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QUANTIFYING OUTREACHWhat we learned from nearly 300,00 outreach emails
MICHAEL KING
@ipullrank
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Download this deck:
http://slidesha.re/quantifying-outreach
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I did SEO here 2010-2011
Working for huge brands is cool, but it was time for
SEO Lead unti
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Director of Inbound Mar
Lead Inbound Marketing Efforts for the Bran
Launch and Lead On-Page Optimization and Digital Brand
Training Link Building Teams in Social Link Bui
Working With Tech Team to Improve Products & Pr
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QUANTIFYING OUTREACWhat we learned from nearly 300,00
5
MICHAEL KINGDIRECTOR OF INBOUND MARKETING
@ipullrank
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BUILDING LINKS IS
TOO HARD.
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WHY CA
ANY RES
TO M
REQU
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SOMETIMES IT WOULD
REALLY BE NICE TO
KNOW IF IM DOING
THIS SH*T RIGHT!
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@JamesAgate from Skyrocket SEO did a cool study on the performaoutreach emails by different features and I was inspired
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-data (@jamesag
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-datahttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-data7/28/2019 Quantifying Outreach - Michael King
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GendOpenDay o
HourNumMessFirst Emai
Combining the iAcquire iRank and Buzzstream datasets we analyzedof297,791 emails to develop definitive insights on outreach link build
Download the study: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/
http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/7/28/2019 Quantifying Outreach - Michael King
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Super props to MikBernardez for all hi
work wrangling thisfor me.
Give him a shout on Twitter @mikebw
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The Link
Building Process
@ipullrank
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RANKING
RESULTS
DIRECTORIES
& LINK DBS
VETTING PROCESSTechnology Driven
VIEWING PROCESS OUTREACH PROCESS
QUALIFIED PAGESPOTENTIAL FUTURE
OPPORTUNITIES
12,558,303PAGES
REVIEWED
BLUELIST FILTERING
TOP 5,000amazon.com, apple.com, wikipedia.org, etc
BLACKLIST FILTERING
DO NOT CONTACT LIST(internally established)
BAD NEIGHBORHOODS(link network & spam)
647,631OPPORTUNITIES
11,487,318PAGES
REMOVED
SEO METRICS FILTERING
Client Specific Filtering out data based on IBL,Moz-Rank, OBL, PR, etc.
MANUAL VIEWING
CLIENT
REQUIREMENTS
Relevancy Guidelines
Content Guidelines
Legal Requirements
QUALITY CONTROL
Full-time Highly-trained
Team
Multi-layered Review
Evolving Quality Guidelines
112,569OPPORTUNITIES
535,062UNQUALIFIED
PAGES
3-4
POTE
NO
RESPONSE
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SO WHA
CANT D
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Crawl prospects
in list mode
Pull any other metrics you
care about
Sure you can. Right in Excel, no less.
Pull Expl
Download Screaming Frog: http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/Download Niels Bosmas SEO Tools: http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/Read: https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/ @seogadget
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/7/28/2019 Quantifying Outreach - Michael King
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Scrape Rate and Share Rate
Read Scrape Rate and Shareability Rate: http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/(Original props for scrape rate belong to @pointblankseo)
Compute the Scrape and Share Rates of the sites you guest post ondetermine the propensity for the article to get scraped and generate
Scrape Rate is whyipullrank.com rankpage for Googleboseveral months
http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/7/28/2019 Quantifying Outreach - Michael King
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The Study (finally)
@ipullrank
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I ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS
For every link building feature we will discuss I wanted to know
The number of emails that fit the criteria
The rate of response
The rate of link placement or close
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MY ASSUMPTIONS
The dataset is large enough to be statistically s
Conclusions are made in a vacuum
Buzzstreams data represents varying link buildin
philosophies and time zones
Correlation is not Causation
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MY ASSERTION
iRanks data represents a controlled and highly st
data-driven link building methodology implemented
working out of one office from 8AM-6PM PST Mond
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LIMITATIONS
iRank Reporting Limitations
BuzzStreams Privacy Policy
BuzzStream User Types
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W
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WHAT GENDER PERFORMS BEST?
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WHAT GENDER PERFORMS BEST?
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
MALE FEMALE
# Emails Sent
# Responses Rece
# Closed
14.91%
4.8% 16.82%4.5%
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GENDER ANALYSIS
iRank data shows that while women do get a higher resporate than men (2.1% more responses for women) in outreacclose rate is slightly in favor of men (men close 0.31% more
GENDER INSIGHT
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GENDER INSIGHT
Hire outreach professionals based on their ability and the quof their work rather than their gender as neither has an inheradvantage that affects the ROI of campaign significantly.
GENDER ACTION
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GENDER ACTION
Invest resources in equal hiring and/or training for link buildeof either sex.
WHAT OPENING SALUTATION PERFORMS BE
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WHAT OPENING SALUTATION PERFORMS BE
OPENING SALUTATION DATA
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OPENING SALUTATION DATA
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
PERSONAL CUSTOM GENERAL
# Emails Sent
# Responses Receiv
# Closed
20.6% 6.52% 10.54%3.12%
13.8%
4.1%
PERSONALCLOSE RATE
6.52%2.41% Higher
SALUTATION ANALYSIS
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SALUTATION ANALYSIS
The response and close rate was substantially higher for emthat were addressed directly to a person. If thats not availab
general salutation such as a Hello performs best. The next
section will discuss the performance of the different types ofgeneral salutations.
SALUTATION INSIGHT
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SALUTATION INSIGHT
Expend the extra effort to find out the name attached to the p
SALUTATION ACTION
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SALUTATION ACTION
Use a tool such as Rapportive or RapLeaf to find out more inon the prospect. With Rapportive you get all of a given userssocial information in the right pane within Gmail.
WHAT GENERIC SALUTATION PERFORMS BE
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WHAT GENERIC SALUTATION PERFORMS BE
GENERIC SALUTATION DATA
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GENERIC SALUTATION DATA
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
HELLO HI HEY GOOD AM/PM OTHE
# Emails Sent
# Responses Re
# Closed
14.37%
4.14%
17.47%
5.62%13.63%
3.82%16.21%
HI CLOSE
RATE
5.63%Higher than all
specific types
GENERIC SALUTATION ANALYSIS
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GENERIC SALUTATION ANALYSIS
Of those general salutations Hey yielded the best resultshowever due to the lack of volume Hi is the winning genera
salutation.
GENERIC SALUTATION INSIGHT
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GENERIC SALUTATION INSIGHT
Expend the extra effort to find out the name attached to theprospect.
GENERIC SALUTATION ACTION
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GENERIC SALUTATION ACTION
Use a tool such as Rapportive or RapLeaf to find out more inon the prospect. With Rapportive you get all of a given userssocial information in the right pane within Gmail.
WHICH DAY OF THE WEEK DOES BEST?
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WHICH DAY OF THE WEEK DOES BEST?
iRANK DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
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iRANK DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAYTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUN
# Emails Sent
# Responses Rec
# Closed
D
TH
BUZZSTREAM DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
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BUZZSTREAM DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
20000
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAYTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUND
# Emails Sent
# Responses Recei
DAYR
SHigher
DAY OF THE WEEK ANALYSIS
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O S S
For BuzzStream data close rates we were able to determine Saturday resulted in the highest response rate followed by
Sunday and Friday for the Buzzstream data.
Weve found that the iRank data shows emails sent on Mondhave the highest rate of response, followed by Thursday withTuesday and Wednesday tied for third. Initial emails sent onTuesdays yielded the highest rate of activated links, followed
a tie for Monday and Wednesday.
DAY OF THE WEEK INSIGHT
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The volume of overall email lower on the weekend and thereit is simply easier for an email sent on the weekend to be seTherefore in this case we believe that Buzzstreams data is mdefinitive.
DAY OF THE WEEK ACTION
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Outreach specialists should schedule initial link building emaduring the weekend with a tool such as Boomerang for Gmaensure the best chance at a response. Integrating Buzzstreawith Gmail allows you to use Boomerang for this as well.
WHICH TIME OF DAY DOES BEST?
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iRANK TIME OF DAY DATA
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0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Rec
# Closed
RESPONSE RATE
9AMHigher than other
times
BUZZSTREAM TIME OF DAY DATA
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0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Rece
RESPONSERATE
2AMHigher than other
times
TIME OF DAY ANALYSIS
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Buzzstreams data shows that sending emails at 1AM, 10PM
2AM EST result in the highest responses.
Conversely, iRank data shows that 4AM, 9AM and 6AM ESTreturn the highest rate of response and emails sent at 9AM, and 5AM EST return the highest rate of link activations.
TIME OF DAY INSIGHT
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Its hard to draw a definitive conclusion here but however sinall these times fall within the 10PM and 9AM range the insigthat the volume of email is lower throughout the night than dthe day and therefore prospects come across these emails fthing in the morning before email fatigue sets in.
TIME OF DAY ACTION
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Schedule emails to send within between 10PM and 9AM ESusing a tool such as a Boomerang or hire a link building teamthat operates at those times within the targets time zone.
WHAT NUMBER OF EMAILS WORKS BEST
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NUMBER OF EMAILS DATA
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
1 2 3 4 5 6+
# Emails Sent
# Responses Rec
# Closed
MALE RA
0.3Higher th
NUMBER OF EMAILS ANALYSIS
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Outreaches that continued to 6 emails and beyond proved tosubstantially better than those that stopped at the standard 4email. Most importantly, we found that we achieved 60% moresponses by sending a second and third email.
NUMBER OF EMAILS INSIGHT
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Be persistent until the prospect explicitly says no without abusomeones inbox.
NUMBER OF EMAILS ACTION
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Schedule follow-up emails with a tool such as Boomerang.
WHAT EMAIL LENGTH WORKS BEST?
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EMAIL LENGTH DATA
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
50000
LONG EMAILS SHORT EMAILS
# Emails Sent
# Responses Recei
# Closed
16.47%
5.41%
14.93%
4.32%
LONG EMAILCLOSE RATE
1.09%Higher than short
EMAIL LENGTH ANALYSIS
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Short initial emails resulted in 1.54% more responses than loemails however long emails converted at 1.09% higher rate.
EMAIL LENGTH INSIGHT
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Longer emails typically resulted in more personalization andmore detail specific to the content partnership opportunity.
EMAIL LENGTH ACTION
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Throw away your form letters and write more personalizedemails.
HOW DOES FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER PERFO
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FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER DATA
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TWEETED FIRST
Tweeted before emailing
Did not tweet first
TWEETED FIRST
Got a Response to Email AfterTweeting First
Did not get a response
FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER ANALYSIS
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In 2011, 347 emails were sent from users on Buzzstream thahave a Twitter account attached. Of those users there wereemails sent after initial contact was made via Twitter. Of thoselicited responses.
FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER INSIGHT
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While the figures are not statistically significant within the scoof this study, the 37.5% response rate is worthy of furtherinvestigation.
FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER ACTION
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Build relationships using Twitter to engage prospects withcontextually relevant information that benefits them.
HOW DO TRUST SIGNALS PERFORM?
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PHONE # VS. NO PHONE # DATA
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0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
WITH PHONE # NO PHONE
# Emails Sent
# Responses Rec
# Closed
15.32%
4.62%20.1% 7.1%
NO PHCLOS
2.4Higher than
PHONE # VS. NO PHONE
ANALYSIS
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ANALYSIS
Emails without phone numbers got 4.78% more responses amore link closes.
INSIGHT
Prospects may correlate the appearance of a phone numberunsolicited email with those of famous email scams.
ACTION
Remove phone numbers from initial outreach emails and onphone number should a prospect explicitly ask for it.
PHONE # VS. NO PHONE # DATA
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0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
WITH PHONE # NO PHONE
# Emails Sent
# Responses Rec
# Closed
15.32%
4.62%20.1% 7.1%
NO PHCLOS
2.4Higher than
PHONE # VS. NO PHONE
ANALYSIS
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Link builders performing outreach without a linked profile in their foo4.98% of the prospects they reached out to while those with linked p4.33% of their prospects. The difference in response is similarly neg
0.77%.
INSIGHTThe difference in effectiveness is negligible enough that it does not wheavily on performance whether a linked profile is present or absen
ACTION
Link builders should not scramble to add or delete any linked profilesending outreach emails. However if a 0.65% increase in closes willbreak a given campaign it is wise to remove them.
LOGO VS. NO LOGO DATA
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
50000
LINKED EMBEDDED NO LOGO
# Emails Se
# Response
# Closed
18.29% 10.58%
18.08%
6.03%
14.11%
LINKED LOGOSCLOSE RATE
6.86%Higher than no logo
LOGO VS. NO LOGO DATA
ANALYSIS
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ANALYSIS
Linked logos have the highest rate of close at 10.58% with elogos coming in strong at number two with a close rate of 6.0with no logos close at 3.72%.
INSIGHT
Including logos in outreach emails is a trust signal that leadsincrease in link closes.
ACTION
Link builders should put a brand behind their link building effinclude the logo for that brand in every outreach email.
TADA! IM AN
OUTREACH
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@ipullrank
MASTER!
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The Worth of A Link(shout out to Mike Essex)
@ipullrank
LINK EQUITY NOT LINK JUICE
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Formalizing the nomenclature allows clients to the idea of building linseriously when they think of it as building value into their online home
What link juice makes me think of What link equity makes me
LINK EQUITY AS THE FUNCTION OF A LINK BUY
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Use what it would cost to buy the number of links to explain the value of a bavalue of your labor is offset by the risk of being penalized.
Link Brokers charge $100/month for a PR5 link
Number of Links You Build Monthly
Price of Labor for those links monthly
THE VALUE OF LINK EQUITY YOU ARE BUILDING
LINK EQUITY AS THE FUNCTION OF CPC
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At iAcquire we use what it would cost to buy the incremental projecteSearch. This is a rough approximation of how that could be applied to
Incremental Traffic Increase As Computed by Projected VIncrease of Link Building Efforts
Cost Per Click in Paid Search
Price of Labor for those links monthly
THE VALUE OF LINK EQUITY YOU ARE BUILDING
Michael KingDirector of Inbound Marketing
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g
@iPullRank
www.iacquire.com
THANK YOU / Q&A