email reputation: why the subscriber experience matters
DESCRIPTION
This presentation was given at the London JUMP Conference on October 12, 2011. It covers how subscriber experience affects sender reputation, stats from Return Path's latest Sender Reputation Report and how to follow best practices for improving the subscriber experience across the email customer lifecycle.TRANSCRIPT
Email Reputation: Why the Subscriber Experience Matters
Margaret FarmakisSenior Director, Professional Services
Protect your brand Manage your reputation Reach the inbox Earn a response Celebrate subscribers Get promoted Be happy Retire young Look gorgeous
Introduction
About Margaret
Agenda
Reputation Basics and Latest Figures Sender Reputation: Know the
Influencing Factors Complaint Rates: Understand What
They Are and Control Them! Top Tips & Best Practice
Email is great for developing loyal and active subscribers.
72%Percentage of companies rate email as 'excellent' or 'good' for return on investment.
Source: Econsultancy "Email Marketing Census 2011" (2011)
No Inbox. No Click.No ROI.
Email Reputation Basics
Reputation: Quantitative measurements of the desirability of email based on the reputation of the sending server’s IP address.
Inbox Placement Rate (IPR): The percentage of email messages that are delivered straight to the inbox. This excludes email messages that arrive in the “junk” or “spam” email folders.
Email Reputation: Latest Figures
• Your reputation scores impacts your deliverability• Our latest Sender Reputation Report shows that IPs with Sender Score of 91 and above enjoy 88% Inbox Placement Rate• HOWEVER, IPs with a Sender Score of 50 only have an IPR of 64%
Why do my good emails get blocked?
It’s All About Reputation (and Sender Behavior)!
List Hygiene
Complaints
IP PermanenceEngagement
Message Quality
Infrastructure
ISPs use your sender reputation to make filtering decisions. A
poor reputation means, your email will get
blocked.
Keep complaints to a minimum
So… Can complaints be reduced?
So… Can complaints be reduced?
Follow Best Practices Across the Subscriber Lifecycle
Top Tips: Acquisition Set the right expectations with your subscribers and send a
welcome message
Best Practice: Send a Welcome Message
Top Tips: Conversion Optimize creative for image rendering and preview pane viewing
Best Practice: Use a Pre-Header
Top Tips: Engagement & Retention Implement a Preference Center to provide subscribers a choice of
frequency and content
Best Practice: Engagement
Top Tips: Win-Back Develop a plan for non-responders and re-permission persistent
inactives
Best Practice: Win-Back
Make List Hygiene a Priority
Top Tips to Keep Your List Healthy
1. KNOW your unknown user rates and monitor them
2. REVIEW your internal bounce categorization routine to ensure you are regularly removing bad or inactive addresses
3. MONITOR sending logs for messaging from ISPs that may indicate the presence of spam traps
4. COLLECT good data up front: the most common techniques are double opt-in and welcome messages
5. IMPLEMENT address verification processes and ECOA
6. CHECK blacklists that focus on mailers who hit spam traps (and make sure you’re not on any of them)
You’re in Control of Your Reputation
The Good News
As a marketer, you can control and influence the key factors that make up your sender reputation:
• Complaints• List Hygiene • Sending Infrastructure and Authentication• Sending Permanence• Content• Engagement
ReferencesReturn Path – Sender Reputation Report (June 2011)http://www.returnpath.net/landing/reputationfactors/Return Path – Global Deliverability Benchmark Report (Sept 2011)http://www.returnpath.net/landing/globaldeliverability1h11
Let’s Connect!
Margaret [email protected]
@mfarmakis
Read my regular blog contributions on Return Path’s In the Know blog, eConsultancy.com’s UK blog and the DMA’s Email Marketing Council blog!
http://dmaemailblog.com/
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/
http://www.returnpath.net/blog/intheknow/