I've been following Internet marketing for a lot of years. First in the tech sphere at Intel where I worked for 10 years, then later as a user at Marcus & Millichap (commercial R/E). Both are very big and sophistocated users of the technology. When illness forced me to leave full-time work, I started working to get up to speed on consumer uses, rather than industrial & commercial uses of the Internet. One of the things I did was watch who was most prominent in designing emails and such. I've been on the email lists for the last few years of Ewen Chia, Fabain Tan, Alok Jain, Rachel Long, and Badal Banjaree, among others. What I was watching for was trends they were following. That's how I approach learning, as an engineer, technologist and sales rep. You first study what the successful people and firms are doing. Then figure out how to do it, and make improvements, if possible.