DMA Email Marketing Council Blog

When's the best time to check your stats after a mailing?

Do you assume that all activity for the newsletter you send happens within the first 24 hours? We're all pretty busy -  travelling, on holiday, or away from the computer or mobile (gasp!) and may not get around to engaging with your email right away.

To figure out the optimum time to check your stats for the most accurate snapshot of engagement, benchmark your newsletter over several issues. For example, I've just finished tracking my own Business of Email and have identified day ten as the best time to take a look at the statistics.

By analysing total activity (clicks, microsite visits, opens) day by day over several issues, I was able to assess that, on average, 71% of all activity happens within the first twenty-four hours, and by day ten, 95% of activity has been captured. (I selected 95% as the benchmark for my own analysis purposes.)

July's Issue of Infobox

This month we have a focus on metrics and results. You can see when marketers are actually sending emails; how to overcome three common barriers to adopting metrics and how to make the most out of your own list.

We also have news from the DMA Legal & Best Practice Hub on its definitive guide to email metrics.

UK marketers do not optimise for time of day; send times are based on sender convenience rather than subscriber preference Dela Quist, Alchemy Worx

Email marketing: overcoming three common barriers to adopting metrics Riaz Kanani, Silverpop

Lists: it’s not the size; it’s how you use it! Tink Taylor, dotMailer

Metrics, metrics and even more metrics Jonathan Burston, Chair of The Legal & Best Practice Hub (alias: Do Good Things Hub)

Read the full newsletter

And if you haven't already signed up to receive Infobox in your inbox, then subscribe here!

Metrics and their meaning - Part 2

Here's the second installment of the Legal & Best Practice Hub on Metrics and their meaning. What we're hoping is to gain your feedback and comments.

This week we're looking at Internal Monitoring and the metrics that feature in this area:

1. Average Soft Bounce Rate        

Definition: The number of soft bounces divided by the number of e-mails delivered (as a %).         

Things to take into consideration: A soft bounce indicates a temporary reason (inbox full, server temporarily unavailable etc.) why the e-mail can not go into the inbox. In this instance, it is worth trying the e-mail address at a later date. However, monitor repeat soft bounces and remove after a maximum of three.

2. Average Total Click-through Rate        

Definition: Number of total clicks divided by number of e-mails delivered (as a %).

Things to take into consideration: If comparing results with other campaigns, make sure the click-through rate is measured using the same metrics. It can be click against e-mails sent, e-mails delivered or e-mails opened. Always compare like for like, and know which option has been used.

This metric attempts to answer the question, “How many times did a person click on a link or multiple links within this e-mail?” This may or may not include clicks on unsubscribe links or other links, and you may find it helpful to view click-through reporting by individual link. This metric is a whole number in the form “100,000″ or as an e-mail Click-through Rate percentage in the form “10%”. The denominator is e-mail delivered, and this percentage may exceed 100%. [Source: Internet Advertising Bureau]"

3. Average Unique Click-through Rate        

Definition: Number of individuals who have clicked through divided by number of e-mails delivered (as a %).        

Things to take into consideration: This is a measure of the emails overall effectiveness because it looks at emails that generated a click.  If the campaign is an acquisition campaign then this is a more valuable measure than total click rate.

4. Average Unique Open Rate        

Definition: Unique opens divided by number of e-mails delivered (as a %).        

Things to take into consideration: Due to the high number of false negatives (emails that did not show as opened because the images were switched off) and false positive(emails that were opened in the preview pane but were not viewed by the recipient) this is not an accurate measure of how many emails were opened.  It is however an excellent directional indicator of the effectiveness of your subject line among other things.  Make sure reporting is consistent. For example, if comparing different sources, ensure it is not confused with opens from sent or total opens (which will include when the same person opens an e-mail more than once).

5. Click to Conversion Rate        

Definition: Number of clicks divided by the number of conversions or intended actions e.g. clicks converting to sign-ups for a newsletter or a successful download on an offer.        

Things to take into consideration: This is the key metric when measuring success. It is important that you are clear from the start that the objective is defined. Also remember not to use this metric in isolation. The uplift in actions that come directly to the site, via telephone or visit to a shop show room need also to be recognised as a benefit of the email campaign.

6. Click to Open Rate        

Definition: Number of clicks divided by the number of opens.  It is generally calculated as either Unique Click-through over Unique e-mail Opens, or Total e-mail Click-through over Total e-mail Opens. [Source: Internet Advertising Bureau]         

Things to take into consideration: This metric attempts to answer the question, "Of the Unique e-mail Opens, how many individuals took an action?"

7. Click to Purchase        

Definition: Data Users can correlate directly the clicks from the e-mail resulting in transactional behaviour. From this a clear calculation of the Return on Investment (ROI) from a programme or campaign can be made. It is considered to be best practice to always pre-define measurement and success criteria and to track conversions accordingly. This can either be achieved directly using tracking technologies embedded with the e-mail, or via a data match back process post campaign. [Source: DMA Best Practice Guidelines]  

Things to take into consideration: From this a clear calculation of the Return on Investment (ROI) from a programme or campaign can be made. It is considered to be best practice to always pre-define measurement and success criteria and to track conversions accordingly. This can either be achieved directly using tracking technologies embedded with the e-mail, or via a data match back process post campaign.

This is a valuable measure but it is important not to only attribute this value to the email. Email is not 100% trackable. Remember consumers do not always react in the way we want them to. Some will pick up the phone, come to the site direct or interact with your brand in a different way to through the email.  Remember to add additional value when looking at the true benefits. "

8. Click-through Metrics        

Definition:

• Total Click Rate (Total Clicks/Total Delivered)

• Unique Click Rate (Unique Clicks/Total Delivered)

• Click to Open Rate (Unique Clicks/ Total Opened)"        

Things to take into consideration: It is important to define what metric you are using and be consistent. These measures do have a value particularly in terms of relevance to the audience targeted, but must be used in context. It is important not to use these measures in isolation to judge success, the results in relation to end results are what should do this.

9. Click-through Tracking        

Definition: When a hotlink is included in an e-mail, a click-through occurs when a recipient clicks on the link. Click-through tracking refers to the data collected about each link clicked, such as how many people clicked it, how many clicks resulted in desired actions such as sales, forwards or subscriptions. [Source: Marketing Sherpa]         

So that's part 2. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jonathan Burston

CACI & Legal and Best Practice Hub

5 automated campaigns designed to deliver revenue

I am constantly surprised that in the search for revenue, some marketers often overlook the impact of implementing automated campaigns.  Other tactics often steel the lime light (and resource), for example segmentation, for me does not deliver the revenue as quickly or as easily as a well executed automated email program. 

Remember a well crafted automated email program will be helping you hit your targets while you sleep!

Here are five of my favourite automated email programs that will help you deliver revenue:-

Welcome Program

Definition:- A series of automated emails that are sent to the recipient welcoming them to the email program.

Benefit:- These initial emails should include valuable content and offers to encourage engagement and drive revenue. All this while the recipient is heavily interested in your products.  The series of welcome emails will also enable you to set the recipients expectation about your email program and improve future email delivery through the inclusion of add to safe senders links.  In addition a well designed program will enable you to determine the segmentation that should be applied when the recipient is added to the main email program.

Order Confirmation Program

Definition:- Emails confirming the product(s) you have ordered

Benefit:- We typically see open rates in the region of 70% on order confirmation emails as these are very valuable to the recipient.  With this in mind, use these emails to promote other complimentary products or to thank the recipient for their custom. Why not provide an incentive for another purchase to help to drive revenue.

Customer Satisfaction Program

Definition:- A program asking your customers exactly what they think of the products or services purchased from you.

Benefit:- Understanding what your customers think about your products and services is incredibly important, however within your email program you can get even more value from these emails.  Those people that score the product highly can be incentivised to recommend friends or colleagues.  Alternatively those customers who weren’t so happy should receive an automated email with an incentive to try your product or service again.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Program

Definition:- A series of emails that are sent to a customer who has filled the online shopping cart but not yet purchased.

Benefit:- Emailing prospects when you know they are interested in a particular product can be the final push they need to make that purchase.  Your program should consider providing a final incentive or reminding them of the benefits of your product or a question to find out why they didn’t buy. Alternatively it could be a combination of all three.

Post Purchase Relationship Program

Definition:- A series of emails that are sent out after a recipient has made a purchase with a view to building a relationship and generating repeat purchases.

Benefit:- These emails will help to continue to build the relationship after a prospect has become a customer.  In addition, they can be used to push other complimentary products or services e.g. thanks for buying a holiday, there are only 2 weeks until you go away, why not treat yourself to access to the VIP lounge.

In Summary:-

Why not take a few minutes to think about how these tactics can be used within your own business?

I’d also love to hear your thoughts on what other automated campaigns have delivered great results for you?

James Bunting
Communicator Corp

Help! I want to sign up for emails!

I was recently asked by a journalist from Marketing Week to comment on some research relating to consumer willingness to give data to a company or brand. The survey suggested that most consumers would be more than happy to provide their email address to a retailer when placing an order. However, the research also found that very few retailers ever ask.

This got me thinking – why do so many retailers fail to ask for email addresses? Is it forgetfulness? Do they think customers will be put off? Usually all it takes is a simple opt-in check-box – how hard is that?

And with tonnes of other research demonstrating that retaining an existing customer is much more cost-effective than acquiring a new one, the inability of retailers to include email sign-up options is staggering.

The subject was bought home to me again last week when I was working with colleagues from our dotCommerce business who are currently working on a benchmark study of top UK retailer’s websites (if you’re interested, you can sign-up to be notified when it’s available here).

One of the categories assessed was whether the retailers we looked at included data capture methods on the website. Our findings correlate very closely with the above research: less than half included the option to sign up to an email newsletter on the homepage or product pages and less that one in three offered the opportunity to opt-in during checkout.

This is pretty shocking considering these were some of the best-known names in UK retailing!

Retailers need to start seeing the buying process as a cyclical progression. A sale should be seen as the beginning of the relationship between brand and customer, not the end, but without acquiring their email address from the start the relationship is dead in the water.

Once data is captured, creating a bond with the customer is very easily done with email and if the relationship is handled in the right way – e.g. targeted messages with personalised content – the long term benefit should be a profitable one.

Turning customers into brand advocates, especially in these times of Twitter, Facebook and the like, can reap significant rewards and a long-standing, productive relationship. Including forward to a friend options within messages will encourage your recipients to share your content with their peers – and then they’ll do some of the hard work for you.

We’ve been offering social networking bookmarking links as part of our email platform since last year and the results we’ve seen demonstrate that when businesses get the right message to right person at the right time, the chances of them passing it on is high.

But none of this will be possible unless businesses ask the question in the first place. Ask your customers to consider subscribing to your newsletter and many will. Don’t ask and they definitely won’t!

Tink Taylor
dotMailer

Inactive or Unemotionally Subscribed?

The term "emotionally unsubscribed" as a way of describing the subscribers who do not interact with your emails for long periods of time seems to be making a comeback - unfortunately.

I first came across the term 2 – 3 years ago and I have never liked it, particularly when it comes to describing people who have given you permission to email them.

I dislike the term because:

1. I really find it hard to believe anyone is so disengaged with your program that they can’t be bothered to unsubscribe - it only takes a click!

2. It is a very negative way of looking at the issue of inactives and implies that it is a result of some kind of failing on the part of the person sending the email; a classic case of what I call fear and self loathing in email marketing.

With very few exceptions when it comes to sales and marketing, long term inactivity is perfectly normal. After all, how often do you actively interact with marketing communications of any kind from a car dealer, insurance company, estate agent, bank, consumer electronics retailer, hotel chain etc? 

 So why should email marketing be any different?

I prefer to call them Unemotionally Subscribed

Given that between 35% and 55% of your list will NOT have interacted with your emails for between 6 months and a year,  I think that a better description is that they unemotionally subscribed – that is they do want to receive your emails, but don’t need your content or offer yet.  They would prefer to ignore your messages until they are ready to buy, because it is easier than unsubscribing and having to remember your url or Google you at a later date.

We have gathered plenty of evidence of this phenomenon, from our deep dives into client data and here are some examples:

- £70,000 generated by subscribers who had not opened (downloaded images) or clicked on the previous 25 to 40 emails - it was a great offer.

- 10% of 2008 revenue generated by subscribers who did not open or click at all in 2007

- The most common or modal open, click or purchase frequency across every email audit we have ever conducted is 1.

The takeaway is simple.  While some of those inactive addresses may be people who fit the emotionally unsubscribed description, the vast majority are unemotionally subscribed - they don’t need you - yet!

So don’t beat yourself up over the fact that they don’t feel compelled to read every email you send.

Is Email really the new Direct Mail?

If the recent Borrell Associates report is to be believed, then "Direct mail has begun spiralling into what we believe is a precipitous decline from which it will never fully recover." OK, we’re all familiar with email’s benefits over direct mail…cheaper, quicker, easier to measure, greener, etc. However, before we write off direct mail completely, research that we have carried out indicates that the way forward is really to use email in conjunction with direct mail and to give the consumer the choice as to how they want to hear from us.

Direct Mail is certainly not dead. It may sound trite, but consumers still like receiving Direct Mail and if the piece they receive is relevant, it is not deemed to be "junk mail". What we may also be forgetting, is that the current UK internet at home penetration still sits at below 70%, so in order to reach as much of our target market as possible, an integrated, multi-channel approach is a must. Marketers selling consumer products need to be speaking to their buyers/prospects in the home environment by both online and offline channels.

Campaign analysis that we have recently carried out has proved that online communications can drive offline actions and that the reverse is also true. Email communications drive newspaper sales, even if the email isn’t asking the consumer to go and buy a paper. By the same token, direct mail and email communications to the same individuals drive uplift yet higher.

So, yes, direct mail volumes are falling, but better targeting and a more complete understanding of channel effectiveness and consumer preference is what we should concentrate on.

Rupert Harrison

Data Planner

News International

Exploding the Digital Myth

Exploding the Digital Myth: 2 half day events

In the ever changing digital landscape the importance of an effective creative digital campaign has brought about the need to converge different digital channels to creatively deliver relevant digital campaigns to the target consumer. At this event, find out how to weave the newest fads and various aspects of digital marketing into the fabric of your campaign to creatively engage your consumer.

Date:     Thursday 18 and 25 June 2009
Time:     9.00am - 1.30pm
Venue:     The Marylebone Hotel, 47 Welbeck Street, London, W1G 8DN

Read more about this event 

Interactive Panel - Inbox/Outbox

Are Customers Getting Too Much Email?

Join us for an interactive panel, chaired by the DMA Email Marketing Council on the first day of Inbox/Outbox.

A DMA Email Marketing Council interactive panel, exploring the effects of recession on email marketing.
As marketeers are often pressured into sending more email, some pressing questions occur:

- What will be the impact of this now and in the longer term?
- What is the impact of this on ROI?
- How do you cut through the clutter?
- Is the situation different for B2B?
- Will volumes change again when the economy improves?

Venue: Inbox/Outbox, New Connaught Rooms, London
Date: 16th June 2009
Time: 4.15 - 4.45pm

Panelists:

Chair: James Bunting,  Communicator Corp
Dela Quist, Alchemy Worx
Kath Pay, Ezemail
Kirsty Montgomery, Hilton Hotels
Matthew Simons, Acxiom

Read More

Metrics and their meaning

The DMA Legal & Best Practice Hub of the Email Marketing Council have for a number of months been working on defining the metrics that are commonly used day to day within our industry. Why? Because with so many definitions and meanings it's often difficult to keep track and to help those new to the industry to understand what a term means when they hear it.

Over the coming weeks we'll be publishing the metrics on this blog for your comment and feedback. We've decided to split them up so as to make it easier to read and comment on, so feel free to add your thoughts and comments to the list of metrics below.

We've categorised the metrics and the first category is 'The Email':

1. Above the Fold

Definition: This is the part of the email message that is visible without the need for scrolling. 

Things to take into consideration: This is generally the most important and valuable area as a individual sees this information first.  The area above the fold changes size depending on the recipients screen resolution.

2. Cell

Definition: The combination of content with a group of recipients (frequently called a segment). The content can be unique to this group to improve response, or it can be the same in order to easily test response.

Things to take into consideration: This type of personalisation can be the most effective way to get optimum response for e-mail. The more you capture and learn about a group of users, the more effective it will be. Split test campaigns against the same creative with generic content to gauge if there is an uplift with this level of personalisation.               

3. Dynamic Content

Definition: Content that is chosen by the system when the e-mail is being created. This content is based on the recipient's attributes stored in the database.        

4. HTML message

Definition: An email that contains any formatting other than ascii text.        

5. Personalisation

Definition: Database values that are inserted by the system when the e-mail is being created.        

6. Plain Text

Definition: An email that consists of solely text and no other formatting code.

7.  Subject Line

Definition: The field at the top of an e-mail template in which the title or subject of the e-mail can be typed. It is important to have a strong subject line, particularly if using e-mail for advertising or promotional purposes, or the recipient may simply delete the e-mail.
source: emailmaketingpro.org/email-marketing-terms

Things to take into consideration: The subject line can effect the open rate of an email hugely. This is one reason why open rates should not be used to gauge the effectiveness of a campaign. The aim of the subject line is to get people to open the email but it should give enough accurate information to ensure that when the recipient opens the email it is relevant and what they expect, which in turn will result in the end action being optimised.

So that's our first part published and look forward to receiving your thoughts and comments.

Jonathan Burston
Legal & Best Practice Hub