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The email marketing industry needs standard reporting and metrics.

Today it is impossible to compare and benchmark response and deliverability rates across the industry because marketers get reports with different terms based on different calculations. Marketers are restricted in comparing reports and synchronizing data when looking to evaluate or change email broadcast vendors.

Inaccurate or inconsistent metrics diffuse the credibility of email marketers.  If our own metrics cannot conform to benchmarks, we lessen our ability to convince senior management and fellow digital marketers of our success.  It also hinders our ability to negotiate for resources.

You can help.  Read the quick background here and then take action with the links below.

The email marketing industry may be ignobly unique among direct and online marketing disciplines for our lack of measurement standardization.  For the past two years, the members of the eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable (a volunteer member committee)  have wrestled with the problem of a lack of a consistent and unified standards for the most basic email metrics such as delivered, open and click.

 
Through our work, the Roundtable has built a foundation for industry standardization for these basic but important metrics.

We have created (and vetted) new definitions of key measures so that they are not only accurate, but the names accurately reflect the measure.  (You can read in past eec blog postings about the struggles and debates to come up with terms we could all support.)  Latest definitions are here.

We have surveyed dozens of email broadcast vendors (ESP's and MTA/on-premise providers) in order to audit existing reporting and gauge the level of variance across the industry.  Please note that the eec Roundtable does not support or claim that any one provider’s method of calculating common metrics is better than any other.  Many ESP's and other broadcast vendors participated in the development of these definitions.  We are very grateful for their support.

The Roundtable has repeatedly come to the industry – practitioners, eec members and thought leaders – to gather feedback and insights.

Now it’s time for action.


Here’s how you can help us start the ball rolling.  Join our launch efforts now.

Voice your support (or dissent) for standardization of metrics in our industry.  Take this one question survey.

Read the definitions

Tell us your thoughts and send in any corrections to the Roundtable.

Commit.  Sign the petition to advance standard metrics now.

Join the Roundtable (eec members only).  Just email Ali at the eec.

Please place your comments below.  And stay tuned!

Thanks to the hard working members of the eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable! 

- John Caldwell & Luke Glasner, eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable Co-Chairs

 

 

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This week Facebook will begin giving marketers the ability to collect email address from users of our Facebook applications.  This is welcome news and opens up a world of possibilities for creating integrated programs that leverage the strengths of each channel to drive business objectives and richer customer experiences.  Currently, applications communicate with users through Facebook notifications - a constrained inbox with few opportunities for meaningful direct communications and limited opportunities for monetization.  After Wednesday, marketers will have the ability to make email permission optional, or a mandatory requirement of an application, and may no longer post notifications from applications.  This development opens up an exciting new way for Facebook marketers to interact with and ultimately monetize social audiences.  

An example of the optional prompt:


 

And mandatory:


Facbook will be supporting this change by encouraging users to share their email addresses with applications, and will be posting dialog boxes like the one below on every canvas page a user visits for their first three sessions.


 

On the Developer wiki, Facebook clearly articulates the policies senders must adhere to:

Draft Policies

a. You must not give or sell users’ email addresses to any third party or affiliate.
b. You must comply with the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Act and all other applicable spam laws (e.g., provide a visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism and honor opt-out requests within 10 days).
c. You must explain clearly to users, in a privacy policy or elsewhere in a conspicuous place, how you will use their email addresses.
d. Emails you send must clearly indicate that they are from you and must not appear to be from Facebook or anyone else. For example, you must not include Facebook logos or brand assets in your emails, and you must not mention Facebook in the subject line, “from” line, or body header.
e. All emails to users must originate from the same domain, and you must provide us with the name of that domain in the Facebook Developer application used to manage your application.

As we kick off 2010, it’s hard to argue that the most exciting force in the email marketing space is the rapid adoption of social networks and the opportunities that exist for those who are able to develop truly integrated programs.  Much has been written in this blog about social media, and though virtually everyone is excited by the possibilities, most of us are still in the relatively early phases of determining the best strategies and tactics for our programs.  Few in the space can point to quantifiable success stories.  This development gives social marketers a powerful, proven tool for engaging and monetizing audiences, and I look forward to seeing how we capitalize on the opportunity.

Read more on the Facebook Developer Wiki and please comment below or reach out to me directly to continue the conversation - 2010 is going to be a big one for email [the original and largest social network].

 

- Nicholas Einstein
Director of Strategic & Analytic Services
Datran Media

 

 

 

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As CEO of ClickMail Marketing, part of my job is keeping up with, and even ahead of, trends and changes in the email marketing industry. In a world like ours, technology and tastes can change in a flash, leaving the unsuspecting email marketer playing catch-up once he or she finally does catch on. Spotting email marketing trends becomes, therefore, less of a fun guessing game and more of a critical strategic process.

The common theme in 2010 as I see it is integration. To me, this indicates email’s lasting power, as it becomes more and more entrenched in the marketing framework. No longer is email a standalone messaging medium or marketing tool. Now more than ever, email is becoming the backbone of marketing, enduring and evolving…and proving its worth one message at a time.

Below are the trends we at ClickMail Marketing see as the most important for this coming year. You won’t find any rocket science-level complexity in this list, because by now you’ve at least been exposed to all of these trends even if you haven’t yet acted on them. But this coming year will be the time to take the next step: start implementing now, or be left behind. Far behind. 

Integration with social networking sites and tools
Email still reigns supreme as a marketing tool, but to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of technology and cultural expectations, it must integrate with social networking tools. That’s the only way you can hope to communicate with all audiences, as some stay with email for communication and others move to social media. Integration with social media extends your reach, as people share your content and therefore expand your exposure. (And sharing is what social media is all about, so make sure your content is worthy of sharing!)

Integration with add-on services like CertifiedEmail
Email is still the strongest messaging platform out there, despite cries of its demise. One characteristic that makes it so strong is the ubiquity of email. It is everywhere, truly. And as technologies are developed, it integrates more and more with add-on services, services like video in your email marketing and Goodmail's CertifiedEmail.

Integration with the new data management tools
Major ISPs are making decisions about which emails are spam based on if and how recipients interact with an email. That means their interaction is directly influencing your deliverability. You have to have the tools to manage your data to meet these new standards, tools that move you beyond open rates to data that really matters, like Pivotal Veracity’s Mailbox IQ that helps you measure audience engagement. But these new tools must integrate with your existing email platform.

Speaking of trends and staying current with changes in the email marketing industry, stay tuned for our soon-to-be-released 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.

 

Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

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When tasked with designing the Email Experience Council’s seasons greetings email this year, we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. After some brainstorming, we settled on a sidescrolling winter scene with lots of delightful bits of animation.

Since we were asking reader to scroll right instead of the usual down, we wanted to build in a few visual cues to get them going in the right direction:
(1) We used a headline and deck that stretched across the top of the design, so they’d have to scroll to read the whole thing.
(2) We included a message under the eec logo for readers to “Scroll right for your holiday gift.”
And (3) we used two animated gifs that moved from left to right to get readers’ eyes moving in that direction.

The other consideration we had in designing this email is that we wanted to stay within the display width limits of Outlook 2007, which after a test we determined to be 2110 pixels. Our design was 780 pixels wide, well short of that limit.

See it in all of its animated glory.


The Results
We were very pleased with the results. Not only did the season’s greeting email garner 26% more opens that the typical eec email, but there were 10 times the usual number of forwards. The combination of strong design and compelling call-to-action clearly got subscribers’ attention and encouraged them to share the email.

Chad White
Research Director
Smith-Harmon, a Responsys Company

 

 

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Sometimes it sounds very "broken-recordish."

Send timely, targeted, relevant emails to subscribers who have asked for them.

It's my go-to message - my mantra of sorts - when it comes to email marketing. It's one of those things I recommend printing out and pasting to your desk. It's a phrase you should repeat when you're getting ready to hit the send button on that next email marketing campaign. It's the question to ask your team all of the time, but especially if you see your metrics on the fritz (declining open and/or click through rates, increasing complaints, poor deliverability, etc).

What Poor (Or No) Segmentation Looks Like

On December 20, 2009, I received these 3 emails within a 33-minute span (6:09AM, 6:29AM, and 6:42AM).

1. Inbox View: Before even opening the emails, what do you notice about them? Pretty easy one, right? While the from names are all different, the subject lines are identical. As it turns out, Multichannel Merchant, DIRECT, and Chief Marketer are all divisions of Penton Media (see email footer).

Why this matters: I feel like I just got spammed. Why? Penton Media just asked (errr...told) me 3 times to fill out their survey. Poor brand impression not only from Penton, but also from the 3 divisions who sent me that survey. I deleted all three.

2. Opened View: You'll quickly see if you open all three emails (see Multichannel Merchant below) that, with the exception of the header image, a few words here and there, and the signatures, the email copy is identical.

Why this matters: Again, I've just been sent the same survey 3 times. The response rates on surveys already tend to be low. Sending it to me 3 times under 3 different from names does not increase my chances of completing.

So, who cares?

4 Reasons Why Email Segmentation Matters

I'm an email snob. It's easy for me to sit up in my ivory email tower and tell everyone what they are doing wrong. I can't argue that fact. But I do think segmentation matters - not only for me, but for the average email consumer as well. Here's why:

1. Reduces inbox clutter: Assuming the emails were the same, would you rather receive 3 or just 1?

2. Increases relevancy: The more relevant an email, the more likely I am to take action (open, click, convert)

3. Earns trust: If I believe that you - the email marketer - have my best interests in mind, I'll trust you more. More trust ultimately leads to more action (see #2).

4. Gain credibility: Good segmentation proves to me that you know what you are doing. It shows that you are not blasting off emails. Instead, you are putting thought behind each send.

Segmentation is not hard. Time to add it to your email marketing new year's resolution list.

*After a conversation over IM with Andrew Kordek, it was pointed out that this post is lacking in concrete examples (case studies) of "segmentation success stories." If you have some, please share in the comments below as I'd like to do a follow up post.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

 

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