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Learn how recent developments in engagement metrics will affect inbox placement and your email programs in the future
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Does Unclicked = Undelivered?
How Engagement Metrics Will Affect Inbox Placement
- with Tom Sather, Director of Response Consulting
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AGENDA
The Meaning of Engagement
Measuring Engagement
5 Things You Can DoNow
The Meaning of Engagement
Email marketing is a lot like dating--
If you offer attractive benefits, then the relationship lives on, but if you don't the subscriber will cut you off. Whether it happens immediately or over a period of time, the primary goal for marketers is to pique subscriber interest and get them heavily engaged with your product and service.
So, how committed are you to developing a solid, long term relationship with your subscribers?
Marketers define engagement by how active their subscribers are, aswell as interaction with their marketing efforts. Marketers can measureengagement through things like opens, clicks, and conversions. Formarketers, high engagement means their marketing efforts are workingwhich translates into higher ROI.
Engagement is great for marketers to measure how effective their programs are, but honestly ISPs don’t care how many clicks or conversions you get.
ISPs only care about their users - whichhappen to be your subscribers.
Their primary goal is to make emailenjoyable and useful. The #1 concern withemail users is subscriber fatigue. We getso much email that we can’t keep up withit all.
We also get a lot of spam, which is thelargest obstacle for ISPs. ISPs do block alot of spam.
Spam
NOW, the ISPs do a pretty goodjob of blocking spam, but somelegitimate mail does get caughtby spam filters (less than 1%).Even though ‘less than 1%’seems like no big deal, it alsomeans that around 55 millionlegitimate messages are stillgetting caught. ISPs likeMicrosoft, are now focused onreducing that number andmaking sure that people get allof the email they want.
Microsoft received 8 billion email messages per day. Out of those, over 90% are spam.
Measuring Engagement
Currently there are only two webmail providers that are using engagement metrics:
1 2
There are three main factors that Hotmail considers when defining subscriber engagement:
(1.) Messages read, then deleted(2.) Messages deleted without being read(3.) Messages replied to
This individual analysis overrides globalfilters, so your emails may land in the inboxof one person, but get delivered to the spamfolder by default in others
Gmail recently released their Prioritized Inbox to help their users sort through all the clutter.
Google Prediction attempts to predict what isimportant to a user based on their actions. LikeHotmail, it will look at things like how often, ornot, you read messages from a particularsender. Gmail also looks at the types of emailyou ‘star,’ whether it’s addressed directly to youor not, and how the user ranks it’s importance.
This is what the Gmail Priority Inbox looks like:
Most marketers probably won’t see a change in their response or delivery at Gmail. Users can still see their regular inbox. However the
goal for you is get your email front & center and “prioritized.”
To most marketers, this looks like bad news:
•How on earth will we know where our email gets delivered now if they’re using subscriber-level filtering?•What do I need to do to make sure my email gets priority and is delivered to the inbox?
Don’t despair! A lot of thethings you are doing now will stillwork, but there may be somethings you will need to startdoing.
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Seed list monitoring is still important!
You will hear a lot of nonsense that “seeds don’t work anymore.” This is not true at all. Seed lists measurehow you are performing against the global filter. It’s also still important to track your reputation.
Monitor your Reputation!
Reputation is still main driver for determining default
mailbox placement.
Reputation consists of1.Complaints 2.Unknown Users 3. Honey pot Addresses/Spam Traps4.Sending Infrastructure5.Sending Permanence6.Content
Ignoring its importance can land you in trouble!
Complaints are STILL important to measure and reduce…
The ISPs will be calculatingcomplaint rates based off ofactive subscribers instead of totalvolume sent. Therefore, you maysee an increase in complaintrates, even though the totalnumber of complaints remainedthe same. You should continuereducing complaints and begin todig deeper into the reasons WHYyour subscribers are complaining.
Common factors for complaints…
1. Lack of permission or disclosure at the point of email collection
2. Mailing too frequently3. Content isn’t relevant or what was
expected.
Analyze the data points you currently have to find those trends
5 Things You Can Do Now!
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1
Remove Dead Addresses
Win Back InactivesBefore It’s Too Late
2
Subscribers who are ignoring your emails are
soon lost to you – recapture them before it’s too late
How often should youremind subscribers to stayactive? It depends on mailtype and frequency, butgenerally if subscribers areignoring your emails for aquarter, it’s time to takeaction.
Win-back strategies are no longer something you should think of once per year. In order to optimize deliverability, senders should implement a strategy to win those inactive subscribers back.
26Clean Out The Dead Ones
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Bed Bath and Beyond re-permissions subscribers thatdidn’t previously re-engage with their win-backcampaign. This type of action will trim your list of deadaddresses which include spam traps and unknown users.It will also help remove complainers.
Let’s take a look at an analysis of a retailer’s ‘complainer file’ we did.
29Manage Frequency
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A key reason subscribers complain and unsubscribe is because they get too much email from us.
Frequency testing - you could look at response rates to figure out the optimal frequency. But a really simple way is to use some data that you already have - complaint data. You can also look at unsubscribe rates or simply ask your subscribers the exact frequency in which they would like to receive email from you.
People complain the most after 1 email indicating an issue with the sign up process then really start complaining after 15 messages, or so. After 43 emails, people lose interest. What does your complaint file say?
Perform a Complaint Analysis
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Complaint AnalysisHere’s an example of a complaint analysis done for a retailer. We’re looking at subscribers with no clicks, opens or conversions.
The 0 - 6 month range has the highest complaint rate indicating potential issues with permission and disclosure at the point of email capture.
Complaints also start to build up at the 11 month range and peak at the 1 year range. If this sender had a win-back and re-activation strategy in place, their complaint rates would have never reached these levels.
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Email Tom Sather, Director of Response Counseling
Does Delivered = Unclicked : How Engagement Metrics Will Affect Inbox Placement
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