Continuous Testing

HubSpot recently posted an blog article comparing which was better for engagement, plain text emails or HTML emails. In a survey they sent out in 2014, 64% of the responses said they preferred the HTML and image-based emails. It seems pretty straight forward, recipients say they want HTML emails over text based emails but through their A/B testing, the text versions had a higher open rate.
They also reported:

  • Adding GIFs decreased the opens by 37%
  • HTML template lowered opens by 25%
  • Heavy HTML with images lowered open rates by 23%

HubSpot tested the theory over 10 mailings then looked at the click through rates. As the number of images increased, the number of clicks decreased.
What HubSpot’s results tells me is that senders may be missing out on engagement by not identifying what their recipients want.  Testing is a critical aspect of email marketing by continuously looking at how to send the type of content your recipients are wanting. Many ESPs have built-in support for automated split A/B testing.
There are many ways to compare what works best for your recipients including:

  • Testing various subject lines
  • Changing PreHeader text
  • Relocating and adjusting the colors of your call to actions
  • Providing the option to receive either HTML or Text based emails
  • Adjusting the send time

There are many more options for A/B  testing.  Sending engaging emails is a top priority for email marketers and senders should continuously test to discover what works best for their recipients.
 

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ISP filters are good for marketers

A throwback post from 2010 Attention is a limited resource.
Marketing is all about grabbing attention. You can’t run a successful marketing program without first grabbing attention. But attention is a limited resource. There are only so many things a person can remember, focus on or interact with at any one time.
In many marketing channels there is an outside limit on the amount of attention a marketer can grab. There are only so many minutes available for marketing in a TV or radio hour and they cost real dollars. There’s only so much page space available for press. Billboards cost real money and you can’t just put a billboard up anywhere. With email marketing, there are no such costs and thus a recipient can be trivially and easily overwhelmed by marketers trying to grab their attention.
Whether its unsolicited email or just sending overly frequent solicited email, an overly full mailbox overwhelms the recipient. When this happens, they’ll start blocking mail, or hitting “this is spam” or just abandoning that email address. Faced with an overflowing inbox recipients may take drastic action in order to focus on the stuff that is really important to them.
This is a reality that many marketers don’t get. They think that they can assume that if a person purchases from their company that person wants communication from that company.

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Set expectations for new subscribers

A common way to build your email address list is to provide a free resource such as an eBook or PDF in return for contact information from the reader.  While this is a good way to be mutually beneficial to the reader and the company, often the reader is providing their information only for the free resource and does not want to receive the emails.  This leads to sending to an unengaged recipient or worst, sending to a bad email address.
Another way to build your email address list is to pre-check the “subscribe to the mailing list” when a user creates an account on your site.  The same problem with the free resource offer, the user may not want the emails.
You can combat both of these types of unengaged users by providing them with an example of what they will be receiving from you via email.  Displaying the most recent mailing or providing them with how often you send out monthly will not only help you collect accurate information but also helps set the expectations of what the recipient will be receiving. Examples of sending expectations would be to inform the recipient that you only send once a month but then allow them to select an onboarding program that may send daily for 10 days.
Email.Simple-6Providing the end user with information about your mailings encourages them to provide accurate information and helps build your mailing list with recipients who want to engage with your emails. If you offer a free resource such as a whitepaper or ebook behind a signup form, send the download link within the email so that it encourages readers to provide accurate information.  By sending the email with a link the recipient clicks, it shows ISPs that this mail is wanted and helps boost your sending reputation.
 
 

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The best time to send email

This subject comes up over and over again. Many senders are convinced clock_at_sign that there is a best time to send email. Countless research hours have been dedicated to finding that best time to send email. Numerous blog posts discuss what the best time to send email is.
From my perspective, there are better places for senders to spend time than figuring out what the exact right time is.But, senders still ask when the best time to send mail is.
There are a lot of reasons I can come up with as to why there’s no best time to send email. But the really big one is that when you send a mail has no impact on when it gets delivered.  There are multiple steps between hitting the send button and the mail being delivered to the inbox totally outside the control of the individual sender.
Email is designed as “store-and-forward.” This means there are potential delays at multiple steps inside the process.
Sending queues are called queues for a reason. Emails are sent out individually, particularly when an ESP uses VERP as part of its sending. There is actually a time overhead for making a connection to a recipient server and sending the email.
Receivers have queues, too. They can only accept so many incoming connections at a time. They have limited resources to accept all the mail their users want.
Receivers may delay mail between accepting it at the MX and delivering it to the inbox. This isn’t ideal and it’s not usual, but it can happen.
Recipients using IMAP accounts may not check mail regularly. They may only collect mail a few times a day.
These are only a few of the reasons that send time doesn’t necessarily equate with delivery time. Of course, 99% of the time email is mostly instantaneous. The internet is robust enough that a message sent is delivered seconds later. I see it happen all the time, when colleagues and I send email during calls. But, when mail fails, it sometimes fails spectacularly. Back in the dark ages (of the early 90s) I had an email that took almost a year to get to the recipients. Best I can tell, it got stuck somewhere in the depths of a machine in the middle of the university mail system. Eventually that system fell over and someone noticed and rebooted it (maybe it was walled up somewhere?).  The reboot shook my message out of where ever it was stuck.
 

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