Date post: | 14-May-2015 |
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E-Mail Marketing and Deliverability
Agenda Today: E-Mail Marketing
Glossary of Terms Pros and Cons of E-Mail Marketing E-Mail Deliverability
Blocked E-mail Why it happens, how to avoid it
Best Practices in E-Mail Writing(manage recipient perception)
Glossary of Terms Above the fold E-mail Blocking / E-mail Deliverability HTML E-mail Open Rate Opt-in (or Subscribe) Opt-out (or Unsubscribe) Spam WIIFM
Pros / Cons of E-MailMarketing
Pros Inexpensive Easy – well, kinda easy Trackable / Reporting
Cons Risk of hurting your brand Open rates can be misleading Troublesome: Avoiding spam
A brief history of e-mailmarketing
1999 Life is good. Openrates are amazing.Everyone succeeds.
Late 2001
Spam is everywhere,address sharing is goingwild. Consumers arefrustrated.
2006 40% of e-mail is spam.Spam filters killreliability of e-mail.
E-Mail marketing in 2008 Cost of entry is LOW Customer savvy is HIGH No more reliable metrics! False Positives
Occurs when a program used to filter spammistakenly marks a legitimate message as spam
When stringent filtering tools are too effective, thereis a fairly high chance of getting false positives
ISPs wrongly identify as much as 19-25% oflegitimate incoming email as spam
Major Problems
AOL receives roughly 2 billion e-mailmessages a day, of which about 75percent are blocked and another 4 to 7percent are sent to the bulk folder.
Source: 3/14/04 ClickZ News
Increase Your DeliverablePercentage
E-mail message
Internetbasedfilters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
ISP andcorporate
filters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Personale-mailclient
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Recipientperception
• subject line• from address• content
Your goal is to increase the percentage ofrecipients who move from stage to stage.
Why e-mail is not delivered…
There are various “stop points” or“filters”
E-mail message
Internetbasedfilters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
ISP andcorporate
filters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Filter Scoring Tech talk: rules based heuristic engine combined
with a genetic algorithm blah blah blah... The point is: there are MANY different algorithms
used to denote an e-mail as spam
Black Lists Blacklist: a fancy name for a pre-determined
filter Used by ISPs and e-mail clients (outlook’s spam
filter) Based on exclusion and result in false positives Many ISPs delete e-mails containing URLs on
their blacklists without bothering to notify thesender (source: ClickZ)
White Lists Whitelist: a fancy name for a list of trusted
senders Whitelists are inclusionary, focusing on certifying
legitimate e-mail sources The bonded sender program is an example of a whitelist
Playing nice with AOL
Get on the AOL Whitelist Get on AOL Enhanced Whitelist
Images and links will appear by default 30 days good performance will automatically get on
on there Get an AOL Test Account ($20/month) become familiar with the AOL client's nuances check your messages via AOL's Web interface
Playing nice with AOL
Add information along the following line to the topof your AOL messages: Please add our e-mail address,
[email protected], to your AOL address book.(Just click on the address book in your e-mail account,put [email protected] on your list ofaddresses, and click "add.")
Send messages to AOL separately HTML rendering
90-95 percent of AOL subscribers use version 6.0 or later(less HTML rendering issues)
Do no use: scripts (e.g., JavaScript, VBScript), Java,frames and IFrames, Tooltips, ActiveX, video, audio,external style sheets, and meta refresh.
Even more on AOL
Remove all bad addresses Do not resend a “hard bounce” Monitor feedback loop and complaint
reporting
Notes on CAN-SPAM legislation Federal standards for sending e-mail Signed into law December 16, 2003 CAN-SPAM = Controlling the Assault of Non-
Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of2003
Adherence has been pitiful: In July CAN-SPAM compliance was less than 1%
(source: MX Logic) 16% of mailers tested weren't honoring opt-out requests as
prescribed by CAN-SPAM(source Jupiter Research)
DOJ recently announced it has arrested and indicted dozensof spammers and Internet fraudsters.
5 Simple ways to adhere to CAN-SPAM
Make sure every piece of information in headersis accurate, true, and in no way misleading.
Include an opt-out link. Immediately andzealously honor opt-out and unsubscriberequests.
Include your physical business address. Indicate if the e-mail is an advertisement. Clearly mark sexually explicit material.
Why e-mail is not delivered…
There are various “stop points” or“filters”
E-mail message
Internetbasedfilters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
ISP andcorporate
filters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Personale-mailclient
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Spam filters built into MicrosoftOutlook
Search your hard drive for filters.txt
Source: Harvest Digital, September 2003
Pornography?
Source: Harvest Digital, September 2003
Outlook thinks it is…
“over 18”
Source: Harvest Digital, September 2003
Why e-mail is not delivered…
There are various “stop points” or“filters”
E-mail message
Internetbasedfilters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
ISP andcorporate
filters
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Personale-mailclient
• key words• blacklists• attachments
Recipientperception
• subject line• from address• content
Recipient Perception - Why wedrive away customers
Source: Quris, September 2003
Best Practices for E-Mail Writing
Managing “Recipient Perception” From field
Identifies the brand Be simple, clear
Subject lines Defines offer in clear and interesting terms Information is more powerful than teases “Guess what?” 45 character maximum (Hotmail) Test, test, test
http://www.emaillabs.com/from_subject_line_tool.html
Managing “Recipient Perception”
45 characters
E-Mail components: bestpractices, cont.
Email body Be brief Write to be scanned, not read Use subheads, bullets to stress key points Be brief Key call-to-action should be “above the fold” Don’t forget opt out Be brief
Be more relevant Easy ways to customize content:
Time since last action Time since last site visit Behavior on site Follow up emails
• Not opened• Opened, not clicked• Clicked, not purchased
When to E-Mail
Never on a Monday or Friday (ingeneral)
Avoid the morning spam session Be sensitive of time zones
HTML or Plain Text E-Mails
HTML Can be a much better presentation Can draw the eye to more than one section Can cause deliverability issues Can cause HTML rendering issues
Plain Text Tried and true Can come across more personal Ensured to be read by all e-mail clients
Web sites mentioned in thispresentation:
ClickZhttp://www.clickz.com
AOL Whitelistshttp://postmaster.info.aol.com/guidelines/sender.htmlhttp://postmaster.info.aol.com/guidelines/enhanced.html
E-Mail Labs – Test your subject and from fieldshttp://www.emaillabs.com/from_subject_line_tool.html
Questions / Thank you