Email Marketing RulesOnly Influencers’ Email Metrics Project: Ask the Right Email Questions
Posted on August 26, 2021
Email metrics are confusing and can be easily misunderstood and misused. To help marketers avoid mistakes, Only Influencers has launched The Email Metrics Project at oimetrics.com. This website is home to definitions, articles, and videos to educate marketers on how to calculate and appropriately use email marketing metrics.
I’m honored to have contributed several of my articles about email metrics, as well as recorded a video with Lauren Meyer about how marketers need to Ask The Right Email Questions when using email metrics. In that 26-minute video, we talk about:
- Common questions that email marketers ask that can lead to the wrong tactics and strategies
- The differences between business metrics and email metrics, and the differences between campaign, channels, and customer metrics
- How having a super-high ROI means you’re leaving tons of money on the table
- What marketers really want are insights, not data
- Why open rates are the most misunderstood email metric
- The usefulness of external benchmarks
- How to use internal benchmarks effectively
- And much more
>> Watch this 26-minute video on oimetrics.com
And for a much deeper dive into asking the right email questions, watch…
The Questions to Ask Instead: Email Performance Measurement
The Questions to Ask Instead: Email Frequency & List Building
LiveIntent’s Real Time Banter Podcast: Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection
Posted on August 20, 2021
I talk about all things MPP with LiveIntent’s Kerel Cooper and Jessica Muñoz. We discuss:
- What exactly is Mail Privacy Protection?
- How will Mail Privacy Protection affect testing within email?
- What metrics should marketers hone in on during this time?
- How should marketers approach data hygiene with these changes?
- What do these changes mean for consumers?
- Will the industry be ready in time for Mail Privacy Protection?
LiveIntent gives you two ways to watch our conversation—either listen to the full 37-minute podcast or dip into the answer to each of those 6 questions.
Audience Acquisition Source Ideas to Explore: An Oracle Consulting Checklist
Posted on August 18, 2021
Checklists can inspire you, help you identify gaps, allow you to take inventory, and provide an easy-to-follow action plan. At Oracle Marketing Consulting, we use checklists all the time with our clients. In fact, we love them so much that we wanted to share some of our most useful checklists, including this one about audience acquisition source ideas.
Whether you’re building your audience in email, SMS, mobile push, web push, direct mail, or another channel, where you attract those subscribers or followers from can have a profound impact on your performance. While more acquisition sources generally equals faster audience growth, not all audience growth is created equal. Some acquisition sources will generate healthy engagement and revenue increases for you, while others may generate little—or, worse, waste time and money, while also harming your deliverability, reputation, or brand image.
On the pages that follow, we list major audience acquisition sources. In addition to having our digital marketing consultants share advice about optimizing each of these acquisition sources, we also organize them into three groups to help you better understand the risk profile of the sources you’re using:
- Low-risk sources, where you’re recruiting subscribers or followers during or after transactions in owned channels who are very familiar with your brand
- Medium-risk sources, where you’re recruiting subscribers or followers before transactions in owned or leased channels who are generally somewhat familiar with your brand
- High-risk sources, where you’re recruiting subscribers or followers in paid channels who are generally unfamiliar with your brand, or where you’re using handwritten or verbal data collection methods
We hope this checklist helps you inventory the audience acquisition sources you already have, understand the risk profile of those sources, make improvements, and explore other promising sources.
How Many of My Subscribers Will Be Affected by Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection?
Posted on August 16, 2021
Marketers now realize that Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection will impact a wide range of email marketing functions. By generating false opens, distorting open times, and obscuring IP addresses and device information, Apple’s changes will affect everything from email analytics and deliverability to email strategy and design in a significant way. However, some marketers are unclear exactly how big the impact will be on those aspects of their email programs.
Here are five aspects that are critical to understanding the reach of Apple’s new privacy protections:
- Mail Privacy Protection won’t affect Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, and other email apps that run on Apple’s operating systems.
- Apple email clients are extremely popular.
- Mail Privacy Protection affects any emails received in Apple Mail apps.
- Any email account can be affected by Mail Privacy Protection.
- The majority of Apple users will likely turn on Mail Privacy Protection within months of availability.
For more details on each of those elements, and to watch a 3-minute explainer video…
Hide My Email: A New Reason to Only Accept Corporate Email Addresses
Posted on August 10, 2021
Lead-generation forms and promotional email signups are a value exchange between B2B marketers and their intended audiences. In exchange for research and other content, B2B brands hope to:
- Improve how form-completers think of their brand, hopefully nudging them toward an eventual conversion
- Identify the form-completer and the company they represent, and then connect this form completion to other actions to understand their level of interest through lead scoring
- Form an ongoing relationship with the form-completer, if they opt-in to receive promotional messages from the brand
However, when people enter a non-corporate email address into a lead-gen or email signup form, that can undermine those last two goals. That puts B2B marketers in the position of having to decide if it’s still worth enough to them to accept those email addresses. Some have decided that it’s not, and that camp is likely to grow as Apple rolls out a new and improved Hide My Email feature this fall.
The 7 Factors that Determine Email Deliverability
Posted on August 9, 2021
Poor email deliverability can be costly, causing a brand’s emails to end up in the spam folder or blocked entirely instead of reaching their subscribers. While deliverability can sometimes feel out of a business’s control, inbox placement is actually governed by seven factors, all of which are directly or indirectly under their control:
- Infrastructure
- Volume
- Content
- Bounces & Spam Traps
- Spam Complaints
- Engagement
- Reputation
For a discussion of each of these factors…
The Last Word on July 2021
Posted on August 6, 2021
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
The Real Impact of Email Tracking (Taxi for Email)
Screen Reader User Survey #9 Results (WebAIM)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Copy Experiment:
Don’t write a “call to action”
Write a “call to value” — Here’s what I mean…
[Get started] -> [Plan your finances]
[Sign up] -> [Grow your following]
[Try Now] -> [Launch your site]See the difference ?
Test it and see what works best for you.
— Ross Simmonds (@TheCoolestCool) July 19, 2021
When you test your email in different email clients #emailgeeks pic.twitter.com/FnE7drUNjR
— Rodrigo Santander (@Ro_Santander) July 1, 2021
When you type ‘goo’ into the browser and the first result is https://t.co/9cQnZel2wr not Google – you know you’re an #EmailGeek – thanks @M_J_Robbins for this awesome resource!
— EmailJay (@emailjay_) July 2, 2021
I feel this in my soul#emailgeeks pic.twitter.com/zDJSzNHOla
— Avi Goldman (@theavigoldman) July 23, 2021
Noteworthy subject lines
Big Lots, 7/1 – We’re hiring part time! Check out the perks!
Williams Sonoma, 7/4 – 🎆 Let the cookout begin 🎆
Belk, 7/4 – No sparklers needed! ✨ Sparkle with 60% off fine jewelry
Tractor Supply Co., 7/1 – Get Ready for the 4th of July – Propane Refill Made Easy with the TSC App
Gap, 7/7 – Hours left! App users get HALF OFF sale
West Elm, 7/4 – Long weekend goal: Outdoor dining upgrade!
Belk, 7/3 – Who’s ready for vacay? 🙋 Pack up with 65% off luggage
Nordstrom, 7/ 4 – Easy + comfortable = these sandals
Big Lots, 7/16 – Save BIG on vacation must-haves!
MoMA Design Store, 7/14 – Going Somewhere?
Quiksilver, 7/8 – Win a trip to Hawaii
Saks Fifth Avenue, 7/25 – Our top 4 road trip hot spots & what to wear
Nordstrom Rack, 7/29 – The Wear to Work Shop: Up to 65% Off
Patagonia, 7/14 – Industrial hemp tees for a life outdoors
Eddie Bauer, 7/14 – Camping Made Easy 🏕️
Express, 7/26 – When it’s too hot to wear anything else 🌡️
Subway Restaurants, 7/26 – Introducing NEW Subway® Delivery.
Target, 7/8 – Get the kids ready for school early ✏️
T.J.MAXX, 7/8 – Send your students back in saving style 🎒
Gap, 7/28 – Backpacks that POP 💥✨
Uncommon Goods, 7/1 – ❤️We’ve given those high school history lessons an upgrade. 💙
Michaels, 7/14 – Clutter-free confirmed: You’ve got affordable classroom storage ideas!
Kohl’s, 7/14 – Get move-in ready with major back-to-college must-haves.
Burlington, 7/23 – Snag these deals on college campus essentials
Crate & Barrel, 7/14 – Lounge-worthy ways to reimagine your living room.
ModCloth, 7/22 – Houston, our 30% moon sale is ending! 🚀
Williams Sonoma, 7/12 – Five myths about cooking with cast iron
Williams Sonoma, 7/16 – Le Creuset or Staub: which one’s for you?
AutoZone, 7/12 – When should you replace your brakes?
Quiksilver, 7/28 – Sweat Is Just Salt Water
Express, 7/23 – Say 👋🏻 to ALOHAS vegan footwear
Wegmans, 7/20 – 5 Products on Our “Love It” List 😍
Gap Cyber, 7/29 – Babies in bear ears? Yes please!
Victoria’s Secret, 7/8 – Most loved on @vsbeauty
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 7/16 – Feel zen with Hannah – our latest curator.
IKEA, 7/26 – IKEA Family, be the first to crack the case 🔎
Uncommon Goods, 7/26 – ☠️ Pirates, puzzles, and you. An interactive experience awaits. ☠️
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Webbula: If You Could Only Use 2 Email Metrics
How to Optimize Web Modals and Boost Visitor Engagement
Drive Your Customer Loyalty Program with Automated Campaigns
The Advantages of Gender-Neutral Messaging
The 2 Social Contracts Being Broken by Apple’s New Privacy Protections
Posted on August 4, 2021
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection will have broad implications for how brands operate their email marketing program. These changes are most disturbing because they disrupt norms that have been in place for more than a decade—norms that have served consumers well and kept marketers honest. I would go so far as to say that these norms amount to social contracts, which Apple is now putting marketers in danger of breaking.
The first social contract is between mailbox providers and marketers, and it is: “Send emails that recipients not only tolerate, but engage with—or your emails will be junked or blocked.”
The second social contract is between subscribers and marketers, and it is: “Send relevant emails at a reasonable cadence—or we’ll opt out.”
For a full discussion of each of these…
Dyspatch: 11 Quick Tips to Avoid the Email Spam Folder
Posted on August 3, 2021
There are no sneaky loopholes to trick the algorithms. But there are rules and tips you can use to hit the inbox and avoid the spam folder.
In this post, Dyspatch talks with me and three other email experts to assemble 11 quick, proven ways to send emails that always land in the inbox:
- Get permission
- Set expectations and follow through on them
- Send valuable emails
- Test and review your emails before sending
- Use confirmed opt-in (COI)
- Clean your email list
- Don’t believe the myth to avoid certain words
- Send emails regularly
- Remind subscribers of their subscription date
- Make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe
- Ask subscribers to allowlist your email address
For details on accomplishing each of those and avoiding the spam folder…
Webbula: If You Could Only Use 2 Email Metrics
Posted on July 28, 2021
As part of their Ask the Experts series of video interviews, Webbula asked: “If you could only use two email metrics, which two would you use?”
I was happy to be among eight email experts selected to answer. I said return on investment (ROI) to help prove business justification, and subscriber lifetime value to help align email marketing with those that are being served. I explain in more detail in a 2-minute video that’s in the Webbula post.
The other experts said…
- Samantha Iodice: Read Rate, Click-to-Open Rate
- Andrew Kordek: Engagement Score, Link Level Reporting
- Gavin Laugenie: ROI, Click-Through Rate
- Randy Levy: ROI
- Chris Marriott: Clicks, Inbox Placement
- Kath Pay: Conversion Rate, Customer lifetime Value
- Tom Wozniak: Click Rate, Conversion Rate
To watch my video response, as well as theirs…
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
