Key Success & Failure Metrics for the Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs

Subscriber expectations have grown steadily over the years, driven higher by a wide range of factors, including the adoption of smartphones, the increase in targeting, and the rise in omnichannel experiences. For email marketers to be successful, they must exceed or at least meet these expectations, which can be measured by a…

Quick Email Marketing Wins in 2015

Going into the New Year, instead of focusing on the new, why not focus on the easy. Below are my picks for email marketing initiatives that are low-effort and high-return: Optimize your snippet text Implement predictive intelligence for personalized recommendations Add defensive design elements to your email templates Test special characters in…

Gmail’s Native Unsubscribe Link: The Upside and Downside

Gmail is making email marketers sweat again. In the last year alone, the debut of Tabs caused all-out panic, image caching set new open rate baselines, and grid view led to rendering concerns. Now Gmail is following up with a partial rollout of a highly visible native unsubscribe link in March with…

Gmail’s Native ‘Unsubscribe’ Link: Should I Use It?

Gmail has made their native unsubscribe functionality much more prominent, moving their “unsubscribe” link so that it’s right after the “from” name in the inbox. Previously, it was usually hidden behind a dropdown menu. As before, Gmail only adds the native “unsubscribe” link to emails that include the list-unsubscribe header and—critically—only if…

My Dreamforce Presentation: The Good, the Bad, and the Best

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Dreamforce, the world’s largest software conference, about email marketing best practices. My presentation discusses eight email marketing practices and shares real-world examples of good, bad and the best executions. Thanks to all of you who attended. You can watch my presentation on YouTube…

Are You Giving Those Who Unsubscribe the Cold Shoulder?

Is your unsubscribe process in line with your brand? What message does your unsubscribe page and opt-out confirmation page send to your customers? Too often those who opt out are met with a process that seems uncaring and messaging that conveys indifference and disinterest that sometimes borders on quiet hostility. For instance,…

Watch ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Best’ Webinar

If you missed my webinar, “The Good, the Bad, and the Best: Practices for a Post-Wild West Email Marketing World” earlier this week, the slides (with notes) and a recording of the hour-long webinar are now available. View the slides on SlideShare >> Watch the webinar recording (registration required) >> Adopting email…