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Measuring & Improving Email ResultsMeasuring & Improving Email Results

Measuring & Improving Email Results

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©2010 Constant Contact, Inc.

Measuring and Improving Email Results v0.3 | Page 3©Constant Contact, Inc. All rights reserved. Updated 4/23.

Contents

Introduction ��5

1. View Overall and Average Results ......................................................................7

1a. Location: How to find email reports ...................................................................7

1b. Statistic Quick Definitions: What the numbers mean in brief ............................8

2. Track Progress and Evaluate Performance .....................................................10

2a. Track Progress ...................................................................................................10

2b. Evaluate Performance .......................................................................................10

3. View a Statistic’s Detailed Report ....................................................................13

3a. Emails Sent Recently ........................................................................................13

3b. Emails Not Sent Recently .................................................................................13

3c. Export and Save Email Results to Your Computer ...........................................14

4. Understand Each Statistic .................................................................................15

4a. Sent ...................................................................................................................15

4b. Bounces ............................................................................................................16

4c. Spam Reports ...................................................................................................18

4d. Opt-Outs ...........................................................................................................18

4e. Opens ................................................................................................................19

4f. Clicks ..................................................................................................................22

4g. Forwards ...........................................................................................................22

5� Improve Your Email Results ��24

5a. Provide Relevant Content .................................................................................26

5b. Re-assess your Emails’ Value ...........................................................................30


5c. Motivate Contacts to Open your Email .............................................................31

5d. Consider Delivery Timing and Frequency .........................................................35

5e. Create Effective Calls to Action .........................................................................36

6� Bounces ��38

Bounce Management Benefits: Why should I manage my bounces? ...................38

Bounce Management Steps: What do I do? ..........................................................39

When and How do I Remove Bounced Email Addresses? ....................................41

7� Spam Counts ��42

8� Additional Resources ��44

General Resources for Improving Email Results ....................................................44

Share Feedback and Suggestions ..........................................................................44

Featured Tables

Table 1. How your Email Results Compare with Others in your Industry .................10

Table 2. Bounce Category: Definitions and corrective action overview ...................15

Table 3. Overview of Strategies for Improving Results..............................................23


Introduction

How successful you are in using email marketing to support your organization’s mission depends on several factors, some of which are already being tracked in your Constant Contact email reports.

Email reports help you to:

Interpret your contacts’ overall interest level in your emails and specific topics•

Email open rates, although not 100% accurate (as explained in • Section 4), help you to assess your contacts’ interest levels in your emails.

Click-through rates give you a sense of how interested contacts are in a specific topic. •

Discover how contacts are interacting with your email •Email reports show you how many, and which, contacts:

Opened an email•

Clicked on specific links•

Forwarded your email•

Unsubscribed•

Did not receive the email •

Email reports also show you how many contacts reported it as spam, a very important statistic to monitor; the Constant Contact Compliance Team may disable your account if you send an email that receives too many spam complaints. To see tips for preventing spam reports, see Section 7. Note: If 85 or more days have passed since you sent the email, you can see how many contacts took an action (such

as opening, clicking, etc.), but you will no longer be able to see their email addresses. To save the list of contacts that

opened an email, you can either save them into a new contact list with the Save as List button or export them into a file.

Monitor your emails’ results over time •

Compare an email’s results with the average overall results of:

Emails sent during the past 3 months •

Emails you have ever sent •

Evaluate your emails’ performance in relation to other Constant Contact customers •Compare your emails’ average open, bounce, and click-through rates with those of other Constant Contact customers in your industry (Section 2).

Determine which strategies to take to improve your results •To determine which strategies are likely to improve particular statistics, refer to the beginning of Section 5.


To learn how to:

View an email’s overall results,• see Section 1�

Compare your results with your own averages, as well as with those of other Constant Contact custom-•ers in your industry, see Section 2�

View or export the detailed report for a statistic in the overall results,• see Section 3�

Interpret each statistic,• see Section 4.

Improve your open, click-through, and forward rates, • see Section 5.

Manage bounces,• see Section 6.

Reduce your spam count,• see Section 7.

Share your Feedback and Suggestions! To share feedback about this guide and to let us know how to improve it, go to: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2nvn6icg3d5id8c/start

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2nvn6icg3d5id8c/start


1. View Overall and Average ResultsYou may already have an idea of which statistics you want to improve, but it helps to look at the numbers in your email reports to help you select the improvement strategies (provided in Sections 5, 6, and 7) that will have the big-gest impact. An email report summary is available for every email you have ever sent in Constant Contact. It shows you:

How many contacts you sent it to•

How many contacts did not receive it (number of bounces)•

How many times it was: reported as spam, opted out of, clicked through, and forwarded•

1a. Location: How to find email reports

You can view your emails’ overall results in two ways:

All together: View the report summaries for all of your sent emails at once to compare their results. •

Individually: Go directly to a specific email’s report from its Sent Email Summary page.•

View All Email Report Summaries

To view a graph showing the results of recently sent emails, along with a list of all of your email report summaries, click Email Marketing > Reports.

The Email Statistics Graph at the top of the page shows you opens, bounces, and click-through rates for the last fifty emails you sent, allowing you to spot trends in your emails’ performance over time.

Your list of email report summaries appears below the Email Statistics Graph. The most recently sent email appears at the top of the list.

To sort the email reports in alphabetical order by email name, click the Email name column heading.

Note: In addition, you can see your overall average statistics (as determined from all of your email reports combined) in the Comparative Metrics section (see Section 2a).

View One Email Report Summary

To go directly to an email’s report from its Sent Email Summary page:


Click 1. Email Marketing > My Emails. Note: If your email is an autoresponder, click Email Marketing > Autoresponder. Click the name of the sent email in your emails list. The report appears in the Email Statistics section.

Click the name of the sent email in your emails list. The report appears in the Email Statistics section. 2.

If a statistic appears as a hyperlink, click it to view details about that particular number. To learn more about viewing and exporting emails’ detailed statistic reports, refer to Section 2.

1b. Statistic Quick Definitions: What the numbers mean in brief

Below is a brief description of what each number on your Constant Contact email reports means. To see more detailed statistic definitions, go to Section 4.

Sent: • Total intended recipients, or number of emails sent

Bounces:• Number of emails that did not reach the inbox; they were returned to Constant Contact for sev-eral possible reasons (See Section 4 and Section 6 to learn more about bounces and how to manage them).

Note: The number of emails sent minus the number of bounces (total non-bounces) does not always equal the number of emails received; emails may be routed directly into junk folders and Constant Contact is not always notified when emails bounce.

Bounce rate:• Percentage of emails sent that bounced

Example: If you sent an email to 100 people and 25 email addresses bounced the email back, the bounce rate is 25%; 25% of recipients did not receive the email (with the exception of the email addresses in the “Vacation/auto-reply” bounce category who did receive it).

Spam reports: • Number of recipients who reported the email as unwanted or unsolicited

Opt-outs:• Number of contacts who clicked the “SafeUnsubscribe” link in your email plus the number of contacts who reported your email as spam

Opens: • Number of unique recipients who opened the email in a way that was trackable

Note: For a lists of situations when Constant Contact can and cannot track opens, see Section 4e.

Open rate: • Percentage of recipients who opened your email in a way that was trackable compared to the number of emails that were sent (and did not bounce)

Example: If you sent an email to 11 contacts, but 1 bounced, then only 10 contacts received the email. If 5 out of the 10 people who received the email opened it in a way that was trackable, the open rate is 50%.

Clicks:• Number of unique recipients that clicked at least one link in the email

Example: If 2 people both clicked several links in your email, the email’s “clicks” count is 2. If you sent the email recently, you can see which links each contact clicked.


Click-through rate: • Percentage of the contacts for which opens were trackable that also clicked at least one link in an email

Example: If 2 of the 20 people who opened the email clicked on at least one link in the email, the click-through rate is 2/20, or 10%.

Forwards: • Number of recipients who clicked the “Forward to a Friend” link inside the email; Constant Contact cannot record when recipients forward their email with the Forward button in their email client

To learn how to view a detailed report for a particular statistic, see Section 3. To see more in-depth explanations about what each statistic means, refer to Section 4.


2. Track Progress and Evaluate Performance

You can get a sense of how your emails are performing over time by comparing results from several individual emails, or your averages during the past 3 months, with your own overall averages (Section 2a). To evaluate your perfor-mance in comparison to other Constant Contact customers in your industry, look at their average results (Section 2b).

2a. Track Progress

Have the results of the emails you sent recently been performing better or worse than usual?

To find out, compare their results with your average bounce, open, click, and forward rate for:

Every email you have ever sent•

Emails sent during the past three months•

Do not use the results of a single email to evaluate how successful your email communications are overall. Instead, look at the results of several emails and compare your average results during the past 3 months with your overall results.

To view a line graph display of results from your last fifty sent emails, along with a table listing your overall average results, click Email Marketing > Reports.

The Email Statistics Graph shows you the individual open, click-through, and bounce rates for each of the last fifty emails you sent, allowing you to spot trends in your emails’ popularity and deliverability over time. To see the average results of all of your sent emails combined, as well as recently sent emails, scroll down on the Email Reports page to find the Comparative Metrics section. Below is an example of what the Comparative Metrics section looks like.

2b. Evaluate Performance

How do your overall results compare to those of other Constant Contact customers in your industry? To find out, locate your industry in Table 1 on the next page. The data represents over 200 million emails sent by Constant Contact customers who also reported their industry type. Constant Contact updates this chart once a


year. To suggest an industry if you don’t see one in the above chart that relates to you, visit: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2n2zqogg2f6lyja/a001g2firew1/questions

Compare the average rates you see for your industry in Table 1 with your own emails’ average results (Section 2a). Table 1. How your Email Results Compare with Others in your Industry

Industry Type Open Rate Bounce RateClick-Through Rate

Accountant 14.0% 5.5% 14.5%

Art Gallery 21.9% 6.0% 10.6%

Association 18.5% 6.2% 11.0%

Communications 8.5% 2.0% 8.9%

Consultants 13.6% 8.0% 12.0%

Crafts 27.0% 3.4% 22.1%

Education and Services 18.6% 5.9% 15.1%

Entertainment 17.0% 5.3% 10.8%

Event Planning 16.6% 5.9% 12.2%

Franchise 19.3% 5.9% 12.5%

Government Agency 23.0% 6.5% 14.7%

Hotel, Inn, B&B 19.8% 5.4% 13.9%

Legal Services 18.2% 7.8% 13.0%

Manufacturing & Distribution 18.0% 7.0% 13.1%

Marketing/PR 13.5% 6.4% 13.5%

Medical Services 16.7% 5.3% 13.3%

Non-profit 20.0% 5.9% 12.3%

Office Supplies 16.5% 1.9% 9.4%

Personal Services 18.0% 7.6% 12.6%

Products & Services 16.0% 6.4% 12.2%

Professional Services 15.4% 6.6% 13.0%

Publishing 18.1% 4.5% 27.6%

Real Estate 14.8% 7.6% 10.4%

Religious Organization 22.4% 4.6% 9.8%

Restaurant/Bar/Catering 18.4% 6.0% 6.6%

Retail 17.7% 4.3% 15.7%

Salon/Spa 15.0% 6.9% 7.0%

Sports & Recreation 17.5% 5.9% 12.3%

Technology 15.0% 7.3% 10.9%

Transportation 18.9% 5.1% 13.8%


Travel & Tourism 15.5% 5.9% 11.6%

Web Developer 17.4% 5.8% 16.4%

Other 17.7% 5.4% 17.8%

To see a line chart showing you how the results of each of the last fifty emails you sent compared with the average results of other Constant Contact customers in your selected industry type, see the Email Statistics Graph on your

Email Marketing > Reports page in Constant Contact.


3. View a Statistic’s Detailed Report

If, when viewing an email’s report, you notice a statistic that is blue and underlined, click it to see details about that statistic. The level of detail you will see when you drill down depends on how recently you sent the email. If the email was sent:

Recently• (within the past 85 days or about 3 months), you will be able to drill-down a second time to see which email addresses contributed to the statistic.

Note: Constant Contact does not provide reports showing which email addresses reported your email as spam.

Greater than 85 d• ays ago, you cannot see which email addresses accounted for each number, but you can still see a few additional details about the bounce and clicks rates.

Example: On an email’s report, you may see that an email has received 29 Clicks. Regardless of when the email was sent, you can click the number “29” to see how many unique recipients clicked on particular links. If the email was sent less than 85 days ago, however, you can also drill-down further to see which email addresses clicked on a specific link.

Tip: To send an email related to the link’s topic to only those contacts that clicked the link, click the Save as List button while viewing the link’s click-through report.

3a. Emails Sent Recently

If an email was sent within the past 85 days (or about 3 months), click the hyperlinked numbers on its email report to see a detailed report about the statistic.

Below is an example of an email report summary with statistic details available.

Tip: If you plan to review a statistic’s detailed results again in a few months, export the results to a file to save on your computer for future reference (Section 3c). You can only access these detailed results from within Constant Contact during the first 85 days after the email was sent.


3b. Emails Not Sent Recently

If you sent an email more than 85 days ago, you cannot see which email addresses accounted for each number. You can, however, still view the number of:

Email addresses in each bounce category, but not which email addresses bounced•

Times that specific links were clicked, but not which email addresses clicked them•

3c. Export and Save Email Results to Your Computer

Because an email report’s detailed results are only available in Constant Contact for up to 85 days after you sent the email, you may want to save those results to a file on your computer for future reference. You can export statistic results to a plain text (.TXT) or spreadsheet (.CSV) file.

To export the detailed results about a statistic on your email report:

Log into your account and go to 1. Email Marketing > Reports.

Locate the row containing the name of the email of interest.2.

Note: The email of interest must have been sent within the past 85 days.

Click a hyperlinked statistic to view its details.3.

Example: Click the number in the “Opens” column to see who opened the email.

Click the 4. Export button at the bottom of the resulting page.

Check the boxes next to the information fields you want to export.5.

Click 6. Export as CSV to save the information in a spreadsheet or Export as Text to save the information in

a plain text program, such as Notepad or TextEdit. The Export in Progress page will appear.

To view the status of your export and download the file, go to 7. Contacts > Activity.

On the Contacts: Activity page, click the link for the Export activity listed in the first row. 8.

Note: Click the orange Refresh button to re-check the status if the export status is Pending. Depending

on the size of the export, it may take a few moments for the export activity to complete.

Click the9. Download Export File button.


4. Understand Each Statistic

This section explains what each number on your email’s report means and answers commonly asked questions about each statistic. To learn how to improve these statistics and drive better results from future emails, however, refer to Section 5.

Sent (• 4a)

Bounces (• 4b)

Spam Report (• 4c)

Opt-outs• (4d)

Opens (• 4e)

Clicks (• 4f)

Forwards• (4g)

4a. Sent

The number in the Sent column represents the total number of email addresses on the contact lists to which you sent the email.

Remember: The number of contacts to whom you have sent the email does not reflect how great an impact the email has made� The other statistics on your email report (such as your opens, opt-outs, forwards, etc.) repre-sent the email’s impact far more accurately.

See who you sent the email to and when

If the email was sent within the past 85 days, the statistic in the Sent column will appear as a link. When you click the link, you will see:

The email addresses to which you sent this email•

The date and time the email was sent to each contact•

The recipient’s current status on your list•

Active: • Currently on at least one of your contact lists and you are able to send email to them; the price you pay for Email Marketing is based on this number

Removed: • No longer on your contact lists and not active, but you can add them back if needed

Do Not Mail:• No longer on your contact lists and you cannot add them back by yourself; they may have unsubscribed or reported your email as spam

Forgot to send the email to someone?

Use the Resend or the QuickSend feature to send a previously sent email to specific contacts without creating a separate copy of the email. To use the Resend feature, go to the email’s Sent Email Summary page and click the Resend Options button. To use the Quicksend feature, search or browse for the contact to whom you want to send the previously sent email. Then check the box next to their email address and click the QuickSend button.


4b. Bounces

The number in the Bounces column on an email’s report tells you how many of the intended recipients could not receive your email (with the exception of email addresses in the “Vacation / Auto-reply” bounce category that did receive your email).

When an email bounces, or is returned to Constant Contact without being delivered, it usually comes with data indicating why the email could not be delivered.

Constant Contact interprets the message that is returned with the email and records the email address in the ap-propriate bounce categories which you can see in your email’s bounce report. If the message returned with the bounced email does not provide an explanation, Constant Contact lists the email address in the “Other” category. Which contacts did not receive the email and why?

To find out why your email bounced:

On the1. Email Marketing > Reports page, click the hyperlinked number in the Bounces column for the email of interest.

The number of bounces in each category will appear on the resulting page. 2. If the email was sent within the past 85 days, you can see which email addresses are included in each category

Check the check box next to the bounce category you want to view.3.

Click 4. View List. What should I do with bounced email addresses?

Table 2 defines each bounce category and briefly suggests how to manage each bounce type. For more detailed


help managing bounces, refer to Section 6.

Table 2. Bounce Category: Definitions and corrective action overview

Bounce Category Meaning Corrective Action Overview

Non-existent addressThe email address does not exist. It may have been cancelled or contain a typo.

Wait at least 16 days before resending an email to a contact in this category. Do not attempt to fix the typo in the address unless the mistake is very obvious (such as two @ signs).

Undeliverable

The receiving server was temporarily:

• unavailable,

• overloaded,

• orcouldnotbefound.

Emails in this category often have the same domain (the part after “@” in an email address).

Only remove these email ad-dresses if they consistently appear in this category over an extended period of time.

Mailbox full

There was not enough space in the re-cipient’s inbox for the email. The account may be abandoned. You will not be able to deliver the email to addresses in this category until they delete some of their existing mail.

Contact the intended recipient in person or over the phone to ask if they switched email ad-dresses.

Vacation/Auto ReplyThe email recipient has set up an “I’m on vacation” email to reply automatically to incoming emails.

Do not remove email addresses in this category from your con-tact list. Do not resend the email to these contacts.

Blocked

The contact’s inbox spam filter may have detected spam-like content or the ISP is currently blocking inbound email from Constant Contact.

Contact the contact’s ISP•

Always use the spam •checker tool before send-ing emails

Notes:

For help contacting an ISP about blocked emails• , visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2050

For more detailed help managing bounces• , go to Section 6 of this guide.

http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2050


4c. Spam Reports

Your contacts may report your email as spam if they perceive it as unsolicited and if they do not want to receive emails from you.

Why might a contact who asked to receive my email think it is spam?

A contact who asked to receive your emails may report your email as spam if they do NOT:

Recognize who you are when looking at the email’s From address and Subject line•

Remember providing you with permission to send them email •

Know how to unsubscribe properly with the “Safe Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of your email •

Tip: To prevent accidental spam complaints that happen for this reason, turn the Permission Reminder ON in every email you send (as shown in Section 5c). This will make it easier for contacts to unsubscribe from your list in the proper way.

What does a red spam report statistic mean?

The number of spam reports appears in red font if the email received an unacceptable (greater than 1 per 1,000 emails sent) number of complaints.

For help improving your spam rate on future emails, refer to Section 7.

Who reported my email as spam?

Constant Contact does not report which contacts reported your email as spam. It automatically adds the email addresses that report your email as spam and unsubscribe to your Do Not Mail List to prevent you from sending to them again.

Why does Constant Contact have such a strict no-spam policy?

Constant Contact enforces a strict no-spam policy to protect both its ability to deliver mail and its reputation. When mail sent through Constant Contact receives spam complaints, the receiving Internet Service Provider (ISP) may add it to their blacklists (aka blocklists). When an ISP add Constant Contact to its blacklist, the ISP will reject all mail sent from Constant Contact’s services, preventing it from delivering legitimate emails.

4d. Opt-Outs

An opt-out occurs when someone clicks the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of your email. The number of opt-outs listed on an email’s report, however, also includes the number of people who reported your email as spam.


Do I need to do anything when someone unsubscribes from my list?

If the contact unsubscribes through the “Unsubscribe” link or by reporting your email as spam, you do not have to do anything. Constant Contact automatically and immediately adds contacts to your Do Not Mail list when they unsubscribe.

Note: If an opted out contact wants to rejoin your list, they must personally sign up for your list again through your online Join My Mailing List form. After signing up, they must respond to the email they receive next to confirm that they want to rejoin your list.

Could a contact become unsubscribed from my list by accident?

A contact could become accidentally unsubscribed from your email if they forward your email to a friend and the friend opts out of your list. This can only happen, however, if your contact forwards your email with the Forward but-ton in their email program (instead of the “Forward to a Friend” link inside the email).

To help prevent accidental opt-outs that occur for this reason, include an extra “Forward to a Friend” link inside your email. See Section 4g for help adding an additional “Forward to a Friend” link in an email.

4e. Opens

The Opens column on an email report shows the email’s open rate and the number of emails opened.

The• open rate is the percentage of recipients who opened your email in a way that was trackable* compared to how many received the email (the number sent minus the number that bounced out of contacts’ inboxes).

Example: In this example, 75%, or 3 out of 4, recipients that received the email opened it.

The • emails opened value below the open rate in the Opens column is the number of unique email addresses that opened the email in a way that was trackable.*

Example: In this example, the circled number indicates that three recipients opened the email.

*The following pages explain when opens are trackable.


Below you will find answers to the following commonly asked questions about opens reports:

Who opened the email and when? •

Why does it look like some contacts opened the email several times?•

When is an open trackable? •

Who opened the email and when? If the email was sent within the past 85 days, click the hyperlinked number of emails opened to see which email ad-dresses opened the email, along with the date and time that they opened it.

Why does it look like some contacts opened the email several times? It is common for an email address to appear to have opened the email several times. This can happen if:

The contact’s email program has a preview pane• (also called a reading pane). Every time a contact scrolls over the email in the preview pane, their email address is recorded on the Opened Emails report (but not in the unique number of Opens reported on the email’s overall results). This is usually the case when it looks like the contact opened several times within one to two minutes. Example: Here is an example of a preview pane. The recipient can easily open several emails within just a few seconds by scrolling up and down the email list in the left sidebar.

Many preview pane users, such as contacts using Microsoft Outlook, prefer to scroll over emails in their inbox to preview them quickly instead of double-clicking each email one at a time.

The contact forwarded the email to friends using a Forward button in their email client• . The contact will appear to have re-opened the email at the exact times that their friends opened the forwarded email. Constant Contact does not record opens for emails forwarded with the “Forward to a Friend” link inside your email. Section 4g explains how to include an extra forward link in your email.

The contact simply opened the email a few times • to revisit it.

When is an open trackable? The open rate and open counts on your email reports are not 100% accurate because Constant Contact can only record an open if a recipient takes any of the following actions:


Enables the images in an HTML version of the email • Example: Here is an example of a message a recipient may see prompting them to download the images in your email (depending on the settings they have in their email client). If they click the message to enable images, Constant Contact will record the open in your opens report.

Clicks any link in the HTML version of the email (regardless of whether they enabled the images) • Example: If the recipient clicks any link in the email, Constant Contact will be able to track the open even though the images are disabled.

Clicks the “Have trouble viewing this email?” link in an HTML or text-only email •

Note: Constant Contact can only track when text-only recipients view your emails if you provide them with a link to its web version and the recipient chooses to view it in their web browser.

Open rates could be higher than what is reported if any of your contacts:

Opened the email’s text-only version, but did not view it as a webpage•

If more of your contacts are beginning to read your emails from mobile devices, it may appear as though they are opening them less frequently than they did in the past.

Disabled open tracking in their email programs and did not click any links in the email•

Receive and view your emails in an email client that does not allow for tracking opens•


4f. Clicks The Clicks column on an email report contains two statistics:

The• clicks rate is the percentage of recipients that clicked on at least one link in your email.

Note: If your emails suddenly begin getting a 100% clicks rate, and you are using an XHTML template or edited the template with the Advanced Editor, you may have accidentally deleted the <OpenTracking/> tag from your email.

The • clicks count value below the clicks rate is the number of email addresses that clicked on at least one link in your email.

Example: In this example, the number 2 indicates that two recipients clicked at least one link in the email.

If the Clicks count is a hyperlink, click it to go to the Click-through Statistics page and find out which links were most popular. The Unique Click-throughs column (shown below) indicates how many times each link was clicked. If the email was sent within the past 85 days, click on the numbers in this column to find out which email addresses opened particu-lar links.

Tip: To easily create a new contact list containing only the contacts that clicked a specific link in an email, click the Save as list button at the bottom of the Contact click-throughs page.

4g. Forwards

An email report’s Forwards column indicates the number of recipients who clicked the “Forward to a Friend” link inside the email. If a contact forwards your email with the Forward button in their email program, Constant Contact cannot record the forward.

Where is the “Forward to a Friend” link in my emails?

By default, this link appears in the footer (at the bottom) of your emails. You can, however, add additional “Forward to a Friend” links within the body of your email.


To add an additional “Forward to a Friend” link to your email:

Open the email in which you want to add the link. 1.

On the Email Layout page, click the 2. Edit button for the block where you want to insert the “Forward to a Friend” link.

In the Insert section on the left side of the screen, click the3. More Insert Options drop-down menu and select

In the pop-up window that displays, click the appropriate radio button to add a text link or a button image.4.

If you choose to add a text link, enter the text in the text box provided.5.

If you choose to add a button image, select from the choices in the drop down box. A preview of the se-6. lected image displays to the right.

Click 7. Save & Close.

Note: To comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) CAN-SPAM act, do not ever include an incentive for your recipients to forward your email.

Have feedback?

To give feedback about this guide, go to: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2nvn6icg3d5id8c/start



5. Improve Your Email ResultsTo meet your business, personal, or philanthropic goals, you need to build and maintain relationships with the very people who support your success. Use the strategies in this section to create more effective emails that will help you to strengthen your relationships with your contacts. After reviewing and learning about the statistics in your Constant Contact email reports you may have an idea of which statistics you want to improve. To improve your:

Bounce rate, see • Section 6

If your email consistently bounces out of a contact’s inbox, you’ve basically lost a contact—someone who might otherwise have acted on an offer in the email and forwarded the email to their friends.

Spam counts, see • Section 7

If you receive spam counts above industry tolerances, your ability to send email altogether is at risk. The Compliance Team may disable accounts that receive unacceptable spam counts to prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking, or rejecting, all mail sent through Constant Contact.

Open, forward, click-through, and opt-out rates, see the strategies that follow in this section. •

To see a summary of each strategy covered in the this section, go to Table 3 on the next page.


Table 3. Overview of Strategies for Improving Open, Forward, Click-Through, and Opt-out Rates

Improvement Strategy Strategy Overview

Provide relevant content

Section 5a provides instructions to help you:

Create targeted contact lists•

Evaluate your list segments•

Modify an email to target each list segment•

Re-assess your emails’ valueSection 5b explains how to keep your contacts from getting bored with your emails by considering the variety of types of information they may value.

Motivate contacts to open your emails

Section 5c explains how to:

Help contacts to recognize your emails •

Design for preview panes•

Write great subject lines that don’t look like spam•

Consider delivery timing and frequency

Section 5d helps you to:

Determine the best day and time to send emails•

Decide how frequently to send emails •

Write effective calls to action Section 5e contains tips for motivating your contacts to take a specific action (such as register, purchase, book an appointment, request more information, etc.)


5a. Provide Relevant Content

Contacts are more likely to continually open, click-through, and forward your emails if you send them information and offers that are relevant to their unique interests. To provide relevant content, you need to be aware that:

All of your contacts do not necessarily have identical interests.•

Contacts’ interests and demographics change over time. •

Challenge 1: All of your contacts do not necessarily have identical interests.

Depending on your business or organization, your contacts may have different:

Locations (Contacts may only be interested in facilities near where they live and news from their area) •

Interests and preferences•

Examples: Republicans and democrats, dog lovers vs. cat lovers, smokers vs. non-smokers, working vs. stay-at-home, vegetarians vs. meat eaters, knitters vs. crocheters, casual vs. professional dressers, hikers vs. bikers, non-fiction vs. fiction readers, piano vs. guitar players, etc.

Va• lues, abilities, and goals

Examples: Time savers vs. money savers, beginner or advanced, focused on social responsibility vs. convenience, brand new to your organization or seasoned member*, etc.

*Note: Use Autoresponder to send emails that answer common new comers’ questions at specific inter-vals after they join your list.

Do not send “one for all” emails to blast information about a variety of interests to everyone. Instead, create mailing lists for contacts that share the same interests, preferences, or demographics. See the “Creating Targeted Contact Lists” steps that follow in this section for help segmenting your contact list. Note: If a contact belongs to multiple lists and you send a single email to multiple lists at once, the contact will only receive one copy of the email.

Challenge 2: Contacts’ interests and demographics change over time.

If you are already creating targeted emails, it’s a good idea to:

Make sure all of your contacts’ list subscriptions are current •

Encourage your contacts to click the “Update Profile” link to make sure their list subscriptions are still cur-rent. This is especially important if you recently added new list subscriptions or if the contacts’ interests and needs are likely to change over time.

Re-evaluate your list categories •

Have there been any economic, political, cultural, or technological changes recently that may affect what information your contacts are interested in? If so, it is time to consider how to refine your email content and messages to reflect those changes.


Creating Targeted Contact Lists

If you have not already segmented your contact list, you will need to use the instructions that follow to:

Divide your existing contacts into separate lists based on interests, preferences, or demographics. 1. Example: A restaurant has locations in several states. Its customers may only be interested in receiving menu updates and coupons that are relevant to the location closest to where they live.

Customize your mailing list signup forms to allow new contacts to select which lists they want to join. 2. Example: A restaurant allows new subscribers to select which restaurant cities they prefer to visit and receive updates about.

Begin creating targeted emails. 3.

Step 1: Divide your existing contacts into separate lists based on interests, preferences, or demographics.

To break a contact list into smaller, more targeted lists, save contacts with identical characteristics (such as contact details and custom fields, email click-through behavior, and matching survey responses) into new lists.

Contact details and custom fields• Use the Advanced Search feature in Constant Contact to view all contacts having up to five matching details or custom fields. This makes it easy to customize your the emails you send to contacts’ based on their geographic location, birthday month, or any other data you have stored about them.

Email click-through behavior• When viewing the detailed click-through report for an email sent within the past 85 days, you can save every contact that opened an email, or clicked a specific link in an email, into a new contact list. Example: Tom’s Travel Agency saves all of the contacts that clicked a link to view weekend getaway deals into a new list. It then sends an email specifically about weekend getaway deals to those contacts.

Matching survey responses • After you send an online survey to your contacts, filter the results to view and save respondents who selected up to three of the same answers (e.g., save “I don’t like seafood” in one list and “I am a vegetar-ian” into another list).

Need more in-depth help segmenting your list? To see detailed instructions for segmenting your list with any of the above methods, refer to the Help Overview: List Segmentation FAQ: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3278 Take the “How to Boost the Response to Your Emails” live webinar. To register, go to: http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/How-to-Boost-the-Response-to-Your-Emails.jsp

Step 2: Update your online and printed signup forms to display your new more defined contact lists.

After you customize your online Join My Mailing List form to select which contact lists will display, ask your exist-ing contacts to click the “Update Profile” link in your email to make sure you have grouped them into the correct lists.


Note: To learn how to customize which contact lists display on your online Join My Mailing List form visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1838

Step 3: Create targeted emails.

Creating Targeted Emails

Just segmenting your lists alone will not motivate your contacts to read your emails and click-through to visit your website. You also need to customize the information you send to each contact list to highlight the information or values that will appeal most to that audience.Here are some tips to help you do that.

Create a slightly different version of the same email for each contact list• If you don’t have enough content to create separate emails for different lists or are afraid of depriving contacts of information that could potentially interest them:

Create one email. 1.

Make one copy of the email for each preference, interest, or demographic-based contact lists. 2. Note: For help segmenting a contact list into more targeted groups, refer to the beginning of this section. To find out how to copy an email, visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1546

Use any of the following tips to make each copy of the email more relevant to each contact list: 3.

Strategically position or highlight the most relevant information• at the top of the email.

Example: A middle school sends a school wide newsletter to parents and students, but has separate contact lists for each grade. When sending to the fourth grade contact list, it puts fourth grade news at the top of the email.

Customize the subject line• is to reflect the target contact list’s unique traits.

Example: At the end of summer, a health club customizes the subject line of the email it sends to:

Members with children • to read “Jerry’s Gym After-school Classes: Enroll now to save a space for your child”

Members without children • to read “Jerry’s Gym: Pay Less for Fall Classes when you Register Now”

Engage each audience with a different poll question. •

Example: A library customizes the:

Student version • of its newsletter by adding a link to a poll asking “Which of the following homework help resources would you most like us to offer?”

Non-student version • of its newsletter by inserting a link to a poll asking “Which of the follow-ing aspects of our library needs the most improvement?”

You can create a poll and link to it (or include a screenshot image of the poll that links to the poll’s URL) from your email when you sign up for a Free Trial of Online Survey.


To learn more about polls, visit: http://www.constantcontact.com/online-surveys/features/online-polls.jsp

Change the featured images• in each email with ones that closely reflect the interests of each contact list.

Example: A gift shop customizes an email it sends to its:

“Cheap Gift Seeker” contact list• by including images of, and coupons for, items on sale.

“Unique Gift Seeker” contact list• by including images of gifts from other countries or that are not available in other stores.


5b. Re-assess your Emails’ Value

“Valuable” content in an email can take many forms and have many definitions. A contact may find value in an email advertising your products if they are in the mood to shop. Another day, how-ever, the same contact may not feel like shopping and will only open your email if they expect that it may meet one of their other needs (such as to learn, prepare/plan, find a solution, or be entertained). Tip: To give your contacts more reasons to open your emails, balance the quantity of promotional emails you send with information that will educate, inform, or entertain them.

To build your reputation and establish yourself as a credible expert in your industry, consider the appropriateness of sending the following types of information to your contacts (if you are not already).

News about recent events•

Examples: New members, staffing changes, contest winners, funds raised at a benefit, meeting highlights, new products or resources released, etc.

Entertainment and special interest stories•

Examples: Customer/member spotlights and success stories, interviews with experts (in written form or by linking to an online video), reviews of books and movies contacts’ would enjoy, etc.

How-to tips•

Examples: Knitting tips in a craft newsletter, parenting strategies in a PTA newsletter, family activity ideas and prayers in a religious organization’s emails, pet grooming and training tips in a dog walking company’s emails, stress reduction and nutrition advice in a wellness center’s newsletter, etc.

Links to resources•

Information related to a transaction•

Examples: Registration confirmation, receipt, shipping delivery information, “Thank you for your donation”, “Thank you for your business”, etc.

Updates about what’s going on next month •

Examples: School lunch menus, seminar schedule, tradeshow dates, sales, party details, contests, etc.

Chances to save money through email exclusive discounts and coupons•


5c. Motivate Contacts to Open your Email

Regardless of how highly relevant and targeted your email is to a particular contact, they are not likely to open it if:

They don’t recognize that it is from you •

The subject line doesn’t interest them •

Make your Email Recognizable

To make your emails easier to recognize, use the tips and techniques that follow to:

Choose an appropriate From Name and From Address•

Brand every email with a consistent design and design for contacts who use preview panes •

Include the name that your contacts will recognize most easily in the From Name, From Address, and Subject Line Contacts are more likely to open your email, and less likely to unsubscribe or mark it as spam, if they immediately recognize that it is from a sender they know and trust.

Typically, contacts recognize organization’s names more readily than individuals’ names. • If your contacts will recognize a person’s name more readily than an organization’s name, use both the individual’s name and the organization’s name (e.g., Bob Jones at Bob’s Kennel). Spammers are known for sending emails that only contain names in the From line to create a false sense of security.

Both• your From name and From address must contain the name that will be most familiar to everyone on your list; some email clients display both the From name and From address, while others may just display one of the two.

To change the From line (and Subject Line) on an email you have saved in Draft status within Constant Contact:

Log into Constant Contact and click the1. Email Marketing tab.

Click the name of the email you would like to edit.2.

Click “Edit Message Settings/Header.” The Emails: Message Settings page displays.3.

Make your changes.4.

Click 5. Save.


Cater to preview pane viewers The upper-left corner of your email is the section that contacts will definitely see when previewing your email in a reading pane. It is also what contacts will look at first when they open your email. The top of your email should contain:

A permission reminder• -- A permission reminder is a short paragraph at the top of your emails to remind subscribers about how they know you and why they are receiving the email. Turn the Permission Reminder “On” in every email you send from the email’s Emails Message Settings page.

Your logo • -- Include an image description with your logo to inform viewers who cannot view the im-ages in your email that: “This email is from [Your Name]. Please enable images or view as a webpage”.

Don’t use a tall header image. Preferably, your logo will be no more than around 150 pixels tall; other-wise, it will take up too much space in the preview pane—especially for viewers who cannot even see the image.

You can automatically add your logo to every new email you create by default from the My Settings section of your account. For detailed steps, visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1623

Table of contents• (if applicable) and calls to action that will be most relevant to the audience you are targeting

Look and feel matching your other emails • -- Don’t depend on your logo alone to brand your emails. Every email you send must also have consistent colors and fonts to reaffirm your identity to everyone who


previews and opens your email. To use a custom color from your website or logo in your email, enter its hex value into the Color Picker for the area you want to color in Constant Contact.

To find the hex value for your website or logo’s colors, ask your webmaster or use an online color picker such as Color Cop (PC) or Hex Color Picker (Mac). For more detailed steps, go to: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3061

Email Branding Tips

To avoid rebranding the same templates over and over again every time you create a new email, you have two op-tions:

Make • a copy of an email you branded previously and revise or entirely replace the content (including the subject line).

Keep a branded email template that does not contain content in your account at all times. When you’re •

ready to create a new email, just copy this branded blank template and add your new content.

Note: To find out how to copy an email in Constant Contact, watch this short video: http://img.constantcontact.com/faq/ve/copying_emails_demo_v3.htm (no audio)

Use a Compelling Subject Line

Here are some tips to help you write “Subject” lines that will help increase the chances that your emails will get deliv-ered and opened:

Keep it short (no longer than 40 characters) -- Many email clients only provide room to display 30-50 charac-•ters or 5-8 words in a subject line.

Use a consistent format, such as: “Organization Name: Label the Most Relevant Topic and Communicate •Urgency/Benefit of Reading it Now”

Mention a specific benefit to opening the email •

http://img.constantcontact.com/faq/ve/copying_an_email_v4.htm


Include a time frame in which they can get the benefit (such as “Enroll today to reserve your seat”)•

Help prevent your email from being filtered into a junk folder:•

Only add punctuation as necessary•

Use both upper and lower-case letters•

Do not use words, phrases, and symbols typically associated with spam such as:•

Free (instead, use Complimentary, On The House, Our Treat, Be Our Guest, Giveaway, or Zero Cost)•

% off•

Act now•

Exclamation points (!)•

Dollar signs ($)•

Multiple periods (...)•

Full words in all caps•

Examples:

“Jim’s Kennel: 12 Tips to Train Your Dog Today”•

“Girly Gifts: 7 Nifty Gifts in Limited Supply”•

“Belle’s Bed and Breakfast: Book your Summer Vacation Now” •

For more inspiration and instruction on creating effective subject lines, register now for the free Subject Line Design webinar at: http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/Subject-Line-Design.jsp


5d. Consider Delivery Timing and Frequency

When and how frequently you send emails to your contacts affects your open rates and your opt-out rates.

Open rates• Industry statistics suggest that recipients are most receptive to offers in the mid-week time frame (Tuesday-Thursday), but every audience is different. To determine the best:

Day to send• Divide your list into equal parts; if you want to test for everyday of the week, divide it into seven parts. Send the same email to each group on a different day of the week and see which day yields the high-est open rate.

Time of day to send• Send your email to a different segment of your contact list at different times of the day (e.g., morning, mid-morning, afternoon, etc.).

Opt-out rates• If you send emails:

Too freque• ntly, your contacts may begin to ignore them and eventually unsubscribe.

Too infrequently• , contacts may not remember ever signing up to receive email from you and report the email as spam. To help prevent this, always add the Permission Reminder to every email you send because it reminds contacts why they are receiving your email.

Tell contacts’ how frequently you will send them email when they initially join your mailing list. You can provide this information on your website, on a printed sign-up form, and by customizing your Welcome Email.

*Note: To customize your Welcome Email, click the My Settings tab in your Constant Contact and select option 3. When you are done customizing the email, you must click the Activate Changes button to apply your changes. For detailed steps, please refer to: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1832


5e. Create Effective Calls to Action

Include a clear “call to action” in every email you create and track your contacts’ responsiveness.

What is a “call to action”? Every email you send should have a clear “call to action”, something you want your contacts to do with, or in response to, the information in the email. Examples of actions you might want contacts to take when they see your email include:

Visit your website•

Call or email you to request information or book an appointment•

Fill out a registration form•

Buy a product•

Save your email in a folder in their inbox•

Give you feedback by clicking a link to your poll or online survey•

Donate money•

Use your Share button to share your email with their online social networks (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.)•

How do I write an effective call to action?

To motivate your contacts to engage in the desired activity:

State a clear benefit for clicking on links in the email. • Example: “Purchase a bouquet to brighten a loved one’s day.”

Create a sense of urgency to click the link. If there is an offer associated with the link, limit it to a specific time •period or offer only a specific quantity. Example: “Sign up for the race before May 1st and get a free t-shirt.”

Format the links to stand out. Include plenty of white space around calls to action. Do not bury them within •long paragraphs. When calling attention to important links, use short paragraphs of no more than 1-3 short sentences. Buttons, such as the one in the example below, often stand out. Example: To find out how to insert a PayPal button into your email, watch this recorded tutorial: http://www.constantcontact.com/display_media.jsp?id=16t

To create your own button to link to a page on your website, insert an image you want to use as the button into your email and make it a clickable link. Don’t forget to include an image description (such as “Click to donate today”) for contacts who cannot view the image.


How do I know if my contacts act upon the offers in my email?

If your call to action involves:

Clicking a specific link in your email, monitor contacts’ responsiveness and interest level by reviewing •your clicks rate and click-through data on your email reports (See Section 4f for instructions).

Calling you on the phone, include instructions in your email to mention your email when they call (e.g., •to get a special email-exclusive discount).

Visiting a store, office, or event, consider providing a printable coupon in the email they can bring with •them when they visit you.

Example:


6. Bounces Open communication is essential in all relationships. If contacts’ email addresses are appearing in your bounce reports, they aren’t receiving your emails and your communication is not open. They won’t necessarily know, or be able to tell you, that they aren’t getting your emails. Note: For help finding an email’s bounce report in your Constant Contact account, see Section 4b.

Constant Contact groups the bounced email addresses for every email you send into categories according to any information the Internet Service Provider provides when it returns the email to Constant Contact. With the exception of contacts in the Vacation/Auto Reply category, contacts that appear on an email’s bounce report did not receive your email.

Bounce Management Benefits: Why should I manage my bounces?

By managing your bounces, you can:

Meet more contacts’ expectations •If a contact does not receive your email because it bounces out of their inbox or you have the incorrect email address, he or she may assume you are not following through on your responsibility to deliver the information they signed up to receive.

Create better results for your organization• Your relationship with every contact matters when it comes to helping your organization to achieve its mission. If one contact who wants to receive your emails cannot do so, that is one less person who could potentially forward your email to their friends or act upon the offers in the email.

Make sure you are sending emails to the correct addresses •If you are sending emails to an abandoned email account or an email address that was not typed correctly, you may think that you have more contacts than you really do.

Improve your open rates •You may notice that your reported open rate increases slightly as you stop sending email to email addresses that don’t exist. This is because your open rate is determined by the number of emails opened compared to the total number sent (regardless of the number that were actually delivered successfully).

Decrease your list size with the potential to pay less for using Email Marketing •If you are not already in the lowest pricing tier, you could potentially save money by removing email addresses that bounce consistently from your account. The price you pay for Email Marketing is based on how many active contacts you have in your Constant Contact account.

Bounced email addresses are considered active contacts • because you can continue to send email to them.

Removed email addresses are not active• , but they remain in your Constant Contact account in case you need to re-add them. They are not included in your list size for billing purposes.


Example: If you were in the second lowest pricing tier based on the number of active contacts on your list, you could potentially move into the lowest pricing tier when you remove bounced contacts. As a result, you would pay less to use Email Marketing.

Note: “Managing” bounced email addresses does not mean automatically removing all bounced

contacts from your contact list. See Step 3 in this section for more information.

Bounce Management Steps: What do I do?

It is easiest to manage bounced email addresses by analyzing the bounce report for emails sent within the past 85 days (or about 3 months). If the email was sent greater than 85 days ago, you can only view the number of contacts in each category, but not their email addresses.

Step 1: View the Email’s Bounce Report

To begin managing your bounces, open the email report for the email you sent most recently to each of your contact lists.

Go to1. Email Marketing > Reports.

Locate the row with the email of interest and click the hyperlinked number in the Bounces column. 2. You should now see the number of email addresses in each bounce category for that specific email.

Note: To see a description of what each bounce category means, refer to Section 4 of this guide.

Step 2: View the email addresses in categories that contain bounces

If the report you have open is for an email sent within the past 85 days, you can view the contacts in each bounce category.

On the email’s Bounce Report, where you see the number of email addresses in each bounce category, 1. select the check boxes for the bounce categories of interest.

Click the 2. View List button.

Step 3: Manage Contacts in Each Bounce Category

“Managing” bounced email addresses does not mean automatically removing them from your contact list. What you should do, if anything, with each bounced email address depends on the category in which it is listed.

Vacation/Auto Reply•

If the only bounces were in the Vacation/Auto Reply category, you don’t need to take any further ac-tion. Email addresses in this category frequently have received your email even though they appear as a “bounce”.

Blocked •

Start by contacting your contact or their directly through an email you send outside of Constant Contact. Constant Contact has form letters that you can paste into an email and customize to explain the issue to both the blocked contact and their Internet Service Provider. To access these letters, and to see a list of IP addresses that Constant Contact sends from, visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2050


Note: You can also contact Constant Contact Support by logging into your account and clicking the “Get Help” link in the upper-right-hand corner.

Tip: To prevent ISPs’ spam filters from blocking your emails, use Constant Contact’s spam checker and do not send emails with:

Words: free, guarantee, spam, credit card, sex, etc.•

Writing in ALL CAPS•

Excessive punctuation !!!, ???•

Excessive use of “click here”•

$, and other symbols•

No “From:” address•

Other categories• (Non-existent, undeliverable, other, mailbox full) As a general guideline, do not remove a bounced email address from your list unless it appears in the same bounce category consistently over time (typically after three consecutive bounces over at least a 30 day period). To find out if the emails you have been sending to a particular contact have been bouncing consistently, view the contact’s bounce history from their Contact Details page.

To review a contact’s bounce history:

Go to1. Contacts > Manage Contacts.

Type the address in “Search for Contacts” and click 2. Search.

Click the “Details” link for the contact to display the “Contact Details” page.3.

Select the “Bounce History” link in the left sidebar.4.

If the contact’s email address has bounced consistently, remove the email address from your •list (as described below).

If the contact’s email address only bounce a couple of times, see the next bullet.•

Contacts that appeared in a bounce category (Non-existent, undeliverable, other, mailbox full)• After an email address bounces as “non-existent” for the first time, wait 16 days before attempting to resend the email to that address. If you try to resend email to an address during the first 16 days after it bounced as non-existent, the email will not be sent.

To resend your email to an email address that bounced as non-existent:

Confirm that the email address is active. 1.

Correct the email address as needed. 2.

Once you have corrected the email address, choose one of the methods below to resend your email: 3.

Manually add the email address on the Resend Email screen (click the• Resend Options button on the Sent Email Summary page).

Add the email address to the original Sent To list and resend your email (Click the Resend •Options button on the Sent Email Summary page).


If an email address bounces as “non-existent” consistently over an extended period of time (after three con-secutive bounces over at least a 30 day period), remove it from your contact list. If you have an alternative means of contacting the contact, such as a phone number, you may wish to call to find out if there is a better email address at which to send him or her mail.

Undeliverable and Other• Pay attention to which email addresses appear in the “Undeliverable” and “Other” bounce categories. If you notice the same email addresses appearing in these categories over and over again, review those contacts’ bounce histories. Then remove the email addresses that have been bouncing consistently

Mailbox Full • Email addresses in the Mailbox Full category cannot receive your email until they delete some of their existing mail. If you suspect that the email address has been abandoned, you may want to contact the owner in person to find out their new email address or simply remove the address from your account.

Tip: To learn more about how to improve your emails’ deliverability, watch the online recorded Email Deliverability Webinar at: http://www.constantcontact.com/display_media.jsp?id=19t

When and How do I Remove Bounced Email Addresses?

As a general guideline, remove a bounced email address after three consecutive bounces (regardless of the type of bounce) over at least a 30 day period.

To remove a contact from your account while viewing an email’s bounce report:

Go to1. Contacts > Manage Bounces.

Select the email name from the drop-down menu. 2.

Select the bounce category. 3.

Click the 4. View List button.

Select the email address that has been bouncing consistently.5.

Click the 6. Remove button. The contact will be removed from all lists but will remain in the undeliver-able bounce category for 90 days.

To remove contacts in bulk, export the bounced email addresses into a file by clicking the Export button on your bounce report. Then go the Contacts > Manage Contacts section of your account to remove them. For detailed steps, please visit: http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1792

Note: At this time, Constant Contact does not have a feature to remove bounced email addresses in bulk.

http://www.constantcontact.com/display_media.jsp?id=19t

http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1792


7. Spam Counts

If your emails are receiving spam complaints, take action to reduce them and prevent your account from becoming temporarily or permanently disabled.

Although there are several approaches to reducing spam complaints, which method will work best for you will de-pend on your business or industry, your list collection practices, and the expectations you have set for your contacts.

Spam Complaint Reduction Suggestions Here is a brief overview of some approaches to lowering spam complaints. To learn more about each of the following approaches, please refer to Constant Contact’s Spam Report Reduction Guide available at: http://www.constantcontact.com/display_media.jsp?id=91t

Review your list collection practices.•

Do not use lists collected by third parties. Only send to a list of email addresses that your organization •collected directly with the contacts’ permission.

Do not allow partner or associated organizations to collect email addresses for you. •

“Age” your list to ensure that you are not sending emails to contacts who have lost interest in your •email over time or who will not recall signing up for your list.

Review your email list sign-up process. •

When a contact provides you with their email address, clearly tell them the nature and frequency of •your planned email communications. Do not use pre-checked signup boxes.

Do not use contests, or other gimmicks, to get people to join your mailing list. •

Make your emails recognizable.•

Use a consistent and recognizable name in the From line.•

Use your organizations colors and logo in all of your emails.•

Use a Permission Reminder. A permission reminder is a short paragraph at the top of your emails •to remind subscribers about how they know you and why they are receiving the email. Review your emails’ Message Settings pages to make sure the Permission Reminder is turned ON.

Review your emails’ content.•

Use the spam checker tool before you send an email. This tool helps to determine whether it contains •spam-like content (such as excessive punctuations, dollar signs, or all capital letters) that could cause it to be filtered directly into your contacts’ junk email folders.

Only send content that is relevant to your contacts’ interests. Survey your contacts to find out what •their interests are and create new contact lists to which you can send targeted messages. See Appendix III to learn more about list segmentation.

Send emails only as frequently as contacts expect to receive them• based on what you told them when they signed up to receive your emails.

http://www.constantcontact.com/display_media.jsp?id=91t


To view comments from contacts who unsubscribed from your list:

Go to 1. Contacts > Export.

Use the “Contact List” drop-down box to select the2. Do Not Mail list.

Select the 3. Do Not Mail List for your Contact List

Use the “Sort Contacts by” drop-down box to select4. Email Address or Date.

Select to export the opt-out comments by checking the box for Opt-out Reasons.5.

(Optional) Check the boxes for any additional details to be exported.6.

Click 7. Export as CSV or Export as Text.

Click 8. Open or Save to copy the export data to a file on your local computer.

If your former contacts did not explain why they unsubscribed, consider the following reasons why people unsub-scribe from emails.

Most or all of the information in the emails is no longer relevant. • Contacts are likely to unsubscribe if they are only interested in a small portion of the information you send. To make your emails’ more valuable to each contact, “segment” your list into categories (see Section 5a). If you already have separate contact lists to which you send targeted messages, encourage your contacts to click the “Update Profile” link to make sure their list subscriptions are current.

Do not remember or recognize you • Contacts may unsubscribe or report your email as spam if you don’t have an easily recognizable name in the From line. It is usually easier for people to recognize organization or company names than it is for them to recall per-sonal names. If you do use a personal name, use it consistently and mention the business or group’s name in the subject line. Example: From: Tom Smith Subject: HMS Recreation – Upcoming Events


8. Additional ResourcesHere are some additional resources to help you learn how to create emails that effectively drive results for your orga-nization or business.

General Resources for Improving Email Results

How to Boost the Response to your Emails • Learn how segmenting your list into groups can help you send targeted emails that are specific to your audi-ence’s interests. Explore ideas for using your existing contact information, email reports, sign up forms and surveys to segment your list, stay relevant and increase the impact of your emails. http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/How-to-Boost-the-Response-to-Your-Emails.jsp

Email Marketing • Hints & Tips (Informative E-Newsletters) Each month, Constant Contact’s experts explore a new topic in email marketing—from growing your email list, to creating effective e-newsletters, to increasing open and click-through rates, and more. Each newslet-ter comes complete with real-life, email marketing success stories. http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/hints-tips/index.jsp

Subject Lines (Webinar) •For more inspiration and instruction on creating unique and effective subject lines, register now for the free Subject Line Design webinar. http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/Subject-Line-Design.jsp

Email Marketing Best Practices in Action (Short Online Videos)•Watch Constant Contact customers like you discuss how the best practices for using Email Marketing, Online Surveys, and Event Marketing make their organizations more successful. http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/best-practices/index.jsp

Share Feedback and Suggestions

To share comments and suggestions for improving:

This guide, • visit: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2nvn6icg3d5id8c/start

Constant Contact’s Products• , visit: http://ui.constantcontact.com/support/feedback.jsp

Get Personal Help Using Constant Contact

To get help from a Chat, Email, or Phone Support representative, log into your Constant Contact account and click

“Help” in the upper-right corner of the page or visit: http://ui.constantcontact.com/support/index.jsp?content=options.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/How-to-Boost-the-Response-to-Your-Emails.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/hints-tips/index.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/webinars/live/details/Subject-Line-Design.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/best-practices/index.jsp


http://ui.constantcontact.com/support/feedback.jsp

http://ui.constantcontact.com/support/index.jsp?content=options.jsp

Documents

Measuring and Improving Email Resultsimg.constantcontact.com/docs/pdf/measuring_improving_email_resu… · Measuring & Improving Email Results 1601 Trapelo Road Suite 329 Waltham,