Email Deliverability Tips from the Experts

Speakers:

Peter Mathea Aleksandra Pabian Irek RybinskiDirector of Anti-Abuse Compliance Communication

SupervisorDeliverability Manager

Aleksandra PabianCompliance Communication

Supervisor

Do’s and Don’ts of email list building

Where do we start?

Build an email list

• Ability to stay in touch with your audience

• Way of building a relationship and turning it into loyalty

• Expected high average ROI

Benefits of having an email list

Rules of email list building

Make a good first impression

• Be 100% open about the purpose of the sign-up

• Don’t hide your true intentions or overpromise

• Show the type of content subscribers may expect in the future

Email sign-ups

Be clear and build trust

What about offline?

• Paper forms may be a hassle to store and scan

• Consider using modern tablet and iPad apps such as Forms on the Go

Offline sign-ups

• Avoid using your own sign-up form to populate the list - This may lead to your IP address getting blacklisted

• Use: Contacts » Add Contacts instead

• Or all of the other import methods

• Do it regularly

When importing your list

Just don’t purchase lists

Treat them as you would want to be treated

Irek RybinskiDeliverability Manager

List Management

Bounces

• Identify the reason of the bounce (should be fairly easy analyzing the response code):

• If it’s an invalid address remove it straight away

• Mailbox does not exist

• No-answer-from-host

• If it’s a mailbox full give him some time, but don’t keep him forever

Bounces

• If it’s reputation based reach out to ISP and ask for the reason

• If it’s a tech issue (i.e. SPF or DKIM validation fail) simply fix it

Bounces

Unsubscribes

• All marketing messages need to have unsubscribe link, no questions asked!

• Make it visible and easy to use

• Hiding it will only anger your subscribers and they will look for a way to get back at you

Unsubscribes

Reengagement

• It only applies to inactive addresses and can/should be done right before the hygiene process

• Do something that catches their attention (break the pattern)

• Failed reengagement needs to end with removing that email address from your list

• With last message it’s a good touch to let them know how they can get back on

Reengagement

Inactive Contacts

• Do a regular list hygiene operations (3-6 months)

• Remove email addresses that are non-responsive, they probably got taken over/abandoned or were even made into spam-traps

• This increases your overall engagement rates, which then improves your reputation and deliverability

Inactive Contacts

Reconfirmation

• Reconfirmation is not reengagement!

• Should only apply to old lists you lost touch with (did not email for a significant amount of time)

• Things that need to be present and visible:

• Name of the company/person that owns the list

• When and where (what site, etc.) did the contact originally subscribed on

• What is this mailing list about (what content will he receive)

Reconfirmation

• Opt-out approach is not appropriate

• It should be only 1 message

Reconfirmation

Suppression lists

• Applicable for single campaigns

• Do not use it as a blacklist (leaves too much room for mistakes)

Suppression lists

Peter MatheaDirector of Anti-Abuse

Managing expectations

• What do you mean by “managing expectations”?

• Why should I even bother?

• Where do’s and don’ts derive from?

• So why buying a list is such a bad idea, again?

• FREE BONUS – above may extend to non-marketing emails

Managing expectations

• Who is a subscriber in permission-based email marketing

• Subscribers’ happiness factor

• Be honest

• Would I like to receive that email if I were my subscriber?

• You don’t know…? Ask!

“Managing expectations” explained

• Sophisticated email filters

• Happy subscribers = happy customer

• People who send your email for you (aka deliverability folks) care

Why subscribers’ opinions matter

Origins

• Best practices build on permission principle

• Email filters are supposed to help real people

• Subscriber decides what is wanted and what is not

• Metrics are like shadows in Plato’s cave

Origins

How NOT to manage expectations

• Buy a list

• Send tons and tons of emails a day

• Ignore unsubscribes

• Don’t care about bounces

• Get yourself blacklisted

How NOT to manage expectations To Do List

Take things further

• Transactional emails can be a flood as well

• Maybe notifying subscribers about EVERY news on a website is a bad idea… dunno

• Get your data from outside email stream

Take things further

Q&A

• blog.getresponse.com

• slideshare.net/GetResponse

• getresponse.tv

For more information visit:

Thank you!

Peter Mathea Aleksandra Pabian Irek RybinskiDirector of Anti-Abuse Compliance Communication

SupervisorDeliverability Manager