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Description
Open rates are an important email marketing metric. Email open rates are often the first line of defense when it comes to running successful campaigns and generating a solid return on investment with your email marketing channels. In this 2-part series on Improving email open rates, we cover IP reputation, list quality, subscriber management, email content, and more.
Document Sample
Improving Email
Open Rates
5 Things That Are Impacting
Your Email Open Rates and
How to Improve Engagement
with Subscribers.
Presented by
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 1
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00. Improving Email
Open Rates...
{ }
01. IP Reputation
02. List Quality
03. Subscriber Engagement
04. Message Content
05. Timing
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 3
Introduction
Open rates are often the first metric
that alerts online marketers and busi-
ness owners of potential problems in
their email marketing campaigns.
However, open rates are simply a
component of a much bigger picture
when it comes to the health of your
email program.
We get questions about this met-
ric often, so we want to help you
understand what might be causing
a decline in open rates and overall
interaction.
It’s particularly important to be aware
of the factors that play into your open
rates, because, above and beyond
your reputation, there are a lot of
things that can impact this metric.
4 Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com
1. IP Reputation (Your and maintaining - reputation scores through dozens, if not hundreds of
“Sender Score”) in the 90s. This requires a lot of IP addresses that you’re sharing with
proactive management, ensuring that dozens, if not hundreds (maybe even
Your open rates are impacted by
your list hygiene is optimal, spam THOUSANDS) of other marketers.
more than just your reputation scores
complaints are low (and complainers
(i.e. Sender Score). Assuming that your scores are 90
immediately removed from your list),
or greater, these primary issues are
The reason we refer to the Sender and regularly monitoring blocks and
probably not a factor. (If your scores
Score, in particular, is because it is bounce logs to resolve any issues
ARE lower than 90, you will need
widely used in the industry for overall quickly.
to correct some fundamental issues
evaluation of the health of your email
So... the first step is to find first and foremost.)
campaign.
out what your IP “score” is
Low scores are often due to poor list
While a bad overall reputation can and take any necessary
quality (old, outdated, lists with a lot
almost guarantee low open rates steps to improve it.
of bad email addresses,and often
among other things, a good reputa-
NOTE: If you are spam traps) and spam complaints.
tion doesn’t guarantee inbox place-
using an ESP
ment and subscriber engagement. NOTE: Even if you are using an
(email
ESP, you’ll want to pay attention to
Having said, that... your IP reputation service
list hygiene (although they typically
IS important. And this is really the pro-
have pretty strict rules
first place you want to look when ex- vider),
in place to guard
amining the health of your program. you are
against this
This is where EmailDelivered comes probably
particular
into play, with the goal of obtaining - rotating
issue)
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 5
and spam complaints. Now… if all of these are in place and 2. List Quality
you are still concerned about over-
Spam complaint may not only cause Are you uploading old leads?
all performance, there are several
the ESP to shut your account down,
things to look at: Leads that you have purchased?
but also provide some valuable in-
sight into your marketing campaigns. • List Quality Co-reg leads?
Not to mention, both of these things • Subscriber Engagement
play a crucial role in where your
• Message Content
messages wind up.
• Timing
If they don’t make it to the inbox,
your subscribers can’t open your
messages, read them, or take action
on them.
Again, complaints and list quality are
important whether you’re hosting
your own email or using a 3rd party
email provider (ESP).
If you are hosting your own email,
you’ll also want to verify that you
have the proper headers in all of
your emails including DKIM, domain-
keys, SPF and SenderID.
6 Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com
(Basically any leads that did not spe- ment metrics and are doing so more For example, say that your entire list
cifically opt in to your list or engage and more as of late. (See the next is double-opt in. If, over the years,
within the past 12-18 months.) section). subscriber A stops opening your
emails, eventually, all of your emails
For obvious reasons, you will see
3. Subscriber Engagement for that subscriber will be filtered into
lower open rates here simply be-
his/her junk folder.
cause the relationship is stale. Subscriber engagement is key, and it
is becoming more and more impor- When this happens on a large scale,
Segment these leads from your cur-
tant as the ISPs change their algo- overall inbox placement can be af-
rent/high quality leads so that you
rithms.
can get a realistic picture of what’s
going on with different segments of In the past, you
your list. could con-
tinue to mail to
Consider sending from different IPs/
subscribers as
domains based on engagement AND
long as they
creating a re-engagement sequence
didn’t opt out or
for older leads.
complain that
NOTE: If you are adding a lot of your messages
these leads to your existing list, not are spam.
only can this affect your open rates,
However...
but it can also affect the overall inbox
that’s changed
placement of your emails.
over time.
The ISPs pay attention to engage-
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 7
fected - even if you have an abso- you with TOTAL opens while many Consider dropping your less frequent
lutely perfect reputation. self-hosted email applications pro- openers to a lesser frequency and/
vide unique opens. If this is the case, or putting them through a re-engage-
To help combat this, consider teach-
then naturally, when comparing old ment series.
ing your subscribers to whitelist your
results to new, there may be a skew.
email address at the point of opting
5. Timing
in. Here is a free subscriber-level So, you may not be compar-
whitelist generator you can ing apples to apples if Test the days of the week and times
use: you’re using different of your emails. What works for one
systems to com- marketer does not necessarily work
http://www.emaildeliv-
pare your results/ for another.
ered.com/whitelist-
trends.
generator/ We have clients that have better re-
sults mailing between 2-4pm Eastern
TIP: Be sure to use 4. Message while other customers with the same
the “From” email ad- Content general market have best results
dress that your emails
Split test subject mailing at 4am. TEST FOR YOUR
come from in the genera-
lines… LIST.
tor.
Review your content… The other thing to consider is time of
The other thing to consider
year. Overall Internet activity de-
with regard to subscriber Make sure that it’s relevant
clines over the summer. Open rates
engagement is where you are to your subscribers and
drop, interaction drops, etc. People
getting your metrics. in line with what was prom-
are simply not as engaged during the
ised at the point of opting in.
For example, many ESPs provide summer months.
8 Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com
Conversely, in the fall and winter, practices and it’s a good idea to aging your reputation, keeping your
engagement tends to increase. review them regularly. If you find that scores high, alerting you of potential
you have high reputations and are problems, and going to bat on your
In addition, during times of year
not hitting the inbox, we can contact behalf with the ISPs.
when email volume is at it’s peak (i.e.
the ISPs and request whitelisting of
Thanksgiving through New Years), As the marketer, it’s important to con-
your IPs.
open rates are often down because stantly be looking at your list quality,
subscribers are getting much more However, we are limited to 1 request interaction, relationship with your list,
email than they do during other times per ISP every 6 months, so if you are and overall campaign strategy.
of the year. not following all of the best practices
Engagement is becoming more and
for a particular ISP, this can cause
NOTE: DO NOT use misleading more important so be sure to include
more harm than good.
subject lines simply to get the open! a “subscribe-based whitelisting”
This increases spam complaints and strategy, re-engagement campaigns
One Final Note!
can do more harm than good in the for people that haven’t opened your
long term (not to mention, misleading One final note… ISPs often tighten messages within a certain time
subject lines are an absolute viola- their filters from time to time. Gener- period, and to regularly test, re-test,
tion of CAN-SPAM). ally, within 2-3 weeks, things go back and test again.
to normal, but in some cases, they
TIP: Follow Best Practices may actually change their recom-
mended best practices.
Lastly, it is always a good idea to
verify that you are following the Our goal as your email partner is to
best practices for the ISPs. All of help you achieve the best results
the major ISPs provide specific best with your email marketing by man-
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 9
;-). But Wait...
There’s More!
{ }
01. IP Reputation
02. List Quality
03. Subscriber Engagement
04. Message Content
05. Timing
10Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com
deliverability and inbox placement...
at SenderScore.org (If you are using
Wrap Up an ESP, then you will need to ask • Email marketing best practices...
In this guide, we covered a handful the provider for a list of IPs through • Improving your email ROI...
of things related to open rates and which you are sending)
overall email reputation. • Increasing subscriber engagement...
• Evaluate your list quality by study-
EmailDelivered provides customers • And much, much more...
ing engagement metrics.
and clients with email deliverability
• Test message timing and sequenc-
tips and tools, email marketing best
ing for improved ROI across your Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook
practices, and individual consulting.
campaigns. and Twitter (and visit our website) for
For more information on the services even more tips, tools and ideas.
we provide and how we can help you Get More Ideas, Tips, and
manage and maintain high deliver- Tools...
ability, visit us at: Each week, we provide email
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marketing and deliverability reports,
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Next Steps... videos.
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Here are 3 things you can do right http://www.EmailDelivered.com today
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• ISP changes & updates that affect http://www.EmailDelivered.com
• Check your current IP reputation
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 11
