No man is an iland

April 30, 2008

I'm at a tradeshow all week, so the resultant lack of oxygen means no/few blog posts. Today I met my first live spammer. Which prompted me just to quickly highlight this news tidbit:

Response One surveyed over 1000 UK consumers and asked them about the types of advertising that were most effective in inspiring them to visit websites and make purchases.

Most effective?

Customer emails.

Least effective?

Unsolicited mobile text and unsolicited emails.

No further questions...

(For the full details see the R1 in the Press link for 24th April here.)

April 29, 2008

My last newsletter issue added an unsubscribe link to the very top of the email. So it looked like this (the font was bigger in the original):



Early days yet, but here's how doing this changed unsubscribe rates*:

Unsubscribe rate last issue (with unsubscribe link up top): 0.54%

Average unsubscribe rate for the previous five issues (with no unsubscribe link up top): 0.26%

It wasn't an A/B test and it's a small list. So I'm not going to claim statistical validity until the pattern continues (and maybe the last issue was just not up to usual standards). But the anecdotal suggestion is that it caused unsubscribes to rise.

Which is great, if true.

Every unsubscribe is potentially one less spam report.

Every unsubscribe is one less person likely to get annoyed at me and my website when getting another email.

Every unsubscribe is one less unwanted email cluttering up the airwaves and inboxes of this world.

*calculated as the number of reported unsubscribes as a percentage of total emails "received" (sent minus bounces).

Related post: Time to move the unsubscribe link?

(P.S. Please tell me what content you want on this blog - take the poll)

Tags: email marketing, unsubscribe links, list management, email deliverability

April 28, 2008

The trouble with ruts is you never know you're in one. Here's a question to ask yourself:

Do you evaluate your email campaigns based on the numbers available to you? Or do you decide what you want to evaluate and look for numbers that will support that process?

Think about it. The two are not the same.

When 95% of us login to our service or software's reporting interface, the only "big" numbers we see are:

• Emails sent (= list size)
• Opens
• Clicks or clickthrough rate

Are we perhaps lulled by tradition and convenience into putting too much emphasis on those numbers?

I'm guilty as charged myself and was only awoken from my reverie by this full-frontal assault on open rates by Loren McDonald. So here's the "simple" solution:

Be very clear about what your emails should achieve and then determine ways to measure whether you're successful.

In many cases, it's not hard. If you want sales, clearly you need to tie email clicks to concrete purchases at your website. A task that is easier with the growing availability of suitable web tracking packages that you can use with email.

But there are two other challenges that need more thought.

First, there are the indirect benefits of email. You may get your immediate sales, but how do you measure the impact of email on future sales? Or offline sales?

Second, some goals are more intangible. Relevancy? Engagement? Awareness? We're just starting to think of ways to measure these. I was much enthused by Joshua Baer's Relevance Score post. You can argue about his formula, but it's the attempt that matters.

How are you measuring your email's success?

(P.S. Please tell me what content you want on this blog - take the poll)

Tags: email marketing, email marketing statistics, email marketing metrics, open rates

April 25, 2008

I see blogs the way I see email: if they're not relevant and delivering consistent value to those reading them, then what's the point?

I can infer much from tracking visitor behavior and subscriber growth. But take the poll and tell me which direction you would like me to go content-wise on this blog.

Multiple answers allowed. You can also list specific requests using the "other" answer field or by adding a comment to this post. Appreciate your input!


(Feed readers click here to get to the survey. Cheers!)

April 24, 2008

Companies love publishing survey results. Because journalists love publishing survey results. But behind the PR are often key practical insights worth knowing...

Merkle just released their latest "View from the Inbox" report on consumer attitudes to email. (The press release links to the 11-page report, which is well worth reading.)

Among the insights...

1. Transaction confirmations are considered by far the most relevant kind of commercial email by recipients, providing further incentive to make better marketing use of these messages.

2. We know email can drive responses / sales, but 50% of respondents claim that good email influences the decision to do business with the sender, "either online or offline."

A reminder that there is much more to email than getting an immediate click. Don't underestimate the value of indirect or less measurable benefits.

3. The converse is, of course, that sending bad email means more than just not getting a click...

32% of recipients, "...stopped doing business with at least one company as a result of their poor email marketing practices."

In other words, bad email marketing is not just about a lost opportunity: it can actually lose you customers.

4. The survey confirms what we know about relevancy being important to subscribers, but also shows that frequency (sending too often) is a main cause of unsubscribes. The implication is that some unsubscribe requests are not because they don't like what you send, but because you send too much.

It's another reason it makes sense to have options to "stay subscribed but get less email" on the page people reach after clicking an unsubscribe link in your emails.

Meanwhile, a couple of other surveys reveal the gaps between what works best and what is done...

Shop.org's new State of Retailing Online report found that 73% of those customizing emails based on behavior or purchase data rate the tactic as "very effective." But less than half of those surveyed actually do it.

It's a similar story when it comes to targeting based on a subscriber's stated preferences.

Clearly there are technical and resource issues that stop people getting into targeting, though you can start simple.

But there are other areas where complying with best practices is the work of a few minutes.

eROI, for example, just released results of their survey on subscribe/unsubscribe practices.

Among the revelations, news that subscription thank you pages are used...but not properly. For example, just under half of those surveyed do not say thank you on the "thank you" page. And very few reiterate subscription benefits and start setting expectations etc.

These days, successful email marketing is about managing the email relationship properly from start to finish. And a key element in that process is setting the right expectations.

(The Merkle consumer email study found, for example, that a major reason for unsubscribing was getting emails that were not what was expected when signing up.)

Sign-up copy, welcome messages and thank you pages are prime places to start setting these expectations and delivering the value that keeps people engaged.

Even $20 a month email marketing services have the functionality that lets you serve up a thank you page or a welcome email to new subscribers. And it doesn't take long to put the right words in them.

Tags: email marketing, email marketing metrics, consumer email use, email, Merkle, eROI

April 23, 2008

The latest ISP Deliverability Report Card from Lyris always makes interesting reading. I can never make complete sense of the numbers given, but the basic takeaway is this:

Typically, just under 18% of the opt-in emails sent out get diverted into the recipient's junk/spam folder.

"So what?" I hear you say smugly, "My campaign reports tell me my delivery rates are near 100% so it's the competition that obviously has a problem."

Paraphrasing from an older article on campaign reports:

Typical reports calculate the delivery rate based on the number of emails sent minus the number that were "returned to sender," i.e. the bounces.

Unfortunately, this "delivered" number does not take account of emails silently deleted by various anti-spam mechanisms in place around the Internet. Nor those emails that get delivered to the recipient, but diverted into their spam or junk folder.

In other words, the number given in your reports does not tell you the number of emails that actually end up in an inbox.

How do you know if you have a problem?

Various services offer inbox monitoring as part of a broader deliverability service package. And dedicated monitoring services are popping up, like DeliveryMonitor and Delivery Watch.

Note also that the 18% figure is an aggregate number given by Lyris. When you look at individual ISPs, the percentages of incoming opt-in mail getting diverted into junk folders can vary enormously.

So the problem may be much worse (or better) depending on the makeup of your list.

What can you do about it?

Deliverability is a big topic. But the quick and twee answer is:

• Regular removal of dead addresses through list and bounce management
• Keep spam complaints down by making it easy to unsubscribe
• Keep spam complaints down by only sending to those who expressly requested your emails, and then meeting their expectations by making your emails relevant and valuable (not the first time you read that advice I expect).

P.S. Don't expect your subscribers to make the effort to retrieve permission-based emails that land in the wrong folder. According to Merkle, 73% of those consumers aware that requested emails can get wrongly identified as spam, "...don't care that this is occurring."

Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, spam filters, spam, anti-spam

April 21, 2008

If you talk to deliverability experts, they'll tell you to use different sender IP addresses for processing your transactional and marketing email.

Marketing emails are important, but transactional emails (order confirmations, electronic invoices etc.) are critical.

The emails that trigger delivery problems tend to be marketing ones. So the argument goes like this: if you keep the two separate, then should your marketing emails accidentally land the sending IP address on an email blacklist, this won't stop your mission-critical transactional emails from getting delivered.

So why not apply the same concept to your best subscribers?

Why not have different sending IP addresses for emails to "premium" and "standard" subscribers?

Premium subscribers are your high-value subscribers. The ones producing the most profit / responses.

By definition, they should be the ones interacting / engaging with your emails most. So they're not the ones likely to hit "report spam" buttons and get you blacklisted.

This is more likely to happen with the less-engaged standard subscriber. So if the latter cause your main list to run into deliverability problems, you're still able to email those premium high-value recipients.

(Delivery experts please weigh in with thoughts on the plausibility and usefulness of this approach!)

Possible issues to think about:

1. Defining a "premium" subscriber...at what point do you graduate a subscriber to the "premium" list? Or relegate them back to the "standard" list?

2. By taking out the active, happy subscribers from the main list, you make it more likely for this standard list to run into delivery problems...potential complainers now make up a greater percentage of the total list.

3. Spam reports are just one cause of delivery problems. You still need to follow deliverability best practices (such as keeping your bounces low) to ensure the "premium" list stays clean.

4. It adds another layer of complexity to your email marketing.

Thoughts? Examples? Counterarguments?

Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, email blacklists

April 17, 2008

Wreathed in pipe smoke, my MSc supervisor smiled wryly as we all demanded to know the required pass mark for the final exams. His response: "If you're good enough, you'll pass."

Fast forward 20 years and AOL say the same thing about acceptable bounce levels:

"A high number is a number higher than that which we consider indicative of a good mailer."

What sounds like a facetious comment actually makes intuitive sense, as Al Iverson explains in this post.

AOL are not interested in the absolute percentage of bounces you produce, but how you stack up compared to everyone else sending bulk email. Fall into the wrong end of the spectrum and they classify you as a spammer.

Take a note of the AOL approach to acceptable bounce thresholds because your subscribers are following the same model.

Getting attention in the inbox is not (just) about scoring a certain number of points with the subscriber, it's about being better than all the other emails competing for attention.

Research a while back showed that subscribers have an "inner circle" of subscriptions, limited to a few emails. Getting into that inner circle means displacing and then remaining one of the top 10-20 sources of email in the eyes of each subscriber.

The thresholds you need to exceed to maintain that status keep changing. And all the other email senders are improving their efforts in an attempt to bump you out of the top 20.

So while it's important to have specific targets (opens, subject line lengths, clicks, sales, deliverability etc.), it's more important to realize that you have to keep striving for continuous improvement, even when you reach those targets.

J.D. Falk expresses the concept well in this quote:

"Your job is to be better than the best: the most relevant, the most respectful, the most wanted commercial email that each of your subscribers receive."

How do we do this?

1. We set expectations, then monitor the important blogs, events and other sources of advice to find out how to keep exceeding these expectations.

So we're not surprised when optimum subject line lengths change and can refine our strategy to account for new developments.

2. We conduct regular audits of our email efforts. These links will help with that:

• The audit every marketer should love
• Your annual email audit in a box
• Done your taxes? Audit your email marketing

April 16, 2008

The open rate this week was 31%. Last week it was 28%. [Long pause] Um...OK. [Silence]

Campaign reports are like exhibits in a Museum of Modern Art. We're pretty certain they're valuable, but we're not quite sure what they're trying to say.

Is there some deep meaning in there about the nature of our subject lines? Or is it just random numbers?

Here some tips to help you get your head around those report metrics...

Look at the right numbers

Open rates and click rates are discussed everywhere. The danger is we focus on those two to the exclusion of other numbers: numbers that truly reflect how our emails are performing in the context of what we want to achieve.

Each of the numbers you get in a report tells you something. But the final measure of an email's performance is not usually the open rate...it's how the email contributed to your stated goals: sales, downloads, pageviews, customer interactions, whatever.

Understand what the number really represents

Interpreting a number starts with understanding exactly what it represents. Be sure you understand how a number is measured and calculated.

To the innocent, for example, the term "open rate" implies conscious effort on behalf of the recipient to view your email. We know that's not true.

And does an open rate of 30% mean 3000 people opened one of the 10,000 emails you sent. Or 300 people opened an email ten times? Or 1500 people opened one of the 5,000 emails that didn't bounce back as undeliverable? Megan Ouellet has some more examples along these lines.

Compare the right numbers

Numbers in isolation have little meaning. They are only relevant when compared to other numbers. Is an open rate of 12% good? Good compared to what?

Previously, much weight was given to comparisons with published benchmarks. How does my open rate compare with industry averages?

While such statistics have some value, they don't help much with practical decision making.

If you're looking to sell your Ferrari, it helps little to know the average price for all used car sales in the USA.

The useful comparisons are with your previous results and your goals. So you can relate changes in results to changes in your emails and list. So you can repeat the things that bring improvements and avoid those that don't. Spencer Kollas and DJ Waldow have both written recently on this topic.

Consider the full range of explanations

When interpreting numbers, the tendency is to jump on the obvious or traditional explanation for a change.

My sales dropped, clearly the offer wasn't good enough. My open rate increased, so my subject line was better.

As Anna Billstrom describes, it may not be so simple. There can be several explanations for a change in performance, and it pays to give each due consideration. In particular...

Look at numbers together

...avoid looking at numbers in isolation. The email you send provokes a chain of events at the subscriber's end:

[receive] --> [open] --> [click] --> [take further action]

The different numbers within a report each represent a position on that chain. And each number impacts on the subsequent numbers further along the chain. Low sales do not indicate a poor offer if you know that hardly anybody saw the email in the first place.

Be aware of things that don't show up

It sounds obvious, but campaign reports feature those numbers that are easily measured. They don't provide numbers on intangibles or any effects that are long-term in nature.

This can lead to poor decision making.

If it cost $1000 to send out a campaign and it brought in $5000 in immediate sales, you'd judge it a success. But what if those emails were mind numbingly uninteresting to the vast majority of your subscribers.

The reports don't tell you about the long-term brand damage and subsequent lost sales through other channels. So you need to remain aware of what's missing from the spreadsheet.

Do something with them

Finally, understanding and interpreting reports only has purpose if you then use the results to make improvements to your emails or tests.

This isn't just about using insights to change elements of your email program, for example by knowing which offers get the most response. It's also about passing on those insights and numbers to other parts of the business.

If you know which subject lines resonate with your subscribers, can you use that info when writing ads for your PPC search engine listings?

In another example, Michael DesRochers highlights the value to sales or service staff of knowing who clicked on an email and where.

Now go out and enjoy the art...

More on email marketing statistics | Tags: email marketing, email marketing metrics, email reports

...those companies who kindly sponsor Email Marketing Reports so that I don't have to put all this behind a payment barrier and charge for access. Keeping this blog and site free for you are:

VerticalResponse, who continue to add free features to their value-priced email marketing service (the latest is the option to use a CAPTCHA in your sign-up forms.)

Campaigner, who offer advanced automated and targeted email campaigns with their CampaignerPro Workflows solution.

StreamSend, whose email marketing solution now integrates with Google Analytics.

Laredo Group, whose many training services include a course on "intelligent email marketing."

EmailReach, who now offer a free trial of their Delivery Audit product.

A typical working day sees over 1000 visits to the Email Marketing Reports site, with just under 3,500 subscribers getting content via the blog feed or email newsletter. Check out the sponsorship opportunities.

April 15, 2008

If we're going to talk about relationships in email marketing, then let's abuse the metaphor a little. The sign-up form is your flirtatious comment, the kind gesture, the body language that encourages someone to enter into a relationship with you (by submitting their email address).

So it better be good.

Otherwise you'll be left in the corner eating peanuts and reading CD covers while everyone else enjoys the email party.

Now there are many established "rules" for sign-up forms, part of what Loren McDonald calls GABPs or Generally Accepted Best Practices.

Problem is few of us follow them.

Perhaps because we designed the form when we first set out on the email marketing journey and then forgot about it.

Or we falsely assume people are desperate to sign up for our messages, regardless of how uninviting we make the prospect (a point covered eloquently by Melinda Krueger in this article).

Time then to take another look at your forms and ensure they tick all the right boxes on the best practice checklist:

• 10 tips for better sign-up forms
• Ten things you should have in your opt-in form

(Also take a peek at recent posts from Justin Premick and Tom O'Leary on sign-up form usability and increasing subscription rates.)

Consider also that relationships and trust need time to develop. You don't expect someone to tell you their innermost thoughts on a first date. There's a lesson there when you consider what information you require at sign-up.

Dylan Boyd has some thoughts on what data you ask for beyond the email address, and explains how you might be better off requesting that information later on in the relationship.

More on list building | Tags: email marketing, email list growth, email address acquisition, sign-up forms, subscription forms

April 14, 2008

The debate about social media, Web 2.0 etc. displacing email has moved on from the aggressive posturing stage as we recognize that the two live side by side, each influenced by the other.

The question is not whether social networks and other alternative communication media will kill email, but how they will change email. How can you exploit new online developments to boost your email marketing results?

There are two approaches here.

Transfer concepts

The first is to take the concepts underpinning the success of things like Wikipedia, Flickr, Facebook, del.icio.us etc. and see if they might find application in email.

A good example is the idea of "interaction" and "user generated content"...which drive all four of the above success stories.

Email was designed as a two-way communication technology. But email marketing has never really recognized this. As you can tell from the vocabulary used. We push out messages to passive recipients. It's largely a one-way stream of content and promotions.

So why not look to make your emails more of a two-way dialog? It's not a new idea and is part of the renaissance of the email relationship as subscriber power grows (they have "report spam" buttons, we don't have "report subscriber" buttons.)

In her article on newsletter engagement, Jeanne Jennings writes...

"There are many ways to encourage readers to interact with an e-mail newsletter or Web site and just as many ways to use the resulting content."

...and she lists a few possibilities for you to consider. Her fellow columnist Karen Gedney touches on similar themes: the subscriber as a source (as well as a receptacle) of content.

Exploit the technology

The other approach is to look for innovative email opportunities among the new technologies. We're still camped fairly securely at the bottom of the learning curve here, but Simms Jenkins has some ideas in his latest article.

Another fascinating idea comes from Marty Weintraub, who suggests thinking of blog comment threads as micro-targeted email lists.

When people add a comment to a blog post, they often subscribe to get further comments via email. Which opens opportunities for the owners of the blog to post relevant comments to that "email list" with a smidgen of promotion thrown in. It's not dissimilar to the thinking behind adding marketing elements to transactional emails.

Anyone else got any ideas of how Web 2.0 or social networks can benefit email marketing?

Tags: email marketing, social networks

I try to add value with each post, but sometimes you just have to "shrug and quote"...

Writing about a poor email solicitation from Forbes, Seth Godin notes that the outcome of any kind of spam (email, blog etc.)...

"...is that it eats away at your brand. If you don't have a brand, you might make some short term cash but it gets tiresome creating annoyance everywhere you go. If you do have a brand...you don't notice the brand erosion... until it's too late."

Very succinctly put. Of course, a common response is to say, "Well, I know that. But I don't send spam, so I'm OK."

None of us (I hope) are spammers in the traditional sense. But we need to acknowledge the ever-present possibility that some recipients could perceive us as spammers.

1. ...because the difference between a legitimate marketing email and a piece of spam is always a matter of perception.

2. ...because we now know that recipients consider unwanted solicited email to be spam, not just unwanted unsolicited email.

Once you understand that risk and the consequences of "spamming," then the need to pursue best practices becomes clear...even if less-than-best practices are still making money for you at the moment.

More on the basics | Tags: email marketing, permission marketing, spam

April 11, 2008

There are two types of email content. The first is the content we tweak, test, craft and obsess over. The second is the content we wrote once, then forgot.

Offers and article teasers fall into the first category, administrative footers fall into the second.

Unfortunately, some content languishes in the second category that should rather go in the first. "Forward to a friend" (FTF) links are perhaps one of those.

Unless your emails are specifically designed as part of some viral campaign where forwarding is a core goal, you probably give no thought to the wording or location of the FTF link.

It's likely buried down the bottom of the email and features exactly that wording..."forward to a friend" or the equally exciting "Send to a friend."

But just as we've rediscovered the value of repositioning the unsubscribe link, perhaps we need to give some love to FTF; reconsider both its position in the email and, more importantly, its wording.

Is "forward to a friend" sufficiently inspiring to provoke someone to do so? Would it not be better to say something more relevant to the content being forwarded?

At a simple level, would you write "forward to a friend" in a B2B email? Wouldn't "forward to a colleague" be more appropriate?

And we can do much better than that.

What's better? "Forward to a friend" or "Let your friends get free shipping, too. Forward this email!"

FTF deserves the same attention you'd give to any call to action in your email.

If you're looking for inspiration, Chad White's blog on retail email often has examples. See, for example, the "cleverest use of send to a friend" category in the Design Hall of Fame: 2007 Inductees post or this post on a JCPenny email.

Anyone else got some good examples?

More on copywriting | Tags: email marketing, forward to a friend, send to a friend, viral marketing

Challenging news and good news from some surveys of iPhone use (photo courtesy of Apple).

Digitimes reports on an iSuppli survey revealing that iPhone users spend almost four times as much time with mobile email than traditional mobile phone users...

"...the speed (via Wi-Fi) and ergonomics of the iPhone are compelling users to access their personal email more frequently..."

Another survey by Rubicon Consulting also suggests the iPhone is bumping up mobile email use.

It reveals that reading email is the most used iPhone data function and that the iPhone is growing the overall smartphone (and thus mobile email) market at the expense of "normal" mobile devices.

So the challenging news is that mobile email is growing ever more important, meaning you need to adjust your email approach accordingly.

The good news is that one of the reasons the iPhone is used so much for email and other online activities is because it offers a good user experience, with excellent rendering of HTML email, for example.

Which takes some of the pressure off the task of designing for mobile devices, especially as other manufacturers follow that lead.

How do you meet the mobile email challenge? MarketingProfs has a new article on the topic, and you'll find many more articles here.

Tags: email marketing, mobile email, wireless email, email design, iPhone

April 10, 2008

When the disinterested subscriber is looking for something to click, better they find the unsubscribe link than the "report spam" button.

So we agreed that one way to reduce spam complaints is to make your unsubscribe link more prominent.

Ah, but we forgot something.

This only helps reduce complaints if the actual unsubscribe process is quick and painless. If it isn't, your unsubscribe link actually increases spam reports.

Graham Charlton reports on one complicated unsubscribe process and notes:

"How many email users would choose to go through this...when they can just hit the spam button and achieve the same effect for far less hassle?"

Exactly.

It's not hard to find others with similar stories. Anna Billstrom describes an example here. And one irate consumer makes the point robustly.

Here's the graph:



Unfortunately, some marketers take the Ikea approach to subscriber management. Once you're in Ikea, it's hard to get out again. Not without following the long route that takes you through almost the entire store.

Ikea can "trap" me because I have no viable alternative once I'm in. Plus there's a restaurant at the end selling cheap meatballs and cake, which makes up for the long walk.

Subscribers, however, do have alternatives if they feel trapped by your inadequate unsubscribe process. They can hit the "report spam" button instead. (And you don't give them cake for not doing so.)

So how do you make the unsubscribe process painless? Some quick tips...

1. Don't require subscribers to login to change their email preferences

"I could spend 10 minutes searching for my login details or I could spend 1 second hitting the "junk email" button."

2. Don't require more than 3 clicks to achieve the goal. One click to get to your website through the unsubscribe link. One click to maybe uncheck/check the right box (if you must). One click to hit the "confirm" button.

3. Don't require additional information from the user before accepting the unsubscribe request. You can ask for additional information (like the reason for unsubscribing) but don't make this obligatory.

4. Check the technology regularly and make sure it works. Not just when you set it up, but at regular intervals after that, too.

And four related tips:

1. Be prepared to process requests that don't come the conventional way. Such as handwritten unsubscribe letters (very sweet).

2. When someone unsubscribes on your website, display a page confirming the removal. If they send in an unsubscribe request by email, send an email telling them they are no longer on the list.

If you don't confirm the unsubscribe, the subscriber has no way of knowing if their request actually worked. So they may resort to the "report spam" button just to be sure.

3. Get the address off your list as fast as possible.

Sometimes anti-spam law (like Can-Spam in the USA) gives you a period of grace before you have to stop sending emails following an opt-out. Ex-subscribers give you a period of grace too. About 5 seconds.

Any email arriving after an unsubscribe will likely be seen as spam.

They won't think, "Oh, clearly there are some internal database management issues that limit the timeliness of address removal processing, so I'll wait a few days before I get concerned."

They'll think, "Why am I getting this after I asked them to stop?"

If an unsubscribe is not immediate, warn people that they might get another email before the changes take affect.

4. As we've discussed before. Not everyone really wants to unsubscribe. If you have the resources, set up a subscriber preference center to give subscribers control over how much email they get and how often.

Articles elsewhere on unsubscribe processes:

Why Easy Unsubscribing Really Is Better by Stefan Pollard
Email Marketing Mistake #2: Not Optimizing the Unsubscribe Process by Loren McDonald
Managing unsubscribes (archives here at Email Marketing Reports)

Tags: email marketing, unsubscribe links, list management, email deliverability

April 09, 2008

An unpleasant question. But a visitor commenting on a recent post on the role of the "report spam" button makes an interesting observation.

What's to stop unscrupulous competitors from signing up lots of webmail accounts to your list, then using the "report spam" button to generate a swathe of complaints...potentially getting you blacklisted at that webmail service?

Here's the comment in full:

"What about those people that sign up for competitors news letters and intentionally mark them as spam to help prevent them from being delivered?

Its not that crazy of an idea to have 50 yahoo accounts and all of them subscribed to a newsletter you don't want to get out. If you have the power to issue 50 complaints its going to make an impact, especially for a smaller newsletter."

Seeking enlightenment, I put the question to Al Iverson, ExactTarget's Director of Privacy & Deliverability, and publisher of the Spam Resource blog.

Here's Al's response in full, reproduced with his permission...

"Unless somebody is so evil as to build automation to go into those 50 Yahoo accounts and mark all that mail as spam, they're really not going to have the ability to do significant damage to a sending reputation.

I sign up for competitor newsletters (and client and prospect newsletters) all the time, just to keep my finger on the pulse of email. I can tell you that it's not easy to wrangle it all. I just don't see some random angry guy being able to do enough damage to cause a problem. It's hard enough to log in and check all my various accounts, even when I don't have any sort of nefarious intent.

Also, some ISPs are even smart enough to note that an account is new, or never opens and reads emails, or isn't really "engaged," and is likely to give a lower score to spam reports from those accounts, compared to spam reports from more observably "regular" users.

Sure, I've heard a blocked sender here or there complain about how there must be somebody on their list out to cause trouble. But, the data never agrees. After reviewing the stats, it's invariably due to lack of recipient engagement or issues with permission, generally over a long period of time.

A bunch of black marks against you all at once from one place (an IP, a domain, a specific ISP), happens, but not for that reason. It's usually because you likely haven't had insight into complaints or feedback or other data from that specific source prior, and there's potentially ill will built up against you that you haven't known to do anything about before.

Nothing I've ever seen suggests that there's any sort of conspiracy by an angry person or group managing a giant block of accounts all of whom suddenly flip the switch against you all at once."

Thanks Al!

More on delivery issues | Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, spam, anti-spam

Don Quixote had his windmills, email designers have Outlook and...Gmail. Yes, Gmail continues to frustrate with its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to displaying HTML email.

The folk at the Email Standards Project (ESP) have set out to engage the main email players in discussions about HTML email rendering standards.

But while Yahoo! Mail, for example, has proved remarkably responsive, the ESP team has yet to penetrate the walls of Google. Frustrated at their lack of success, they concocted a cunning plan...

Google likes spreading the Gmail message via video. So the ESP has taken their lead with this message. Can humor unlock the door to Gmail's heart? Spread the word!

April 08, 2008

After all the fuss with Outlook 2007's treatment of HTML email, you might be forgiven a resigned grimace at the "news" that Outlook does unusual things to your plain text emails, too.

Surely it's impossible to mess around with the display of a plain text email (or the text-only version sent with your HTML email)?

Apparently not.

Kudos and gratitude to the makers of Text Formatter Plus for alerting us to the following problem.

Conventional wisdom says you keep your line lengths in text emails to 60 or so characters, and add a hard return (i.e. press the enter key) at the end of each line.

This ensures your text email appears in a nice column, with no formatting gremlins. Like this:



But later versions of Outlook don't respect the hard return. Instead, they read each paragraph as one long line. Messy and unreadable when viewed in a wide window.

I didn't believe this, so fired up the Campaign Monitor design preview tool and ran the above text email through it. Now the worst you would normally expect is some format problems through the use of different display fonts. As in the Yahoo! Mail example:



Now look at the screenshots for Outlook 2003:



Outlook 2007:



...and Outlook XP:



Only Outlook Express 6 formats the line lengths as intended:



According to Text Formatter Plus, the solution is to add 3 extra spaces to any line not ending a paragraph.

And this works. Here the revised email in Outlook XP for example:



So...

• Plain text emails need design testing, too (here some design testing tools and services)
• If your plain text email is automatically generated from the HTML version by your email marketing service or software, check it works in the various versions of Outlook. If not, correct it manually.
• Consider using a text email formatting tool that takes care of this issue for you.

Tags: More on formatting plain text email | Tags: email marketing, outlook 2007, email design, text email, email formats

For your information and entertainment, various vendors and media folk bring you the following events and webinars.

Introduction to email marketing
...click here for a list of weekly webinars for newcomers from various vendors.

CEAS 2008
...the fifth Conference on Email and Anti-Spam.
August 21 - 22, Mountain View, CA

Email Marketing Days
...Listrak-hosted event.
Sept 7 - 9, Philadelphia, PA

Email Insider Summit
...one of the big US email marketing conferences. High-level, with a strong focus on networking.
Dec 7-10, Park City, Utah

MarketingSherpa's Email Summit 09
...another of the big US email marketing conferences with a strong practical focus.
March 15-17, Miami, Florida

Tags: email marketing

I'm attending all three days of Internet World / Direct Marketing Fair, 29th April - 1st May in London.

Would welcome the chance to talk email marketing with any readers.

UPDATE: You'll find me on Stand E277 (Memorable Domains), helping out a good friend with his online marketing business.

Amusingly, we're just below the email marketing booths. So I'll spend any quiet time dropping in on the vendors and asking annoying questions.

The first 20 people to come up and say "Email is dead" get a marzipan chocolate (see photo) from Vienna.

Seriously, come and say hi. Or you can pre-book your chocolate by getting in touch.

April 07, 2008

Time to drop a hook into the waters of the web and see what fresh case studies bite.

The good...

We start with reviews of emails that get it largely right...

Justin Premick looks at the strategy, design and targeting approach in travel site Kayak.com's emails. While Andrew Seel highlights the good points in consultancy Stanton Marris's newsletter (but still suggests some possible improvements).

Then some articles on specific aspects of email marketing...

DJ Waldow reviews the positives in the opt-in process used by CBS Sports. Then he switches to the other end of the relationship and (together with Kimberly Snyder) discusses how various companies position and present the unsubscribe links in their emails. (A hot topic of late.)

InternetRetailer has a brief case study on Jelly Belly's email marketing, which includes some indication of the potential deliverability benefits of email certification.

And finally, Lisa Harmon describes some best practices when featuring videos in email (or links to videos), using screenshots and examples to make her case.

The bad...

Josh Nason wags his finger at California Tortilla, not just for their poor layout, but for failing to live up to their brand image with their messages. (Another example of an email disconnect.)

...and the political candidates

Josh (again) is a little kinder about Barack Obama's choice of subject lines, as the email efforts of would-be US presidents continue to attract interest from marketers.

Anne Holland also visits the topic area, reviewing the sign-up pages, welcome messages, responsiveness, newsletters and "special offers" of the Obama, Clinton and McCain teams. As does Al DiGuido, who's not happy and has his own recommendations on how to use email in political marketing.

More case studies | Tags: email marketing, political emails, video email, email certification, email subject lines, list building

April 03, 2008

A few days ago, we saw some real-world examples of email marketing tests that produced whopping big returns for the marketers involved.

I'm often shocked at just how much benefit you can get out of little tweaks to your templates and tactics. Here are some more examples to get you thinking about some tests and changes that might bring you bottom line benefits.

Subject lines and offers

Bill Siwicki gets various top retailers to reveal the results of several tests on email subject lines and offers.

For example, "$5 off $50" got a better response than "$10 off $75" for Discount Dance. And wine retailer Vinfolio lifted revenues 20% by shifting their "other highlighted wines" footer to the top right of their emails.

Preheaders and snippet text

Bronto's Caroline Smith reveals the benefits of putting marketing copy in the preheader (the bit normally pointing you at the web version of an email).

Blooms Today "increased their above the fold click-throughs significantly" and the link in the preheader "generated a higher click through percentage than any other link in the entire message."

No images, no problem

In an article about designing for blocked images, SubscriberMail reveal two juicy numbers.

First, 60% of the executives they surveyed viewed email with images turned off. Which is a number that should get you serious about ensuring your emails work when the images you use are blocked from displaying.

Second, they found that "...optimizing to ensure effective messaging even when images are off delivered an 87 percent increase in clicks."

An 87% increase in clicks through a few simple design changes.

Unsubscribe links

Yesterday I spoke in favor of putting an unsubscribe link right at the top of your emails. In a comment, blog reader "gjhead" wrote..."I started adding an unsubscribe link to the top of our e-mails a few months back...I've noticed a drop in the amount of Spam Complaints since doing this. So in our case, it's been working as far as I can tell"

So there you have it: small changes, big benefits. Go get 'em.

Tags: email marketing, subject lines, email copywriting, email tests, image blocking, email design

April 02, 2008

So we know that a lot of people hit the "report spam" button as an alternative to using the unsubscribe link in your email. Why is this?

One reason is trust. Or rather a lack of it.

Not believing that an unsubscribe link will be honored. Or that using the link simply confirms the existence of an email address with an active user behind it, leading to more "spam."

Another reason is an inability to find the unsubscribe link. Or laziness. Why scroll down searching for the link when you can click "this is junk" and achieve the same effect?

This problem is recognized implicitly when experts urge you to make your unsubscribe link prominent. Except they usually say, "ensure you have a prominent unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email." Which is an oxymoron, surely?

So why not put an unsubscribe link right up the top of your emails?

It's not a new concept. Writing in 2006, Stephanie Miller noted that "...in practice, you want the unsubscribe link to be just as easy to find as the "this is spam" button." And I get a couple of newsletters that already do it.

But perhaps it's an idea whose time has now come...

If it's there in the preview pane, then more people are likely to use it instead of reporting you as spam. Less spam reports means a better sender reputation and less chance of ending up on a blacklist.

Plus - if people use that unsubscribe link, then you have a chance to present them with alternatives at the destination page. Given the choice, they may actually prefer to reduce the email frequency, or switch to a different content offering, rather than simply unsubscribe.

Improved deliverability and more retained subscribers are two good arguments for the move.

But what are the downsides?

Here are the objections I've come across before...

1. Putting an unsubscribe link up top simply encourages people to unsubscribe who might otherwise have stayed on your list.

Hmmm...if people are so disinterested in your emails that the mere sight of an unsubscribe link causes them to leave your list, the loss should be welcomed. Objection denied!

2. People are used to finding unsubscribe information at the bottom of emails.

So have a link at the bottom, too. Objection denied!

3. The prominence of the unsubscribe link suggests we have no confidence in the quality of our emails.

Interesting. What is the psychological impact of a more prominent unsubscribe link?

Does it suggest insecurity about the email's value?

Or does it suggest confidence in this value? As in "we make it easy to unsubscribe because we know you won't want to."

Any thoughts?

4. It takes up valuable real estate.

As attention spans shrink across the world's inboxes, those first few lines in your email grow in value. Together with the from and subject headers, they are the nectar, the hook, the mesmerizing light that grabs the viewer and draws them into reading on or taking action.

Do we want to clutter this space further with a link that serves administrative purposes only?

That will depend. Will an unsubscribe link do that much damage to your design? I'm sure in many cases the answer is no.

What we may find is the very tops of emails becoming a menu of three links preceded by a snippet of promotional text:


Possibly with the addition of a "change preferences" link too. Or is that too much? Any other objections? Or thoughts on the best positioning for that unsubscribe link?

(P.S. Of course, the best way to reduce spam reports is to send email that people want to stay subscribed too. An obvious, somewhat facetious point, but one that sometimes gets lost in the debate.)

Update: Check out my results from adding an unsubscribe link up top.

More on unsubscribes | Tags: email marketing, unsubscribe links, list management, email deliverability

April 01, 2008

Marketers cursing the overzealous use of report spam buttons will enjoy a new email list management tool due to be launched today by Bluegill Mail.

The "report subscriber" button is a browser add-on that lets marketers report those email recipients who never open or respond to email messages.

If a subscriber attracts enough complaints, then the email address appears on the Bluegill public subscriber blacklist. Any marketer can then use the blacklist to block that address from ever joining their email lists.

According to a spokesman for the add-on's developers, the aim is to boost campaign results by preventing unresponsive subscribers from getting on a list in the first place.

While an interesting concept, I foresee various problems:

1. There is currently no procedure for subscribers to get their address removed from the blacklist.

2. Marketers may hit the "report subscriber" button as a proxy for deleting that user from their list, which would lead to unfair blacklisting.

3. Who decides how long a subscriber must be inactive before a valid complaint can be made? Will my address get blacklisted simply because I took a long vacation and ignored emails for a month?

What do you think?

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