Increase email marketing ROI with Triggered Email Messages

Professional Email Marketing

Increase email marketing ROI with Triggered Email Messages

Trigger messages generate 250% higher click rate than newsletters

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1Increase email marketing ROI with Triggered Email Messages

Trigger messages generate 250% higher click rate than newsletters

In some circumstances we are not given the opportunity to test things out before taking actions. Besides, playing

around with things may be irresponsible, or even hazardous (as with fixing a gas oven on your own). Luckily,

in professional email marketing, testing is more than welcome! You are able to expand the results generated from

a small sample onto a whole group. In this field, there are no restrictions for testing, which you should apply to

continuously improve your results.

We wanted to take a closer look at the emails driven only by opening or clicking on a previously delivered message.

Our research comprised over 3 billion newsletters and 35 million trigger messages.

Introducing trigger messages

Messages deployed in response to subscriber’s particular behavior are called trigger messages. They are among the

most popular automatic messages. Usually, behavior patterns that drive these messages include opening a message,

clicking on a link, or abandoning a sale. Once the action is taken, trigger message is sent, instantly.

You’re always welcome to talk to our Experts about

your plans and challenges. We are eager to show you

our email delivery technology and services, and

discuss how we can add value to your company.

http://www.expertsender.com/demo?utm_source=Triggers_WhitePaper&utm_medium=PR&utm_campaign=demo

Marcin Luks

Phone: +1-646-328-3919

E-mail: [email protected]

Request a free demo

Email & Marketing Director



Time based trigger messages that are

mailed in an interval before or after

a custom date.

If the customer has signed up for an

appointment, meeting, or show, a reminder

can be sent out x days, hours or minutes

beforehand. Alternatively, you could also

mail out a request for a review x days, hours

or minutes after the show, or hotel stay.

Triggers based on a custom field’s value

being modified.

This may be used for something such as

an upgrade in account status, or a payment

being received. It’s important that the trigger

allows specification based on the custom

field change, and whether the custom field

already existed, or if it was just created by

user’s action. This allows subscribers that

are already in a database, but don’t have the

custom field (perhaps it’s a new feature or

subscription type) to still receive the trigger

email.

Anniversary or monthly recurring date

trigger.

Using such a trigger message, and dynamic

content, you can easily set up a birthday,

or sign-up date based trigger containing

special deals or coupons to the most

valuable subscribers. Having the flexibility

of time is important as well, since it allows

you to specify the time of day the message

is mailed.

Reaching a goal or conversion point

If the system allows goal or conversion

tracking, a trigger message based on

reaching a goal is an easy point to score.

It’s always important to be able to specify

in hours or minutes when the message

should be sent after the consumer purchases

or converts. This is especially useful for

shopping cart abandonment programs

and action confirmation emails.

Opening or clicking a link in a message.

Very fun and useful trigger type which can

be sent to subscribers opening a particular

message, or message type. To be even more

customizable, being able to specify a trigger

based on a click on a specific link gives

marketers even more freedom to creatively

target active subscribers.

The following actions are all potentially valuable to marketers



Advantages of trigger emails

At first glance our analysis proves that trigger

messages have much higher open and click rates

than regular newsletters. On average, the open rates

for trigger emails were 4 times higher than those for

newsletters. The click rates, however, changed in time

and there was no such clear pattern.

The trigger e�ect

There are 3 factors that determine the success of

trigger messages:

Average click rates for newsletters and trigger messages in Jan-Sep 2013

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

SeptemberAugustJulyJuneMayAprilMarchFebruaryJanuary

NEWSLETTERS TRIGGERS

CLICK RATENEWSLETTERS VS TRIGGERS

3.10 3.08

4.17

3.87

3.28

4.57

3.42

3.78

2.71

3.98

2.19

4.47

2.01

4.32 4.30

2.15 2.10

5.26

Availability

It comes directly from the timing. Triggers

are delivered at the very same moment when

a subscriber is browsing the mailbox and

clicks/opens a previous message.

Human curiosity

Sheer curiosity of a newly received message

is the reason why triggers have 4 times higher

open rates than newsletters.

2

3

Timing

Triggers are sent immediately after a relevant

action takes place.

1



Open rate's (in)famous o�spring

We all realize it's not all about open rates.

What matters more is how many subscribers decide

to interact with our communication by responding

to the CTA and visiting the landing page, which is an

entry gate for conversion. It is the CLICK that initiates

all conversions in email marketing.

So what makes the open rate so di�erent from click

rate? The graphs clearly demonstrate the di�erences

in the flow of these metrics. The open rates are stable

and much higher for triggers than newsletters.

The click rates, on the other hand, seem to be ruled

by di�erent criteria. What are they? The answer is

fairly simple...

The key for sky-rocketing click rates

Personalization and content relevancy are the

paradigms of email marketing. Growing maturity of

email programs results in the progress of all metrics.

The graph with click rates provides evidence that time

and content relevancy induce higher subscriber

interaction than bulk mailings with content adjusted

to mass audiences. The most important takeaway is

that marketers who mastered content personalization

and messaging automation will generate higher

yields.

With triggers it’s easy to get attention of the user,

because of timing, availability, and human curiosity.

Four times higher open rates are a strong evidence

of that. However, whether the subscriber takes action

relies solely on WHAT CONTENTS will be emailed

to them. Such concepts as geolocation, big data

analyses and responsive design should be leveraged

to make the marketed content most relevant to the

customer, their location, timing and device.

A personalized approach is absolutely essential to

a successful email campaign today. Yet again, it is

the content that drives the engagement and yields

growing results in trigger messaging.

Average open rates for newsletters and trigger messages in Jan-Sep 2013

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

SeptemberAugustJulyJuneMayAprilMarchFebruaryJanuary

NEWSLETTERS TRIGGERS

OPEN RATENEWSLETTERS VS TRIGGERS

11.6112.49

53.29

49.97

12.86

55.10

13.17

51.30

11.61

46.85

11.00

49.57

10.14

44.37

48.53

10.72 10.77

53.15

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