I’d like to ask you two questions about Monetate’s software, but first I’d like to share one of the pleasures of my job, reading the Release Notes report from our tech team. Now I realize that “Release Notes” might not sound like exciting stuff, but I get a real kick out of reading what new features–and tweaks to old features–have made it into the latest version of our software.

For example, this week’s Release Notes includes this little gem: “For dynamic text, show a bounding box when dragging text elements.” Sure, it might not sound exciting to you–unless you’re a hardcore Monetate user–but I read it as one more step forward in the ongoing process of making our software the best it can be. Here’s another example: “Unique campaign names are now enforced by the application with number suffixes.” That should prove very helpful when you’re running a lot of campaigns.

And how about: “Reporting on contribution margin added.” I think that’s a powerful addition. Tracking contribution margin for personalization campaigns let’s you know how much they are adding to your bottom line. Finally, take a look at this one: “Dashboard uses new style sparklines that represent the 30 day history of the numbers in the bar chart.”

Personally, I think this new design, which will greet you when you log into your Monetate account, provides a lot of insight into how much lift your campaigns are generating, summarized by the bars, detailed by the sparklines (and yes, those numbers are real although the client name is not). So my first question is: Do you like this new design? Feel free to email me (I’m scobb at monetate dot com) or comment on this post.

My second question arises from the fact that Monetate’s post-click marketing software is Software as a Service. This means we don’t use the same kind of release schedule and version numbering as off-the-shelf software. And because Monetate is a full-service post-click marketing solution, some of our clients spend very little time actually interacting with our software. So my question is this: Would you like to get periodic updates on new features, and if so, through what channels (email, blog post, or something else)?

Your feedback is much appreciated. Many of the changes documented in Release Notes are the direct result of user input. I’m looking forward to the next edition.