In most of our studies, we see the open rate increase with shorter subject lines. Across a large sample, our highest open rates were with subjects that had fewer than 39 characters, but there are exceptions to the rule which makes it very important to test. In a post from early 2009, I wrote about A/B Subject Line Testing. While this plays an increasingly important role as your list size grows, it can also help to make big improvement for small senders.

Quick Tips for Subject Lines:

1. Be Cognizant of Inbox Restraints: some email clients will not display your entire subject, so make sure to have your key points at the front.

2. Focus on Targeted Copy: more important than the length is what your subject says. If it is timely and targeted you will see higher engagement rates.

3. Explore Dynamic Subjects: If your email platform supports dynamic content, experiment with using dynamic elements in your subject.

4. Test: The A/B approach helps increase your email funnel for each send and provide good data for future improvements. Take the extra step and test your subject lines.

For this post, we’ll focus on Google Analytics. Some email platforms will have turn-key integration which makes things effortless on your end as every URL in every email will automatically be appended with tracking parameters specific to your account and send.

However, many email service providers don’t provide integration with Google Analytics, but you can still get the same tracking with a few extra steps:

1. Visit the Google URL Builder

2. Enter in information that is specific to your email program and campaigns (this can be fairly top-level or get drilled down).

3. Generate the URL and copy the appending variables. Example: ?utm_source=ESP1&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=TextLinkA&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Feb15thNewsletter

4. Add your tracking code to the end of all links in your email (starting with the ?utm_source=…)

To make it simple, you can create 1 tracking URL to use on every link in a given email send. For a more detailed approach, you can create a different tracking URL for EACH link you have. While this may take some extra time, it can give you some helpful insights on your email efforts.

The much easier solution, however, is to use an ESP (email service provider) that supports integration with Google Analytics. In future posts we will be discussing various ESPs and suggestions for what to look for.

Cheers,

Forest

In case you didn’t have time to read through white-papers, here is a quick last-minute tip for e-commerce sites for the 2009 Holiday Season.

Shipping Deadline Emails: Let your subscribers know when they need to order by and when time is running out!

1. Send an early announcement (November) that includes your company’s shipping deadline schedule in order to receive products by December 25th.

2. Incorporate a small note (or cool looking button) in all regular emails. E.g. “View Our Holiday Shipping Guide”

3. Set up a series of reminders to go out 2-3 days before each deadline. Examples: “3 Days left for Domestic Shipping by Christmas”  “Only 2 Days Left for UPS Next Day Shipping by the 25th”  Etc.

One area often overlooked is having a breakdown of your subscriber’s email domains. Knowing this information can be quite helpful when developing your creative. If you find a large portion on one domain, it may justify segmenting them and developing a separate creative optimized specifically for that domain.

Some email platforms will give you a quick graphic breakdown. If not, you can always do a sort in Excel and manually determine your ratios.

Below are breakdowns from 3 different clients I work with

Here we see some differing stats. In the 1st and 3rd example, Yahoo represents 5.6% at max, while the 2nd client has over 25% of subscribers with Yahoo addresses. We can also see that in the 3rd example at least 22% is represented by education or government addresses.

Looking at these three, I was surprised at the low amount of gmail addresses. We see 9.3% in the 2nd example, but none in the 1st and 3rd!

Takeaways

1. Every list will be different and it’s helpful to know how YOUR list breaks down

2. Knowing this breakdown will aid in testing your email creative on different domains. You should be testing on more than your breakdown, but this can provide priority.

3. If you find a large portion on one domain (25%+), it may justify putting resources into segmenting those users and providing creative optimized specifically for that domain. If you’re list is very small, this will be overkill.

4. Also consider segmenting by domain and testing deliverability. (Note – some email platforms will do this automatically).

Cheers,

Forest

Questions or inputs? Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

A client I work with manages hundreds of sites that collectively have thousands of service provider listings. Each service provider has a profile and we needed an efficient way to have them update their information, and notify them of their regional representative contact.

For this, we created a clean text-driven email with a bunch of personalization and some dynamic content. This allowed us to reach thousands of providers with the same email, and create an efficient system for getting updated information.

Below is a raw screen grab with filler content.

In the above example, there are several points of personalization and dynamic content:

1. First Name: Simple and easy

2. Organization Name: We of course want to personalize this with the name of their organization

3. Update Date: As a reminder, we included the date that they last updated their profile

4. Profile Link: This takes them to their specific profile

5. Info on Record: We have the Address, Phone and Email that is currently listed on their profile, plus a link to view the profile again to see the rest of the info

6. Edit Profile Link: To make changes, we have a link implemented that takes them directly to a page where they can submit updated information

7. Dynamic Content: We have a section for CSA contact information (their local representative) that we have dynamic rules set up for based on what product they fall under and their county. E.g. IF product=xyz and county=Los Angeles THEN CSA Contact = Jim Smith – jim@email.com

Below is the same screen grab with highlighted personalization elements.

A very simple email here creating a 1-to-1 communication and an efficient system. This email didn’t need flashy design, or excess copy — just personalized content and some top-level organization to make the process seamless. While the nature of this particular email is very specific, the concepts can apply to a broad range of initiatives. It’s very important to create a personalized experience with our subscribers, and with available technology email marketers should look at how they can better leverage their efforts.

Cheers,

Forest

Nothing has changed with the fact that testing should be implemented and will inevitably improve your email marketing efforts. I do feel, however, that there can be a risk of over-testing, or ‘testing burnout,’ if you will. This mostly comes down to available resources a company has and the expected return on marginal testing programs. If we put 10X more resources into testing and only realize an x% increase in sales, our testing program could be producing negative returns.

This has a more costly effect on smaller companies, as the scale of return is much smaller. [The marginal return from an x% increase in open or click rate is much larger for a big company with a list size of 5,000,000 vs. a small company with a list size of 5,000.]

For that small company, testing is indeed important. They need to make improvements to their email marketing efforts and increase sales just like every other company. But at some point a negative return is realized.

Example

• Let’s say a small e-commerce site selling backpacks has a list size of 15,000. Their monthly promotional email brings in $1,350 on average. [25% open, 12% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]
• This company creates a testing plan that will require an additional 3 hours per month of company resources.
• After the test, they increase their metrics to: [28% open, 15% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]. In this case we see a $540 increase in revenue. Perhaps a decent result for the small e-tailer. Their gross testing return was $180/hour.
• Now let’s say they create a testing plan that is more robust and requires an additional 30 hours of company resources each month. (compared to no testing)
• After the new testing program, they increase their metrics to: [30% open, 19% click, 6% conversion, $62 average order]. In this case we see an $1,830 increase in revenue. Their gross testing return was $61/hour. Depending on their margins and several other unknown factors, this may or may not be a profitable scenario

These same metrics with a big competitor would have a much different result. e.g. If another company had a list size of 750,000, their marginal return on the last scenario would be $91,530 with a $3,051/hour testing return. Probably quite favorable.

So where do you find that testing equilibrium? It comes down to the unique situation of each business. Regardless of size, start small with your testing program and work up from there. Pay close attention not only to the increased results of your tests, but the amount of resources that go into your various testing programs. Time for different content, designers, approval, segmentation, deployment, review & analysis etc, can add up when you are introducing complex testing strategies.

In the end, you should test to see what testing portfolio is optimal for your email efforts.

Cheers,

Forest Bronzan 

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email

My experience with the Wynn Las Vegas email list has been even more frustrating. To establish some context; I love the Wynn. It’s probably my favorite hotel in Vegas and I have stayed there on numerous occasions. Every time I have had exceptional service and a fantastic trip. I’m definitely a promoter. On the gaming side, I’m a fairly serious poker player. I have played in the Wynn Poker Classic, a WSOP event and the like.

In summary: I like the Wynn, have been a loyal customer, and WANT TO BE ON THEIR EMAIL LIST. I’m an absolutely perfect subscriber.

The only problem is I can’t sign up for their list. I was on a transactional list many years ago when I stayed there for the first time, but that address is long gone.

Here are the steps I’ve taken to opt-in

1. Website: My first action is to just visit the Wynn site and expect to see a quick sign-up on the home page. Nothing.

2. Reply-To Address: A friend of mine is on their list and forwarded me an email (that actually had several flaws). I emailed them and requested to join the list, but received an auto-reply explaining the address was not functioning.

My Next Steps

1. Phone: I will try calling guest services to get on the list. I shouldn’t have to do this.

This quest should have never started (they should already have me in there), but should have definitely stopped at the first step. I expect to see an email sign-up when I visit the website; combined with a nice preference center, well planned welcome letter, and integration with other channels.

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email.

There are of course several other elements besides the subject line that you can be testing. But first, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Why Test?: To get better results. If you are not testing, you are not fully leveraging the email channel and not getting the best return on your efforts. Testing allows us to make incremental improvements to our email metrics. Below is a simplified visual description of the email funnel, where every metric counts. In this example, an additional 3% click through rate would result in 28 additional sales.

2. Be Structured: select a variable to test and keep other variables as constants. You will want to isolate your variable in order to test each variable independently.

3. Create a Plan: Don’t just go in and start testing. Create a structured plan of how you are going to implement your tests and keep detailed records of metrics so you can use the data to make meaningful adjustments to your program.

Some Elements to Test

• Subject Line
• From Line
• Content
• Creative
• Number of Links
• Promotion
• HTML vs. Plain Text
• Frequency
• Time of Day
• Day of Week
• Pre-Header Content
• Text to Image Ratio
• Landing Pages
• Location of Images
• Personalization

With the availability of tools to help us execute our testing strategy, there is no reason email marketers should not have a testing plan in place. Proper testing can help us make key incremental improvements to our marketing programs. If you’re starting out, start small and simple and build up from there. If you are running a sophisticated program, make sure you have a road map in place and system for accountability and measurement.

Happy testing!

- Forest Bronzan | Follow Me on Twitter!

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email

Many people ask about ‘average metrics’ with the desire to see how their campaigns are measuring up. Some industry wide statistics may be interesting and somewhat useful, but even more value comes out of measuring your campaigns with your own previous metrics. Every company is different and every list will behave in a different way. While it may be nice to know that the average open rate in the first half of 2008 was 24.86% for the transportation and travel industry, I would be very interested in knowing that MY travel company’s open rate was 22% during that period and now averages 26%.

Moral of the story here:

1. Look at some big industry averages, but pay closer attention to how your campaigns compare to your own historical metrics.

2. In addition to viewing and keeping track of metrics on a campaign or monthly basis, establish a system for keeping historical records of all the metrics you track.

Below is an example of a monthly snapshot of metrics. (Note these are arbitrary numbers for illustration)

(Click on image to enlarge)

It’s nice to see how our campaigns performed in that month, but I also want to see how they did compared to my own historical average. Comparing just to the previous month does not give us an accurate picture of how things are doing. One of the simplest methods is to create a trailing twelve month record. If you are keeping track of metrics each month, pull the average for the previous 12 months. This helps correct natural variance and provides a better picture of the direction your campaigns are going.

Below is a simplified example of how this might look for you. (Note these are arbitrary numbers for illustration)

(Click on image to enlarge)

In this example, we can see that compared to the previous 12 months, our total revenue this month was $2,266 lower. If we were looking just at the previous month we may be higher for certain metrics, but this does not paint an accurate picture of performance.

Setting up a historical benchmark guide for your email program will provide you great insight on how your campaigns are performing. In addition to looking at averages as we have focused on in this post, you can compare months, quarters etc. This can then be as simple or complex as you need and want to implement.

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email.

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About a year ago I signed up for a 12 month membership to 24 Hour Fitness. I knew I would be traveling quite a bit, so I wanted to give the all-club access a shot. For the most part, my experience was a positive one, however during the course of the year I received practically no emails. If I recall correctly, there was one ‘membership kick-off’ email and that’s it.

What about some cross-selling, new classes, membership expiration promos? Being that I was on board for at least 12 months, this was a fantastic opportunity for them to set up some snazzy life-cycle messaging and retention campaigns.

Below are a few areas of low-hanging fruit that 24h could have implemented

Geo-Segmentation: Let me know when new classes are available at my primary location. Also let me know when new facilities are open. This is important to increase the use of my membership and keep the brand top-of-mind. Better yet, set up an email preference center so I can select what I want to receive.

Promotional: Why not set up a sequenced campaign with special promotions to cross sell products, up-sell packages, and offers to refer my friends and family to the gym?

Retention: The biggest blunder was the missing membership renewal emails. I found out my membership was up when I went in one day and they told me it had expired 3 days earlier. Here was the perfect opportunity to plan a scheduled sequence of emails to ensure I renew my membership. They could have started 2 months back with reminders that my expiration was coming up, followed with invites to meet with a sales person or promotions to extend my membership online. They could have done some testing, sweetened the offer, and secured me for a longer period at a lower cost it took to initially acquire me. Once my membership did expire, they could have implemented some tactful win-back emails.

It’s still not too late, as I have not had time to make a decision on a competing gym. Perhaps I accidentally fell off the their list or was placed in the wrong segment. But this is a very costly error for 24h that potentially costs millions a year in lost opportunity. I would make it top priority to audit your program, review your key email marketing metrics, and establish a strategy that aligns with your customers, products & services.

- Cheers

Forest Bronzan  -  Follow Me On Twitter!