Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverop, has returned from Europe. He went to London for annual customer conference but during the trip also shared some interesting information with other marketers from a variety of countries.

Some quick findings:

• SMS is still in an active discussion but quickly gain momentum compared to last year. It is way ahead of the U.S. Most billboards now features Web URLs and relatively few SMS calls-to-action.
• The technology behind email marketing in the Europe is more or less the same as within the U.S.
• Many marketers amasessed some impressive lists. The size is large even if we take the smaller population of the U.K. into consideration.
• The conversations were largely about deliverability, life-cycle marketing, Web analytics, integration, etc.
• Those who are perceived to be the leaders and followers varies a lot between the U.S. and the European Union, but the competitors are largely the same.
• There are regional and international competitors. It will be interesting to see if they are able to penetrate the U.S. market as successfully as the U.S. ESPs appear to have penetrated Europe.

[Silverpop]