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Rule #1: Don't ask for more information than you'd personally be willing to give. Asking for too much information in an opt-in form can be a major deterrent to visitors who would otherwise be likely to sign up.

Make signing up as simple as possible by requiring only the bare minimum. In many cases, this means just the email address. Every field you add to your form beyond that will decrease the chances of someone filling it out.

An opt-in form that says something like "Sign up for our newsletter," doesn't offer any benefit to the visitor. Give people a reason to opt-in by offering them something they'll care about, like: "Sign up for our monthly newsletter and gain instant access to our 57-page e-book on X."

I recently welcomed two kittens into the family and we buy our supplies from Petco. As soon as I signed up for Petco's Pals Rewards program, the store proceeded to email me every single day with a new coupon offer. Can you guess what I did? Yep, I opted out. I'll still buy pet supplies from Petco, but at some point, the annoyance became greater than the value of the coupons.

One of the most critical steps in structuring your e-commerce email campaign is to set the publish frequency to align with the types of products you're selling and who you're selling to. At a bare minimum, segment your audience into two broad categories of current customers and prospects.

When you're communicating with prospective customers, offer discounts, promotions and pre-sale notifications and buying tips in your emails, to move them along the conversion path.

You can further segment your email list by those you send to frequently, those you send to less frequently and those you send to only sometimes.

When most people opt in to receive B2B email communications, they are at the top of the conversion funnel; the "awareness" stage. A smart B2B email campaign will then provide the right content to bring the buyer deeper into the conversion funnel, with content specific for each stage of the buying cycle.

Here are some ideas to get you started: Explore learning concepts that get the reader up to speed on the ideas surrounding your services, and that demonstrate your brand's unique perspective.  Dive into the ideas behind why a service like yours is so important to customers, what to look for in a company, and how your service or ideas compare to others.  Answer common questions your prospective customers have at each stage of the buying cycle and even after the purchase.

Think of topics like, "7 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing [insert your service here]" as a basis for building your case. If you have a sales team, ask them for the most common objections they hear from prospects, and create your content around the specific concerns known to be top-of-mind for many buyers.

1) Your First-Party Data: The primary and most valuable data set you can access, first-party data encompasses transactional and other customer-level profile information you have on your customers. It could also include your own off-line segmentation analysis that allows you to map a customer to a customer profile around which you build your marketing programs. This can also include your analytics or other on-site tracking data, which can deliver behavioral insight to your consumers. This data can be difficult to export from its current environment due to the ad hoc nature of the data, but, if possible, look at ways to make this information accessible to your digital sites. 2) Third-Party Data: A consumer's broader Web browsing and buying history can now be accessed in session to provide you with more context on their likes and habits. Data management platforms (DMPs) and other data aggregators are accelerating this offering and, just as importantly, the availability of this type of data. This is invaluable in the context of new visitors who you know nothing about historically. 3) Real-Time Behavior: Let's not forget what our customers are telling us with each click. We get enamored with our predictive modeling to the point that we do not see the tell-tale signs as they are happening. Take the time to stop, look, and react. Your analytic tools, personalization tools, and other software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms can help you trigger alternate site experiences based on every click you see.