NEON: How Emails can Print and Save Money

Published April 1-5, 2025

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AdWaste Crisis

Consumer businesses face an existential threat: skyrocketing customer acquisition costs (CAC). While performance marketing through adtech platforms promises quick results, it has created a toxic dependency. CAC increases 20-25% annually through auction-based platforms, straining marketing budgets and profitability. This upward spiral forces brands into an unsustainable cycle of spending more to maintain growth.

The spending breakdown reveals a troubling pattern that undermines business economics:

• 10% on retention (existing customers)
• 20% on genuine first-time acquisition
• 70% on reacquisition – the true “AdWaste”

This reacquisition spend goes toward winning back lapsed, dormant, or inactive customers time and again. These second-, third-, or nth-time acquisitions are truly the “AdWaste,” because in a more ideal world, marketers should not have to pay repeatedly to reach their own customers. Repeatedly paying to reach customers already in the database represents marketing’s cardinal sin. When brands have customer email addresses, phone numbers, and purchase histories, why must they rent access to these same customers through expensive intermediaries?

This wasteful cycle stems from three fundamental failures in modern marketing:

1. The “No Hotline” Problem: Despite having contact details, brands lack reliable engagement channels. Email open rates languish in single digits, push notifications get blocked, and SMS lacks depth. Without a dependable way to reach customers, brands resort to paid advertising for basic communications.
2. The “Not for Me” Problem: Generic messaging ignores individual preferences, driving customers into dormancy. Mass communications feel irrelevant or intrusive. Without personalisation, even interested customers become unreachable without paid ads. This creates a vicious cycle where poor engagement forces more ad spending.
3. The “No Alternative” Problem: Brands see no option besides expensive adtech platforms for reactivation, perpetuating their dependency on Google and Meta. The auction-based pricing of these platforms means costs only increase over time, yet brands feel trapped without viable alternatives.

The consequences of this broken system are severe and far-reaching:

• Eroding profits as CAC outpaces revenue growth
• Under-monetised customer relationships
• Diminished lifetime value (LTV)
• Weakened loyalty and advocacy
• Reduced resources for product innovation and customer experience
• Unsustainable unit economics

As Fred Reichheld notes, true loyalty comes from consistently positive experiences that make customers “come back for more and bring their friends.” By failing to nurture existing relationships, brands waste their most valuable asset—customers who already trust them enough to buy. Instead of investing in deeper engagement and better experiences, they pour resources into repeatedly reacquiring the same customers.

However, a revolution in email marketing promises to break this cycle. By transforming email from a one-way broadcast medium into an interactive engagement channel, brands can simultaneously generate new revenue streams (“print money”) and reduce reacquisition costs (“save money”). This paradigm shift could finally enable sustainable, profitable growth without the AdWaste tax.

The key lies in reimagining email as more than just a communication tool—it must become a robust platform for engagement, commerce, and monetisation. Through innovations in personalisation, interactivity, and authenticated advertising, emails can evolve into the primary hotline between brands and customers, eliminating the need for costly reacquisition while creating new opportunities for value creation.

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Building Blocks

Among all push channels, email remains unrivalled for its near-universal reach, portability, and cost-effectiveness. Unlike SMS, RCS, or WhatsApp, it isn’t constrained by carrier fees or third-party gatekeepers. Unlike push notifications, it accommodates rich, long-form content without risking instant dismissal or customer blocking. A single email address travels with customers through device changes and platform shifts, providing a stable, persistent line of communication.

Despite these advantages, traditional email has failed to fulfil its potential as a true engagement channel. Now, three fundamental innovations promise to transform email from a static communication medium into an interactive revenue engine: AMP technology, NEON advertising network, and NeoMails engagement platform. Together, these create a robust framework for eliminating AdWaste whilst generating new value.

AMP: The Technology Foundation

Google’s AMP for email represents a breakthrough in inbox functionality. Unlike traditional HTML emails that serve as mere digital letters, AMP enables dynamic, app-like experiences directly within email clients. This means customers can:

• Complete transactions without leaving their inbox
• Interact with live content and real-time data
• Participate in surveys and provide feedback
• Update preferences and settings seamlessly
• Engage with interactive elements like games and quizzes

NEON: The Monetisation Engine

NEON (New Engaged and Open Network) reimagines email advertising through authenticated identity. Unlike traditional digital advertising that relies on cookies and probabilistic matching, NEON enables precise targeting through verified customer identity (PII). Key features include:

• Direct brand-to-brand collaboration
• Guaranteed audience reach
• Zero waste in targeting
• Performance-based pricing
• Privacy-compliant data usage

This creates a powerful alternative to expensive adtech platforms, allowing brands to reach their customers through trusted partner channels rather than paying Google and Meta’s advertising tax.

NeoMails: The Engagement Platform

NeoMails transforms traditional emails (TradMails) through three innovative interventions:

1. Atomic Rewards (Mu)

• Micro-incentives that encourage opens and clicks
• Gamification elements in subject lines
• Habit-forming daily rituals
• Network-effect gains as more recipients participate

2. Microns

• 15-60 second “brain gain” experiences
• Daily value-adding content
• Personalised learning moments
• A consistent hook for regular attention

3. ActionAds

 

• Interactive, in-email ad units
• One-click transactions within the inbox
• Contextual targeting based on user preferences
• Direct revenue generation with no intermediary fees

Best-Rest-Test: Strategic Segmentation

This framework enables targeted engagement strategies based on customer activity:

• Best Customers (Active in last 30 days) – Monetise through ads and encourage advocacy/referrals.
• Rest Customers (31–90 days active) – Rebuild engagement, remind them of value, stave off complete churn.
• Test Customers (90+ days inactive) – Deploy cost-efficient win-back campaigns that prioritise ROI.

This segmentation ensures resources are allocated efficiently, with different engagement and monetisation strategies for each group.

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Together, these building blocks create a comprehensive system for transforming email from a cost centre into a profit engine. By combining interactive technology (AMP), precise targeting (NEON), and engaging experiences (NeoMails), brands can finally break free from the costly cycle of continuous reacquisition while creating new revenue streams through authenticated advertising.

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Digital Ads

This section has been written with inputs from Claude and ChatGPT.

Digital advertising began with a simple banner ad on HotWired in 1994. Early digital marketers treated the web much like print media—placing static images and hoping for clicks. Yet even then, the potential was clear: for the first time, advertisers could measure engagement in real-time, gaining insights impossible with traditional media like television or magazines.

The introduction of cookies in the late 1990s transformed this landscape. Originally designed for practical tasks like remembering shopping cart contents, these small text files became the foundation of targeted advertising. Suddenly, marketers could follow users across different sites, building increasingly detailed behavioural profiles. This spawned an entire ecosystem:

• Third-party cookies enabling cross-site tracking
• Data management platforms (DMPs) aggregating user profiles
• Ad exchanges facilitating real-time bidding
• Retargeting platforms chasing abandoned carts
• Look-alike audiences expanding reach

While some users appreciated more relevant promotions, many found it unsettling to be “chased” around the web by products they’d merely glanced at. That pair of shoes viewed on one website would haunt the next ten pages of browsing, creating an uncomfortable sense of surveillance. Privacy advocates began sounding the alarm about personal data being collected and sold without clear consent.

The backlash manifested in multiple ways:

• Rising ad blocker adoption
• Privacy legislation (GDPR, CCPA)
• Browser restrictions on tracking
• Apple’s App Tracking Transparency
• Google’s planned phase-out of third-party cookies

Simultaneously, programmatic advertising emerged through automated exchanges and real-time bidding. While this drove unprecedented efficiency and scale, it also created a black box where many brands couldn’t be certain if their ads were reaching real people or bots.

Today’s digital advertising landscape is dominated by three major forces:

1. Search advertising (Google) – intent-based targeting
2. Social media advertising (Meta) – interest and behaviour-based targeting
3. Retail media (Amazon, Walmart) – purchase history-based targeting

While these platforms offer powerful targeting capabilities, they create several problems:

• High costs through auction-based pricing
• Dependency on platform algorithms
• Limited transparency
• Increasing privacy restrictions
• Growing consumer distrust

Enter NEON’s vision of PII-based advertising. Unlike traditional targeting that relies on shadowy tracking or inferred behaviour, NEON uses authenticated identity—email addresses that customers have willingly shared with brands they trust. When properly handled—with explicit consent and strong privacy protections—this creates several advantages:

• Precise targeting without privacy concerns
• Direct brand-to-brand collaboration
• Guaranteed audience reach
• Transparent performance measurement
• Cost-effective distribution

Most importantly, this shift from cookies to authenticated identity transforms advertising from interruption to value-add. Consider the difference:

Traditional targeting: “This shoe ad follows you everywhere because you once viewed similar shoes.”

NEON targeting: ” That premium luggage brand you once bought from now reconnects with you through the travel portal’s email newsletter you still open regularly.”

By tying ads directly to verified identity rather than probabilistic tracking, NEON helps ensure messages reach only the correct audience. This isn’t just better for privacy—it’s better for business, enabling precise targeting without the creepy factor or platform tax. The result? Ads can finally fulfil their original promise: delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time, in a way that users genuinely welcome.

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NEON Use Cases

NEON’s power lies in its ability to deliver precise, authenticated targeting for two critical customer segments: dormant (Test) customers requiring reacquisition and semi-active (Rest) customers needing retargeting. In both scenarios, brands know exactly whom they want to reach—they just need a more efficient, cost-effective channel than traditional adtech platforms.

Reacquisition (Test Customers)

Consider a once-loyal customer who hasn’t engaged with a brand for 90+ days. Traditional email marketing faces a dilemma:

• Continue sending emails, risking domain reputation due to non-opens
• Stop sending and lose the connection entirely
• Resort to expensive adtech platforms that treat them as new acquisitions

NEON offers a superior alternative:

• Target these customers through ActionAds in emails they actively engage with (e.g. brands where they are Best customers)
• Leverage trusted channels from non-competing brands
• Maintain connection without damaging sender reputation
• Achieve lower costs than traditional adtech
• Create new revenue streams for publishing brands
• Enable real-time identity matching in a privacy-compliant way

Example: A fashion brand uses NEON to target dormant customers through ActionAds in emails from a trusted travel brand. The ad offers a personalised discount on travel-friendly clothing, re-engaging the customer without damaging the fashion brand’s email reputation.

Retargeting (Rest Customers)

For semi-active customers who’ve grown unresponsive to direct communications, NEON provides an alternative pathway for re-engagement:

• Reach cart abandoners through fresh channels
• Prompt subscription renewals via trusted partners
• Deliver special offers through engaging emails
• Enable one-click transactions using stored information
• Create seamless purchasing experiences

Example: A subscription-based service uses NEON to reach semi-active customers through a partner brand’s email, offering a limited-time discount to renew their subscription. The ad is personalised based on the customer’s past usage, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

The power lies in combining authenticated identity with contextual relevance. Because NEON knows both who to target and their relationship history with the brand, it can deliver highly personalised messages that feel like recommendations rather than interruptions.

The NEON Advantage

NEON functions as a sophisticated advertising cooperative:

• Brands pool information through secure “clean room” technology
• Double-blind system protects privacy
  • Advertisers don’t see which emails carried their ads
  • Publishers don’t know which brands’ ads were shown
• Both parties maintain control through targeting criteria
• All interactions respect user privacy preferences

This creates multiple benefits:

• Precise targeting without data leakage
• Lower costs than traditional platforms
• New revenue streams for publishers
• Better user experience for customers
• Improved campaign performance
• Sustainable engagement model

The Revenue Opportunity

With trillions of marketing emails sent monthly, NEON’s potential impact is enormous:

• Transform email from cost centre to profit driver
• Create new monetisation channels for brands
• Reduce dependency on expensive adtech
• Enable direct brand-to-brand collaboration
• Build sustainable revenue streams

Every brand plays both roles: as an advertiser seeking to reach customers, and as a publisher monetising attention. This creates dual revenue opportunities and leads to network effects as scale grows.

The key to NEON’s success lies in its ability to maximise relevance. When ads leverage authenticated identity and relationship history, they transcend traditional interruption marketing to become valuable content. This creates a virtuous cycle where better targeting leads to higher engagement, which attracts more brands and creates more opportunities for precise, profitable customer connections.

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NeoMails Use Cases

“Rest” customers—those who last engaged 30 to 90 days ago—represent a delicate tipping point in a customer journey. They’re not entirely disengaged, yet their interest in the brand may be waning. Traditional email strategy often stumbles here: “batch-and-blast” campaigns deliver generic content with little relevance, inadvertently driving recipients even further away. When these Rest customers slip beyond 90 days of inactivity, brands frequently resort to expensive reacquisition efforts. In other words, a missed opportunity to nurture mild interest before it becomes outright dormancy.

Why Traditional Email Falls Short

Despite longstanding popularity, “TradMails” have several inescapable limitations:

• Static Content: Typically, they’re poster-like images or text, offering minimal interactivity. Readers see no compelling reason to click through or spend more than a second skimming the message.
• Generic Targeting: Even modest personalisation (“Hi, [Name]”) rarely addresses each individual’s current interests or browsing history, leaving emails feeling mass-produced and easy to ignore.
• Low Open Rates: In a crowded inbox, emails lacking immediate relevance or value are swiftly deleted or ignored. Persistently low engagement can hurt deliverability over time.
• Zero Monetisation: Outside of conversions that come directly from a click or two, most brand emails remain pure cost centres, incurring design and sending fees without creating offsetting revenue streams.

NeoMails: The Innovation Stack

NeoMails address these challenges by layering three foundational elements—Atomic Rewards, Microns, and ActionAds—into every email, transforming them from basic communications into high-engagement, revenue-generating touchpoints.

1. Atomic Rewards (Mu)

1. • Gamified Subject Lines: Emails carry small nudges like point accrual or prize drawings, which incentivise customers to open just to see what they might gain.
   • Habit Formation: Recipients begin checking these emails daily or weekly, creating a pattern of consistent opens rather than sporadic engagement.
   • Network Effects: As recipients learn the value of these rewards (e.g., real discounts, sweepstakes entries), word-of-mouth can boost open rates and overall interest.

2. Microns

1. • 15–60 Second “Brain Gain”: Tiny games, puzzles, quizzes, riddles, or interactive tips turn what was once a broadcast message into a mini source of entertainment or learning.
   • Continued Engagement: Customers enjoy these bite-sized experiences, looking forward to seeing “What’s new today?”
   • Personalisation: Microns can adapt based on what each individual has engaged with before—further increasing relevance and attention.

3. ActionAds

1. • Seamless Integration: Unlike loud banners, ActionAds sit organically within the email, aligned with a reader’s context or expressed interests.
   • Interactive Elements: Users can explore offers, add items to carts, or even complete purchases without leaving their inbox.
   • Revenue Generation: The brand not only saves on reacquisition expenses but can also earn incremental revenue as advertisers pay for these prime placements.

Comprehensive Customer Strategy

NeoMails integrate perfectly with a segmented approach, targeting Best, Rest, and Test customers according to their activity levels:

• Best Customers: Already active in the past 30 days. They’ll appreciate premium experiences—more exclusive Atomic Rewards, limited-time deals, and contextual ads that align with their high-value relationship.
• Rest Customers: These are the central focus for NeoMails, as micro-incentives, playful microns, and relevant ads can keep them from drifting into total dormancy. Instead of feeling “spammed,” they get fresh daily or weekly interactions they might look forward to.
• Test Customers: Should some slip past 90 days of inactivity, the NEON network makes targeted reacquisition possible—reconnecting through another brand’s emails or channels without incurring massive adtech fees.

Email as the AdWaste Antidote

Crucially, NeoMails recast email from a cost burden to a multi-purpose engagement and monetisation channel. Instead of merely blasting promotions, brands can:

• Retain: Keep Rest customers engaged with incentivised, meaningful content.
• Monetise: Use ActionAds to offset sending costs or even turn a profit on each campaign.
• Delight: Replace dull campaigns with interactive microns that genuinely reward attention.

By embracing NeoMails, brands build better relationships, preventing the costly slide of Rest customers into the dormant category. Rather than paying exorbitant reacquisition fees, marketers can devote resources to deeper engagement and creative experiences. Over time, this approach not only elevates open and clickthrough rates but also helps restore email’s original promise: a direct, trusted line of communication with customers—one that can now sustain itself through innovative features, playful rewards, and built-in monetisation.

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In the battle against AdWaste, NEON and NeoMails recast email as the cornerstone of sustainable marketing. By delivering genuine customer value while enabling precise, privacy-conscious targeting and monetisation, this reimagined ecosystem offers brands a path to profitable growth without the usual acquisition tax. Ultimately, email evolves from an underleveraged cost centre into a dynamic profit engine, positioning marketers to thrive in an era that rewards true engagement and long-term customer relationships.