email deliverability workshop: beyond the basics

Email Deliverability: Beyond the Basics

Marketing Sherpa Email Summit

February 17, 2014

About Return Path

Return Path is the worldwide leader

in email intelligence.

Our solutions help you connect with

customers, engage your target market

and protect your brand.

Julia Peavy

Director, Response Consulting

Return Path, Inc.

Your Instructors

Tonya Mitchell Senior Consultant, Deliverability

Return Path, Inc.

• Provide an overview of the email ecosystem and all major

points of email intelligence failure

• Highlight the most important email effectiveness factors

you can impact

• Review best practices that you can implement to produce

the biggest return on investment

Training Goals

• Email Trends

• Email Delivery – What could go wrong?

• Where do I focus my efforts?

– Email Fundamentals

– Reputation

– Content & Rendering

– List Quality & Segmentation

– Complaints

– Spoofing & Phishing Awareness

– ISP Filtering

– Engagement & The Competition

• Q&A

Agenda

Email Trends How does your email program compare?

2.4 billion Email users worldwide

166 billion Emails sent per day worldwide

4.9 billion Email mailboxes worldwide

Email by the Numbers for 2014

Source: http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Email-

Statistics-Report-2012-2016-Executive-Summary.pdf

77% of consumers said the best

way to receive promotional

messages is via email

Source: ExactTarget “2012 Channel Preference Survey”

Email is the Preferred Channel

Where Do People Read Email?

Source: Return Path December 2013

Mobile 51%

Desktop 27%

Webmail 22%

Deliverability Tactics

2% 12%

7% 7%

11% 13%

15% 17%

19% 21% 22%

27% 39% 39%

41% 51%

62%

Other

Don't know/ Not applicable

Seek Certification

Send Repermission Campaigns

Subscriber to a blacklist marketing service

Sign up for Feedback Loops

Learn Reputation Score

Launch Reactivation Campaign

Monitor Inbox Placement Rate

Authenticate Sender ID, SPF or DKIM

Request to be whitelisted

Evaluate soft bounces

Maintain an Opt-in Only Subscriber List

Remove Inactive Subscribers

Clean Lists Regularly

Measure and Remove Hard Bounces

Provide an easy unsubscribe Process

Which of the following tactics is your organization using to improve email deliverability?

Source: 2013 MarketingSherpa Email

Marketing Benchmark Survey

22% of Opt-in Messages Don’t Make it to the Inbox

Source: Return Path

Email Intelligence Report

Placement Benchmarks, 1H 2013

67 Points of Failure It’s more complex than you thought!

Email Delivery:

What could go

wrong?

Reputation ISP criteria

IP history Whitelist Blacklist

Shared IP Authentication SPF DKIM DMARC

ISPs

Security Spoofing Phishing

Spam

mer

s

JUNK (–) Engagement Ignore/Delete Unsubscribe Complaints SRD Data Feedback loops

SENT

Infrastructure MTA

IP Address DNS

Delivery Plan

Cadence Frequency

Volume

Filtering Classification

Automatic Personal Graymail

DELIVERED

(+) Engagement Reads Opens Clicks Shares Priority Inbox SRD Data TINS Rendering Tagging Images on HTML errors Email clients Mobile devices

Bouncing Unknown address Undeliverable Mailbox full Auto reply

Blocking & Missing ISP firewalls Unknown user rate Spam

List Signup

Permission Welcome

Data sources Unknown Users

Spam traps Segmenting

Aging Hygiene

Content Text

Images Text-Image ratio

Links Offers

Call to Action A/B Testing Spam words

Spelling Errors Responsive design

Spam laws

Senders

INBOX

Subscribers

Competition Similar offers

Social updates Notifications

Changing interests

Email Delivery:

ESP & IT’s

Responsibility




ISPs


Spam

mer

s


SENT

Infrastructure MTA

IP Address DNS

Delivery Plan

Cadence Frequency

Volume



DELIVERED




List Signup

Permission Welcome



Aging Hygiene

Content Text


Links Offers



Spam laws

Senders

INBOX

Subscribers



Changing interests

Email Delivery:

Marketer’s

Responsibility




ISPs


Spam

mer

s


SENT

Infrastructure MTA

IP Address DNS

Delivery Plan

Cadence Frequency

Volume



DELIVERED




List Signup

Permission Welcome



Aging Hygiene

Content Text


Links Offers



Spam laws

Senders

INBOX

Subscribers



Changing interests

Email Deliverability Factors

Email Fundamentals A few basics before we dive into the detail

• Deliverability and Response

• Email Program Goals and Objectives

• Importance of Obtaining Permission

• List Sources

• Sending a Welcome Message

Email Fundamentals Summary

• Deliverability = Email that

reaches the intended

recipients inbox.

• Response = How the recipient

interacts with the email once

received.

• 2 different concepts

intertwined to maximize ROI

Deliverability and Response

• Know your program goals

• Know how each campaign will help meet

your program goals

• Define your target audience

• Determine your success metrics

• Learn from each campaign

• Adapt and improve

Email Program Goals and Objectives

• Permission is obtaining consent from your

subscribers to receive your email

• Permission-based email programs have

higher response and better deliverability

• Subscribers that expect and want to

receive your emails will be more engaged

with your email program

• Permission is not forever

Obtaining Permission

• Organic = Email addresses collected by you

• Third Party = Email addresses collected by

another entity (co-reg, affiliate, list

rental, append, etc.)

List Sources

Best Practices:

• Utilize Organic lists when possible

• Deploy Organic and Third Party lists from separate IPs

Third Party:

• List owner should deploy initial message

• Ensure branding identifies the Third Party list owner

• Clearly communicate your relationship

• Include a clear call to action

• Make it easy to unsubscribe

• Monitor response and complaints from each list source

List Sources

The Facts:

• Usually has higher open rates

• Manages the new customer

experience

• Helps protect your list quality

• Sets customer expectations

• Promotes the value of receiving your

emails

The Welcome Message

Best Practices: • Send the welcome message from a

dedicated IP immediately

• Set email program expectations and value of receiving your emails

• Use recognizable “Friendly From” and branding

• Include instructions to add to address book

• Provide a link to update preferences and unsubscribe

• Provide links to social networks, the website, and to the privacy policy

The Welcome Message

Welcome

Balance of images

and text and the

use of html text

button

Add to Address Book Instructions

Thank you and

welcome

Benefits of receiving

emails from Lego

Clear branding

Sender Reputation You, not your ESP are responsible for your IP and domain reputation

• Sender Reputation = Indication of whether or not you are

a good sender based on the email you send, who you send

it to and how those people respond to it.

• Industry facts about Sender Reputation

• What impacts your Sender Reputation

• How to monitor your Sender Reputation

Sender Reputation Summary

FACT - 1 in 5 Emails Never Reaches the Inbox!

Spam?

Blocked?

• Your personal behavior impacts your reputation with your colleagues

• Sender Reputation is based on your email sending behavior and can change with each email you deploy

• YOU control your Sender Reputation – not your ESP or the Mailbox Providers

Your Sender REPUTATION!

I’m a rock star. This guy

can’t get anything

done.

• 83% of the time your

overall Reputation

impacts your ability to

reach the inbox

– 77% = IP Reputation

– 6% = Domain Reputation

• 17% Content

Reputation By the Numbers

• EVERY email campaign deployed from your IP/Domain

• Did you deploy from a solid Infrastructure?

• Who received the email?

– Poor Data

– Targeted

• How did the recipients respond?

– Complaints

– Engagement

• How did the Mailbox Providers respond?

– Filtered

– Rejected

– Blacklisted

What impacts your Reputation?

Monitor Your Reputation

High SenderScore = High IPR

Source: Return Path 2012 Sender Score Benchmark Report

Top ISP Breakdown

Source: Return Path 2012 Sender Score Benchmark Report

Content & Rendering A lot of money and time is spent here …but is it worth it?

• Focus on the “From Name”

• Optimize the “Subject Line”

• Importance of Clean

Content

• Pay Attention to Rendering

• Be Compliant

Email Content and Rendering Summary

The Facts:

• Key factor in open rates

• Helps with brand recognition

• The “Friendly from” is an

opportunity to promote your

brand

• Transactional messages can

benefit from the “friendly

from” name

The From Name “Friendly

From” name

In the inbox

Best Practices:

• Be consistent

• Keep it short

• Accept and monitor replies

• Don’t use “do not reply” emails or use a person’s name

• Utilize the “friendly from” name

• Test before changing the “friendly from” name

The From Name

The Facts: • More impressions than any other

creative element of the email

• Subject line and from name drive opens

• Truncation can start to occur at 27 characters

• Growth of mobile devices increases importance of clarity

• Subject line keywords alone are not likely to trigger spam filters

The Subject Line

Best Practices: • Don’t use spam-like practices (all caps

all the time, lots of punctuation, excessive repetition)

• But, don’t shy away from words like ‘free,’ ‘now,’ or strategic use of capitalization

• Frontload important content

• Target 55 characters or less

• Use keywords and numbers

• Keep subject lines fresh and varied

• Test, test, test!

The Subject Line

Sample Subject Line Tests

Length of subject line Tone

(formal vs. playful) Direct vs. Hinting

Offer/discount

(aggressive, limited

duration, exclusive)

Format

(question vs. statement)

Inclusion/exclusion

(i.e. price)

Keywords Personalization Symbols

Sample Subject Line Tests

From Lines:

Clear & Consistent

Subject Lines:

Concise & Compelling

The Four C’s

What’s Important:

• No Broken Links

• Links with Positive Reputation

• No HTML or Spelling Errors

• Limited “spam words”

Importance of Clean Content

• According to Spam Assassin a little text and lots of images is bad

• But Return Path data shows that deliverability is not correlated with text/image ratio

Image to Text Ratio?

HTML Text to Image

Ratio

SpamAssassin

Score

Average Inbox

Placement Rate

Ratio b/t 0 and

.002 2.199 87%

Ratio b/t .002

and .004 2.089 86%

Ratio b/t .004

and .006 .001 86%

Ratio b/t .006

and .008 .001 83%

The Facts: • Users are viewing emails on a variety of

devices

• Emails that don’t render well are more likely to be considered spam

• There are no mobile standards

• Subject lines and pre-header text are even more important

• Fingers don’t make accurate cursors

• The screens are smaller and attention spans are shorter

Content Rendering

Content Rendering

80%

Mobile Rendering

What is the % of consumers who said they

delete a mobile email that doesn’t look good?

Source: 2013 BlueHornet Consumer View of Email Report

Responsive Design

Responsive design = An approach to web

page and email creation that makes use of

flexible layouts, flexible images and cascading

style sheet media queries (@media).

Goal = To build emails that detect the visitor’s

screen size and orientation and change the

layout accordingly.

Responsive Design

• CAN-SPAM stands for Controlling the Assault of

Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of

2003

• The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law

to establish the first set of national standards

for sending commercial email and is enforced

by the Federal Trade Commission.

CAN-SPAM

• Commercial email = Advertises or promotes a commercial

product or service, including content on a website

operated for a commercial purpose

• Transactional email = Facilitates an already agreed-upon

transaction or updates a customer about an ongoing

transaction

Key Compliance Terms

• Prohibits false or misleading subject lines in email

communications

• Distinguishes between “transactional” and “commercial” emails

• Requires commercial emails to be identified as advertisement

• Requires a functional opt-out mechanism - available for at least

30 days post send

• Requires companies to honor opt-out request within 10 business

days of the request

• Requires listing the physical address of sender

• Provides for penalties for non-compliance (up to $16,000/per

email address)

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM

$800M

How much are the potential penalties if

you send a non-compliant CAN-SPAM email

to a list of 50,000 emails?

International Email Laws

• Existence, detail and enforcement of

privacy law in countries around the world

vary dramatically

– CASL (Canada)

– European Directive (European Union)

– Asia-Pacific Privacy Framework (APEC)

List Quality &

Segmentation It’s the most important aspect of your email program but typically the most neglected

• 3 types of addresses you DON’T want on your file

• Negative impact of poor data on your email program

• Importance of Segmentation

• Managing Inactives

List Quality & Segmentation Summary

The Facts:

• Unknown User = Email address that has

been abandoned and is no longer is use

• Mailbox Providers tell you when you hit an

Unknown User via a message they return

(bounce code)

• Remove Unknown Users immediately

• Indicator of poor data practices

• Risk of being Blacklisted

#1 Unknown Users

• Unknown User Rate = Percentage of email

addresses sent that do not exist and are

undeliverable

GOAL: <2%

Key Metrics

Reputation Impact

The Facts:

• Spam Trap = Addresses created to

identify poor data practices

• 2 Types

– Recycled

– Pristine


• Aged or Inactive data is primary

source of traps

#2 Spam Traps

• Spam Traps = How many decoy accounts that

exist on your email database

GOAL: 0

Key Metrics

Reputation Impact

The Facts:

• Active = Email recipients who

regularly open, click, convert on

emails received

• Inactive = Email recipients who

have not taken any action on emails

received for some time - often the

source of complaints or spam traps

#3 Inactive Recipients

Best Practices:

• Quarantine new data – send a Welcome Message

• Make it easy for customers to update their information

• Send to permission-based lists

• Email your list regularly

• Consider utilizing an email list hygiene vendor

• Monitor the age and activity of your data – re-engage

and/or remove inactives

List Quality

Segmentation

The Facts:

• Your subscribers are not homogeneous

• Subscribers behave differently at different points

of the lifecycle within every email program

• Segmentation helps break a large file into more

manageable chunks

• Segmentation makes analyzing campaign

performance, targeting specific content, and

increasing customer engagement easier

Segmentation

Best Practices:

• First group subscribers by recency of action (e.g., purchase date)

or length of time on the file

• Further identify subscriber groups by layering on additional

criteria like demographics, website login, click/browse behavior

• Mail to each segment separately in order to collect performance

data

• Analyze segment performance data to inform your program

content and frequency strategy

Segmentation

Segmentation Ideas

Consumer Type Source Recent Activity

Recent Graduate Home Page Opens

Retired In Store Clicks

Married with Children Banner Ads Website visits

Married with no

Children

During online

purchase Site Login

Single Search Purchase

Use a Recency-Based Segmentation Strategy to

Identify Changes in Subscriber Response

Group A Group B

• 0-30 Days

• 30-90 Days

• 3-6 Months

• 6-12 Months

• 12-18 Months

• 18+ Months

• 0-30 Days

• 30-90 Days

• 3-6 Months

• 6-12 Months

• 12+ Months

A Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail

From 30 Days to 6 Months

Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail

After Engagement Strategy

Only mailing to Gmail users 0-6

months who put an item in their

cart or clicked on an email

Mailing only to Gmail users

who had put an item in the

cart or clicked on an email

in last 30 days

Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail

From 30 Days to 6 Months

Expanded Engagement filtering

rules and only mailing active

Gmail users of 0-6 months who put

an item in their cart or clicked on

an email

Reverted to only mailing Gmail users

showing 30-days of activity

Managing Inactive Subscribers

The Facts:

• Re-engagement campaigns help

reactivate inactive subscribers

• Subscribers eventually disengage with

your email program

• Inactive subscribers pose a liability to the

health of your email program

• Provide the opportunity to show positive

engagement with Mailbox Providers

Re-engagement Strategy

Promote value

Best Practices: • Use data to determine when subscribers

are likely to become inactive

• Re-engage customers before they go completely inactive

• Test a variety of re-engagement content (update preferences, access to exclusive content, complete a survey, etc.)

• Automate campaigns based on established business rules

• Remove inactive subscribers after unsuccessful attempts to re-engage

Re-engagement Strategy Confirm your subscription

or unsubscribe

Complaints It’s still a big contributor to Mailbox Provider filtering

• Negative impact of complaints on your email program

• Different ways customers complain

• Why people complain about your email

• What you can do to reduce complaints

Complaints Summary

The Facts:

• #1 Reason for a decline in your

Reputation

• Indicator to the Mailbox Providers

that people do not want your mail

• High complaints = your mail being

filtered or blocked


Complaints

• Customer hits the junk or spam button in their email application

• Customer sends a complaint via a filtering application or directly to a

blacklist

• Customer sends a message to the postmaster group of their Mailbox

Provider (Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc.)

Complaints–How are they generated?

• They didn’t ask to receive your email

• They don’t recognize the sender

• The email wasn’t what they expected

to receive

• The email isn’t of interest or relevant

• They are receiving too much mail

• There isn’t an easy way to unsubscribe

Why Do Customers Complain?

Reputation Impact

• Complaint Rate = Percentage of email delivered

to the inbox that subscribers mark as “spam” or

“junk”

GOAL: <.1%

Key Metrics

Best Practices:

• Set Expectations

• Email Recognition

• Be Relevant

• Respect Unsubscribe Requests

• Understand WHY people complain

How do You Reduce Complaints?

• Ensure set up on all available FBLs

• Remove all complainers immediately

• Use FBL data to identify cause:

– Source of Email List

– Email Campaign

– Who, What, When, Where, How to get to Why

– Make adjustments and TEST!

Feedback Loops

Spoofing & Phishing Don’t underestimate the negative effects that spoofers and phishers have on your subscriber’s impression and interaction with your brand …and deliverability

156 Million Phishing emails sent every day

16 Million Make it through filters

8 Million Are opened

800,000 Links are clicked

Is Your Brand Being Abused?

80,000 People fall victim to phishing scams EVERY DAY!

• What is Phishing and Spoofing?

• The risk to your email program

• How you can protect your program

Phishing & Spoofing Summary

• Spoofing = A counterfeit or fake email

that looks real, but is not. Criminals

send a spoofed email so you trust it

enough to take action.

• Phishing = An email scam where the

criminal sends a legitimate-looking

email in an attempt to gather personal

and/or financial information.

Not the same

Can you tell the difference?

• Loss of Customer Trust

• Brand Erosion

• Decreased Deliverability

• Lost Revenue

What’s at risk?

Brand Erosion = 42% of people would

trust brands LESS after phishing attack

(source: Cloudmark Study)

Cost = Estimated $1,900 per infected

user (source: Cisco Study)

Financial Company Gets Spoofed!

Impact on Actual Campaigns

• Implement DMARC

– Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance specification

• Monitor Suspicious messages

– Messages purporting to be from your domain that are potentially fraudulent

• Protect your program

– Modify DMARC “policy” to monitor, quarantine and ultimately reject unauthenticated mail

Protect Your Program

M.A.G.Y Filtering The Big 4 Mailbox Provider “secret sauce” exists for a reason

• The Truth about Mailbox Providers

• M.A.G.Y Filtering – What They Have in Common

• Specific Filtering Considerations

• Engagement

• Sending Requirements & Authentication

• Prioritized Delivery

Mailbox Provider Filtering Summary

The Truth About Mailbox Providers

#1 Keeping their systems safe is their top concern

#4 Engagement is increasingly important – the more

engaged your subscribers are, the more willing Mailbox

Providers are to review delivery issues

#3 A positive Sender Reputation helps Mailbox Providers

separate good email from bad

#6 99 / 100 times deliverability issues are your fault – not

the Mailbox Provider

#2 Mailbox Providers want to keep their subscribers

happy by providing a great email experience

#5 Segmentation is key – batch and blast is a thing of the

past

M.A.G.Y. Spam Filtering

What They Have in Common: • Homegrown Systems that are constantly learning

• Complaints are #1 driver in Reputation (TIS vs. TINS)

• User actions help fine tune global filtering

• Individual User filter rules typically trump global filtering

• IP Reputation is still key…but Domain is growing

• May use some 3rd party Blacklists in filtering rules

Gm

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Specific Spam Filtering

• Trusted Panel data

drives filtering

• URL Content

Filtering

• Goal = .1%

Complaint Rate

• Driven by “This is

Spam” vs. “This is

not Spam” Votes

• System adjusts

quickly to new

spam threats

• Engaged Users =

Better Inbox

• Prefers to Bulk vs.

Block

• Goal = .01%

Complaint Rate

• Trusted Voter

Community

• Out of every 1

message delivered to

inbox, 8 are filtered

• IP, Domain and From

Reputation Equally

Important

• Emphasis on URL

Content Filtering

• Goal = .2%

Complaint Rate

• Mainly focused on

IP

• Engagement will

trump complaints

• Invalid recipients

or Unknown Users

• Goal = .01%

Complaint Rate

• M.A.G.Y. is the most sophisticated vs. other Mailbox Providers

• How active are subscribers with mail?

– Are you sending to real subscribers?

– Are those subscribers active?

• Log in, read and send email, report spam/not-spam

– Are those subscribers trustworthy?

• Power of ‘This is spam’ and ‘This is not spam’

– Trusted user data

– Most of the community is engaged greater possibility of

inbox placement

– Most of the community not engaged greater possibility of

bulking

Engagement to the Mailbox Provider

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Engagement

• Panel Data

• Individual actions

can result in

different filtering

• Inbox Categories

• “This is Spam”

vs. “This is not

Spam” Votes

• Priority Inbox

• Tabs – Primary,

Promotion,

Social

• Trusted Voter

Community

• Overall user

actions influence

global filtering

decisions

• Inbox Folders

• Analyzed

engagement

before anyone

else

• Most

sophisticated

system

• Engagement

trumps

Complaints

M.A.G.Y. Sending Requirements

What They Have in Common:

• Most will throttle new IPs

• Throttling limits can be a daily moving target

• Don’t jump around on various IPs – you’ll look suspicious

SPF

DKIM

DMARC

Authentication

No Whitelist

Priority Inbox / Stars

No internal Whitelist

Utilizes Return Path’s Email Certification Program

Offers an internal Whitelist

Utilizes Return Path’s Email Certification Program

AOL Standard Whitelist

AOL Enhanced Whitelist

Prioritized Delivery

ig.com.br

virginmedia.com

sify.com

Sympatico (Bell Canada)

AT&T (which includes BellSouth, SBC and Ameritech)

Verizon

Rogers, BT, TNZ and Nokia

CompuServe

Netscape

Does not have much of an international footprint

Partners

Engagement &

The Competition It’s important to manage and monitor your subscribers’ - and your competitors’ - actions

• Consequences of Irrelevant Emails

• Measuring Engagement

• The Competitive Inbox

• How to Increase Engagement

– Create Engaging Content

– Manage Email Frequency

– Manage Email Cadence

Engagement & The Competition Summary

Being Relevant

Source: 2013 BlueHornet Consumer View of Email Report

24.5%

Complaints

Unsubscribes Deliverability

Sender Reputation

ROI

Consequences of NOT Being Relevant

Consequences of Not Being Relevant: Microsoft Sweep

Gmail Tabs Promotions Tab

Stars and

“Important”

The Gmail Effect - Minimal

Source: Return Path 2013 - The Tabbed Inbox

Don’t try to Game the Filters

• Gmail’s tabbed inbox learns users’ preferences over time

• Use different addresses for different categories of mail

• Avoid heavy use of marketing content in transactional mail

• Do not try anything crazy! Your mail will land in spam as a result.

It’s All About Engagement

Email Engagement • Opens

• Clicks

• Shares

• Purchases

Inbox Engagement • Regularly logs-in

• Reads and sends email

• Files email

• TIS/TINS

“This is Not Spam” – Rarely used, But Highly Trusted

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=spam button&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=f8UndJrlj1hMDM&tbnid=I0RvX_c-olMYdM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://www.emailtray.com/blog/25-proven-techniques-to-stop-junk-mail-and-correct-spam-filter-mistakes/&ei=PGnUUdDWBofJyQGymYD4DQ&bvm=bv.48705608,d.aWc&psig=AFQjCNGkYKWh6Xg0FvlewDy2xys9hMBtJw&ust=1372961448751429

TINS and Deliverability

Source: 2013 Return Path TINS Report

TINS and Engagement

Source: 2013 Return Path TINS Report

What Else is in Your Subscribers’ Inbox?

Source: Return Path “Battle of the Brands” Infographic

What Else is in Your Subscribers’ Inbox?

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%%

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How Can Your Email Stand Out?

• Analyze your competition’s email content and offers

• Pay attention to your competition’s message frequency and cadence

• Monitor subject line keywords, topics, and length

• Review your competition’s preference center

• Monitor other successful email marketers outside your industry

Increase Subscriber Engagement through

Competitive Insights

• Optimize the preview pane

• Include a good balance of images and text

• Utilize personalization and targeting

• Use consistent branding

• Make content skimmable

• Provide actionable and interactive content

• Incorporate social media sharing and connecting links

• Implement triggered messages (abandoned cart, birthday messages, etc.)

Make Your Email Engaging

Engaging Content

Test yourself!

What do you notice in

3 seconds?

Engaging Content Logo

Hyperlinked Text

Visual Supports

Email Content

Bolded Header

Bolded Keywords

Two CTAs Above

the Fold

Shorter Copy

Blocks

Colored Font

Secondary

column

Managing Email Frequency

Source: Insights from 5 Million Emails Infographic, BoomerangGmail, 2012

The average email user

receives 147 messages every

day, and spends more than

2.5 hours on email a day.

The Facts:

• High frequency is a leading cause of complaints and

unsubscribes

• Inboxes are busier than ever

• Different subscriber segments will have different

frequency thresholds

• Sending email too infrequently also causes problems

– Lack of brand recognition

– Potential increase in unknown users and spam

traps


Best Practices:

• Communicate email frequency with

new subscribers

• Offer frequency options as part of a

preference center

• Test optimal frequency for a variety

of key subscriber segments

• Determine the total number of

messages specific subscriber groups

will receive in a given time period


54% of consumers

say they

unsubscribe when

emails come too

frequently from a

particular brand.

Source: ExactTarget Social Breakup Report

• Unique Open Rate = Unique Opens / Delivered

• Unique Click Through Rate = Unique Clicks / Delivered

• Conversion Rate = Unique Desired Action (e.g., completed

quote, download mobile app, etc.) / Emails Delivered

• Forward/Sharing = Unique Sharing Clicks / Delivered

Key Metrics

`

Key Takeaways A quick wrap-up

• YOU have an impact on the deliverability success of your program – it’s not all up to your ESP

or the Mailbox Provider

• Your Sender Reputation is impacted by all email deployed from your IP/Domain – know your

Reputation and take action when issues are identified

• Maintain a clean, active, permission based list

• Complaints are still the #1 driver for reputation and deliverability issues

• Spoofing and Phishing negatively impacts your brand and puts you at risk for poor deliverability

– monitor and protect your program

• The Mailbox Providers’ #1 concern is keeping their systems safe for their subscribers and

ensuring a positive subscriber experience - they are constantly updating their “secret sauce”

• How users interact with their mail drives ISP filtering: Do users log in, read and send email,

report spam/not-spam

• Effectively target your subscribers with relevant content that drives positive engagement

Key Takeaways

Thank You! Feel free to contact us with questions:: Julia Peavy: [email protected] Tonya Mitchell: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]