Some best practices in email marketing and how to measure a successful email program. Includes campaign tagging, building trended analysis, and email reputation troubleshooting. Email segmentation mentioned briefly as a best practice.

1. EMAIL MEASUREMENT
Boot Camp: Week 3

2. What We’ll Cover
• Email best practices
• Timing
• Content
• Opts
• Key metrics and calculations
• PTTP
• Set-up
• Measurement
• Reputation
• Homework
2

3. 3

4. 4

5. Email: Best Practices
5

6. Best practices in email
Did you know?
• 90% of all emails opened are opened
within the first 72 hours.
• The tenure of a person on your email list
has a direct correlation with open and
click rates*:
• Open rates:
•
0 to 30 days: 20.8% open rate
• 60 to 90 days: 20.8% open rate
• 270 to 360 days: 19.2% open rate
• Click rates:
•
0 to 30 days: 8.2% click rate
• 60 to 90 days: 4.7% click rate
• 270 to 360 days: 4.8% click rate
• This indicates that most open activity will
remain steady early in the tenure of the
relationship, but click activity wanes after
60 days.
*on low-segmented email campaigns, from Marketing Sherpa 2007 Email Lab Study
6

7. Introduction to your brand
Strong Welcome = ROI
• Your welcome email is your first
impression on a new enrollee.
•
Open rates are almost 3 times higher
than other email communications
• Click rates are over 4 times higher than
other email communications
• Additionally, real-time welcomes are
significantly more profitable than
“bulk” or “batch” welcome emails:
•
Real-time welcomes have over 2x the
revenue per email when an offer is
included
• Real-time welcomes are almost 8x
more revenue per email than bulk
welcomes with an offer, and 4x more
revenue without an offer
7

8. Keeping email simple
Less clutter = higher clicks
• Click through rates decline dramatically
based upon how many calls to action are
within the email.*
• One call to action:
• Two calls to action:
• Three calls to action:
• Four calls to action:
• 5+ calls to action:
56% click rate
38% click rate
5% click rate
2% click rate
1% click rate
• How many actions or links are in your
average newsletter or offer communication?
*Source: NextStage Evolution, February 2008
8

9. Know your KPI’s
Key metrics and calculations for email
Abuse Complaint
Number of Abuse complaints for the domain (SPAM complaints)
Positive Interaction Rate (PIR)
Click throughs minus opt outs, divided by click throughs
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Number of email recipients who selected a link in the email divided by total
emails delivered.
Received Rate
(Total Received for Domain / Total Received for the Mailing) X 100
Bounced Total
Number of bounced mailing to the domain
Bounced Rate
(Number Bounced for Domain/Total Sent for domain) X 100
Delivery Rate
Emails Delivered divided by Emails sent. Or (Emails Sent Bouncebacks)/Emails Sent.
Hard Bounce
Undelivered mailings due to an invalid address as per the mail server. Occurs
when the bounceback is caused by a permanent error such as an invalid
email address, bad domain, etc.
HTML Open Rate
Number of Unique HTML Opens divided by Total Emails Delivered.
Interaction Rate
Click throughs divided by opened results
Mail Block
Number of Mail Blocks for the domain
Mailing Restriction
Number of Mail Restrictions for the domain
Received Total
(Total Sent - Total Bounced)
Sent Total
Number of mailings sent to recipients
Sent Rate
(Number Sent to Domain / Total Sent for the Mailing) X 100
Soft Bounce
Undelivered mailings due to reasons other than invalid address. Occurs
when the bounceback is cause by a temporary issue such as when a
mailbox is full, "out of office" notifications are being sent, the recipient's mail
server is down, etc.
Total Bounces
Hard and soft bounce totals combined.
Total Messages Delivered
Total messages sent minus both hard bounces and soft bounces.
Unique Click Throughs
Number of Unique individuals who selected a link in the email. Clicks on
individual links may differ from unique clicks as a Single user can click on
multiple links, multiple times.
Unique HTML Opens
Number of Unique individuals who opened the email message.
Open Rate
Emails Opened divided by Emails Sent
Positive Communication Rate (PCR)
Opened emails minus opt outs, divided by opened results
9

10. EMAIL METRICS
Three things to know
10

11. Know how to measure
• Incoming web traffic
• Trends
• Reputation issues
11

12. Email Set-Up
• Any links in your email that you want to track on your website
must be properly tagged.
12

13. Google URL Builder
•
Required. Use utm_source to identify a search engine, newsletter name, or other source.
Example: utm_source=google Campaign Medium (utm_medium)
•
Required. Use utm_medium to identify a medium such as email or cost-per- click.
Example: utm_medium=cpc Campaign Term (utm_term)
•
Used for paid search. Use utm_term to note the keywords for this ad.
Example: utm_term=running+shoes Campaign Content (utm_content)
•
Used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads. Use utm_content to differentiate ads or links that point to the same
URL.
Examples: utm_content=logolink or utm_content=textlink Campaign Name (utm_campaign)
•
Used for keyword analysis. Use utm_campaign to identify a specific product promotion or strategic campaign.
Example: utm_campaign=spring_sale
•
http://www.targetbase.com/?utm_source=TestEmail1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=blue%2Bteam&utm_campaign
=Boot%2BCamp
13

14. Email reporting / analysis
14

15. Email Reporting / Analysis
• Process: Get the data and go look at it
• Tool: Varies by client… usually either:
• Mail Chimp
• Silverpop
• Unica Campaign
• ExactTarget
• Neolane
• Technique: Examine standard email metrics and look at trends for
similar email types.
• This is especially important for email campaign reports – do not look at
them in a vacuum!
15

16. Campaign View Only is Incomplete
Subject Line:
Delivery Date/Time:
Overall Stats
Total Recipients:
Successful Deliveries:
Bounces:
Times Forwarded:
Forwarded Opens:
Recipients Who Opened:
Total Opens:
Last Open Date:
Recipients Who Clicked:
Total Clicks:
Last Click Date:
Total Unsubs:
Total Abuse Complaints:
Times Liked on Facebook:
A Special Offer - 2nd Test
5/4/2011 11:25
83
82
1 (1.2%)
0
0
16 (19.5%)
30
7/19/11 8:06AM
5 (6.1%)
5
5/5/11 8:42AM
0
0
0
16

17. Trends Give Context and Insight
Email Summary 2010
60%
3,000
50%
2,500
40%
2,000
30%
1,500
20%
1,000
10%
500
0%
0
Jan-10
Feb-10
Mar-10
Apr-10
May-10
Jun-10
Jul-10
Aug-10
Sep-10
Oct-10
Nov-10
Dec-10
Jan-10
Feb-10
Mar-10
Apr-10
May-10
Jun-10
Jul-10
Aug-10
Sep-10
Oct-10
Nov-10
Dec-10
800
981
1669
1948
1444
1565
1311
1729
2126
2541
1770
1739
Open Rate
53.64%
55.73%
51.19%
42.76%
42.79%
42.78%
44.95%
44.26%
41.57%
41.30%
38.93%
43.51%
Click Rate
9.38%
5.99%
6.81%
1.68%
0.78%
2.56%
4.55%
5.86%
2.00%
0.32%
4.14%
3.43%
INTERACTIon RATE
17.5%
10.7%
13.3%
3.9%
1.8%
6.0%
10.1%
13.2%
4.8%
0.8%
10.6%
7.9%
SENT
17

18. And help identify opportunities
18

19. Email troubleshooting
19

20. Reputation Score
• If you did all of your QA on
the email prior to the
blast, and you’re getting bad
results, it’s probably
something to do with your
brand’s email reputation.
• This is normal for:
• New ESP’s
• First time blasts
• Cadence too high
• List rental / acquisition
20

21. Sender Score
21

22. TrustedSource.org
22

23. Mx blacklist supertool
23

24. Questions?
24