There comes a moment when learning a language, inspired perhaps by wine or context, when you suddenly realise that you can actually speak it. It's a defining moment. You've learnt the grammatical principles along with a detailed vocabulary and common phrases needed to deal with the demands of everyday life – meeting someone, buying a train ticket, ordering a meal, asking for directions. Then the words just seem to flow from your mouth. There is still a long way to go before you reach fluency but this is a moment which inspires you to push onwards to achieve this.

Today, online interactive marketing is experiencing a similar moment of epiphany in the world of relationship marketing – a moment when everything seems to be coming together in an integrated and fluent way. We have seen the techniques and principles of relationship marketing mature over thirty or even more years. We have learnt the 'vocabulary'; we know the correct principles and have become competent practitioners. We know that the capture of customer data and information is crucial and we know how to design and create segmented communication programmes to our high-value customers. We know that relevance and emotional bonding is fundamental to success. But now something hugely exciting is happening – the Internet is starting to unleash the full potential of all these years of accumulated relationship marketing knowledge and practice. Again it's a defining moment which heralds a dramatic shift in capability.

Even in the 1990s, direct marketers would frequently spend a year and a large proportion of their budget, acquiring customer information to populate, qualify and segment their database. In year two they would analyze and model the data to develop targeted communications programmes. By year three they would be yielding significant returns on their investment. Today, after just a handful of years, those timeframes and economics belong to a bygone age.

The advent of Internet-based methods means we can collect consumer data overnight. The famous Felix 'viral' cat spread like a bush fire around the Internet, with users encouraged to register their (and their pets') details in return for a virtual 'treat' for their desktop companion – such as a ball of wool or some milk perhaps. OgilvyOne collected over 500,000 datasets in the first three months alone, using a fraction of the budget that would have been needed to accomplish the same task offline.

In a flash the speed, cost-effectiveness and measurability of interactive channels is 'turbo-charging' relationship marketing practices that have been around for years. We can examine the scale of this change by comparing the 1998 and 2003 relationship marketing programmes for NiQuitin, GlaxoSmithKline's smoking replacement therapy patch.

In recent years GlaxoSmithKline has developed a clinically approved support plan to run in conjunction with the sales of NiQuitin. The Committed Quitters (CQ) programme provides practical advice and information to help the consumer give up smoking, resulting in significant improvements in quitting rates.

In 1998 the CQ programme took the form of a personalised direct mail pack containing content and advice on how to give up smoking. Above-the-line advertising was used to drive people to a 'Quit Line' where they were asked twenty questions about their smoking habits and aims. Each question would pull content from a data-pool, populating the master template of the mail pack with information relevant to the particular customer's needs. The customer would receive the CQ mail pack containing information corresponding to the information they had given the call centre; this gave relevant and timely advice over the duration of the quitting cycle in the form of a personalised 'Quitter's Diary'.

One of the key differences about today's CQ programme is that customers really understand 'the deal' when it comes to providing personal information online – the exchange of value. Implicit in the culture of Internet usage is the trusted exchange of personal information for personalised (valued) content and service – but this only applies if the brand itself can be trusted to provide the security and confidentiality we demand. By contrast the Nineties' Quit Line was a new concept for many consumers; some may have even found the questions intrusive. Today, consumers give accurate information online because they value what they will receive as a result and understand how that information will configure the services they receive. Furthermore, the website's attitudinal and profiling questionnaires provide the marketer with invaluable insights into smoking dependency habits and what drives them.