guide to email marketing - active networks · 8 i guide to email marketing the idea of a/b testing...

Guide to Email Marketing

1. 47% of email recipients open email based on the subject line (Invesp)

2. 78% of consumers unsubscribe from emails because brands were sending too many emails. (HubSpot)

3. Welcome emails have on average 4 times the open rate of a standard email marketing campaign. (InboxArmy)

4. Personalized subject lines lift open rates by 29.3%. (MarketingSherpa)

5. Tuesday is the best day of the week to send emails followed by Thursday. (Coshedule Research)

6. The best times to send an email are 10 a.m. and from 8 p.m. to midnight. (Coshedule Research)

7. More than 21% of all messages are opened within the first hour of sending. (GetResponse)

Email Stats to Guide Your Way

Connecting with your community

Email Delivery - What You Can Do 4

Subject Lines and Pre-Header Text… 6

9 Tips to A/B Testing 8

Re-engage those Inactive Subscripers 10

Measure your Success - Reporting 12

Successful Email Marketing

Starts Here


4 I Guide to Email Marketing

That’s an awful lot of emails that aren’t contributing towards your marketing goals. On top of that, there are several simple mistakes that could be negatively affecting your email campaigns.

In this article, I address eight factors that could be affecting your email delivery, but first, an overview into what the email providers (known as Internet Service Providers or ISPs) are measuring.

Most ISPs are following the customer-experience approach set by Google (Gmail), so it’s becoming increasingly difficult for marketers’ emails to navigate their way into the inbox. As many of you will know, Gmail uses filters within the inbox to determine ‘Primary’, ‘Social’ and ‘Promotions’ emails, and if your emails are not landing in the ‘Primary’ filter, they have little chance of being read. Today, it’s not just about avoiding spam filters.

To be worthy of landing in the ‘Primary’ inbox, a score is associated to the various factors. As marketers, we don’t know what the overall score is, but it’s in our interest to create an email strategy around these factors.

Continuously Opened: If the recipient stops opening your emails regularly, the emails will drop out of their primary filter. Refer to page 7 for tips on improving your email open rate by using the subject line and pre-header text.

Scrolling: You want users to scroll down through your email, so it’s important to have engaging content throughout.

Unique Clicks: Email providers will score you on unique clicks within the email.

Multiple Clicks: Email providers will also score you on multiple clicks within the email (clicking on different links - not just the same link multiple times).

Frequency of Engagement: This is about whether the recipient opens and engages regularly with emails from the particular sender.

To conclude, the email content does affect the deliverability to an extent, but it’s not the only factor. The score of the sender is a big contributor, too.

1. Opt-in: Your emails will perform better if the recipient actively opts-in to your emails. For that reason, it should be the first thing you think about with your email strategy. You should:A. Create an opt-in page, which clearly outlines what

the recipient is signing up for and what they can expect from your emails.

2. The First Email: Don’t wait too long before sending the first email. We recommend you set up an automated ‘Welcome’ email that is triggered to send when the recipient signs up. This provides you with an opportunity to start developing a valuable relationship from the very beginning.

On average, less than half of all emails reach the recipient’s inbox!

Email Delivery Depends on your “Score”

8 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Email Delivery

Email Delivery - What You Can Do

Email Delivery - What You Can Do

Guide to Email Marketing I 5

3. Bounce Management – Review your email campaign reports and you’ll see there are two types of bounced emails:A. Soft Bounce – This is when the email address is

temporarily unavailable, for example, the inbox is full or the server is not available.

B. Hard Bounce – The email address is incorrect and recipient will never receive the email. You should remove all hard bounce emails from your list because they will have a negative impact on you as a sender. You should also review the soft bounce emails consistently throughout the year. If you have repeat offenders, you should remove these emails from your list, too. Depending on what email tool you are using, the bounce management process could be automated.

4. Role-related email addresses: It’s best-practice for you to remove role-related email addresses (for example, [email protected]) from your email list, but I appreciate that sometimes it’s a necessity. Keep an eye on the activity from role-related email addresses and remove them if you can afford to.

5. Positive & negative engagement – There are two types of engagement and, as a sender, you are trying to increase positive engagement and reduce negative engagement. A. Positive: Opens, Unique ClicksB. Negative: Spam Complaints, Blacklists, Hard BouncesNote, ‘unsubscribe’ is not listed as negative engagement but ‘spam complaints’ is.

If a recipient doesn’t want to receive your emails anymore, it’s much better for you if they unsubscribe rather than

submit a spam complaint.

6. Provide an unsubscribe link – If your marketing email doesn’t include an unsubscribe link, it will go straight into Spam/Junk - if the email is received at all.

7. Stagger your email send – When you review your recent emails, you will see some of the recipients are a lot more engaged with your emails than others. Tools like Mailchimp will score the list for you. It will benefit you by splitting the list into two – list 1 to include your most engaged recipients and list 2 to include your lesser engaged recipients.

Send your email to list 1 around 30 minutes before list 2 and your overall results will improve. This is because your sender score will increase due to the high number of positive engagement from list 1. Think of it as warming up your email account, like a runner who always performs better when they are warm.

8. Your IP address: If you have suffered a lot of negative engagement, your IP address could be affected, which will have a negative impact on your deliverability. For example, you may get blacklisted. I recommend checking your IP Address via Sender Score www.senderscore.org



There are many reasons why the email might not be opened, but the Subject Line is one of the most important aspects, which should be supported by engaging Pre-Header Text for the best possible results.

The subject line should vary depending on your goal behind the email campaign. For example, a shorter subject line (less than 50 characters) may improve your open rate, but may have a negative effect on your click-through rate and conversion rate.

Subject Line Pre-Header Line

We put so much time into the email content but that content often doesn’t realise it’s potential. A simple reason - because the email is not opened.

Subject lines and pre-header text…

5 Tips for Your Subject Line

Subject lines and pre-header text…


1 Be Clear and TruthfulExplain exactly what the recipient will get from the

email – ensuring there are no hidden surprises when it’s opened. Not only will this appeal to your target audience, it will improve the click-through and conversion rates.

It can be tempting to ‘sex up’ or exaggerate your product to increase the open rate. This may meet your short-term goals of a high open rate, but they are false promises. It will result in unsubscribes and spam reports, which will have a negative impact on your next campaign. Click-through and conversion rates will be low, too.

TO DO: be clear, concise and explain what the user can expect. For example, 5 tips to improve your email marketing

NOT TO DO: Unclear and exaggerate. For example, Create the world’s best email campaign

Tip 1: Clear, concise and truthful subject lines will improve your open rate, click-through rate and conversion rates, while reducing the unsubscribe rate.

2 Length of the Subject LineThe length of the subject line depends on your

intended outcome. If you want the recipient to open your email, with no intended call to action, a shorter subject line is better.

If your goal is for clicks through to your website, conversions, or inbound enquiries, a longer subject line will be more effective, as it allows you to add more context to the email. We want the user to open the email with a goal or intent in mind.

Tip 2: Subject lines over 70 characters improves conversion rate. Subject lines under 50 characters improves open rate.

3 PersonalisationPersonalising your subject line depends on the quality

of your data. If you are able to personalise your subject line, it will improve your open rate, click-through rate and conversion rate. Your relationship with the consumer will improve, too. You can add personal data by using the merg tag functionality within your email tool

• First name • Company name • Location

Tip 3: Personalisation improves open, click-through rate and conversion rates, as long as the data is accurate.

4 TestingRemember - the golden rule of marketing, your

opinion is not always right. Experience will teach you a lot, but you should make best use of your reporting data to ensure that you are appealing to the majority. Test which words and terms work best for your company.This includes A/B testing with two different subject lines to databases no smaller than 1,000. But you need to have two subject lines to start with, right?

To get your shortlist, brainstorm 10 different subject lines and ask your friends and colleagues to choose their favourite one. The most popular two should make your A/B test.

Tip 4: Test to improve - not to prove other people wrong. Trust everyone’s opinion within your company and trust the findings.

5 Pre-header textThe pre-header text is the line of text that appears at

the very top of the email, usually in the same line as the ‘view in browser’ link.

This line of text is getting more prominence in email campaigns - especially when received on a mobile or tablet. Use it in to complement your subject line, providing more context to the email. Note, it should not simply repeat the subject line. Here are three examples, depending on your goal:

• Subject Line: 5 tips to improve your email marketing Pre-header text: Watch this 5-minute video

• Subject Line: 5 tips to improve your email marketing Pre-header text: No technical experience required

• Subject Line: 5 tips to improve your email marketing Pre-header text: Advice on subject line, content, reporting, lead generation and automation

Tip 5: The pre-header text complements the subject line to ensure the email is opened with intent. You should be able to read the subject line and pre-header text together, with it making perfect sense.

Further HelpWe suggest you subscribe to specialist email providers who have a wealth of knowledge, research and experience behind them.Here’s one of our favourite articles about subject lines:Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-email- subject-lines-list#sm.000ckx0hq1b8wfk6stq1vselymq65



The idea of A/B testing is to work out which variation of your email works most effectively. Then you can determine the best-performing version to send to the majority of your database. Use samples within your database to test the different elements.

It sounds simple, but there are some common mistakes that can have a negative effect on your email results and your ROI.

1 Test the important elements for YOUR businessIt’s easy to fall into the trap where you try to test

everything and things that don’t really affect your business. Identify the most important elements within your email and only test them.

ScenarioA kitchen company has a strategy to generate leads through phone calls or email enquiries from their email campaign.

The measures of success for this email are:• Open rate • Phone calls • Email replies

There is no need to start testing the social media buttons to see how many recipients click through to the social media* pages.

*Some kitchen companies may have a strategy around driving traffic to their social media page, but in this scenario, it holds little value for the business.

2 Test one element at a timeBusinesses may have three of four different elements

of the email that they want to test, but you should only test one element at a time. Otherwise, the results become subjective and the conclusion lacks validity.

You want to know for sure which version of each element is most effective, so if you are testing the call-to-action button, ensure the subject line and content is identical.

3 Standardise the time of the dayWhen it comes to email marketing, the time of the

day has a massive impact on results. For that reason, you must send all versions of the email at the same time. If one email goes out 30 minutes after another one, that could skew your results considerably.

4 Sample sizeIndustry best-practice is to test each variation

within a samples size of at least 1,000. Any smaller and the numbers are too small to produce an accurate conclusion.

Marketers’ common downfalls with email marketing is not A/B testing, or not A/B testing effectively.

9 Tips to A/B Testing

9 Best Practice Tips When A/B Testing

9 Tips to A/B Testing


ExampleA beauty salon wants to test the positioning of their call-to-action button within the email. This means at least 1,000 contacts need to see the call-to-action button, which means that over 1,000 contacts are required to open the email.

If the beauty salon has an average open rate of 20% (1 in 5) they will need to send each variation of the email to a sample list of 5,000 contacts, based on the assumption that 20% open the email and 1,000 contacts view the call-to-action button.

5 Split the list evenlyWhen A/B testing, it’s important you split the lists

evenly. Most marketing tools offer an A/B testing option today that randomly splits the list evenly.

6 Consolidate the resultsIt’s easy to do an A/B test one month and then

not document those findings, so they are not easily accessible next month, next quarter or next year. We suggest you create a simple report that clearly outlines the following:• Elements tested• Variations tested• Results• Winning variation

7 Test the subject line The most important A/B test to improve your open

rate is to test the subject line. We recommend you test personalising the subject line.ExampleEmail 1: Here are our 9 top email marketing tipsEmail 2: David, here are our 9 top email marketing tips

8 Test your Call-To-Action (CTA)The call-to-action is commonly the most valuable

element of your email as it generates the positive engagement and response.

It’s important you test the best position for the CTA button, taking into account your open rate on your mobile.

You may find that the CTA appearing above the fold (on view when the email is opened) has very different results to a CTA appearing below the fold (requires the contact to scroll down through the email).

ExampleEmail 1: Place the CTA towards the top of the email. This is so the CTA gets the most prominence within the email.Email 2: Place the CTA towards the bottom of the email. This is so the contact sees the CTA after engaging with the content, which could provide some substance to the product.

9 TestimonialsTestimonials are designed to generate trust between

the businesses and consumer, validating the service being offered. Run an A/B test on the inclusion of a testimonial within your email, it could improve the conversion rate.

Further HelpRemember, small details matter when it comes to email marketing. You may have concluded the CTA works most effectively when it appears above the fold, but you can also test the colour of the CTA to see if that improves it further. It may sound like a needless test, but it can have a big impact on your bottom line.

A BEmail

list



You spend a lot of valuable time and money getting people to subscribe to your email list, so it’s a problem when they stop engaging. Plus, those inactive subscribers drag down your open rates, click-through rates, email deliverability, and sender reputation.

In this article, I provide an overview of an ‘Inactive’ subscriber, provide four reasons to re-engage your inactive subscribers and give you six tactics on how to re-engage your subscribers.

The definition of ‘inactive’ subscribers depends entirely on your organisation’s email strategy. If you regularly email your list (say two to three times per week) an inactive subscriber might be someone who hasn’t engaged in the past 90 days or 6 months.

If you send emails monthly or quarterly, an inactive subscriber might be someone who hasn’t engaged in a year or more. Either way, these people have been active in the past, either by showing intent, engagement, or making a purchase.

Reasons to Re-engageTo extract maximum return on the time and money you’ve spent attracting their attention in the first place, it’s worth trying to re-engage those subscribers. In fact, according to Experian, thoughtfully planned re-engagement strategies can deliver 14 times the lift in email-influenced revenue.Since the cost of acquiring a new customer usually outweighs the cost of keeping an existing one, you should do everything possible to re-engage inactive subscribers or customers. To wake them up, run re-engagement (or reactivation) campaigns.

6 Tactics to Re-engageThe tactics or strategy will vary depending on your business and what you offer as a service or product, but here are 6 ideas for you;

1 OfferAn offer is a great way to get someone’s attention.

They have felt compelled enough to subscribe or purchase off you previously, so a discount offer could be the perfect way to grab their attention again. Even if it’s a simple 10% off one of your products.

What is an Inactive Subscriber?

Re-engage that Inactive Subscriber

Re-engage Those Inactive Subscribers

4 reasons to run a re-engagement campaign

1. Re-engage those who still want to hear from you

2. Determine who doesn’t want to hear from you

3. Clean up your email lists4. Capitalise on existing relationships

to keep customer acquisition costs in check

Re-engage Those Inactive Subscribers


2 SurveyThere could be a fundamental reason why the

subscriber has stopped engaging with your emails, so run a survey to see if you can collect some valuable feedback from them. This feedback could be strong enough to warrant changes within your company if there are some common answers. This also provides you with an opportunity to capture more personal information about them, to create a more detailed profile of the subscriber.

3 Update PreferencesSubscribers may stop engaging with your emails for

the simple reason that they are no longer interested in your products and services. Invite them to update their preferences to make the emails more relevant to them.

For example, a subscriber may have signed-up to a retailer’s list because they want to know about ‘kids’ clothing. Now the kids have grown up, the kids clothing isn’t of interest, so the parent could update their preferences to receive ‘womens’ or ‘mens’ clothing.

The subscriber may indeed decide to opt-out instead, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it will clean your data and improve your open rate as a result.

4 CompetitionGive your subscriber a chance to win something

and you will have a great chance of recapturing their interest. Be warned though, you want to be able to keep them interested so it might be worth combining the competition with the ‘updating preferences’ idea ensuring that you are capturing information about the subscriber. For example, ‘Update your preferences for the chance to win a voucher’

5 Past ExperienceThe subscriber joined your list for a reason, so remind

them of that reason if you have data available to you.

For example, ‘Remember those <insert brand> trainers you bought from us last year? Check out this season’s selection.’

If you can add in accurate images or personalise the email even more, do it. It helps emotionally engage the subscriber.

6 Reinforce BenefitIf your company has a really strong benefit to the

subscriber, which is relevant to the majority of your subscribers, your re-engagement strategy may be to reinforce that benefit. You could also add in new benefits that have developed over the last year or two.For example, at Active Networks, we own the website Think Local. Our re-engagement email could be, ‘We still offer at least 50% off restaurants, cafes and beauty salons across the Northern Beaches and North Shore. Check out the latest offers online’.

50%OFF



1 Set your goalsBefore sending your email, decide what you want to

get out of the campaign. Your goals will enable you to measure the success of your campaign.

Your goals could include:• Delivering information or getting your email read

(open rate)• Lead generation (click-through rate)• Conversions (purchases, downloads, data capture,

attending an event)

2 Standardise your KPIsIt’s one thing to get a snapshot of each campaign,

but you want to be able to develop a bank of historical data from the reports that will enable you to identify obvious trends over time.Not all email providers offer this within their reporting package, so it’s a good idea to create a spreadsheet or use your CRM to measure the trends.To do this effectively, you must ensure you are consistent with the key factors you are reporting so that positive and negative changes are obvious to you.At Active Networks, we measure the following metrics after 24 hours, 48 hours and seven days to ensure consistency and trends:

- Day (of send)- Time (of send)- Open rate- Click-through rate- Conversions (number)

- Conversion value- Average conversion

value- Unsubscribe rate- List size

Not all of these measures will be relevant for your business, work out what are, measure and be consistent.

After four campaigns, you will start seeing trends within your reports, and from then on, you can tweak the campaigns to see if it results in a measurable change.

3 Open rates can be misleadingThe open rate is usually the first metric to look at, and

provides the most basic performance measure. Industry averages vary considerably but the higher the open rate, the more people opened up your email – that’s obvious.

However, while the open rate is always worth recording, it can sometimes be deceiving - particularly if the subject line and pre-header text is vague or misleading. You can read more about the affect of subject line and pre-header text on open and conversion rates in a previous article.There is also another metric that could contradict the open rate – the number of unsubscribes. The key is to increase the open rate while maintaining a low unsubscribe rate, which results in great success.

Measure Your Success - Reporting

simple ways to measure your email success:7

None of us like to admit it, but that’s arguably the most important part of the email campaign, and that’s why at Active Networks we use every report to shape our next email campaign.

Reporting

Measure Your Success - Reporting


Here are three elements to consider before you draw conclusions on your open rate:

Was your subject line specific or vague? If the answer is vague, or even slightly exaggerated, the open rate could be impressively high but will ultimately provide poor results.

What is the unsubscribe rate? If the unsubscribe rate is unusually high, your open rate could be a false reading. Why? Most likely because you have tricked people into opening the email or annoyed them.

Does the open rate affect your end goal? If the answer is yes, the open rate is a key indicator of success. If the answer is no, look beyond the open rate to your click-through rate or conversion rate.

4 Click-through rateThe click-through rate (CTR) is generally a great

indication of success, and it provides insight into activity beyond just the opening of the email. But, like all metrics, they can be contradicted by other reports. Your goal is to see your click-through rate increase at the same rate as the conversion rate.

Here are 3 things to consider when it comes to the CTR:

Do not compare your CTR to other industries. Instead, you want to compare it against your past and future campaigns. An insurance company may be providing information and looking for a reply to the email, not clicks. Compare that to a retailer who may have over 50 links in their email. The retailer would have a higher CTR, but that does not mean their email was more successful – that comes down to the conversion rate.

Is your CTR a key indicator? If so, you should see who clicked on your link. If your goal is to generate leads for sales, and the link was your rate card, your list of recipients who clicked on your link is your list of leads. After clicking on your rate card, the leads are likely to know the following information, and now it is time for you to qualify them: Price expectations, lead time and minimum commitment

Does your conversion rate increase with your CTR? If the answer is yes, the two metrics working together prove success. If the answer is no, you should delve deeper into the following:

A Look at the link that is being tracked to ensure it

is working correctly B Review the destination page or download to

ensure the content is relevant, concise, clear and engaging

C Ensure the page is mobile-friendly

5 Conversion rateIs the conversion rate your key indicator? If so, you

should ensure you are tracking your conversion rate, which may require some help from your website expert.The conversions may not always be coming from the channels you expect. For example, a purchase may take place two weeks after an email campaign, but may still have been a direct response to that email. Your report should tell you that.

If you are seeing a good open rate but the conversion rate is lower than you expected, try varying some of the following elements:• Day of send • Time of send• Email content • Call to action

6 UnsubscribesOften underestimated or brushed under the carpet,

the unsubscribe rate should underline your success. You want all of your key metrics to be high, except your unsubscribe rate.

7 KPIsTaking all of the above into account, to maintain a

healthy email list and business success you should be looking for the following:

• Increased open rate• Increased click-through rate• Increased conversion rate• Reduced unsubscribe rate

There is a wealth of valuable information sitting in your email report, take the time to assess the data and adjust your email campaigns. There is a pot of gold just waiting to be found.

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guide to email marketing - active networks · 8 i guide to email marketing the idea of a/b testing...

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