Email is a cultural and marketing phenomenon. In its relatively short lifetime, email has become so widespread and so often used that is has firmly been established as an integral part of a multi-channel marketing scheme, surpassing other channels in almost every dimension – volume, frequency, and ease of execution, just to name a few. With increasing email volumes and the proliferation of spam, this communication channel and those looking to use it face savvy consumers, able to weed through hundreds of messages looking for only the most relevant of information, and increasingly tight anti-spam mechanisms that will allow only legitimate communications to pass their threshold. A staggering 95% of emails received by ISPs are spam emails. How do you ensure your email makes it home?
Deliverability
Email delivery rates directly impact the ROI of email marketing campaigns, and are fast-becoming a standard metric alongside click-through and open rates - which has become increasingly difficult to track accurately. Some providers claim delivery success rates of 99%. Excellent one would think. However an email delivered to an ISP is not necessarily delivered into the inbox of the intended recipient. That is just one of the gateposts of email delivery.
Assuming the quality of the email address list has been optimised, the first hurdle is to ensure your email is accepted for delivery by your ISP – and the relationship and reputation of your email service provider with the particular ISP will play a key role here. Around 90% of spam filtering occurs at this level.
There is no industry standard on what constitutes good “reputation”. However this is based primarily on the history of the sender IP address and the rate of legitimate vs bounce backed emails generated. More than 75% of email filtering and blocking at this level occurs on this basis.
Further filtering takes place at the recipient mail server, when emails are diverted to junk or spam boxes. There are 100,000s of rules for checking the message header and body for known spam patterns both at ISP level and at the individual’s mailbox settings.
Content filtering is based on keywords, number of domains and images in the email. Spam is continuously evolving and it is increasingly challenging for ISPs to separate the good from the bad as spammers too optimise their emails to bypass the filters. Image blocking is standard with some ISPs, however as it is in their interest to allow good emails through as much as to block the bad ones, it’s a continuous challenge to adopt the optimal level of filters.
Marketers incur a cost per email sent and any email landing in a spam box is potential loss of revenue and ROI on the campaign. To maximise email deliverability client email strategies have to be optimised across email content, design through to dynamic pre-testing of campaigns.
Personalisation
Irrelevancy is another form of spam. A recent Epsilon survey revealed an overwhelming customer preference for personalised direct marketing. Two-thirds of respondents that receive email marketing communications want to receive personalised content from companies. Specifically, consumers want content and offers based on their personal online behavior such as website and browsing activity, past purchases or in the case of pharmaceutical goods, tailored content based on their condition history.
This suggests that generic email blasts are less effective. Today there are increasingly sophisticated data analysis and segmentation tools to make emails more relevant. Companies need to use the clues left by customers to deliver segmented and personal content. Today’s online shopper is looking for a highly personalised experience, mimicking the one-on-one attention of an in-store visit. The extra work will pay off. Delivering content relevant to the receiver is a great way to engage customers, increase clicks and boost revenue.
Sector specific results for email recipient preference for tailored email content show:
- Retail sector 63%
- Pharmaceutical sector 67%
- FMCG sector 65%
- Travel sector 69%
ESP’s will have to evolve from ‘batch and blast’ merchants to providers of integrated ROI-driven digital marketing solutions. By creating client email campaigns that are strategically activated: they look good, say the right words, at the right time, to the right audience, in a deliverable format and with inbuilt measurability - in this way, we can ensure maximum ROI, accountability and profitability for our clients in times when marketers are absolutely demanding these attributes.
Author: Ian Hitt, Managing Director, Epsilon International EMEA