty program, with this rising to 56 percent among 25-39-year-olds. Yet only 12 percent of recent car renters (within the last 12 months) used their loyalty program for booking.
Car rentals also provide loyalty programs with a unique way to increase member engagement, especially for non-travel-related purposes. Driving Loyalty shows that these “everyday” rentals account for 24 percent of all car rentals in the U.S. and occur yearround, unlike the seasonal nature of air travel-related rentals, making this a consistent revenue stream for loyalty programs.
With the U.S. car rental market valued at $39.29 billion and projected to reach $44.7 billion in the next five years, loyalty programs have a prime opportunity to significantly drive deeper member engagement, expand their market impact, and boost revenue by incorporating car rentals into their offerings.
With loyalty programs shifting to meet modern consumer demands, car rentals emerge as a significant yet underutilized growth opportunity. Historically focused on point accumulation and rewards, modern loyalty programs have evolved to build more meaningful relationships with customers through personalization, enhanced value propositions,
and broader offerings. This shift reflects the growing need to meet changing consumer expectations and differentiate in an increasingly competitive environment.
The following report is based on a comprehensive survey of consumer attitudes in the U.S.; the findings reveal new opportunities for loyalty programs to refine and align their strategies with what matters most to consumers today. Within this dynamic landscape, car rentals emerge as a key but often overlooked offering. Ranked among the top preferences for loyalty program members — surpassing health and wellness products, clothing, and homeware — car rentals represent a valuable and untapped opportunity for loyalty programs to capture substantial growth.
The report outlines five key themes from the survey findings,
offering a clear perspective on the vast potential for loyalty and membership programs within the car rental market. These insights demonstrate where loyalty providers can focus to enhance their appeal and address emerging consumer preferences.
1. Significant Latent Demand: While not yet the go-to choice, loyalty programs are poised to capture a $20B opportunity. With 1 in 4 members renting a car annually and nearly half wanting to book through their loyalty programs, the potential for growth is undeniable.
2. Tapping into Everyday Car Rentals: 24 percent of car rentals are for everyday use, a market largely untapped by traditional travel channels.
Loyalty programs have a golden opportunity to fill this gap.
3. Engagement Through Rewarding Redemptions: Car rental is one of most attractive product lines for driving engagement through redemption; offering split payment options with points and cash is critical for car rental redemption offerings.
4. Member-Exclusive Perks and Convenience: Customers want member-only discounts, a simple booking process, and competitive pricing when shopping for car rentals. Loyalty programs that deliver these benefits can outshine traditional channels.
5. Trust and Personalization Drive Success: Members trust their loyalty programs to offer curated, high-quality car rental options that meet their needs. Success hinges on a broad supply, excellent customer service, and sophisticated personalization.
Significant Latent Demand
With 1 in 4 members renting a car annually and nearly half of survey respondents wanting to book through their loyalty programs, the potential for growth is immense. Loyalty programs have the chance to capture half of the U.S. car rental market, translating to a $20B opportunity.
Overview
The U.S. car rental market serves a substantial customer base, with approximately 60 million loyalty members renting cars annually. This equates to nearly 23 percent of the total U.S. loyalty membership base having rented a car within the last 12 months. Loyalty programs stand to benefit from this projected growth over the next four years.
The Power of Loyalty Programs
Survey data reveals a significant opportunity for car rental: 45 percent of respondents indicated they are likely to rent cars through their loyalty program. This represents an estimated 27 million loyalty program members who are
potential car rental customers.
Currently, around 12 percent of those who rented a car in the last 12 months did so using their loyalty program for the booking. This gap in car rental adoption highlights the latent demand, presenting a valuable opportunity for loyalty programs to expand their offering into the car rental market and better serve their members.
The high satisfaction among this 12 percent cohort is evident. Of those who rented a car in the last 12 months using their loyalty program for the booking, 88 percent would rent through their loyalty program again. When comparing customer willingness to repurchase other products again via their loyalty programs, car rental ranks third, only behind groceries (89 percent) and outdoor products (92 percent).
The frequency of car rentals further underscores the potential benefits of focusing on this vertical within loyalty programs. Data shows that 66 percent of all adults who rent cars do so at least twice a year.
This behavior highlights a robust potential for repeat business, particularly among those who rent through loyalty programs. 88 percent would rent a car from their loyalty program again. 56 percent of 25–39-year-olds show the highest interest in renting cars through loyalty programs, highlighting the potential to acquire, engage, and retain this traditionally hard-toreach demographic. 66 percent of adults who rent cars do so at least twice a year.
Common frustrations, such as high prices and hidden fees, further amplify the need for a transparent and trusted service. These pain points highlight a growing demand for a car rental proposition that offers clear pricing structures and reliable service, fostering greater consumer confidence and satisfaction.
Members trust their loyalty programs to offer curated, high-quality car rental options that meet their needs. Success hinges on a broad supply, excellent customer service, and sophisticated personalization.
For consumers, three primary factors influence their decision to rent a car: price, vehicle suitability, and trust in the car rental supplier brand. Price-sensitive consumers are particularly focused on the logistics of their rental experience, such as the pickup location and the type of car available. On the other hand, customers who are less concerned with cost place greater emphasis on the reputation and reliability of the car rental supplier brand. Highlighting customer reviews and NPS scores is essential, as these elements significantly enhance trust and credibility in the decision-making process.
Personalization is essential for building trust and satisfaction among loyalty program members. By leveraging data and advanced
machine learning algorithms, loyalty programs can offer personalized car rental options that resonate with individual preferences. This extends to providing vehicle choices that align with the brand’s identity, such as luxury cars for premium brands or electric vehicles for eco-conscious ones. Such tailored offerings enhance the customer experience and deepen the brand’s alignment with consumer values, creating a stronger sense of loyalty.
The survey reveals that 55 percent of renters under 50 are inclined to choose an EV, compared to just 27 percent for those aged 50 and older. This highlights the need for tailored offerings that align with the preferences of distinct age groups.
Loyalty programs with a well-developed car rental strategy can elevate the booking experience by delivering this level of personalization, meeting individual preferences while strengthening member loyalty and trust in the brand.
Trust is a powerful driver of loyalty program membership, with 43 percent of respondents placing it within their top three reasons for joining a program.
In a market challenged by high prices and limited availability, consumers seek brands they can rely on. Loyalty programs that prioritize trust through personalization, transparent
pricing, honest customer reviews, and tailored rental options can significantly boost member satisfaction, positioning trust as a central factor in long-term loyalty program engagement. It also remains the leading factor across almost all loyalty program categories, except Timeshares, where location edged out trust by 2 percent. This underscores the critical role trust plays in building member loyalty and engagement.
This report underscores the growing demand for a more sophisticated car rental proposition within loyalty programs across the U.S., reflecting a critical shift in consumer expectations — one that brands must respond to. This change presents a valuable opportunity for loyalty programs to increase engagement and satisfaction.
Consumers now expect more than the accumulation of points; they expect comprehensive, personalized experiences that deliver real value. By catering to the often-ignored everyday renters, loyalty programs can tap into a substantial yet underutilized market. Offering flexible payment options, competitive pricing, and emphasizing trust and personalization can reshape how members interact with these programs.
The survey findings make it clear: while points remain a valuable tool for driving customer engagement, they are no longer the sole driver of loyalty. To remain competitive, loyalty programs must offer a diverse array of rewards and benefits that are finely tuned to individual preferences. By closing current gaps and responding to the distinct preferences of everyday car renters, loyalty programs can realize new avenues for engagement, deepen member relationships, and secure long-term loyalty in an increasingly competitive market.
BY LUCIE DE ALMEIDA
Ever had the frustrating experience of
opening an email on your mobile device only to be unable to access its content because the call-toaction buttons are inaccessible?
This sometimes also happens to persons with disabilities when they are faced with digital content that was not created with accessibility in mind. However, as a universal communication tool, it’s important for email to comply with certain accessibility principles.
For this reason, today accessibility is directly related to email deliverability. Anti-spam filters and email systems are increasingly considering errors in accessibility (such as poorly programmed HTML formatting, overly small or stylized fonts, missing alt text or insufficient colour contrast) as spam indicators, which may cause certain emails to be blocked and directly affect the campaign engagement rate.
What is accessibility?
Accessibility aims to remove obstacles that may prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in society. It’s about creating environments, services, and products that can be used and appreciated by every individual, irrespective of their physical, sensory, cognitive, or intellectual abilities.
To create a fair and equitable society, the idea of accessibility is closely related to the notion of inclusivity, although there are differences. Inclusivity goes well beyond the concept of accessibility by creating an environment in which people feel welcomed, valued, and respected. It involves promoting a culture of acceptance and understanding.
In the digital world, the guiding principles for ensuring
the accessibility of web content (WCAG 2) were developed and standardized by W3C in collaboration with individuals and organizations around the world, the goal being to provide a single set of standards that fulfill the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments no matter where they are located.
Each principle is accompanied by testable criteria for success, ranked according to three levels:
A: Minimum level of conformity
AA: Recommended level
AAA: Most accessible level
The A and AA conformity levels are the most commonly used for evaluating accessibility on the web.
Why is accessibility important?
According to the WHO’s World Report on Disability, approximately one billion people are currently living with a disability and close to 200 million of them have very serious functional issues. In the years ahead, disability will become a growing concern as its prevalence increases due to aging populations and the increased risk for disability amongst the elderly.
In Canada, according to the Canadian Survey on Disability, 27 percent of Canadians aged 15 and over have at least one disability: 10.6 percent have limited mobility, 10.9 percent have limited flexibility, 7.4 percent have visual impairments, and 5.6 percent have auditory impairments.
To enable everyone to access content online despite their disabilities, legislation to this effect has been established in countries around the world.
Main regulations and legislation on accessibility
Many countries have implemented laws and regulations to enable people with disabilities to exercise their right to educational,
professional, and social integration and to consume digital content based on their needs.
A few examples of established laws and regulations:
The Act to Secure Handicapped Persons in the Exercise of Their Rights with a View to Achieving Social, School and Workplace Integration, established in 2004, provides for certain sanctions for organizations that do not comply with its measures. These sanctions may include notices of violation, corrective measures, fines, and legal proceedings.
The Accessible Canada Act (ACA), implemented in 2019, includes sanctions for non-compliance that can reach up to $250,000.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), established in the U.S. in 1990, requires companies and online services to be accessible to disabled people. The ADA includes directives on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications, particularly the use of assistive technologies such as screen readers.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA), established in 2019, requires member states of the European Union to implement the directive within their own national laws before June 28, 2022, and to enforce it as of June 28, 2025. The Act covers a variety of products and services that aim to enable disabled people to efficiently access digital content in an independent way.
The four main accessibility principles are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
Perceivable means digital content must be able to be perceptible to users with visual, auditory, motor and cognitive disabilities. This can be accomplished by using assistive technologies such as screen
readers, speech synthesis systems, audio descriptions and video content descriptions. Operable means content must be easy to use, to allow users to accomplish their tasks regardless of their disability. Users must be able to understand how to use the site and to be able to click on an element without being blocked by an interaction that is not accessible to them. Understandable means content must be comprehensible to everyone, including people with particular learning or reading disabilities. Text content must be understandable, legible, and correctly translated. In addition, site visitors must be able to easily orient themselves within the text they are reading. Robust means the content must be able to be reliably interpreted by existing technologies and future assistive technologies. This means the content must be sufficiently robust, properly structured and regularly updated. As assistive technologies for the disabled evolve, online support must be sufficiently agile to keep up with this evolution.
A. Structured Page Layout
1. Hierarchical titling to facilitate reading
Best practices: Page layout that is structured and hierarchically ordered using titles: a different font size used for titles, subtitles, and running text which distributes the information throughout the text, thereby avoiding cognitive overload; Clear and concise titles; Titles that serve as anchors to facilitate reading.
2. The efficiency of singlecolumn page layouts
Best practices: Content is presented in one column, which facilitates reading and offers better visibility of information in the email; The user’s eye is guided through the email’s key information (titles, product images, call-to-action buttons), as opposed to layouts with several columns which may seem more complex and create cognitive overload; Singlecolumn layouts also make it easier for screen readers to navigate through the email.
B. Understandable and readable text
1. Text and typography that is clear and easy to read
Best practices: The vocabulary used is simple and enables readers to easily understand the topic; Even if the text seems a bit long, it is clear and concise and limited to key information; The syntax perfectly encapsulates the subject of the article to which the user will be redirected; Typography is simple and easy to read (lines are neither too thick nor too fine, the font is not overly stylized); The line height and font size do not complicate reading; Text is aligned on the left.
Additional tip: To ensure text displays well on all email platforms, use a pre-installed web-safe font. Practical tools like Google Font can help you choose an appropriate font.
C. An intuitive interface that facilitates navigation
1. Fluid navigation within emails, even when using a keyboard Navigating between the various elements of an email can be effected using the Tab key and arrow keys; A visible and clear keyboard focus highlights the elements being hovered over, such as call-to-action buttons. Apply CSS styles to indicate the keyboard focus (border, underline) and to indicate active elements.
2. Design intuitive buttons
Best practices: The button uses the button format and not an image, which allows it to be displayed when images are being blocked; The use of margins between the button and other elements in the email makes it easier to locate the button; The colour of the button provides good contrast with the background colour (for example, white on black); Button text is clear and simple (ex., “Sign up now” instead of “Learn more”); Hypertext links are underscored and accompanied by the visual indicator “>”, which indicates the text is clickable.
3. Ensure adaptability on many devices—computers, mobile phones, etc.
Best practices: The email adjusts correctly and offers the same
experience for both desktop and mobile; There is no loss of information, the call-to-action button is accessible, the layout adjusts, the text and the order of information do not change. Additional tip: Test every email by sending test versions to different email addresses and devices, or use email testing tools like Litmus or EmailsOnAcid
D. Content optimized for assistive technologies and email loading
1. Alternative descriptive text for all non-text content. Best practices: All images have alternative text (also called “alt text”); The alt text gives as much information as in the blocked image and enables easy comprehension of the information shared in the image.
2. Optimize images for email loading and reduce the risk they will be clipped in Gmail Poor practices: Email size is greater than 102 kb and is cut off (clipped) in Gmail; Overly long loading time for images; The user must perform an extra click to see the whole email. Additional tips: Use the JPG format for photos and images as a general rule; Use the PNG format for illustrations and images on a transparent background; Use GIF and APNG formats for animation; Use tools like JPEGmini (paid), TinyPNG or iloveimg to reduce the size of images without compromising their quality.
E. High-contrast colours and palettes adapted for visual impairments
1. A palette adapted for visual impairments
Poor practices: The email contains a large colour palette, which may make reading harder for people with a visual impairment; All the titles, text, and call-toaction buttons are in different colours, which may complicate reading and be detrimental to a proper understanding of the information.
Additional tip: Test your emails using a tool like Litmus to ensure that the colours used do not complicate reading for people with a visual impairment.
2. High colour contrast between different elements of the email Poor practices: The colours for the title (pink) and the background (white) don’t have enough contrast, which makes reading more difficult; The colour of the text does not contrast enough with the colour of the last call-to-action button (white on pink), which makes the text hard to see and complicates reading.
Additional tip: Test the colours used in the email with tools like accessible-colors.com
F. Enriched, structured HTML code
1. Structure and arrange the HTML code for emails
A few examples of HTML code elements that promote accessibility: Ensure your HTML elements are complete, that they start with an opening tag <> and end with a closing tag </> ; Also verify that the HTML elements do not contain duplicate attributes; If you are using an extension module (plug-in) or an element created by a third party, ensure it uses valid HTML markup; HTML language codes must correspond to ISO language codes to ensure correct interpretation by assistive technologies; Logically structure your email by using semantic tags, such as <H1>, <H2>, <H3> for titles and <p> for paragraphs; Avoid specifying the title attribute for links, since this complicates reading by screen readers; Separate content by using subtitles for each new section and mark headers with the HTML tag <header>.
Remember, email accessibility is much more than just a legal requirement. It’s for everyone.
This article was written by Lucie de Almeida with valuable support from Maxime Philippon.
DE ALMEIDA specializes in customer experience and CRM at Adviso. Passionate about digital marketing, she didn’t hesitate to choose CRM as her specialty. For over five years, Lucie has guided a range of businesses in developing their email marketing strategy, for both B2B and B2C. Sources used for references include Standards et guideline WCAG 2, Association W3C, Guide d’accessibilité – Behance, Litmus, Association Canadienne des centres de science, Nation Unies droits de l’Homme, Passe Muraille and Microsoft.
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