Opt-out Email Marketing Debuts in My Yahoo Search Results

I'm not complaining. I'll say that right away. However, I was a bit surprised on Tuesday to see a notification on the page above my search engine results about a package delivery slated for Wednesday, while I was searching for information that was completely unrelated. Before I could click on "Lyris," I found out that my "Excursion II Rolling Duffle Bag, Medium" from LLBean was on its way to my home. That may sound unrelated to work, even though Lyris clearly is, but that bag is actually replacing the third one I've broken while hauling information back from DMA annual. Your collateral is heavy, marketers! It helped break a Samsonite after DMA08. But I digress. These notifications—I'd already seen one in March, prior to Excursion II—intrigued me, because I hadn't seen them before this month. I thought this was an interesting new e-commerce marketing method to use to notify customers, as well as a chance for marketers to upsell. Yahoo sure tried to do that for LLBean on Tuesday, showing me an LLBean search engine results page after I clicked on the "see details" hyperlink in the delivery notification. On the landing page, I saw results including "L.L.Bean: Official Site - LLBean.com," "L.L.Bean: Order Tracking" and "L.L.Bean Package - Popular Shopping Results" above the fold. The delivery details emphasize they're "Private results visible only to you" that include information about what's being delivered, when and the order number. Buttons include "track package," "view email," "order details" and "customer care." So I called and emailed Yahoo and LLBean and got no answer after repeated attempts on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Just acting as my customer care representative, an LLBean call center agent tells me Wednesday that he's never heard of this type of notification before. He thought the notifications came from UPS.) Susan Rosenberg, a UPS spokeswoman, says Wednesday that her company does provide the notices to LLBean, but she hadn't yet heard about the Yahoo notifications. She says in an effort to make UPS clients and their customers happy, though, her company does try to accommodate consumers as much as possible in every channel possible with services like UPS.com/mychoice. She says UPS APIs have long been integrated with Yahoo, but she's not aware of anything new. "All of this is part of improving the end-consumer experience as a result of growing e-commerce," she says. What I found myself only partly solved the mystery. 1. Google Allows Gmail Results in Search, if Gmailers opt in to the Gmail Field Trial that's been going since Danny Sullivan reported on it in 2012. In February 2013, Sullivan writes for Search Engine Land that Google Calendar information is available in Google search if users type in questions like "What is on my calendar today." He points out that the trial now ranges from Gmail to Google Calendar to Google Drive results, shown to users in their private search results upon the queries. 2. Private Yahoo Search Results Allow Logged-in Yahoo Mail Users Who Have 'Private Results On' to See Notifications About: Flight itineraries: from airlines and providers Alaska, Cathay Pacific, CheapTickets, EasyJet, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Orbitz, Southwest, United and Virgin America. Hotel reservations: from Best Western, Booking.com, ChoiceHotels.com, Marriott and Residence Inn. Rental car bookings: from Alamo, Avis, Budget, CarRentals.com, Dollar, Hertz, National and Orbitz. Events, invitations or tickets: from Evite, Eventbrite, Fandango, OpenTable, Ticketmaster, Stubhub and LiveNation. Package deliveries: from Amazon, eBay, Gap, Macy's, Nordstrom, Old Navy, Target and Zappos. While LLBean isn't listed in the results, it's possible it's not on there yet or the company is working with a different marketer who is listed. LLBean and Yahoo didn't provide any answers. In my case, this seems different to me because I did take a trip in February and my flight itinerary didn't show up in Yahoo search results. (It would've been helpful.) The same was true for the flight itinerary in my Gmail in November, which makes sense if Gmail users have to opt-in for the service. (I'm not opted in.) It looks like I ruined the chance to see the actual delivery notification in my search results on Wednesday, though. I went into my inbox and clicked on the 5:01 p.m. message, "Good News, Your Package Has Been Delivered." In another tab, I typed "anything" in the search box and got absolutely no information about LLBean. What sort of results have marketers had from inclusion in private search results related to their email? Despite Google excluding its users' search information from Google Analytics, Sullivan says the information is shared with participating marketers. Please respond in the comments section below.

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Opt-out Email Marketing Debuts in My Yahoo Search Results

Heather Fletcher

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Heather Fletcher