Do You Know Your Email Marketing?

Knowledge Guide: Do You Know Your Email Marketing? Analysis of the Email Marketing Quiz virtualroi May 2010 by: Sally Lowery Online Marketing Manager

Analysis of the Email Marketing Quiz The virtualroi Email Marketing Knowledge Quiz proved to be very popular across both the B2B and B2C space and provided substantial evidence that although respondents are doing some form of email marketing, many aren t up to date on best practices, optimization techniques or industry trends. Throughout 2009, we quizzed more than 3,000 marketers across multiple industries and asked ques-tions pertaining to deliverability, optimization tactics and terminology. The quiz was spread across multiple online channels including email marketing, banner advertising, and search engine marketing. We targeted marketers specifically through partners such as DM News, Magilla Marketing, emarketer, and Marketing Profs. We decided that a simple 10 question quiz would give us a great deal of insight into where marketer s stand today in regards to email marketing. The assumption is that everyone is already doing best practices, but as the quiz revealed, that isn t always the case. Respondents included industries such as online retail, interactive agencies, entertainment, healthcare, and publishing. The size of business ranged evenly from small businesses/non-profits to enterprise-level organizations. The states that carried the most respondents included California and New York. It s very important to point out, that we didn t isolate this quiz to just our customers. We opened this up to anyone responding to our campaign. We graded our respondents from an A to F grading. With an A+ being the highest score. Respondents of the quiz ranged from an A to D grade with the highest percentage carrying a B+. In this overview, we will review the questions asked within the Email Marketing IQ Quiz as well as give detailed analysis of today s trends. 1. What following practices assist with deliverability? Proper html coding (4.90%) Include text version (1.80%) Effective Subject Lines (4.58%) Recognized From Address (6.41%) All of the Above (76.57%) None of the Above (5.74%) 1

Deliverability continues to be a hot topic amongst email marketers, for good reason. If you do every-thing you can to create a truly engaging campaign, but your message isn t making it in the inbox, then you won t see the return you had hoped for. While the majority of respondents answered this question correctly, all of the above, there was still 24% of respondents that aren t aware of best practices for ensuring that your message gets delivered. It s critical to have proper html coding, not only from a rendering perspective, but also from a deliverability perspective. Effective subject lines not only assist with deliverability, but they also aid you in increasing your open rate. A compelling, relevant subject line will deliver success over and over again. If you have a recognized from address then the recipient will be certain to not push you to their SPAM filter. It s also encouraged to request a subscriber to add you to their safe-sender list once they ve subscribed. 2. What is the definition of conversion pathing? Conversion focused landing experience designed to convert incoming traffic (51.80%) Micro-site that contains multiple conversion paths (19.13%) Landing page that drives conversions by removing navigation (29.03%) 2

Only half of our respondents answered correctly to this question. As our customers and prospects be-come more savvy online, so does the need for our landing experiences. The landing pages of the past that had a great deal of content to digest and didn't always relate to the respondent are no longer ef-fective. Creating a conversion-focused experience from your email marketing campaigns will increase your conversions from incoming traffic. We actually created our Email Marketing IQ Quiz as a landing experience. While we created an education quiz on email marketing, we also were able to score our respondents and gain valuable insight into their email marketing while they engaged click after click. Our overall conversion rate for this quiz was 43.69%. Over half of those that responded to the cam-paign, converted as a lead for us. Think about how you can customize the landing experience for your prospects and customers to create a truly engaging landing experience. Here are a few tips to consider: Match Your Message. The post-click message should mirror the offer that initiated the first click. Keep the Content Relevant. The content should be compelling. If it isn't, it won't keep them engaged. Learn From Abandonments. Where are you losing your respondents? Analyze your content and create actionable solutions for creating more conversions. Your respondents are alive and clicking, and your campaigns need to adapt. Consider delivering each individual the right-targeted message and fulfillment. So rethink your landing pages and begin to think landing experiences using conversion paths. 3. What is the term for the number of times that users click on links in a message or on a Web site? LinkClick Rate (17.90%) Click Through (63.99%) User Click (11.59%) Unique Click (6.48%) The click-through rate represents the number of times that a users clicks on a specific link within an email message. Click through rate (CTR) is a good metric to analyze because it illustrates individual recipient activity, confirms interest in a linked topic, and makes for easy segments built on contacts that clicked on certain links. 4. In this type of campaign, messages are sent to a select audience, chosen for their profile or past behavior: Direct email marketing (8.53%) Targeted marketing (33.47%) Segmented marketing (57.82%) Segmenting your audience will enable you to deliver a highly relevant message more effectively. While most of our respondents missed this one based on semantics, ultimately it's not the naming conven-tion, but the implementation in your email-marketing program that will create true program success. Segmenting is an easy tactic that enables marketers to learn more about each specific group or audi-ence they interact with, allowing them to better tailor their content and send more targeted mes-sages. According to MarketingSherpa, the nonsegmented promotional campaign receives a.48% click through rate, versus a 6.68% click through rate on a segmented promotional campaign. 3

5. An undelivered email returned to the sender is referred to as what? Undeliverable (18.89%) Bounce (65.61%) Returned (5.32%) Non-deliverable (10.11%) Knowing deliverability terminology is the first step in identifying deliverability issues that exist within your email-marketing program and how you can effectively impact deliverability. Only 65.61% cor-rectly identified an undelivered email returned to the sender as a bounce. When a bounce occurs, ISPs generally classify the bounce as being "hard" or "soft". The general difference between the two is that a soft bounce may be resolved if resent again after a delay, whereas a hard bounce will most likely not succeed if resent. Technically, soft bounces are referred to as "Persistent Transient Failures", while hard bounces are "Permanent Failures". Bounces can be further broken down into six categories that will assist you more with identifying your message deliveability. The three types of soft bounces are Temporary Contact Issue, Destination Tem-porarily Unreachable, and Deferred Message Content. The three types of hard bounces are Bad Email Address, Destination Unreachable, and Rejected Message Content. Each bounce type is described in detail below: 1. Bad Email Address A bad email address error indicates the email server in question has indicated that this is not a valid account. Whether the contact has left that host, had a typo in their registration, or just that the email address was entirely made up cannot be discerned from this message. If you are seeing a lot of these then there may be a problem with your contact gathering mechanisms. Are you forcing people to provide an email address? Contacts may just be making something up to get through the form. Or perhaps the demographic you are appealing to is more likely to not want to give out their email. If so, you may want to tempt them to give a real address by telling them that you will send a coupon, more information, or, the ultimate, a link they need to click to verify their account. It all really depends on how bad you want their email address. If you aren't going to validate addresses in some way then you probably shouldn't require people to give you their email address. 2. Destination Unreachable Denotes a connection issue with this email server. This is different than a Bad Email Address, which would result in immediate removal of the contact in question. This just means that we will not retry sending this specific email to this contact right now because it is not likely to succeed. Later deliveries to the contact may succeed. 3. Rejected Message Content A rejected message content response indicates the mail server has identified this message as spam. We will not attempt to resend this message. If you see a number of these then you should probably take a look at the message you are sending and take the time to run your message through the Spam Test provided on the Message Overview page. If you are still having problems or have questions about what may be causing this, please contact our Customer Support. 4. Temporary Contact Issue A temporary issue at the receiving mail server with respect to the contact in question. An example of this is a Mailbox Full message. There isn't too much you can do about this, it may be an early indicator that a user has abandoned this email address. If you want to be pro-active and try to stem these then include the Manage Preferences link (using %%!manage_url%%) within your messages in addition to the unsubscribe link. This allows users to easily update their email address. 4

5. Destination Temporarily Unreachable An error message that indicates a temporary issue at the receiving mail server, such as a Server Busy message. This may be resolved via retries. If it is not, there is little you can do about this. 6. Deferred Message Content This is quite similar to the Rejected Message Content listed above. Messages aren't often identified this way, as they often don't want you to resend something they iden-tify as spam. Either way, if you are seeing a majority of your messages as either of these spam bounces, you should check your message and see if you can reduce its likelihood of being identified as spam. 6. How can you segment your target audience for email marketing? Leads that have become customers (4.83%) Purchases (3.88%) Average Customer Sale (2.08%) Most Recent Visit (3.24%) All of the Above (85.91) We've already discussed the importance of segmenting to your audience. Recognizing how many possibilities exist for segmenting can assist you in creating a successful email-marketing program. The majority of our respondents correctly identified that an average customer sale, most recent visit, pur-chases, and leads that have become customers can all serve as ways to segment your opt-in list. One of the most prevalent reasons for an email being ignored is irrelevant content. Segmentation ensures that your message is delivered at the right time, to the right person, with the right content. You can choose to segment your audience based on data such as behavior, preferences, or demographics. It's important to collect the data through a list management tool so that it is easy to integrate segmen-tation within your campaign. Determine what segmentation meets the needs of your overall business objectives. 7. Many mail clients disable images by default, making which of the following very important? Link to online version of the message (10.01%) Alt tags in images (7.75%) Alternate text version of the message (13.42%) All of the above (68.71%) 5

More and more email clients either give the user the preference of disabling images or default to dis-abled images. It's critical to keep this in mind when designing your email. You want to ensure that your message lands in the inbox design and brand intact. Many email marketers fall prey to making the major-ity of their email campaign as an image. The issue that arises is that many may receive a message that appears blank in their inbox. Not a very compelling message causing the reader to not respond. Linking to an online version is always a good idea in case their images are turned off. Including the link in the preheader will allow you to have a call to action prior to the main message within the body. Also includ-ing alt tags in images will give you an additional chance to include your promotion through text while the images are turned off. An alternative text version is also beneficial for those that have email clients that don't accept html. It's always important to be conscious of how your recipient will receive their mes-sage and whether the design will be intact. If not, make adjustments to make certain your campaign gets delivered and receives the desired outcome. 8. Which of the following will NOT raise your spam score? Not having an HTML version (50.46%) Referencing pharmaceutical products (9.37%) Excessive punctuation!!!!!!!!! (8.32%) Having no subject line (9.37%) High image-to-text ratio (22.34%) Not having an HTML version will not raise your spam score. Although only half of our respondents rec-ognized this as the answer, it is indeed the only response that doesn't cause you to be noticed by spam filters. In fact, you would benefit by always including a text version. In addition to being another criteria for some filters, the text version of the message ensures readability by email clients that are not receptive to HTML messages. Keep a balance between text and images. Filters are on the lookout for email messages with only images. If you embed your text and graphics into a single image you risk your message going straight to the intended reader's spam filter. Spam filters have components to be on the lookout for, but if you are utilizing email marketin best practices, you will stay off of their radar. 6

9. What is a honeypot address? The email address of a high value customer (23.82%) An email address created to catch spammers (41.01%) An email address that has whitelisted you to send to them (35.06%) A honeypot address is an email address created to catch spammers. Often created by ISPs, it is used to ensure that marketers are utilizing best practices and not abusing their opt-in list. While it's not critical to be able to identify a honeypot address, it is important to realize that they exist and to always be mindful that there are more than just customers and prospects receiving your email. Bottom line, don't SPAM. 10. How do you measure key performance indicators? Percentage of sales that comes from return customers (4.69%) Average email order value (2.68%) New buyer conversion rate (3.10%) Anything you choose as long as it's measurable (9.58%) Average email order value & new buyer conversion rate (8.88%) All of the Above (70.97%) Key performance indicators (KPI's) can be determined by an metric valuable to your company as long as it's measurable. KPI's can include: percentage of sales that comes from return customers, average email order value, or new buyer conversion rate. KPI's are completely flexible to your organization's needs. About virtualroi virtualroi is a B2B digital marketing agency specialising in email marketing, delivering optimised solutions to our clients. The agency boasts expert knowledge in all areas of digital marketing, encompassing: Email (deliverability, design, programming, optimisation and broadcasting) Data (merge, purge, consolidation, standardisation, acquisition and verification) Design (optimisation for deliverability, preview panes, image blocking) Technology (independent broadcast platforms on a fully managed or self-services basis) Consultancy (bespoke development, outsourcing, marketing and support services) virtualroi has extensive experience in delivering integrated digital marketing programs, solutions and technologies. This covers both end-user and channel target audiences internationally. 7