GetResponse

How to Choose a Transactional Email Provider

This Dev.to guide explains how to choose a transactional email provider focused on deliverability, latency, and operational trust rather than marketing features. It defines transactional email use cases (password resets, receipts, OTPs) and lists concrete vendor evaluation criteria: deliverability controls (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, dedicated IPs, warmup), API + SMTP support, speed/reliability, observability (webhooks, bounce classification, per-recipient logs), compliance/security, and predictable pricing for spikes. The post categorizes common vendors (brevo, getresponse, activecampaign, mailchimp, convertkit), provides a pragmatic week-one testing checklist (seed inboxes, bounce feedback quality, latency/retry drills, operational ergonomics, suppression behavior), and shares a minimal event-driven pattern (send via API, consume webhook events) with sample Node.js pseudocode. Recommendation: choose based on organizational shape—prefer providers that treat transactional as a first-class workflow and enable debugging and operation during incidents.

Brands Misprioritize Social Over Email for Loyalty

A Getresponse loyalty study reported on by ADZINE (23 April 2026) finds a significant mismatch between consumer preferences and brand loyalty strategies. The survey covers 2,400 consumers and 600 companies across six markets. Consumers nominate email as their most important loyalty channel (~22%), while brands prioritize social media (~20%) and place email second (~15.5%). Product quality (≈34%) is the top driver of brand loyalty for consumers, ahead of discounts and promotions (≈21%), yet many brands still emphasize price-led promotions. High interest in recognition and VIP programs (over 93% of consumers open to them) contrasts with only about 12% of companies offering such concepts. Sixty-seven percent of consumers feel brands focus more on new-customer acquisition than retention. The study recommends reweighting channel strategies toward email, increasing personalized/value-driven content, introducing visible recognition mechanics, and simplifying reward systems.

Google Adds Gemini 'Ask Maps' Conversational Layer

Google has embedded its Gemini large language model into Google Maps via a new conversational feature called “Ask Maps.” The feature lets users describe intents in natural language and returns options, contextual information, bookings and in-app task completion without leaving Maps. The newsletter frames this as platform-level consolidation that reduces the need for third-party review sites, booking platforms and recommendation apps by making discovery and execution native to Google Maps. The issue is presented alongside other AI signals: Linux maintainer Greg Kroah‑Hartman reported a surge in useful AI-generated bug reports; Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs while investing heavily in AI data centers and a neocloud strategy; and Perplexity faces a class-action alleging its trackers exposed chat data to Meta and Google.