MarketingSherpa - Email Marketing Guide 2009

397

$

2009

Email Marketing Benchmark Guide

Practical data to improve your budgeting, list growth, deliverability, testing, and ROI

Lead Author Stefan Tornquist, Research Director Contributing Author Sergio Balegno, Senior Analyst Contributing Analyst Shawn Baron, Analyst Contributors Tim McAtee, Senior Analyst Christopher Heine, Senior Reporter, Email Natalie Myers, Reporter Erin Donovan, Research Librarian Editors Bill Rupp, Managing Editor Irina Missiuro, Research Editor Special Thanks Deidre Baird, JJ Cramer, Greg Edwards and Teresa Hernandez

MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide US $397 / ISBN: 978-1-932353-86-0 Copyright © 2008 by MarketingSherpa LLC All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, faxing, emailing, posting online or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the Publisher. To purchase additional copies of this report, please visit http://www.SherpaStore.com Yes, bulk discounts are available for multiple copies. Contact: Customer Service MarketingSherpa LLC +1 (877) 895-1717 (outside US, call +401-247-7655) [email protected] 499 Main Street Warren, RI 02885 USA

MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009

Table of Contents Director‘s Note ......................................................................................................................... 3 #1. 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Survey ...................................................................................... 3 #2. Consumers and Email Survey......................................................................................................... 3 #3. Email Eyetracking Study – Year Four ............................................................................................. 4 #4. International Email – Challenges and Opportunities ....................................................................... 4

Reading Charts in This Year‘s Guide .................................................................................... 5 Research Highlights................................................................................................................ 7 Highlight #1: A Down Economy Means More Email .............................................................................. 7 Highlight #2: Attitude Toward Email Budgets Correlates with Performance .......................................... 7 Highlight #3: To Increase Opt-ins, Offer Real Benefits ......................................................................... 9 Highlight #4: You Can Overcome Image Blocking .............................................................................. 10 Highlight #5: Take Advantage of Overseas Opportunities .................................................................. 11

Chapter 1: The Business of Email Marketing ..................................................................... 13 1.01 Chart: How Economic Uncertainty is Affecting Marketing Budgets 9/2008 .......................... 13 1.02 Chart: Marketing Budget Cuts, Q4 2008 (B-to-B vs. B-to-C) ............................................... 14 1.03 Chart: Marketing Budget Cuts, Q4 2008 (by Size of Organization)...................................... 14 1.04 Chart: Observed Impact of Economy on Large Organizations ............................................. 15 1.05 Chart: Shift #1 – From Brand to Direct ................................................................................. 16 1.06 Chart: Shift #2 – From Traditional to Online......................................................................... 17 1.07 Chart: Shift #3 – Growth Toward Direct Online Tactics ....................................................... 17 1.08 Chart: The Economy and Email – B-to-B Budgets ............................................................... 18 1.09 Chart: The Economy and Email – B-to-C Budgets............................................................... 19 1.10 Chart: The Economy and Email – Large Budgets ................................................................ 20 1.11 Chart: Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email – All Respondents 2006 – 2008............. 21 1.12 Chart: B-to-B Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email .................................................... 22 1.13 Chart: B-to-C Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email .................................................... 22 1.14 Chart: The Goals of Email Marketers................................................................................... 23 How Consumers Use and View Email ................................................................................................ 24 1.15 Chart: Email (vs. Postal Mail) is Vital to Most Consumers ................................................... 24 1.16 Chart: Email is More Useful than the Phone to Many Consumers ....................................... 25 1.17 Chart: Email Still Driving Purchases .................................................................................... 26 1.18 Chart: Email Still the Best Way for Companies to Communicate with Consumers .............. 27 1.19 Email Still Dominates Media Activities ................................................................................. 28 1.20 Chart: Are Consumers Using Email Less? .......................................................................... 29 1.21 Chart: Looking Ahead – Americans Predict Their Media Use for 2013 ................................ 30 Industry Issues .................................................................................................................................... 31 1.22 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – All Respondents ................................. 31 1.23 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing by Budget Size ...................................... 32 1.24 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing by Organization Size ............................. 33 1.25 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Large B-to-B Organizations ................ 34 1.26 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Medium Sized B-to-B Organizations .. 34 1.27 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Small B-to-B Organizations ................ 35 1.28 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Large B-to-C Organizations ................ 36

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MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 1.29 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Medium Sized B-to-C Organizations .. 36 1.30 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Small B-to-C Organizations ................ 37 Budgeting ............................................................................................................................................ 38 1.31 Chart: How Email Is Viewed at Budget Time (2007 vs. 2008) ............................................. 38 1.32 Chart: Attitudes Toward Email Budgets, by Perception of Email Effectiveness ................... 39 1.33 Chart: Where Does Email Live in Budgets? ......................................................................... 40 1.34 Chart: Scatter Plot of Online and Email Budgets: No Magic Number .................................. 41 1.35 Chart: Email Budget Changes (2007 vs. 2008).................................................................... 42 1.36 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Size of Organization ....................................................... 43 1.37 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Size of Budget ................................................................ 44 1.38 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Perception of Email Effectiveness .................................. 45 1.39 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Large B-to-B Organizations................................. 46 1.40 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Medium Sized B-to-B Organizations ................... 47 1.41 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Small B-to-B Organizations ................................. 47 1.42 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Large B-to-C Organizations ................................ 48 1.43 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Medium Sized B-to-C Organizations ................... 49 1.44 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Small B-to-C Organizations................................. 49 1.45 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked by Size of Target Customers ................................. 50 1.46 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked - SMBs................................................................... 51 1.47 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked – Large Organizations ........................................... 51 Email Management – Technology and Outsourcing ........................................................................... 52 1.48 Chart: Email Management Technologies – All Respondents ............................................... 52 1.49 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: ASP Solutions ................................................................. 53 1.50 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: Full-Service Solutions ..................................................... 54 1.51 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: In-House Solutions ......................................................... 55 1.52 Chart: Small Teams Less Able to Utilize Segmentation ....................................................... 56

Chapter 2. Lists – Laying the Groundwork for Success ................................................... 57 2.01 Chart: Registration Data Collected by Emailers (2007 vs. 2008) ......................................... 57 2.02 Chart: Registration Data Collected by Target Customer ...................................................... 58 List Size and Growth ........................................................................................................................... 59 2.03 Chart: Email List Growth – All Respondents ........................................................................ 59 2.04 Chart: Changes in B-to-B List Size ...................................................................................... 60 2.05 Chart: Changes in B-to-B List Size – Growth Breakdown .................................................... 61 2.06 Chart: Marketers‘ Views on Challenges in Email: B-to-B List Growth .................................. 62 2.07 Chart: Changes in B-to-C List Size ...................................................................................... 63 2.08 Chart: Changes in B-to-C List Size – Growth Breakdown .................................................... 64 2.09 Chart: Marketers‘ Views on Challenges in Email: B-to-C List Growth .................................. 65 2.10 Chart: B-to-B Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage ............................ 66 2.11 Table: B-to-B Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage ............................ 67 2.12 Chart: B-to-C Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage ............................ 68 2.13 Table: B-to-C Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage ........................... 69 Notes from the Field: Accurate List Growth Strategy Boosts Revenue, Busts Bounces ..................... 70 Notes from the Field: Testing Results in 1000% Increase in Opt-Ins .................................................. 72 Third-Party Lists and Co-Registration ................................................................................................. 74 2.14 Chart: Effectiveness of Third-Party List Rentals .................................................................. 74 2.15 Chart: Effectiveness of Ads in Third-Party Newsletters ....................................................... 75 2.16 Chart: Effectiveness of Trading for Co-Reg Names ............................................................. 76

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MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 2.17 Chart: Effectiveness of Paying for Co-Reg Names .............................................................. 77 2.18 Table: Issues in Rented List Execution ................................................................................ 78 Permission Levels ............................................................................................................................... 79 2.19 Chart: Permission Levels – All Respondents ....................................................................... 79 2.20 Chart: Consumers See ‗Permission‘ Differently From The Way Marketers See It ............... 80 2.21 Table: Levels of Permission — Pros and Cons.................................................................... 81 Special Report: Consumers and Email: Growing Lists ........................................................................ 82 2.22 Chart: Emails Per Day ......................................................................................................... 82 2.23 Chart: Number of Personal Email Accounts ........................................................................ 83 2.24 Chart: ‗Special‘ Email Accounts for Filtering Spam, Commercial Email, Etc. ....................... 84 2.25 Chart: U.S. Consumer Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships ............................................................................................................................... 85 2.26 Table: Consumers Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships by Gender ............................................................................................................. 86 2.27 Table: Consumer Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships by Age Group ........................................................................................................ 87 2.28 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by Gender by Age & Gender ................................................... 88 2.29 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by Age Group by Age & Gender .............................................. 89 2.30 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by HH Income by Age & Gender ............................................. 90 2.31 Chart: What Would Drive Opt-ins – Consumers Speak Out by Age & Gender .................... 91 2.32 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Special Pricing by Age & Gender .................................................. 92 2.33 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – ‗First Look‘ at Products/Services ................................................... 92 2.34 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Customizing Content ..................................................................... 93 2.35 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Customizing Frequency ................................................................. 93 2.36 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Guarantee of Email Address Privacy ............................................. 94 2.37 Table: Driving Opt-ins – Email Program Benefits Rated by HH Income .............................. 95 2.38 Chart: Why Consumers Unsubscribed ................................................................................. 96 2.39 Tables: Why Consumers Unsubscribed by Demographic .................................................... 97 2.40 Tables: Why Consumers Unsubscribed by HH Income ....................................................... 97

Chapter 3. Deliverability, Filtering & False Positives ........................................................ 99 Email Delivery ..................................................................................................................................... 99 3.01 Chart: Actions Taken to Improve Delivery (2007 vs. 2008) .................................................. 99 3.02 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – B-to-B Deliverability................ 100 3.03 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – B-to-C Deliverability ............... 100 3.04 Chart: Marketers Gauge Bounce Rates/Undeliverable Email by Target Customer............ 101 3.05 Chart: Marketers Gauge Opt-out/Unsubscribe Rates by Target Customer ........................ 102 3.06 Chart: Marketers Gauge Spam Complaints by Target Customer....................................... 102 3.07 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Delivery Rates ................................................................ 103 3.08 Chart: Delivery Rates for B-to-B Mailers ............................................................................ 104 3.09 Chart: Delivery Rates for B-to-C Mailers ............................................................................ 105 Fighting Spam ................................................................................................................................... 106 3.10 Table: Email Authentication Techniques ............................................................................ 106 3.11 Table: Issues in Email Reputation ..................................................................................... 107 Notes from the Field: Reputation Raises the Benchmark for Deliverability and Sales ............... 108 Consumers and Spam ...................................................................................................................... 110 3.12 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – Consumer Views .................... 110 3.13 Chart: Are Consumers Seeing a Change in Spam? (2006 vs. 2008)................................. 111 3.14 Table: Spam Perception by Demographic ......................................................................... 112

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MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 3.15 Table: Spam Perception by HH Income ............................................................................. 112 3.16 Chart: Ability to Recognize Phishing Emails (by Demographic) ......................................... 113 Special Report: Spam Complainers Survey ...................................................................................... 114 Survey Objective........................................................................................................................ 114 Summary Definitions.................................................................................................................. 114 Demographics and Email Usage ............................................................................................... 115 3.17 Chart: Have You Ever Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button? .................................. 116 3.18 Chart: Why Have You Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button? .................................. 117 3.19 Chart: Consumers Reporting Emails That Aren‘t Spam ..................................................... 118 3.20 Chart: How Often Do You Use the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button? .................................. 119 3.21 Chart: Why Click the Spam Button? .................................................................................. 119 3.22 Chart: Why Haven‘t You Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button? .............................. 120 Consumer Definitions of Spam ......................................................................................................... 121 3.23 Chart: What Consumers Consider to be Spam (Known vs. Unknown Senders) ................ 121 3.24 Chart: What Did Consumers Think Would Happen When They Clicked ‗Spam‘? .............. 123 3.25 Chart: After Clicking ‗Spam‘ — Do Consumers Expect More Email?................................. 124 3.26 Chart: What Do Consumers Do When They Want Off the List? ........................................ 125 3.27 Chart: What Consumers Do When They‘re Not Getting Email They Signed Up for? ......... 126 3.28 Chart: Spam Is Forever ..................................................................................................... 127 3.29 Chart: People Prefer Letting Filters Determine What Is Spam ........................................... 128 3.30 Chart: Why Did Consumers Choose Their Email Service Provider? .................................. 129 3.31 Chart: How Often Does Spam Make It to the Inbox? ......................................................... 130 3.32 Chart: How Often Do Legitimate Emails Go to the Spam Folder? ..................................... 131 False Positives .................................................................................................................................. 132 3.33 Chart: Are Issues with Email a ‗Big Problem‘? ................................................................... 132 Special Report — False Positive Study ............................................................................................ 133 3.34 Chart: Percentage of Companies Affected by False Positives ........................................... 133 3.35 Chart: False Positive Rates by ISP .................................................................................... 135 3.36 Chart: Overlap of ISP False Positive Filtering .................................................................... 136 3.37 Chart: Which Authentication Tools Are Emailers Using? ................................................... 137 3.38 Chart: Which Authentication Tools Are Emailers Using? ................................................... 138 3.39 Table: Free Reputation Scoring and Effect on False Positive Rates ................................. 139 3.40 Chart: Permission Levels of Tested Companies ................................................................ 140 3.41 Chart: Correlation Between HTML/Text Option and False Positives ................................. 141 3.42 Chart: Correlation Between Third-Party Permission Practices and False Positives........... 142 3.43 Table: False Positive Study — Tested and Affected Emailers ........................................... 143 Study Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 146 Whitelisting........................................................................................................................................ 147 3.44 Chart: Are Consumers Whitelisting Commercial Emails? .................................................. 147 3.45 Table: Likelihood to Whitelist by Demographic .................................................................. 148 3.46 Table: Likelihood to Whitelist by HH Income...................................................................... 148

Chapter 4. Email Tactics & Testing ................................................................................... 149 4.01 Chart: ESPs Describe How Their Clients Are Using Email Technology…Or Not............... 149 Targeting Businesses ....................................................................................................................... 150 4.02 Chart: Marketers Targeting Content by Budget Size ......................................................... 150 4.03 Chart: Where Would Lead Generation Marketers Start to Fix Their Processes? ............... 151 4.04 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Large Organizations (More Than 1,000 Employees) .................................................................................................. 153 iv © Copyright 2000–2008 MarketingSherp LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions contact [email protected]. For more copies, visit http://www.SherpaStore.com

MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 4.05 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Medium Organizations (100-1,000 Employees) ............................................................................................................. 154 4.06 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Small Organizations (Fewer Than 100 Employees) ................................................................................................... 155 4.07 Chart: Email Design Tests Rated (2007-2008) ................................................................. 156 4.08 Chart: Email Targeting Test Rated (2007-2008) ................................................................ 157 Targeting Consumers w/Transactional Email.................................................................................... 158 4.09 Chart: Email is the Preferred Method of Delivery for Many B-to-C Messages ................... 158 4.10 Chart: Transactional Email Opened More Often Than Other Types .................................. 159 4.11 Chart: Consumers Open to Transactional Email Marketing ............................................... 160 Testing and Tracking ........................................................................................................................ 161 4.12 Table: What Metrics Should Marketers Be Tracking? ........................................................ 161 Tactics – Newsletters ........................................................................................................................ 162 4.13 Chart: Effectiveness of Email Newsletters ......................................................................... 162 4.14 Table: Industry Wisdom – Marketers Share Innovative Tactics ......................................... 163 Online Coupons ................................................................................................................................ 166 4.15 Chart: Emailed Coupons – Use in Online Stores ............................................................... 166 4.16 Chart: Emailed Coupons – Offline Use .............................................................................. 167 4.17 Table: Types of Online Coupons ....................................................................................... 168 Coupon Metrics — Basic Redemption Data .............................................................................. 169 4.18 Table: Coupon Redemption Rates..................................................................................... 169 Notes from the Field: Testing Make-Your-Own Coupons Cooks Up Tasty Results .......................... 170 Timing ............................................................................................................................................... 172 4.19 Chart: How Opens Accumulate.......................................................................................... 172 4.20 Chart: Effectiveness of Event-Triggered Emails ................................................................ 173 4.21 Table: Examples of Event-Triggered Emails ...................................................................... 174 Notes from the Field: Testing the Timing of Consumer Email Campaigns ........................................ 175 Notes from the Field: Viral Email Produced 100% Response From Best Customers ....................... 177 Rendering and Image Suppression................................................................................................... 179 4.22 Chart: Preview Panes Common Among Consumers ......................................................... 179 4.23 Chart: Preview Pane Configurations (2006 vs. 2008) ........................................................ 180 4.24 Image: Preview Pane Configurations ................................................................................. 181 4.25 Chart: Images Usually Blocked, Even for Consumers ....................................................... 182 4.26 Image: How Consumers See Your Emails ......................................................................... 183 4.27 Table: How Email Clients Show Images (or Don‘t) ............................................................ 184 4.28 Table: Email Clients Technology Compatibility by ISP ...................................................... 186 Notes from the Field: ―Table Cells‖ a Solution to ―Red X‖ Dilemma .................................................. 187 Segmentation and Personalization ................................................................................................... 189 4.29 Chart: Effectiveness of Unique Content by Segment ......................................................... 189 4.30 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records (All Respondents) ................................... 190 4.31 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – B-to-C .................................................. 191 4.32 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – Targeting SMBs ................................... 191 4.33 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – Targeting Large Businesses ................ 192 4.34 Chart: Segmentation Strategies by Target Customer ........................................................ 193 4.35 Chart: Segmentation Strategies Used by Size of Email Budget ........................................ 194 4.36 Chart: Impact of Segmentation on Open Rates — Average .............................................. 195 4.37 Chart: Impact of Segmentation on Click Rates: Average ................................................... 196 Special Section: The 12-Point Plan to Increase Email Performance................................................. 197

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MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 #1. Raising Opt-Ins: Offer Benefits to Encourage Consumer Subscriptions .............................. 197 #2. Raising Opt-Ins: Start with a Field ....................................................................................... 198 #3. Raising Opt-Ins: Optimize Forms ......................................................................................... 198 #4. Raising Opens: Subject Line Length.................................................................................... 200 #5. Raising Opens: Include Action Words ................................................................................. 200 #6. Raising Opens: Design for the Red ‗X‘ ................................................................................ 201 #7. Raising Open & Clicks: Personalization and Segmentation ................................................. 202 #8. Raising Clicks: Design to the Preview Pane ........................................................................ 203 #9. Raising Clicks: More Links = More Clicks ............................................................................ 203 #10. Raising Clicks: Reduce the Number of Actions.................................................................. 204 #11. Raising Clicks: Transactional Email Marketing .................................................................. 205 #12. Raising Clicks on Ads in Emails: Catching the Eye ........................................................... 206 Special Report – Email Eyetracking Year Four ................................................................................. 207 Test Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 207 Eyetracking ................................................................................................................................ 208 Heatmaps Explained.................................................................................................................. 208 Test #1: Can Good Design Outsmart Image Blocking? .................................................................... 210 4.38 Image & Heatmap – TripAdvisor Email with Blocked Images ........................................... 210 4.39 Image & Heatmap – TripAdvisor Email with Images Enabled ............................................ 211 4.40 Images & Heatmaps – Comparison of Image Emails ........................................................ 212 Test #2: Optimizing Intro Paragraphs for Ecommerce Mailin ............................................................ 213 4.41 Image & Heatmap – Catalog Style Email w/Intro Paragraph ............................................. 213 4.42 Image & Heatmap – Product Email with Intro Paragraph .................................................. 214 4.43 Image & Heatmap – Postcard Style w/o Intro ................................................................... 215 Test #3: Text and ‗Text-like‘ Email Design Comparisons .................................................................. 216 4.44 Image: Version One – Long, Dense Text ........................................................................... 216 4.45 Heatmap: Version One – Long, Dense Text ...................................................................... 217 4.46 Image: Version Two – Long Text, Short Paragraphs ........................................................ 218 4.47 Heatmap: Version Two – Long Text, Short Paragraphs ................................................... 219 4.48 Image: Version Three – Bulleted Text .............................................................................. 220 4.49 Heatmap: Version Three – Bulleted Text .......................................................................... 221 4.50 Image: Version Four – Bulleted Text w/Emphasis ............................................................. 222 4.51 Heatmap: Version Four – Bulleted Text w/Emphasis......................................................... 223 4.52 Image: Version Five – Long Text w/Personalized Photograph .......................................... 224 4.53 Heatmap: Version Five – Long Paragraph w/Personalized Photograph ............................ 225 Text Email Findings ................................................................................................................... 226

Chapter 5. Measuring Success – Email Benchmarks ...................................................... 229 5.01 Chart: How Marketers View Email Marketing Measurement .............................................. 229 5.02 Chart: Email Metric Measurement (2007 vs. 2008) ............................................................ 230 Open Rates ....................................................................................................................................... 231 5.03 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Open Rates .................................................................... 232 5.04 Table: Comparison of Open Rate Calculations .................................................................. 232 5.05 Chart: Newsletter Open Rates – All Respondents ............................................................. 233 5.06 Chart: Sales Blast Open Rates – All Respondents ............................................................ 233 5.07 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-B Sales Blast .......................................................................... 234 5.08 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-B Newsletters ......................................................................... 234 5.09 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-C Sales Blast ......................................................................... 235 5.10 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-C Newsletters ......................................................................... 235 vi © Copyright 2000–2008 MarketingSherp LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions contact [email protected]. For more copies, visit http://www.SherpaStore.com

MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 5.11 Chart: Open Rates by Industry Sector ............................................................................... 236 Clickthrough Rates............................................................................................................................ 237 5.12 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Clickthrough Rates ......................................................... 237 5.13 Table: Comparison of Open Rate Calculation Methods ..................................................... 237 5.14 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Newsletters .......................................................................... 238 5.15 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Sales Blasts ......................................................................... 238 5.16 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Sales Blasts to Third-Party Lists .......................................... 239 5.17 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Ads in Third-Party Newsletters ............................................ 239 5.18 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Newsletters .......................................................................... 240 5.19 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Sales Blasts ......................................................................... 240 5.20 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Mailings to Third-Party Lists ................................................ 241 5.21 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Ads in Third-Party Newsletters ............................................ 241 Conversion Rates in B-to-B............................................................................................................... 242 5.22 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-B Newsletters .......................................... 242 5.23 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-B Newsletters ........................................ 243 5.24 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-B Sales Blasts ......................................... 243 5.25 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-B Sales Blasts ....................................... 244 Conversion Rates in B-to-C .............................................................................................................. 245 5.26 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-C Newsletters .......................................... 245 5.27 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-C Newsletters ........................................ 245 5.28 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-C Sales Blasts ......................................... 246 5.29 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-C Sales Blasts ....................................... 246

Chapter 6. Special Topics in Email – International Email, Mobile and Video ............... 247 Special Report: International Email Marketing .................................................................................. 247 6.01 Chart: Is International Email Marketing a Priority? ............................................................. 247 6.02 Chart: Percent of Email List Located Outside of North America ........................................ 248 6.03 Chart: Tracks Percent of Email List Located Outside North America ................................. 249 6.04 Chart: Tactics Used to Grow Email Lists in US/Canada and UK/Europe ........................... 250 6.05 Chart: Email List Growth Tactics Rated Very Successful in US/Canada and UK/Europe .. 251 Marketers Share Insights on Email Issues and Opportunities ........................................................... 252 Africa ......................................................................................................................................... 252 Asia............................................................................................................................................ 252 Europe ....................................................................................................................................... 252 Oceania/Pacific .......................................................................................................................... 254 South/Central America............................................................................................................... 255 Overview of Regulations Effecting International Email Marketing ..................................................... 256 6.06 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Canada.............................................................. 257 6.07 Table: European Union Data Protection Directive ............................................................. 258 6.08 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Austria ............................................................... 258 6.09 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Belgium ............................................................. 259 6.10 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Denmark ............................................................ 259 6.11 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Finland .............................................................. 260 6.12 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in France ............................................................... 260 6.13 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Germany ........................................................... 261 6.14 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Hungary............................................................. 261 6.15 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Italy ................................................................... 262 6.16 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Netherlands ....................................................... 262

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MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 6.17 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Norway .............................................................. 263 6.18 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Poland ............................................................... 264 6.19 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Spain ................................................................. 264 6.20 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Sweden ............................................................. 265 6.21 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Switzerland........................................................ 266 6.22 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in the United Kingdom ........................................... 266 6.23 Table: Asia-Pacific Countries ............................................................................................. 267 6.24 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Hong Kong ........................................................ 267 6.25 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in India .................................................................. 268 6.26 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Indonesia ........................................................... 268 6.27 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Japan ................................................................ 269 6.28 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Korea................................................................. 270 6.29 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Philippines ......................................................... 270 6.30 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in the PRC............................................................. 271 6.31 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Thailand ............................................................ 271 6.32 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Singapore .......................................................... 272 6.33 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Vietnam ............................................................. 273 6.34 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Australia ............................................................ 274 6.35 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in New Zealand ..................................................... 275 6.36 Chart: US and UK Companies Sharing Personal Data with Third Parties for Marketing Use ............................................................................................................................................ 276 6.37 Chart: US and UK Marketers Rate Privacy Practices that Create Competitive Advantage ................................................................................................................................. 277 Localization is the Language of International Email Success .................................................... 278 6.38 Chart: Localizing Content for International Email Recipients ............................................. 279 6.39 Chart: Money Spent on Translation by US Companies ..................................................... 280 6.40 Chart: Translation Spending by Company Size ................................................................. 281 Video and Email ................................................................................................................................ 282 6.41 Chart: Online Video Ads Getting More Clicks Than Image Ads ......................................... 282 The All-Important Play Button .................................................................................................... 283 Coding and Rendering for Deliverability .................................................................................... 283 Notes from the Field: Conversions Increased More Than 50% with Embedded Video ..................... 284 Mobile Marketing............................................................................................................................... 286 6.42 Chart: Advanced Mobile Usage Continues to Rise ............................................................ 286 6.43 Chart: Mobile Spending Plans (2006 – 2008) .................................................................... 287 6.44 Chart: Mobile Spending Plans by Size of Marketing Budget .............................................. 288 6.45 Chart: Marketers Still Largely Unmoved by Mobile Email .................................................. 289 6.46 Chart: Most Emailers Fail to Test Mobile Rendering .......................................................... 290 Mobile Glossary ................................................................................................................................ 291

Appendix 1: The Ultimate Email Marketing Glossary ...................................................... 293 Appendix 2: Demographic Profile of Survey Participants .............................................. 315 Benchmark Survey............................................................................................................................ 315 A2.01 Chart: Size of Respondents‘ Organizations ..................................................................... 315 A2.02 Chart: Respondents‘ Areas of Specialty and Oversight ................................................... 316 A2.03 Chart: Breakdown of Respondents‘ Organizations .......................................................... 317 A2.04 Chart: Breakdown of Respondents‘ Sales Targets .......................................................... 318 A2.05 Chart: Respondents‘ Annual Email Marketing Budgets ................................................... 319 A2.06 Chart: Respondents‘ Industries ....................................................................................... 320 viii © Copyright 2000–2008 MarketingSherp LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions contact [email protected]. For more copies, visit http://www.SherpaStore.com

MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 A2.07 Chart: Size of Respondents‘ Email Databases ................................................................ 321 Consumer Email Survey ................................................................................................................... 322 A2.08 Chart: Gender Breakdown ............................................................................................... 322 A2.09 Chart: Age Breakdown .................................................................................................... 323 A2.10 Chart: Household Income Breakdown ............................................................................. 324 A2.11 Chart: Education Profile .................................................................................................. 325 A2.12 Chart: Urban vs. Rural ..................................................................................................... 326 A2.13 Chart: Respondents‘ Online Spending ............................................................................ 327

Research Partners............................................................................................................... 329

ix © Copyright 2000–2008 MarketingSherp LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions contact [email protected]. For more copies, visit http://www.SherpaStore.com


2 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Director‘s Note Welcome to MarketingSherpa‘s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009. As always, this annual edition has been completely and comprehensively re-researched and rewritten. If you have an older edition around, stick it on the library shelf and start working from this new sixth edition – numbers have changed (in some cases dramatically) in the past 12 months. In addition to all the basic email marketing stats you would expect, including cost and response data, we have included major *new* studies in this Guide:

#1. 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Survey 1,763 real-life marketers from a range of business and consumer-focused firms answered our extensive survey (and some discussed their answers in follow-up calls) in August of 2008. They revealed: -

Which tests and tactics get the best ROI … and which get the worst What the challenges to email marketing are and what works to overcome them How they allocate budgets and measure results Response rates from opens to clicks, deliverability to conversion rates

Discover how your internal tactics and stats match up against the norm. You may be surprised.

#2. Consumers and Email Survey 1,438 representative Americans answered an extensive battery of questions to help marketers better understand how they perceive email, how they use it and how they can be better served by the medium. Among other things, we explored: -

-

What makes consumers more likely to subscribe to emails What makes them unsubscribe or simply stop reading How they are ‗seeing‘ emails – how they configure preview panes and block images What kinds of emails people are receiving – what types of companies, how many emails and how it differs by household income, gender and a range of other demographic characteristics How Americans view email as a service? How does it stack up against postal mail and the telephone? The answers will surprise you.



#3. Email Eyetracking Study – Year Four This year‘s explorations in eyetracking email focus on the differences in how we view text and image emails. Among the questions we explored: -

How do we overcome the effects of image blocking? What‘s the optimal way to format text or text-like emails? Is shorter better for product-heavy emails?

#4. International Email – Challenges and Opportunities Roughly a quarter of large emailers report that over 15% of their names are from overseas but nearly half aren‘t tracking this metric. International email offers opportunities and challenges. This special report explores some of the essential basics. -

How companies perceive and prioritize international email Country-specific information about deliverability and what works How leading-edge emailers are customizing email for international delivery

All in all, this year‘s edition of the Email Marketing Guide features 261 charts, tables and heatmaps. It‘s even thicker than our last edition and of even more practical value. This report comes at a key point in the evolution of email marketing, as businesses seek cost-efficient ways to maximize impact and build relationships in what is likely to be a difficult stretch in the global economy. There will be new pressure on emailers to contribute to revenue without reducing the long-term value of their lists. Our goal is to make your job easier. If you can‘t find a needed marketing stat here, please let us know. We will be sure to continue to widen our research efforts to see if we can add it next year. In the meantime, best of luck with your campaigns over the next year.

Stefan Tornquist Research Director, MarketingSherpa Inc.



Reading Charts in This Year‘s Guide A number of terms are used throughout this Guide to minimize clutter inside the charts: Age Groups Youth

18 – 26 years old

Adult

27 – 38 years old

M ature

39 – 55 years old

Senior

Over 55 years old

Company Size Small

1 – 99 employees

M edium

100 - 500

Large

501 – 2,000

Very large

Over 2,000 employees

Budget Size Small

Less than $10,000

M edium

$10,001 to $100,000

Large

Over $100,000

Another term that you‘ll see used in the Guide is ‗Advanced‘ email marketer. We use this designation for a segment that is practices two or more types of high level segmentation and/or targeting. Our assumption is that organizations that fit in this segment are more familiar with the metrics of email marketing than other emailers. We also see them as leaders in best practices and results. Their clickthrough rates average more than 20% above the norm.





Research Highlights Highlight #1: A Down Economy Means More Email Chart: The Economy and Email – B-to-B Budgets

60%

Emailing to house lists

Emailing to rented lists

All online

All tactics

48%

45%

37%

40% 38%

30%

32% 28%

27%

21% 15%

18% 16% 11% 1% 7%

18% 16% 9%

2%

15% 11%

3%

0% Significant reduction

Some reduction

No change

Some increase

Significant increase

Source: MarketingSherpa, September 2008 Methodology: N=350

In a difficult economy, marketers of all types are turning back to email; they see it as the eye in the raging economic storm. Low cost, targeted, and able to move the needle with prospects as well as current customers, email is front and center among marketing tactics in the current downturn. More interesting than the optimism for house email, which was to be expected, are the positive numbers relating to third-party list rentals. 29% of B-to-B marketers plan on spending increases in this area, compared to 23% planning cuts. Over the last few years, the trend has been away from list rental, but it appears that the need for predictable customer acquisition may reverse that trend – at least for business marketers. Pressure to meet numbers has always been a problem for email. It forces marketers to send too many emails to too many list members – the ‗batch and blast‘ mentality that has eroded the trust of consumers and businessmen over the last 10 years. This enthusiasm for email in the downturn is going to mean greater competition at the inbox, and that‘s not necessarily good for the long-term health of the medium. Those organizations that use email successfully throughout the downturn will be those that practice email responsibly and efficiently – through creativity, personalization, segmentation, testing and pristine list management.



Highlight #2: Attitude Toward Email Budgets Correlates with Performance Chart: How Email is Viewed at Budget Time by Perception of Effectiveness

Email is a good tool in the toolbox, and it's cheap. We bump it up a few percent per year.

44% 29%

Email is a powerful tool and a direct line to our customers - let's make sure we're investing enough to stay relevant and on top of the medium.

31% 19% 18%

Email is cheap and still working why invest more?

Email is basically free - let's keep it that way.

34% 7% 14% 1%

Increasing effectiveness

4%

Decreasing effectiveness

Other

0%

20%

40%

60%

Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 4, 2008, N=1,763

The chart above tracks the attitudes of marketing organizations toward email during the budget-making process. It‘s a ‗temperature-taking‘ measure that we‘ve used for several years to track whether email was gaining or losing respect as a medium. The results have generally been nuanced. In this example, we‘re looking at budget attitudes through the lens of how respondents see the impact of email changing over time for their organizations. So, for those that find its impact increasing (the majority), 75% of respondents fall into the top two categories – ‗invest a bit more each year‘ or ‗invest to stay on top‘ compared to 48% of those who see email‘s impact as decreasing. Nearly half of this latter group describe their companies as having attitudes toward email that suggest a limited view on how it works, and why it works – as being ‗ cheap and working‘ or ‗basically free.‘ It‘s not surprising, then, that these are the same organizations that don‘t anticipate a healthy, growing impact from email.



Highlight #3: To Increase Opt-ins, Offer Real Benefits Raising Opt-Ins: Offer Benefits to Encourage Consumer Subscriptions

Much more likely Guarantee to not share your address with other companies

Somewhat more likely

43%

Special pricing for email subscribers

23%

32%

29%

Ability to customize how frequently you receive emails

27%

30%

Ability to customize the information you receive to meet your needs

25%

32%

'First look' at new products, services

22%

0%

28%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Source: MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=1,438

Consumers want more from email programs than they‘ve been given. They want special treatment, and they deserve it; they‘re giving up their precious time in exchange for the ‗benefit‘ of content – so that content should convey some real benefits. And though marketers bemoan the difficulties in gathering and retaining opt-in names, few go so far as to craft real retention programs for their email list members. This chart should provide some inspiration. It records the opinions of over 1,400 nationally representative consumers, and believe it or not, they want to opt in. But, they want something in exchange. It‘s interesting that, across the board, at least 50% of the sample would be at least somewhat more likely to subscribe if offered any of the benefits listed. The highest response is for email privacy, but special pricing and customization capabilities also rate very well. As we dig into the data, we also find that there are encouraging correlations between desirable demographics (young, affluent, educated people) and an increased willingness to opt in when these benefits are offered.



Highlight #4: You Can Overcome Image Blocking Images & Heatmaps: Emails with Images On/Off

Most online marketing mediums have some technological challenges; cookies get deleted, windows are blocked and videos are stripped. But email has more than its fair share of tech-related hurdles. There‘s the constant struggle to improve delivery, having to fight for attention in the preview pane and image blocking which, at best, removes your creative and, at worst, completely distorts the email. This year‘s eyetracking study looked at a range of email design questions, but one we wanted to address was whether good email design could trump image blocking. To an extent it can. The heatmaps above show the difference in readership for the same email with images on and off. The version with images did achieve somewhat greater attention and time spent on the page, but the difference wasn‘t huge. Even with images blocked, the good use of text, tables and alt text allow for strong attention to the blocked version. In the version with blocked images, we also see a higher percentage reading the entire headline instead of scanning and skipping down, which appears to be related to the pull of the image below. When that image is removed, people spend a bit more time reading. That underscores the power and danger of compelling images – they can engage and attract the user‘s attention, but they may be stealing it from a key piece of content.



Highlight #5: Take Advantage of Overseas Opportunities Chart: How Much of Your Email List is Overseas?

38%

Less than 1%

35% 25%

1% - 5%

18% 12%

6% - 10%

10% 7%

11% - 15%

11% 7%

16% - 20%

5% 7%

21% - 30%

5% 5%

31% - 40% Over 40%

20% 3%

Large Org. (500+ Employees)

15% 0%

10%

SMBs (<500 Employees)

20%

30%

40%

50%


As the U.S. dollar has fallen over the last several years, there‘s been one bright spot – the growing appeal of American-made products. When energy and commodities are taken out of the equation, the U.S. has seen a surplus in trade of machined products, high-tech equipment and, most interestingly, professional services. The monetary imbalance has made it possible for European and Asian countries to outsource to the U.S., and this market should be of great interest to marketers with an online presence. This chart tracks the percentage of emailers‘ lists located overseas, split by the size of the mailing organization. Not surprisingly, large companies have a much higher percentage of foreign subscribers in their email marketing databases than their smaller counterparts. But it‘s also true that large organizations are better at keeping track of such things. For this chart, we eliminated the understandably 55% of smaller companies and surprisingly large 46% of large companies that ‗didn‘t know‘ this figure. 11 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


For half of the large organizations that keep tabs on the percent of their email list located outside of North America, 15% are foreign addresses. An impressive 35% of these large organizations have email lists with more than 30% of the addresses located outside North America. While not as populated with foreign addresses as large organization databases, 29% of small and mid-size businesses have email lists with more than 10% of the recipients located outside North America.



Chapter 1: The Business of Email Marketing 1.01 Chart: How Economic Uncertainty is Affecting Marketing Budgets 9/2008

75% B-to-B

B-to-C

Large orgs.

60% 53% 45% 39% 34%

30%

29% 24% 15%

20%

22% 17% 17% 11% 12% 5%

7% 8% 2%

0% A cut has been No changes No changes made to the made - a cut is made - none marketing expected are planned budget Source: MarketingSherpa, September 2008 Methodology: N=384

No changes An increase made - an has been made increase is to the expected marketing budget

As we‘re going to press with this year‘s Email Benchmark Guide, the U.S. and world economies are in flux. For marketers, this means making hard choices, which will profoundly impact media and the evolution of online marketing. To begin the discussion, the chart above details where companies are as of September 2008. It‘s a far cry from last year at this time – when economic concerns were merely smudges on the horizon. Most chilling is what large organizations report: Over 50% have made cuts to their marketing budgets in response to the economy. Not only do they represent large amounts of money, but they‘re much more likely to make changes based on predictive modeling rather than on gut instinct or today‘s numbers. The bright spot is for those SMBs with strong earnings who can take advantage of the economy to move up a few rungs. We‘ll be looking at the mechanisms to do so throughout this section.



1.02 Chart: Marketing Budget Cuts, Q4 2008 (B-to-B vs. B-to-C)

45%

B-to-B

B-to-C

30% 24.9%

25.7% 20.0%

15%

20.0%

20.0%

20.0%

0%

Average

Mode

Median


When all the numbers are considered, the common ratio appears to be 25-20-20…that‘s the average, mode and median cut in marketing budgets. Note: For most of these, it‘s a tactical cut, and doesn‘t yet reflect any changes in staffing. However, over 35% of the organizations we surveyed reported that downsizing was likely. The final number will probably be higher since the cascade affects organizations down the line. 1.03 Chart: Marketing Budget Cuts, Q4 2008 (by Size of Organization)

45%

Large orgs.

Medium orgs

30% 30.0% 22.7%

24.3%

20.0%

15%

20.0%

20.0%

0% Average

Mode

Median




1.04 Chart: Observed Impact of Economy on Large Organizations

N/A

No effect

Lengthening sales cycle

Small effect

19%

Lower number of new customers per month

14%

Lower average purchase per customer

15%

Lower number of total customers per month

17%

0%

15%

35%

18%

44%

26%

38%

24%

20%

Significant effect

30%

24%

22%

39%

40%

60%

19%

80%

100%


The data above reflects some of the practical impact felt by larger organizations. We‘ve emphasized larger companies in the sample because they tend to be better at measuring and reporting what is happening in the ―here and now‖ than SMBs. The most tangible effect thus far is a lengthening of sales cycles. Consumers are researching more and buying less, while businesses are doing their due diligence on products/services, but not pulling the trigger. 68% of large organizations are also saying that they see fewer new customers, another casualty of the downturn.



1.05 Chart: Shift #1 – From Brand to Direct

60% Brand

40%

Direct

41% 33% 28%

20%

25% 21% 15% 12%

12%

10% 4%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase



For years, there have been two macro trends in marketing. Brand budgets have moved toward direct marketing, and offline budgets have moved online. Both of these have happened in fits and starts, and it‘s still unclear whether the winds will change in the future. But, for now, they are accelerating, pushed by the economy. 53% of large organizations have made a reduction in their brand budgets, compared to 33% on the direct side.



1.06 Chart: Shift #2 – From Traditional to Online

45%

Traditional

Online 38%

40%

30% 27% 21%

15%

18%

16%

11%

15%

9% 3%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase



Online tactics fare much better than traditional in this look at large organizations‘ budget cuts. By a slight margin, marketers are planning to increase their online budgets. On the traditional side, negatives outweigh positives by 4 to 1. When the two trends are combined, you can see the comparison of online direct tactics (e.g., email) with all others. 1.07 Chart: Shift #3 – Growth Toward Direct Online Tactics

75%

Online - direct

All others

60% 45% 38%

30%

39%

24%

15%

17% 8%

22%

20% 14%

12%

8%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase





1.08 Chart: The Economy and Email – B-to-B Budgets

60%

Emailing to house lists


All online

All tactics

48%

45%

37%

40% 38% 32%

30%

28%

27% 21% 18% 16%

15%

18% 16%

11% 9%

7% 1%

2%

15% 11% 3%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase



Business marketers see email as an eye in the storm. Low-cost, targeted, and able to move the needle, email is front and center among marketing tactics in the current downturn. More interesting than the optimism for house email, which was to be expected, are the positive numbers relating to third-party list rentals. 29% plan on spending increases in this area, compared to 23% planning cuts.



1.09 Chart: The Economy and Email – B-to-C Budgets

60% Emailing to house lists


All online

All tactics

53% 45% 40% 38% 35% 30%

31% 27%

27%

21%

19% 16%

18%

15% 10%11% 4%

11%

9%

3%

15% 8% 3%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase



As with business-to-business marketers, consumer-focused companies plan on utilizing house email to the fullest. They are also more likely to be investing in, rather than cutting, third-party lists. Although, as we‘ll see on the next page, companies with large marketing budgets aren‘t as bullish on list rental.



1.10 Chart: The Economy and Email – Large Budgets

60% Emailing to house lists


All online

All tactics

45% 44% 38%

40% 38%

30% 27%

27% 24% 21% 15%

17%

20% 18%

16%

11% 5%

9%

9%

5%

15% 8% 3%


Some reduction

No change

Some increase



The views of large companies toward house email are fairly consistent with the rest of the marketing world. When it comes to list rental, however, the picture isn‘t as rosy. Although 17% plan on an increase, more than twice that see cuts in the future – a sharp contrast with SMB marketing organizations.



1.11 Chart: Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email – All Respondents 2006 – 2008

45% 2006

2007

2008

39%

41% 38%

36% 30%

22%

22% 21%

Not changing noticeably

Increasing a Increasing a lot little

21% 15% 12% 13% 13% 13% 2%

3% 4%

0% Decreasing a lot

Decreasing a little


As we look at the last three years, there hasn‘t been an ‗ah-ha!‘ moment since the drop between 2006 and 2007. For over 1,700 email marketers, the medium performed well, and they expect it to continue to do so. On the next page, we break down how marketers in various B-to-B and B-to-C segments view email, and regardless of the slice, the numbers look very consistent. For all the issues that marketers have with email, when they step back and evaluate, the marks are still strong.



1.12 Chart: B-to-B Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email

60%

--

-

No change

+

++

45% 44% 41%

40%

39%

30% 22% 15%

25% 21%

25%

14%

13% 4%

22%

18%

17% 11% 3%

3%

19%

14% 5%

0% 2008 Avg.

B-to-B

Large B-to-B

Small B-to-B


What‘s remarkable is the consistency across categories and slices within them. Only large B-to-C organizations (with a particularly high rating) notably leave the norms. 1.13 Chart: B-to-C Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Email

60% --

-

No change

+

++

45% 41%

40%

40%

30%

39%

33% 22%

15% 13% 4%

21%

23%

21%

19% 10% 4%

11%11% 1%

21%

11% 3%

0% 2008 Avg.

B-to-C

Large B-to-C

Small B-to-C




1.14 Chart: The Goals of Email Marketers

High priority

Medium priority

Low priority

Not on radar

63%

31% 4%

Growing email lists Integrating email into traditional marketing campaigns

48%

38% 7% 6%

Improving deliverability

48%

37% 10%

Improving the quality of email list members/list cleansing

45%

Undestanding the ongoing value of email in the age of inbox overload

37%

Exploring the relationship between email and Web 2.0/social networking Exploring the opportunties of mobile marketing and email

19% 14% 0%

41% 16% 6% 29%

28% 20%

39% 12%

40%

37% 14% 28% 60%

30% 80%

100%


List growth was once a relatively easy task. Create some content and wait for the masses to ask for it. Today, building a list is among the most challenging elements of digital or offline marketing. For analysis and tips pertaining to increasing opt-ins and list size, don‘t miss Chapter Two of this Guide. One of the brightest spots in the chart above is the emphasis placed on integrated marketing campaigns. Not only do such campaigns tend to get better results, but this moves marketers away from an indiscriminate application of email to any and all sales needs. When email sends are married to a larger campaign, house-list members are less likely to get hit with undifferentiated email which, to them, it is little different from spam. The nexus between email, Web 2.0 and social networking is a new challenge and opportunity in email, but it‘s still a ways off from getting similar attention to the other priorities above.



How Consumers Use and View Email

1.15 Chart: Email (vs. Postal Mail) is Vital to Most Consumers

"Postal mail is more useful to me than email." - True or False? FALSE

TRUE

Men

51%

24%

Women

51%

23%

Youth

54%

Adult

56%

18%

Mature

48%

Senior

47%

Under 50k/year

48%

$50-100k/year

25% 27% 25%

60%

Over $100k/year -75%

21%

22%

56% -60%

-45%

25% -30%

-15%

0%

15%

30%

45%


This chart and those that follow are a strong response to those who suggest that email is a dying form. Regardless of gender, age group or household income (HH), only about 1 in 4 people find postal mail to be more useful to them than email. Of interest is that the sharpest preference for email comes from those with HH incomes over $50K.



1.16 Chart: Email is More Useful than the Phone to Many Consumers

"Email is more useful to me than the phone." - True or False? FALSE Men Women Youth

31%

51%

28%

59%

31%

Adult Mature

TRUE

51% 21%

62%

29%

Senior

32%

Under 50k/year

31%

56% 58% 53%

$50-100k/year

27%

62%

Over $100k/year

26%

63%

-40%

-20%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


This is one of the most remarkable charts in this guide. From the mouths of more than 1,400 North American consumers – by a ratio of 2 to 1, they find email more useful than the telephone. Of course, that‘s in part because they are starting to get emails on their phones, but the point still stands.



1.17 Chart: Email Still Driving Purchases

60% Yes

No

Do not recall

Does not apply

49%

45% 44%

45% 38%

30%

15% 9%

9% 2%

3%

Email triggered online purchase

Email triggered offline purchase

0%


Almost half of those who belong to commercial email programs recall making at least one email-triggered purchase in the last 12 months. That‘s substantial, but shouldn‘t be taken as the full extent of email‘s influence. Just as with any branding medium, a significant portion of email‘s effect is felt through indirect means; such as brand reinforcement, a future purchase that the consumer doesn‘t associate with an earlier email, etc.



1.18 Chart: Email Still the Best Way for Companies to Communicate with Consumers

"Email is the best way for companies to communicate with me." - True or False?

FALSE Men

26%

53%

Women

23%

Youth

24%

Adult

Under 50k/year

55%

64%

21%

58%

32%

48%

24%

$50-100k/year

26%

Over $100k/year

25%

-40%

57%

17%

Mature Senior

TRUE

-20%

55% 61% 58% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


In perhaps the most important statement about the role of email in consumers‘ lives, they overwhelming identify email as the ‗best way for companies to communicate with me.‘ That‘s because email has the benefit of being easily saved, scanned and unobtrusive. Of course, that means emails go unnoticed or unopened, but no marketing medium is going to hit home every time.



1.19 Email Still Dominates Media Activities

100% 2006 (Daily use)

2008 (Daily use) 91%

80%

87%

80%

66%

60%

63% 55%

50% 40%

20%

47%

41% 27%

0% Read a physical newspaper

Read news online

Watch Open and read Check television news a piece of personal email postal mail account/s


Every year brings with it a new way for us to take in information. In the last 12-24 months, social media has come roaring onto the scene, expanding beyond teens to include virtually every demographic niche. This effect can be seen in the changes in media consumption noted above. In every case, we see a drop in the percentage of people citing ‗daily use‘; newspapers and postal mail suffer the most. On a percentage basis, email fares better than any other medium, dropping by four points – within the margin of error.



1.20 Chart: Are Consumers Using Email Less?

"I am using email less and less over time." - True or False? FALSE Men Women

TRUE

70%

16%

78%

Youth

12%

70%

15%

Adult

80%

10%

Mature

80%

11%

Senior

76%

15%

Under 50k/year

75%

13%

$50-100k/year

80%

Over $100k/year -100%

14%

75% -80%

-60%

19% -40%

-20%

0%

20%

40%


We wanted to explore how consumers perceive email. Is it a dying medium that‘s inevitably going to give way to texting, IMs, social networks or some other way of communicating? If so, that‘s not what most people expect. Despite spam, over-mailing and the generally low quality of most email programs, by roughly a five-to-one margin, respondents report that they are using email today at least to the degree that they have in the past.



1.21 Chart: Looking Ahead – Americans Predict Their Media Use for 2013

Will use more

No change

Will use less

Online banking/Utilities

45%

37%

Online shopping

44%

40%

Using email to get information from companies

41%

Mobile internet

41%

33%

Television

33%

21%

0%

4%

56%

20%

40%

N/A

3% 15%

3% 13%

4% 14%

31%

10%

60%

80%

13%

100%


In another attempt to peer into the future, we asked consumers how they see their own media usage changing in five years. Generally, they see greater media use across the board, with only television seeing a double-digit percentage of people who expect to use it less (and that is still doubled by those who expect more TV in their future). Using email to get information from companies appears to be in the future of most, with over 40% expecting that they‘ll be getting more commercial communication, and the same number expecting no drop.



Industry Issues 1.22 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – All Respondents

Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email suffers

32%

Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list

17%

Deliverability

13%

Spam is eroding trust in email

13%

Email doesn't get the budget/attention it deserves

11%

Willingness of people to opt-in to email lists Other

9% 5% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


Over the next several pages, we‘ll look at how different segments of the email marketing industry view the central challenges to success in their paths. Above, we see the average response for all 1,763 email marketers. For the second year running, more of them express frustration with the general state of email than with their own situations – ‗recipient mailboxes are swamped‘ gets the highest response by a large margin. A new challenge was added to the survey this year, and is in second position above – delivering on the promise of relevance to our list. As we move through the different segments and their views, we‘ll see that there are varied positions on which of these takes the top spot, and what that says about smart marketing and the segments themselves. While we‘ve heard complaints from many marketers about the difficulties in increasing email list size, the issue rates fairly low on the scale, and does so throughout the segments.



1.23 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing by Budget Size

31%


41% 26% 20%


12% 4%

Deliverability Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list Willingness of people to opt-in to email lists Email doesn't get the budget/attention it deserves Other

16% 14% 15% 10% 14% 20% 10% 7% 9% 7% 7% 15% 7% 4% 11% 0%

10%

20%

Small Budget Medium Budget Large Budget 30%

40%

50%


As a general rule, the larger an organization‘s email marketing budget, the more they worry about achieving relevance as opposed to the factors that are less in their control, such as spam and inbox overload. It‘s also interesting that those with large budgets are more likely to cite ‗email doesn‘t get the budget it deserves‘ than those investing less. Either large budgets beget larger ones, or those who have invested in email are seeing positive results and wish that the budget would reflect that reality. In many organizations, as we‘ll see in the budgeting section, there‘s a gap between what email does and what it could do with the proper investment.



1.24 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing by Organization Size

37%


21% 14% 11%

Deliverability

13% 13%


13%


28%


11% 11%

Willingness of people to opt-in to email lists

8% 11%

Other

SMBs

5% 5% 0%

Large Org. 10%

20%

30%

40%


This chart illustrates one of the key issues plaguing large emailers. Companies with multiple databases, lists, products and services have a real challenge in applying the necessary strategy and technology to deliver truly relevant communications. For smaller organizations, the problem seems to be inbox overload. However, from speaking with many SMB marketers, we suspect that the perception and reality might not be a perfect fit; smaller lists and limited product choices don‘t mean that the email programs of smaller companies are necessarily highly relevant, and that assumption is working against these companies.



1.25 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Large B-to-B Organizations

B-to-B Orgs. w/Over 2,000 Employees Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list

36%


27%


14%


10%

Deliverability Willingness of people to opt-in to email lists

8% 5% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


1.26 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Medium Sized B-to-B Organizations

B-to-B Orgs w/500 to 2,000 employees Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email suffers

39%

Deliverability

19%

Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list Email doesn't get the budget/attention it deserves Willingness of people to opt-in to email lists

12%

11% 10%


9% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%




1.27 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Small B-to-B Organizations

B-to-B Orgs w/1-500 Employees Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email suffers

38%


18%

Deliverability

15%


13%


9%


7% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%




1.28 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Large B-to-C Organizations

B-to-C Orgs. w/Over 2,000 Employees Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list

28%

Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email…

19%


17%


15%

Willingness of people to optin to email lists

12%

Deliverability

10% 0%

10%

20%

30%


1.29 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Medium Sized B-to-C Organizations

B-to-C Orgs w/500 to 2,000 employees Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email suffers

29%


28%

Deliverability

14%


11%


9%


8% 0%

10%

20%

30%




1.30 Chart: Challenges to Success in Email Marketing – Small B-to-C Organizations

B-to-B Orgs w/1-500 Employees Recipient mailboxes are swamped, and all email suffers

38%


18%

Deliverability

15%


13%


9%


7% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%




Budgeting

1.31 Chart: How Email Is Viewed at Budget Time (2007 vs. 2008)

45% 2007

2008 38%

30%

37%

31% 27% 24% 21%

15% 10%

12%

0% Email is basically Email is cheap and Email is a powerful Email is a good free - let's keep it still working - why tool and a direct tool in the that way. invest more? line to our toolbox, and it's customers. cheap. Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 4, 2008, N=1,763

This chart looks at how organizations view email at budget time, so the views are not only those of email marketers but CMOs, CFOs, and CEOs. The trend here is not positive. What movement there is seems to be away from the view of email as an essential element in the marketing mix and towards the ‗tool in the kit‘ view. Over a third of respondents relegate email to the first two categories, up five points. This is an unfortunate finding because it flies in the face of the very issues that worry marketers – inbox overload and the challenges of relevance.



1.32 Chart: Attitudes Toward Email Budgets, by Perception of Email Effectiveness

Email is a good tool in the toolbox, and it's cheap. We bump it up a few percent per year.

44% 29%

Email is a powerful tool and a direct line to our customers - let's make sure we're investing enough to stay relevant and on top of the medium.

31% 19% 18%

Email is cheap and still working why invest more?

Email is basically free - let's keep it that way.

34%

7% 14% 1%

Increasing effectiveness

4%

Decreasing effectiveness

Other

0%

20%

40%

60%


In the chart above, we compare those who see the effectiveness of email increasing versus those who perceive a decline. It‘s impossible to identify the chicken versus the egg here, but it seems telling that those who see decline are far more likely to come from organizations that take a dim view of email at budget time. 44% of the ‗decreasing effectiveness‘ respondents describe their organizational views as coming from the bottom half of the scale (email is free, email is cheap) compared to only 25% of the ‗increasing effectiveness‘ respondents.



1.33 Chart: Where Does Email Live in Budgets?

36%

No separate line item for email

37%

Yes, part of interactive (online) marketing budget

2007 2008

37% 36% 10%

Yes, part of lead generation budget

9%

Yes, part of another budget (customer service, CRM, etc.)

8% 9% 9%

Don't know 9% 0%

15%

30%

45%


There‘s been little change in the last year with ‗no separate line item‘ in a statistical dead heat with ‗online marketing budget.‘ Why does it matter? Because when we examine response metrics from organizations without a separate line item for email, we see below average results. It‘s not directly causal, but the reasoning goes like this; with no separate line item, it‘s harder to plan for regular increases or jump to the next level in technology or vendor relationship. Emailers with a separate line item may find other benefits and responsibilities as well; 1. Ability to directly (or more easily) correlate email expenses with revenue and ROI. 2. Closer relationship with finance built around hard numbers associated with email. 3. Designing or campaigning for a system where email gets a reasonable attribution of related sales, such as purchases made by email list members within a certain number of days after a mailing.



1.34 Chart: Scatter Plot of Online and Email Budgets: No Magic Number

Percentage of Online Marketing Budget Spent on Email Marketing

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Percentage of Total Marketing Budget Spent Online Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 4, 2008, N=1,763

Marketers looking for an equation for how to distribute their budget across online and email may be disappointed. As the scatter above shows, there‘s no one answer about what works for successful companies. When we looked for a correlation between certain budget ratios and success, we found a sea of outliers. But (there‘s always a ‗but‘) for the marketer who must have a rule of thumb, here it is: 10 by 10. The largest grouping of both, online and email budget share, lies at 10%. Looked at another way, that‘s about 1% of total spend on email marketing.



1.35 Chart: Email Budget Changes (2007 vs. 2008)

13% 10%

More than double last year's

2007 2008

9% 8%

2x last year's

13% 12%

1.5x last year's

28% 27%

Up a few percent

32%

Same as last year's Down a few percent

36% 3% 5%

One quarter of last year's

1% 1%

Half of last year's

1% 2% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


The state of the economy can be seen in the subtle changes in this year-over-year data. There‘s a spike in the number of organizations keeping the budget at par and a general slide down the scale. Taken in perspective, however, only 8% note a reduction in budget. With global marketing budgets cut by an estimated 15% in 2008, that‘s a good deal better than how most tactics are faring.



1.36 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Size of Organization

More than double last year's 2x last year's

10% 10%

SMBs

9%

Large Org.

4% 10%

1.5x last year's

17% 26%

Up a few percent

29% 37%


31% 5% 3%

One quarter of last year's

1% 3%

Half of last year's

2% 3%

Down 100%

0% 1% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


Larger organizations are significantly less likely to be responding to the economy by throttling back on email. That‘s for two main reasons. Larger companies tend to move more deliberately while small companies respond immediately to market factors. That can be a good thing in many respects, but it has a negative effect on marketing as knee-jerk reductions can have long-term negative effects on market share, while missing opportunities to take advantage of a downturn. More importantly, larger organizations are much more likely to have done ROI analysis of their marketing tactics, and email is usually the beneficiary.



1.37 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Size of Budget

10% 9% 12%

More than double last year's 2x last year's 1.5x last year's

6% 7% 2% 10% 10%

16% 21%

Up a few percent

30%

Same as last year's

34%

14% Down a few percent One quarter of last year's Half of last year's Down 100% of last year's

4% 6% 5% 0% 1% 0% 4% 1% 2% 0% 0% 2% 0%

47% 44%

Small Budget Medium Budget Large Budget 10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


Organizations with large outlays for email aren‘t pulling back. They are significantly more likely to be adding budget to email to at least keep up with inflation.



1.38 Chart: Email Budget Changes by Perception of Email Effectiveness

More than double last year's 2x last year's

11%

Increasing

5% Decreasing

10% 5% 12%

1.5x last year's

7% 31%

Up a few percent

19%

30%


One quarter of last year's Half of last year's

45% 4% 7% 2% 2% 1% 10% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


A portion of the marketplace is seeing a reduction in email‘s effectiveness and they‘re reallocating budget as a result. This group (the minority overall) is much more likely to be reducing their budgets or maintaining the status quo. What distinguishes this group from other email marketers? They are more likely to be using opt-out to grow their lists, target consumers and have one person or a part of a person‘s time focused on email. They are less likely to be doing advanced segmentation or to be working with a high-end ASP or agency.



1.39 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Large B-to-B Organizations

Average (mean)

Most commonly reported (mode)

Mid-point (median)

30% 25% 20% 20%

19% 15% 15% 12%

10%

12%

10% 5% 0% Share of marketing budget spent online

Share of online budget spent on email


The average online spend here is drawn upward by some organizations that devote an unusually high percentage to digital marketing, so the mode and mid-point are likely to be more familiar to the majority of organizations. The smaller the organization (see next page), the higher the variance in online budget devotion. There are groups of companies in the mid and small ranges that spend virtually their entire marketing budgets online. Again, the mode and median are useful to compensate for the variation in average.



1.40 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Medium Sized B-to-B Organizations

30% 25%

Average (mean)


Mid-point (median)

28%

20%

20% 15%

16%

10% 10%

10%

10%

Share of marketing budget spent online


5% 0%


1.41 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Small B-to-B Organizations

Average (mean)


Mid-point (median)

60%

50%

45% 43% 30%

35% 27%

15%

18% 10%

0% Share of marketing budget spent online





1.42 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Large B-to-C Organizations

Average (mean)


Mid-point (median)

25%

20%

21%

15%

10% 10%

9%

10% 7%

5% 5% 0% Share of marketing budget spent online



Some business-to-consumer companies rely heavily on digital as both an acquisition and a retention tactic and that‘s evident by the high average on the left. However, most large organizations fall into a fairly narrow spending pattern under 10% for online, and under 10% for email. When we look at smaller organizations (see next page), the online and email segments grow, as does the variance in the average.



1.43 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Medium Sized B-to-C Organizations

Average (mean)


Mid-point (median)

30% 25%

28%

20% 20% 18%

15% 10% 10%

10%

10%

Share of marketing budget spent online


5% 0%


1.44 Chart: Online and Email Budget Share – Small B-to-C Organizations

60%

45%

Average (mean)


Mid-point (median)

47%

30% 29% 25%

15%

20%

20% 10%

0% Share of marketing budget spent online





1.45 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked by Size of Target Customers

75% B-to-C

SMBs

Large Orgs.

60%

61.1% 57.8%

45%

47.1% 38.7%

30%

32.2% 28.1%

27.0% 15%

19.5%

17.4%

0% Customer lifetime value of email list members

Revenue per email

Click-to-purchase conversion rate


We‘ve often found that it‘s helpful to look at benchmarks based on target customers, and not solely in terms of similar organization or budget sizes. Above, we see that consumerfocused organizations are far more likely to be tracking some of the basic financial metrics in relation to their email programs. That‘s understandable since these are much more difficult to determine in the course of a long B-to-B sales cycle, especially customer lifetime value, which can be next to impossible. However, one of the reasons for the historical gap in quality between consumer and business focused companies is the result of the latter group‘s inability to associate conversion and revenue with their email programs.



1.46 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked - SMBs

Yes

No


53%

Revenue per email

47%

42%

Customer lifetime value of email list members

58%

23%

0%

77%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


1.47 Chart: Financial Email Metrics Tracked – Large Organizations

Yes


No

49%

Revenue per email

51%

45%

Customer lifetime value of email list members

55%

20%

0%

20%

80%

40%

60%

80%

100%




Email Management – Technology and Outsourcing 1.48 Chart: Email Management Technologies – All Respondents

40%

Advanced ASP Solution (fullfeatured Web-based system)

37%

In-house system - software on your own servers

23%

Basic ASP Solution (basic Webbased system)

23% 20% 14% 15%

Normal email, such as Outlook or Hotmail, no special software or database

Other

2007

24%

Full Service - outsourced "onestop-shopping"

Deliverability Service (assist in deliverability issues)

2008

7% 9% 5% 9% 1% 1% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


Note that many companies use a mixture of email technology solutions, so the numbers above add up to more than 100%. In 2008 we see a continued, slow movement toward the ‗happy medium‘ of high-end ASP solutions that offer a range of features. Increasingly, these services include new capabilities in delivery monitoring and optimization thanks to either in-house or partnered solutions. It‘s the latter that (we suspect) accounts for the drop in companies reporting their use of a stand-alone deliverability service.



1.49 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: ASP Solutions

Great Value for money

Good

Satisfactory

27%

Ease of use

42%

22%

Quality of output

31%

20%

40%

31%

37%

60%

10%

28% 4%

42%

15%

0%

22%

49%

17%

Handling complexity

25% 6%

46%

19%

Customer service

Bad/Awful

80%

10%

17%

100%


Over the next several pages, we compare emailers‘ views on their technology solutions. Above, ASPs represent the ‗best of all worlds‘ – getting generally high scores across the board, starting with value. Naturally, they don‘t rate as well in the areas of customer service and handling complexity as full-service agencies. As we‘ll see later in the report, the inability to handle complexity may rest with the emailers themselves – ESPs report that many, if not most, of their clients fail to take advantage of the full range of product capabilities.



1.50 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: Full-Service Solutions

Great Customer service

Good

Satisfactory

32%

Value for money

42%

24%

Quality of output

0%

49%

20%

27% 2%

56%

11%

40%

60%

12%

25% 6%

49%

20%

Handling complexity

15%

45%

22%

Ease of use

Bad/Awful

21% 3%

27%

80%

13%

100%


Full-service agencies are built on great customer service, and they deliver. 74% give their full-service ESPs good or great marks. That, coupled with the quality of output in reporting and tracking, adds up to a good value for the money, even though these relationships cost significantly more than ASPs or in-house solutions.



1.51 Chart: Emailers Rate Their Tech: In-House Solutions

Great Value for money

Good

29%

Ease of use

Satisfactory

20%

21%

Handling complexity

14%

Quality of output 0%

45% 6%

38%

24%

13%

29%

33%

34%

20%

Bad/Awful

40%

29%

44%

60%

12%

80%

9%

100%


By and large, in-house solutions have the advantage of being inexpensive to operate, but underperform in terms of complexity and output quality. As a result, over 50% of respondents don‘t give their in-house solutions high marks in ‗value for money.‘ In postsurvey interviews, we consistently hear about frustration with execution, unnecessary complexity and difficulties in getting technology support for in-house systems.



1.52 Chart: Small Teams Less Able to Utilize Segmentation

49%

Segmented email campaigns by sales cycle (i.e., customers vs. prospects)

66% 62% 30%

Segmented email campaigns by user details (past purchases, Web pages viewed, etc.)

66% 67% 21%

Allowed email recipients to specify preferences for email content

46% 48% 19%

Dynamically delivered personalized content to individuals based on observed actions

37% 31% 1 PT/FT

15% None of the above

2-5 FT

7%

5+ FT

7% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Following from the previous chart (ratings of in-house solutions), it‘s worth noting that small teams – which are more likely to use in-house solutions – are less likely than their peers to practice any of the more advanced segmentation or list-building techniques that make for great email programs. The fault doesn‘t just lie with their technology – these marketers are overwhelmed with multiple responsibilities and, in many cases, don‘t have the time to implement these programs. However, given superior technology that simplifies these tasks, even small email departments could go further and achieve greater success.



Chapter 2. Lists – Laying the Groundwork for Success 2.01 Chart: Registration Data Collected by Emailers (2007 vs. 2008)

87%

Basic contact (First name, last name, phone, etc.)

83% 77%

Email address only

77% 52%

Business contact (Company name, role)

53% 48%

Extended contact (Address, fax, etc.)

53% 32%

Content preferences (Topic areas, news, sales info.)

26% 29%

Preference for HTML or Text Delivery preferences (Frequency, day of week for delivery, etc.)

25%

2008

8%

2007

5% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Collecting information at registration is a balancing act between building an accurate profile of the prospect while keeping opt-ins as high as possible. The more you ask, the smaller the number of registrants. For some organizations – generally in B-to-B – it can make sense to ask for a greater level of detail because there‘s a small sales/marketing team to pursue leads and lead quality is paramount. Still, most organizations tend to err on the side of asking too much, too soon. We see a small movement away from this in the 2008 data as the percentage of organizations asking for ‗extended contact‘ info has dropped, while those asking for basic info nudged higher.



Better news yet is the increase in those offering content preferences. This is the best way to serve your prospects with relevant information and discover something about them. 2.02 Chart: Registration Data Collected by Target Customer

86% 87% 91%

Basic contact (First name, last name, phone, etc.)

79% 74% 76%

Email address only 36%

Content preferences (Topic areas, news, sales info.)

21% 42% 33%

Extended contact (Address, fax, etc.)

55% 64%

B-to-C

22% Preference for HTML or Text

Business contact (Company name, role)

SMBs

36% 33%

Large Org.

10% 75% 91% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Those targeting large companies are the most likely to ask for in-depth information from registrants. Often that coincides with offering solid content, but there‘s still the issue of asking for information that they can‘t or don‘t want to give. Many companies have found success in tracking their interactions with prospects and starting the relationship with a bare minimum of information. As time goes on and the prospect requires more information or needs an additional white paper or webinar, the company collects more information.



List Size and Growth 2.03 Chart: Email List Growth – All Respondents

Very Positive - list(s) growing quickly

10%

Positive - list(s) growing slowly

55%

Neutral - the gains balance out the losses

30%

Negative - list(s) shrinking slowly

5%

Very Negative - list(s) shrinking quickly

0%

0%

20%

40%

60%

Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, Serptember 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 4, 2008, N=1,763

Looking at the responses above, it seems that if there‘s an issue in list growth, it‘s a question of the degree of growth rather than a slide towards the negative. Only 5% of respondents said their lists were shrinking, and not one of over 1,400 respondents described that shrinkage as ‗very negative.‘ However, only 10% described their lists as growing quickly, a figure that is much lower than a few years ago.



2.04 Chart: Changes in B-to-B List Size

30% Companies experiencing changes in list size 27% 20%

10%

11%

0%

-8% -10% Average growth

Average growth (over 100% removed)

Average decline


When we remove those companies whose lists are stagnant, the chart above is what we find. All in all, growth approaches 30% after attrition (hard bounces, unsubscribes, etc.). When we remove the small percentage of lists that are growing at over 100%, many of which are likely to be new lists, the average drops to just over 10%. The small number of companies in B-to-B which are experiencing a drop in their total list saw an average drop of 8% in 2008.



2.05 Chart: Changes in B-to-B List Size – Growth Breakdown

50% Companies experiencing changes in list size

40% 40%

41%

30%

20%

10%

12% 7%

0% Less than 10% growth

10%-20% growth 21%-100% growth Over 100% growth


Here‘s how B-to-B list growth breaks down. The largest groups are seeing growth of under 20% while 7% of all reported lists drag up the overall average with growth rates over 100%.



2.06 Chart: Marketers‘ Views on Challenges in Email: B-to-B List Growth

Growing B-to-B Lists

60% Avanced Email Marketers

Rest of Sample

40%

39% 30% 20% 19%

17%

0% Improving

Getting worse


When we compare ‗advanced email marketers‘ (those doing applying any one of several segmentation techniques) with the rest of the sample, we see a disturbing trend. And the ratio of those saying that list growth is improving is only 3 to 2, compared to a better than 2 to 1 ratio for the remaining sample. Disturbing because the advanced emailers are more likely to track accurately and to employ best practices. At least for now, only 1 in 5 of this segment describe growing lists as getting more difficult. The majority (51%) report no real change.



2.07 Chart: Changes in B-to-C List Size

40% Companies experiencing changes in list size

35% 25%

14%

10%

-5%

-23%

-20%

-35% Average growth

Average growth (over 100% removed)

Average decline


With companies removed whose lists are stable, we see that growth is approximately 35% after attrition (hard bounces, unsubscribes, etc.). When we remove the small percentage of lists that are growing at over 100%, many of which are likely to be new lists, the average drops to 14%. The small number of companies in B-to-C, which are experiencing a drop in their total list saw an average drop of 23% – nearly three times that of B-to-B companies.



2.08 Chart: Changes in B-to-C List Size – Growth Breakdown

50% Companies experiencing changes in list size 40%

41% 38%

30%

20%

16% 10% 5% 0% Less than 10% growth

10%-20% growth 21%-100% growth Over 100% growth


Here‘s how B-to-C list growth breaks down. 79% are seeing growth of under 20% while 5% of all reported lists drag up the overall average with growth rates over 100%. 16% are growing between 21% and 100%.



2.09 Chart: Marketers‘ Views on Challenges in Email: B-to-C List Growth

Growing B-to-C Email Lists 60% Avanced Email Marketers

40%

Rest of Sample

44%

32% 26% 20% 20%

0% Improving

Getting worse


In B-to-B marketing, there‘s a closer balance between those with positive and negative views on list growth than we find in B-to-C. Marketers employing best practices and segmentation (‗advanced email marketers‘) describe the job of growing lists as ‗improving‘ by more than a two to one margin over those who say it‘s ‗getting worse. Meanwhile for the rest of the sample, the two sides are balanced and 42% say that there‘s no change.



2.10 Chart: B-to-B Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage Free trials/downloads

70

Sales alert/product announcement offer Sweepstakes/contests Trade events 60 Volume of Opt-ins

Newsletter offer Check boxes on registration/order forms Co-registration 50

40

50

60

70

80

Appending offline addresses into email names Tele-prospecting Customer service call-ins

40

Quality of Opt-ins

Asking offline in stores, printed forms, catalogs

Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, November 2007 Methodology: This fifth annual survey was opened to selected MarketingSherpa reader lists on Oct. 23, 2007, and closed on Nov. 2, 2007. 1,210 total responses were collected from in-house email marketers and employees at agencies/ESPs working with email. Any respondents not directly involved with email marketing were screened.

According to B-to-B emailers, free trials/downloads, sales alert/product announcement offers, trade events, newsletter offers, and check boxes on registration/order forms are the best tactics for providing a large volume of highquality email list opt-ins. A numerical breakdown of responses follows on the next page.



2.11 Table: B-to-B Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage

Q+V

Quality

Volume

Use

New sletter offer

133

74

59

59%

Sales alert/product announcement offer

135

71

64

54%

Trade events

130

70

59

50%

Free trials/dow nloads

135

69

66

45%

Check boxes on registration/order forms

124

68

56

43%

Tele-prospecting

119

69

50

36%

Customer service call-ins

122

73

49

28%

Sw eepstakes/contests

109

46

63

22%

Appending offline addresses into email names

107

56

51

22%


115

68

47

17%

Co-registration

108

56

53

13%




2.12 Chart: B-to-C Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage Sweepstakes/contests

90

Free trials/downloads 80


Volume of Opt-ins

Trade events 70

Sales alert/product announcement offer Co-registration

60

Newsletter offer Asking offline in stores, printed forms, catalogs

50 40

50

60

70

80

Appending offline addresses into email names Tele-prospecting

40

Quality of Opt-ins



According to B-to-C emailers, sweepstakes/contests, free trials/downloads, and checkboxes on registration/order forms are the best tactics for providing a large volume of high-quality email list opt-ins. While a newsletter offer was the most used tactic among B-to-C emailers, it doesn‘t score well on its ability to provide a large volume of opt-ins. By far the lowest quality ranking is reserved for co-registration — a tactic that depends very heavily on execution. A numerical breakdown of responses follows on the next page.



2.13 Table: B-to-C Rating of Opt-in Techniques; Volume, Quality, and Usage

Q+V

Quality

Volume

Use

New sletter offer

134

75

59

64%


142

74

69

57%

Sales alert/product announcement offer

131

71

60

50%

Sw eepstakes/contests

144

62

82

49%

Trade events

120

59

60

40%


126

73

53

40%


130

72

58

35%

Free trials/dow nloads

146

75

71

28%

Co-registration

101

42

60

21%

Appending offline addresses into email names

115

59

56

18%

Tele-prospecting

122

67

56

10%




Notes from the Field: Accurate List Growth Strategy Boosts Revenue, Busts Bounces Collecting email addresses in retail locations has long been a pain point for marketers. Misspellings and bad penmanship usually create emails that are hard bounces waiting to happen. Here is how a marketer for a car wash used computer-generated sales receipts and incentives to produce accurate addresses and grow their list by 71% while boosting weekend revenue. Challenge The owner of five car washes in the Houston area saw the growth of his mailing list hit a plateau because of a problem beleaguering many marketers – offline forms riddled by misspellings or illegible handwriting. Email addresses were collected when customers paid for car washes. Too many addresses were simply unusable. After considering the elimination of paper signup forms altogether, they worried that having staffers ask for email addresses to input directly into the point-of-sale computer would turn off patrons while still producing bad addresses. Campaign The company started capturing accurate addresses by combining sales receipts with a Webbased signup form. They also tested a method for picking up additional email addresses at a Major League Baseball game to grow their list. Here are the 5 steps they took: Step #1. Craft receipt and Web signup combination form First, they tweaked their point-of-sale cash register software. When a sales rep inputted the name of the customer, it would immediately identify a person whose relevant demographical information had not yet been captured. The system then would print a sales receipt that incentivized the customer to go to a URL. At the URL, customers were asked to provide the following info: - first and last name - email (with a confirmation slot to help ensure the address is correct) - physical address - phone number - make, model, year and color of vehicle The system would not print a receipt with the URL if the person had already filled out the form. Step #2. Lure signups with a coupon MarketingSherpa articles have shown that incentives drive offline email signups. So, they included a coupon offer that got people to take the receipt home, go online and fill out the form needed to redeem it. The incentive was a free premium car wash. Step #3. Follow up with email 70 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Customers who filled out the form were sent an email with a coupon code for the car-wash package that had a value of $28.95. The email was one paragraph of copy with a link to a landing page that let them enter in the code and print the incentive. Step #4. Augment list growth with MLB promotion To augment the in-store effort, they partnered with the local Major League Baseball franchise, the Houston Astros. A handful of ―Bubbles Babes‖ were stationed around the stadium during a game to hand out 10,000 promos that bore the URL for the signup form. The business card shaped promo had the URL and a couple of notes on how to get started on one side and the offer on the other side. Step #5. Establish monthly specials After gathering all the new addresses with the Web form, they started running monthly specials. The frequency of the specials was based on how often people wash their cars in Texas. They didn‘t want to email too often and burn out their list. The monthly emails bundled premium and express-wash offers for limited time periods three-day weekends –to redeem the coupons. Results Combining sales receipts and a Web form has grown their email list by 71.4%. Most of the names came from the receipts, although the MLB baseball game promotion supplemented the list – just as they planned. In particular, they specifically credit the instruction they gave their reps to explain the coupon incentive when handing out receipts. Most importantly, the store-originating addresses are coming in more cleanly than ever. They do their emails in-house without the help of an ESP and, therefore, don‘t have analytics for opens, CTRs and deliverability. They are averaging $70,000 per weekend on their email specials now. This is revenue that they weren‘t getting two years ago. Their list members are obviously opening and clicking through. And here‘s a key lesson learned for marketers who want to collect more email addresses at events: It was important that they didn‘t collect addresses at the ballgame, rather, they used the cards to provide an incentive for people to go online and submit them there.



Notes from the Field: Testing Results in 1000% Increase in Opt-Ins Readers are often unwilling to opt-in for newsletters. Tech marketers tested differences in their opt-in process to see if better timing would overcome this resistance. The result has led to a tenfold increase in subscriptions, while decreasing the marketer‘s dependence on Google for traffic. Challenge Conversion rates were dismal. The site was getting terrific traffic (44,000+ daily visitors) but had an abysmal subscription rate (only 10-15 newsletter subscriptions a day). In addition, the marketer wanted to reduce their reliance on Google for traffic to their website for techies looking for answers. Increasing their newsletter subscribers seemed to be the only clear-cut way of doing it without breaking the bank. Their audience was fickle by nature, however. Viewers typically came to the site to get a specific how-to nugget of information and then left abruptly. Plus, techies are among the touchiest demographic to market to online. Campaign They started first by investigating alternatives and looking at analytics data. They discovered that the average time visitors spent on their site was 66 seconds. They decided to test an opt-in process that used a dhtml (dynamic html) time-delay ―hover box‖, which mimics the actions of a pop-up. Unlike a pop-up, a hover box – sometimes called a ‗slide-in‘ – doesn‘t get produced by another window being opened. Rather, the hover box code is part of the actual Web page being viewed; it remains hidden for an amount of time to avert pop-up blockers. A key part of his plan was the delay: not serving viewers with the offer right away but after they took some time to explore the site. But how long should they delay it? They followed three steps to get the answer: Step #1. Set up A/B test They knew readers normally stuck around for about a minute before leaving the site. So, they homed in on a time-delay at or near the 60-second mark with A/B testing. They tested three combinations three days apiece -- ―long enough for the results to become statistically significant.‖ The test combinations: 60 vs. 75 seconds 60 vs. 45 seconds 60 vs. 30 seconds Step #2. Design the hover box They wanted the time delay to be the only test variable. But they still had to design a pleasing hover box for the test. Here‘s what they came up with: 72 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Box size of 35,781 bytes Two-tone blue background color Two paragraphs of copy in white type Underneath the copy, viewers were encouraged to sign up by inputting the following information into entry fields: Name Email address Where you heard about us (optional) Step #3. Set restriction They set a restriction on the hover box. Regular readers who didn‘t subscribe would see it only every six months at that IP address. The exceptions were users who changed computers or cleared their cookies. Results The test demonstrated that the time-delay hover box worked, and it worked best at 60 seconds. It has been capturing a 1000% average daily increase in subscriptions.



Third-Party Lists and Co-Registration

2.14 Chart: Effectiveness of Third-Party List Rentals

Routinely justified

Main Sample

15%

Advanced Emailers

17%

SMBs

13%

Large orgs.

13%

0%

Significant variance

53%

Not justified

32%

58%

25%

49%

39%

44%

20%

40%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Mailing to third-party lists has garnered more attention in 2008 as a direct result of the need to grow house lists. Economic pressure on marketers has driven growth in this area as a relatively inexpensive, if somewhat hit-or-miss option. As has been the case for some time, there is a group of marketers experienced in list rental who have enjoyed considerable success and describe the tactic as ‗routinely justified‘ by ROI. For the majority, however, rental list performance is unpredictable, or worse.



2.15 Chart: Effectiveness of Ads in Third-Party Newsletters

Routinely justified

Main Sample

Advanced Emailers

17%

53%

11%

SMBs

31%

21%

53%

14%

0%

Not justified

68%

18%

Large orgs.


31%

53%

20%

40%

33%

60%

80%

100%


As a tactic, ad placements in third-party newsletters fare about as well as list rentals. There‘s roughly a 2 to 1 negative to positive ratio, with over half falling in between having seen success and failure. One word of advice when placing ads: If your media plan utilizes a saturation of a list or title, make sure to vary your graphical and text ads. Rotate heavily or the readership will quickly identify and ignore your ads. Our research suggests that banner blindness occurs quickly, usually within three sessions, unless the visual content is varied enough to catch the eye. For this reason, static, long-term sponsorships are effective at brand association but aren‘t necessarily good at conveying specific messages.



2.16 Chart: Effectiveness of Trading for Co-Reg Names

Routinely justified

Main Sample

15%

Advanced Emailers

46%

20%

SMBs

Large orgs.


39%

70%

16%

53%

11%

0%

Not justified

31%

53%

20%

40%

10%

37%

60%

80%

100%


Co-registration can work very well, but not for everyone. Trading for names gets better marks from advanced emailers than from other segments, suggesting that with expertise come results, as with most tactics. Success in co-reg historically has come from following a few guidelines: 1. Strong alignment with the trading partner is the most essential element. A poor fit simply bring in names that don‘t convert, aren‘t happy and aren‘t good prospects. 2. Real-time forwarding of co-reg names – slow, batch processing can mean that days or even weeks pass before you get the names. They will convert poorly and may even identify your emails as spam. 3. Follow-up confirmation email within 24 hours, but leave some time so there isn‘t overlap and confusion with the original registration response. 4. Treat co-reg names as a separate segment for a period of time. Provide them with more information, additional branding, etc., since they weren‘t necessarily aware of your brand to begin with.



2.17 Chart: Effectiveness of Paying for Co-Reg Names

Routinely justified

Main Sample

13%


47%

Advanced Emailers

Not justified

40%

80%

20%

SMBs

15%

46%

39%

Large orgs.

15%

45%

40%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Comparing the results from the last page, we see that advanced emailers, who are generally bullish on co-reg trading, aren‘t likely to go for paid relationships or, at least, haven‘t had consistently good experiences.



2.18 Table: Issues in Rented List Execution Areas of Concern

How it happens

List Definition

Typically a human w ill define an email distribution list by selecting a list source or multiple list sources, then applying segmentation rules to email distribution list by sorting the list based on combinations of ― and,‖ ― or‖ and ― not.‖ The more complex the segmentation, the easier it is to make an error in the list specification. For instance, M aryland, defined as ― M D,‖ can be specified incorrectly as M N, M A, or ND, resulting in emails going to M innesota, M assachusetts or North Dakota.

Campaign M anipulation and List Creep

There are instances w here campaigns w ith specific segmentation are deployed to larger audiences in an effort to increase the opportunity for list size or increase response (higher open rate). This includes sending an email creative multiple times until a desired response rate is achieved, or expanding the list to increase the opportunity for higher open or clickthrough rates.

Open or Clickthrough rates inaccurate

There are instances w here open rates are inflated because of multiple opens by individuals view ing campaigns in preview w indow s, and subsequently opening the email in its ow n w indow . At times open and clickthrough rates have included testing by the client and vendor, contributing to an apparent greater open and clickthrough rate. Where many email vendors choose to report only on clickthrough rates, the question is the validity and uniqueness of clickthrough.

Emails not deployed

There are instances w here campaigns have been missed and/or deployed after the fact.

Blacklisting and spam filtering

Unlike spam filtering that occurs once an email gets through to the consumer, blacklisting causes emails to be rejected by ISPs and mail gatew ays. One ISP w as know n to reject more than a billion pieces of email each day.

Source: MarketingSherpa, Updated 2008



Permission Levels 2.19 Chart: Permission Levels – All Respondents

45%

2008

Mix of two or more types 42% Single opt-in (names volunteer to be on list one at a time, with no confirmation required)

2007

32% 28%

Opt-out (names placed by you on list, sometimes as a group, w/option to unsubscribe)

17%

18% 8%

Double opt-in (names volunteer then confirm in separate email)

10% 0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


Permission is largely in the eye of the beholder. Is a pre-checked box ‗opt-in‘ for example? Does signing up for an emailed receipt mean the recipient is dying to get a catalog? As we‘ll see on the next page, the permission relationship is viewed dimly by consumers, even though the majority of emails they receive fit the definition of ‗opt-in‘ email. Above, we see that opt-out permission continues its slow decline, but is still in use by nearly one-fifth of marketers. After a brief spike a few years ago, double opt-in is even more scarce at less than 10%. At this point, it appears that any benefits to the double-opt relationship are outweighed by the reduction in names gathered.



2.20 Chart: Consumers See ‗Permission‘ Differently From The Way Marketers See It

25%

20%

19%

19%

18%

20%

15% 15% 10% 10% 5%

0% 0% - I didn't ask any of them to send their emails

1% - 25% - I 25% - I 50% - I 75% - I 100% - I asked a few asked some asked half of asked most asked all of of them to of them to them to send of them to them to send send their send their their emails send their their emails emails emails emails


We asked consumers about the email they receive from companies they know and whether they had asked for it. Only 10% replied that they had asked for all of it, half the percentage that hadn‘t asked for any (or at least thought they hadn‘t). In fact, over half of the respondents felt that they had never requested the majority of commercial email they receive. That‘s the price the email marketing industry is paying for devising clever ways of gathering email addresses, via sweeps, registrations, in-store, etc. The result is a low level of trust between consumers and companies that otherwise enjoy a favorable brand impression with their customers. The good news here is that the younger and wealthier a consumer is, the higher the percentage of emails they feel they signed up for.



2.21 Table: Levels of Permission — Pros and Cons Level of Permission Opt-out — placed on a list w ith option to unsubscribe

Pros Increased numbers of contacts for list

Cons M ay be considered spam Virtually unused by elite companies Low er response rate Higher numbers of complaints lead to blocked messages Unqualified names

Standard Opt-in (unconfirmed opt-in) — one-time submission gets people on list, w ith no confirmation necessary

Users are self-qualified for list

M arginal level of permission and qualification Low response rates High opt-out rates Still prone to complaints

Confirmed Opt-In — user volunteers and receives a confirmation email that does not require action to stay on list

Increased interaction and conversion rates Low likelihood of spam complaints

Similar to ‗Standard Opt-in‘ except all issues are less pronounced

Immediate opportunity to interact w ith new list member Double Opt-In (or Verified Opt-in) — user volunteers and receives an email requiring confirmation reply Note: Despite the real difference betw een the tw o, the industry is increasingly using the term ‗confirmed opt-in‘ interchangeably w ith ‗double opt-in‘

Highly qualified names High response rates Low er costs of communicating w ith targeted audience Low opt-out rate resists list churn

Significant reduction of registrants w ith extra step — as much as 20% -30% . How ever, may remove names that w ill unsubscribe or w orse, become inactive and eventually complain

Eliminates erroneous sign-ups Very low likelihood of user complaints

Source: MarketingSherpa, updated 2008



Special Report: Consumers and Email: Growing Lists

2.22 Chart: Emails Per Day

40 Emails per day 37.4 30

33.8

32.8

20

10

0 Men

Women

18-26 year olds


This chart identifies the raw number of non-spam emails consumers receive in the average day to their personal accounts. It‘s not particularly interesting in itself, but it is interesting that the number is consistent for the younger demographic (called ‗Youth‘ throughout the Guide). In the wave of interest and adoption of social networks, some have predicted a decline in the usefulness of email. So far, that decline isn‘t taking place.



2.23 Chart: Number of Personal Email Accounts

How many non-work email accounts do you actively maintain? 1 account 43% 5 or more 5%

4 accounts 4%

3 accounts 14%

2 accounts 34% Source: MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=1,438

Almost half of all consumers maintain only a single account, but the remainder have more than one. The trend for several years was an increase in email addresses, but that seems to have hit a plateau. The reality is that people often create additional addresses, with the intent of using them for specific purposes, such as online shopping. But many of those go silent within a few months. That‘s why we focused on active accounts. On the next page, we see the various accounts that consumers maintain.



2.24 Chart: ‗Special‘ Email Accounts for Filtering Spam, Commercial Email, Etc.

All Respondents Specific email address used to avoid SPAM

36%

Specific email address used in online shopping/other transactions

34%

Specific email address used for registering for online magazines/newsletters

19%

0%

20%

40%

60%


Note that some of the unique accounts above are likely to be overlapping. In other words, some people might create a unique account for online shopping to keep commercial emails organized, while others do so to minimize spam to their principal account. They will have checked both options. In general, the practice of creating multiple accounts isn‘t a great sign for marketers, but nor is it a growing trend – numbers are flat from 2006. However, it complicates matters and results in accounts that exist largely to store shipping notices and receipts. Newsletters and blasts going to these accounts are not likely to be read soon after mailing, if at all. On the plus side, marketing inside of transactional emails is a good tactic to counter this trend.



2.25 Chart: U.S. Consumer Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships

% with Type of Email Relationship

Number of email relationships

Banks, credit cards and other financial services

61%

5.6

Personal interest/hobby newsletters

60%

4.3

Online retailers such as Zappos.com and Amazon.com

57%

Brick and mortar stores such as Nordstrom and Circuit City

43%

3.2

Services such as Netflix or ITunes

41%

2.8

Restaurants

41%

3.3

Other travel, such as Hilton and Orbitz

39%

Airlines such as American and JetBlue

37%

News and information sites like CNN and ESPN

28% 0%

20%

3.0

2.9 3.4

3.4 40%

60%

80%


Above is the email profile of the average American. The horizontal bars show the percentage of people who receive at least one communication from the type of company listed to the left. In the box at the end of the column is the average number of each type of email relationship. For example, 41% of consumers report receiving emails from at least one company that provides services such as Netflix or iTunes, and they have an average of 2.8 such relationships. Of note is that traditional retailers have been significantly less successful in building an online component to their customer relationships than their online competitors.



2.26 Table: Consumer Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships by Gender M en

Women

Percentage using

# of email relationships

Percentage using



56%

4.7

58%

2.2


46%

3.0

39%

3.7

New s and information sites like CNN and ESPN

35%

3.1

21%

2.7

Restaurants

38%

2.9

44%

3.7


38%

2.9

36%

2.7


40%

2.8

39%

3.5


40%

2.9

43%

3.2


58%

4.3

63%

4.3

Personal interest/hobby new sletters

54%

5.1

66%

6.0


Men appear to be more varied in the number of retailer relationships they maintain, with more than twice as many in the online retail category. This may suggest that once women become customers, they‘re somewhat less likely to go looking for alternatives.



2.27 Table: Consumer Email Profiles – Types of Companies and Number of Email Relationships by Age Group Youth

Adult

Percentage using


Percentage using



56%

2.7

63%

3.7


35%

2.7

52%

2.7

New s and information sites like CNN and ESPN

25%

3.6

34%

2.5

Restaurants

35%

3.6

36%

2.7


29%

2.8

46%

2.5


26%

3.6

45%

2.4


41%

3.3

56%

2.4


59%

3.5

70%

4.3

Personal interest/hobby new sletters

57%

5.2

69%

5.2


The ‗Youth‘ demographic (under 26 years old) maintains fewer email relationships than those in the Adult (26 -38 years old), but that doesn‘t appear to be because they are less likely to use email in general. They are simply younger, and haven‘t had the need or opportunity to create certain types of relationships, such as those with airlines, banks, etc. When it comes to products that they are likely to be using, such as restaurants and online retailers, the numbers begin to synch up.



2.28 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by Gender by Age & Gender

35% Men 30%

31%

Women

30% 27%

25%

25% 22%

20%

19%

15% 10%

11%

12%

12%

10%

5%

0% Very likely

Somewhat likely

Somewhat unlikely

Very unlikely Don't know/Not applicable


We asked consumers about their willingness to ‗opt-in‘ to companies‘ email programs. For about one-third, it‘s ‗very unlikely‘ that they will ‗opt-in‘ and ‗somewhat unlikely‘ for another fifth of the sample. However, this is the most general question we could have asked – we‘ll see that offering specific benefits can affect all but the most ardent haters of commercial email.



2.29 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by Age Group by Age & Gender

18-26 yo

40%

27-38 yo

39-54 yo

Over 55 yo

37% 35% 33%

30%

27%

27%

28%

25% 20%

23%

22%

21%

22%

17% 10%

13%

12%

13% 11% 10% 9%

10% 5%

0% Very likely

Somewhat likely

Somewhat unlikely



When we split out the sample by age group, some encouraging trends emerge. 1. The group that is, by far, least likely to subscribe is the ‗Over 55‘ demographic. This is a group that is largely uncomfortable with the Internet and often doesn‘t have a strong command of the medium or the opt-in process. 2. The group that is most likely to subscribe is the ‘27-38 year old‘ slice of the sample, and they are mature consumers who are also comfortable with using the Internet for shopping, paying bills, etc. Over half of this group reported being willing or very willing to subscribe. 3. Those under 26 don‘t appear to be bullish on email programs, but are also less likely to have had the types of commercial relationships that benefit from email communications, such as travel, airlines, finance, etc. It might be expected that their attitudes will shift towards those of the 27-38 year olds as they mature.



2.30 Chart: Willingness to Opt-in by HH Income by Age & Gender

40% Under 50k/year

50-100k/year

Over 100k/year

33%

30%

31%

30% 28%

27%

29%

26% 23%

20% 20%

10%

12%

11% 9%

9%

8%

8%

0% Very likely

Somewhat likely

Somewhat unlikely



When analyzed by income, there isn‘t huge variation, although a higher income correlates with a somewhat more open attitude toward subscribing. As we‘ll see, the higher income demographics are significantly more attracted by specific benefits than can be associated with email programs, such as special pricing or privacy guarantees.



2.31 Chart: What Would Drive Opt-ins – Consumers Speak Out by Age & Gender



43%


23%

32%

29%


27%

30%


25%

32%


22%

0%

28%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Not all email programs are created equal. In fact, most simply churn out monthly communications without segmentation or offering tangible and specific benefits to email subscribers. In this chart, we‘ve identified a number of possible benefits and asked consumers how they might respond. First, it‘s interesting that across the board, at least 50% of the sample would be at least somewhat more likely to subscribe if offered any of the benefits listed. The highest response is for email privacy, but special pricing and customization capabilities also rate very well. Over the next several pages, we break out the response to each benefit by various demographic slices.



2.32 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Special Pricing by Age & Gender

Much more likely Senior


29%

Mature

30% 36%

Adult

29%

39%

Youth

34%

31%

Women

27%

36%

Men

28%

28% 0%

30%

20%

40%

60%

80%


2.33 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – ‗First Look‘ at Products/Services



16%

29%

Mature

26%

Adult

29%

31%

Youth

20%

Women

30% 27%

24%

Men

38%

19% 0%

15%

28% 30%

45%

60%

75%




2.34 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Customizing Content



25%

30%

Mature

31%

Adult

31%

Youth

30% 35%

21%

33%

Women

29%

Men

33%

21%

0%

30%

15%

30%

45%

60%

75%


2.35 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Customizing Frequency

Much more likely


25%

30%

Senior Mature

30%

Adult

30% 35%

Youth

30%

26%

Women

29% 32%

Men

22% 0%

15%

30% 29%

30%

45%

60%

75%




2.36 Chart: Driving Opt-ins – Guarantee of Email Address Privacy

Much more likely


Senior

46%

Mature

24%

53%

Adult

20%

45%

Youth

37%

28%

23%

Women

49%

Men

36% 0%

20%

21%

25% 40%

60%

80%




2.37 Table: Driving Opt-ins – Email Program Benefits Rated by HH Income

Email program benefit Special pricing for email subscribers

First look' at products/services/specials



Guarantee to not share your address with other companies

Under 50k/year 50-100k/year Over 100k/year Under 50k/year 50-100k/year Over 100k/year

Under 50k/year 50-100k/year Over 100k/year

Under 50k/year 50-100k/year Over 100k/year Under 50k/year 50-100k/year Over 100k/year

Much more likely


31% 38% 40%

29% 31% 30%

Much more likely


24% 19% 24%

28% 31% 26%

Much more likely


25% 26% 32%

32% 36% 23%

Much more likely


24% 27% 30%

27% 37% 29%

Much more likely


44% 44% 49%

21% 21% 25%


In general, the wealthier the household, the stronger the positive response to the specific email program benefits listed above. For example, 70% say they would be more likely to subscribe to an email program that offered special pricing for members.



2.38 Chart: Why Consumers Unsubscribed "If you have unsubscribed or simply stopped reading emails from one or more businesses in the last year, what were the primary reasons?"

Emails weren't relevant to me

58%

Received too many emails from the sender(s)

44%

Simply receive too many emails from all sources to pay attention

31%

Doesn't apply to me

20%

My situation changed (baby became a toddler, moved, etc.) Using social networks, text messages, etc. instead of email

13% All Respondents 3% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


There are several points worth taking away from the chart above: 1. The top two responses (relevance and too many emails from a specific sender) are within the control of the email marketer. Relevance is a clear and attainable goal for email programs, while optimal frequency can be tested and perfected by list segment. 2. While most marketers cite ‗inbox overload‘ as their primary challenge, to consumers it‘s the third most popular reason for unsubscribing or ignoring emails. 3. Fears that social networking and other emerging media will displace email appear to be unfounded, at least for now. Only 3% of our sample cited them as a reason for opting out.



2.39 Tables: Why Consumers Unsubscribed by Demographic "If you have unsubscribed or simply stopped reading emails from one or more businesses in the last year, w hat w ere the primary reasons?" M en

Women

Youth

Adult

M ature

Senior


56%

58%

54%

60%

57%

63%


37%

51%

45%

40%

49%

41%


28%

34%

32%

32%

30%

31%

Doesn't apply to me

23%

17%

22%

15%

20%

17%

My situation changed (baby became a toddler, moved, etc.)

13%

13%

14%

21%

11%

7%

3%

3%

4%

6%

1%

2%

Using social networks, text messages, etc. instead of email


2.40 Tables: Why Consumers Unsubscribed by HH Income "If you have unsubscribed or simply stopped reading emails from one or more businesses in the last year, w hat w ere the primary reasons?" Under 50k/year

$50100k/year

Over $100k/year


60%

59%

58%


43%

47%

51%


30%

32%

39%

Doesn't apply to me

19%

14%

18%

My situation changed (baby became a toddler, moved, etc.)

13%

13%

14%

Using social networks, text messages, etc. instead of email

4%

2%

1%






Chapter 3. Deliverability, Filtering & False Positives Email Delivery 3.01 Chart: Actions Taken to Improve Delivery (2007 vs. 2008)

59%

Modified our email template

75%

No longer email to nonpermission lists

23% 24%

Used a third-party accreditation/reputation service

17% 23%

Used the services of a delivery monitoring solution

17% 19%

Adopted authentication (SPF/Sender ID/DomainKeys)

16% 18% 14% 16%

Switched from shared to dedicated IP address Switched from in-house to ESP

10% 13%

Switched ESPs

10% 13%

Switched to double opt-in

13% 11% 0%

2007 2008 20%

40%

60%

80%


Above we see slow improvement as emailers take steps to improve deliverability. The most popular tactic, as might be expected, is to rework email templates to conform to best practices and delivery standards.



3.02 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – B-to-B Deliverability

Deliverability to B-to-B Recipients 60% Avanced Email Marketers

Rest of Sample

40%

31%

28%

26%

20%

21%

0%

Improving

Getting worse


3.03 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – B-to-C Deliverability

Deliverability to B-to-C Recipients 60% Avanced Email Marketers

Rest of Sample

40% 32%

32%

33% 24%

20%

0%

Improving

Getting worse




3.04 Chart: Marketers Gauge Bounce Rates/Undeliverable Email by Target Customer

Increased significantly

No real change

Decreased significantly

100% 94% 80% 77% 70%

60% 40% 20%

21% 9%

18% 5%

3%

3%

0% B-to-C

SMBs

Large Orgs.




3.05 Chart: Marketers Gauge Opt-out/Unsubscribe Rates by Target Customer

100%


80%

No real change


91%

85%

69%

60% 40% 20% 9%

6%

7%

17%

2%

14%

0% B-to-C

SMBs

Large Orgs.


3.06 Chart: Marketers Gauge Spam Complaints by Target Customer


No real change


100% 80%

83%

78%

72%

60% 40% 20%

19%

17%

11%

5%

12%

3%

0% B-to-B

SMBs

Large Orgs.




3.07 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Delivery Rates

74%

Total emails sent minus *all* failures

2008 2007

67%

21%

Total emails sent minus only *hard bounces*

29%

4% Total emails sent 4%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Like most metrics in email, there is no one universal formula for delivery rates. However, the majority of organizations are using the simplest method, which is to subtract all delivery failures from the total. In an upcoming chart on delivery, that‘s the standard we‘ve used as well.



3.08 Chart: Delivery Rates for B-to-B Mailers

100% 2007

2008

95% 95.0%

91.5%

90%

95.0%

92.0%

89.8% 87.3% 85%

80% Mean (average)

Median (mid-point)

Mode (most commonly reported)


Note that delivery benchmarks are based on the formula of subtracting all failures from the total emails sent. 2008 saw modest incremental improvement in delivery for business-to-business emailers. However, it‘s important to remember that much of the delivery issue in business emailing is essentially invisible because it takes place behind corporate firewalls. There are cases where email campaigns are blocked in their entirety by specific companies. But those emails don‘t get bounced back – they simply never arrive at the inbox. It‘s also unknown to what extent emails are relegated to the bulk or spam folders of recipients where they are far less likely to be discovered.



3.09 Chart: Delivery Rates for B-to-C Mailers

90% 2007

2008

85%

81.7% 80%

80.4%

81.5% 80.4%

80.0%

80.0%

75% Mean (average)

Median (mid-point)



Note that delivery benchmarks are based on the formula of subtracting all failures from the total emails sent. Consumer emails saw modest improvements to delivery in 2008. Mailing consumers is somewhat more transparent than business mailing because it‘s possible to monitor delivery by ISP and email client. Seed accounts can tell consumer mailers whether their emails are getting to the inbox, the bulk folder or blocked at the ISP level.



Fighting Spam 3.10 Table: Email Authentication Techniques Technique & Associated Companies

Specifics

Authentication: The practice that attempt to correlate a sender w ith a specific identity to block forged identities and points of origin (stolen or forged IP addresses). DomainKeys Yahoo!

Information is added to the header w hich is half of a code that defines the point of origin and maps the content of the email. The receiving server decrypts the code and compares the email‘s real values w ith w hat the DK says they should be. Like other authentication technologies, DK doesn‘t filter spam, because spammers can establish their identity like other mailers. How ever, if a substantial percentage of senders is correctly using authentication, spammers can be more easily isolated from legitimate mailers. Essentially, if authentication allow s the ISP w orld to establish w hite lists, negative matching becomes much more accurate.

SenderID M icrosoft

Hotmail (and presumably Window sLive mail) looks for code from the sender‘s DNS records. The issues w ith Sender ID have been as much political as technological — because M icrosoft ow ns the intellectual property of key SenderID components, there are questions and resistance about w ider adoption.

Sender Policy Framew ork (SPF) Used by Google, AOL

Senders insert a line of code in the header that tells the receiver that they can query for a response based on DNS text records. The receiver can match the domain of emails w ith the IP addresses of servers allow ed to send for that domain, and reject any that don‘t match. Issues w ith SPF include the follow ing: that it‘s based on non-standard records; that it doesn‘t deal w ell w ith relays and forw ards. A 2004 study by CipherTrust also suggested that SPF w as being adopted by more spammers than legitimate mailers. At the time, 34% more spam passed SPF checks than legitimate mail. Although this percentage has changed, that it w as true calls into question the ability of SPF to act as a serious deterrent w ithout heavy adoption. In other w ords, w ould SPF have a real, useful impact during the long adoption curve?



3.11 Table: Issues in Email Reputation Area of Inquiry

Best Practices

Where email names come from

M ultiple sources of email names are a risk to reputation. Third-party involvement (via rented lists, co-registration, or affiliates) means you are responsible for their permission practices. You should be able to prove their permission, regardless of source, w ith IP address, date/time, etc.

Communications about privacy

If your site is obtuse about how names w ill be used, or doesn‘t do a good job of getting that information across (hard to find privacy info), it can damage your reputation.

Permission practices

Double opt-in, single or opt-out? These have a positive or negative effect, in descending order.

Bounce handling

Your system should have a process to remove addresses of mail that bounces repeatedly.

Unsubscribing

Do all emails carry clear unsubscribe information, and does your unsubscription system w ork as promised?

Complaints

If ISPs are getting complaints about your emails, it‘s a quick route to a marred reputation. At the ISP level, one complaint may be enough to raise a red flag. Reputation systems look for patterns of complaint.

Blacklists

Reputation monitors note blacklist listings. Different companies w ill assign various levels of impact to individual blacklists.

Security

The degree to w hich you‘ve protected user data against online security breaches.

CAN-SPAM

Of course, compliance w ith CAN-SPAM is important to reputation.



Notes from the Field: Reputation Raises the Benchmark for Deliverability and Sales

With as many as one in five emails getting junked, blocked or bounced, you may want to know how your email reputation can impact deliverability, and ultimately, sales. Here‘s how one online tickets marketer improved their deliverability rate 20.4% and increased email-driven conversions 143% in just two months. Challenge Their deliverability rate was gradually dropping as the company‘s email list grew. Before they knew it, 22% of their addresses weren‘t being delivered for one reason or another. It wasn‘t easy to say why emails weren‘t getting through to consumers, with every email receiver using their own deliverability rules and changing them often. But for an online company that sends 8,000 campaigns a year and sells $300 million in tickets annually, it meant they were losing an incredible amount of money to the junk bins. Campaign They started by examining the addresses that were getting returned before they created their fix-up plan. They also consulted with their new email service provider and decided that simply scrubbing their list wasn‘t going to solve the problem. Instead, they concentrated on improving their reputation among the email receivers. Here are the four strategies they took to get the job done, one of which had the potential to really hurt their current sales: Strategy #1. Set hard rules for bounces and copy They applied some new, stricter rules. Specifically, any email address that was bounced in a campaign came off their send list. Emailers who continue to send to addresses that bounce look like spammers to many ISPs. Strategy #2. Clean up the copy Next, they looked at their subject lines and messages. They wondered if spam-triggering words were getting their copy in trouble. Copywriters were told to quit using the following words and punctuation marks, suspecting they were tripping filters: The words, ―Special Offer‖ Words in all caps Exclamation points Strategy #3. Clean the list They then took what was probably the most potentially painful step for revenues -regulating the number of emails sent out over three stages. They started emailing offers to only those consumers who had signed up or purchased in the past 16 months. A month later, they emailed records 36 months and younger. 108 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


A month after that, they emailed records that were less than 48 months old. They were most concerned with sales, but knew it had to be done. It was very much a turn down the spigot, give the ISPs/receivers the cleanest records first, rebuild your reputation, work diligently to make sure that you are getting delivered and then open up again with records that were a little bit older. Strategy #4. Follow email receivers’ processes Finally, they went through the certification process or signed up for the feedback loop for each of their top 10 email receivers. The ISPs and email receivers don‘t want spammers, and they didn‘t want them to think we are spammers. If they had a rule set, we were going to march to it. Here‘s the list of receivers in alpha order: America Online, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communication, Gmail, MSN/Hotmail, Qwest, Road Runner, SBC (AT&T), Verizon and Yahoo! Results They proved that email reputations can be rebuilt in a manner similar to consumer credit ratings. In short, their four steps worked tremendously to clean up the problem with MSN and Hotmail subscribers, as well as the other email receivers. The deliverability rate climbed 20 percentage points - from 78% to more than 98%. Email-driven sales increased 143% this year compared to last year. The lift in sales had everything to do with their improved reputation and deliverability. Throttling down the email volume turned out to be an invaluable process. It took two months to solve, and then they were out of it. As a side benefit, they were now able to rent email lists with more ROI faith, knowing they‘re in good standing with the email receivers.



Consumers and Spam 3.12 Chart: How Marketers See Changes in Email Marketing – Consumer Views

The perception of legitimate email as spam 60% Avanced Email Marketers

Rest of Sample

46%

40%

41%

20% 19% 11% 0% Improving

Getting worse


As we‘ll see on the next page, marketers and consumers are basically in agreement about the state of spam. Marketers are somewhat more likely to say that the situation is getting worse than consumers themselves. ‗Advanced‘ email marketers are less likely to have noted any improvement, but also somewhat more likely to see spam as static than the rest of the sample.



3.13 Chart: Are Consumers Seeing a Change in Spam? (2006 vs. 2008)

60% 2006

2008

40% 35% 32% 20%

30%

23%

17%

19%

18% 12% 9%

5%

0% Much more Somewhat SPAM received more SPAM received

No change

Somewhat less Much less SPAM received SPAM received


While marketers bemoan the state of email and spam, consumers have seen significant improvement since 2006. The percentage of those saying that the situation has gotten better has more than doubled to 30% of our respondents. There‘s still a long way to go, but the trend is positive.



3.14 Table: Spam Perception by Demographic M en

Women

Youth

Adult

M ature

Senior

M uch more spam received

14%

18%

15%

11%

17%

20%

Somew hat more spam received

22%

19%

17%

19%

27%

19%

No change

30%

25%

28%

28%

24%

29%

Somew hat less spam received

16%

18%

17%

19%

16%

18%

M uch less spam received

10%

12%

12%

12%

10%

10%

Don't know /Not applicable

8%

9%

10%

11%

7%

5%

3.15 Table: Spam Perception by HH Income

Under $50k/ year

$50-100k/ year

Over $100k/ year

No change

27%

28%

27%

Somew hat more spam received

19%

21%

24%

Somew hat less spam received

16%

20%

22%

M uch more spam received

17%

16%

16%

M uch less spam received

12%

12%

6%

Don't know /Not applicable

9%

3%

6%



3.16 Chart: Ability to Recognize Phishing Emails (by Demographic)

"I can tell real emails from fakes 100% of the time." - True or False? FALSE Men

30%

Women

53%

42%

40%

46%

35% 33%

$50-100k/year

-60%

53%

33%

Under 50k/year

Over $100k/year

47%

26%

Adult

Senior

45%

35%

Youth

Mature

TRUE

47%

36%

52%

46% -40%

40% -20%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Regardless of demographic, no group is highly confident in their ability to identify ‗phishing‘ emails – those which try to appear from a legitimate source but are, in fact, fraudulent. Young people, whether from having grown up with online technology or simply naïve, are the most likely to feel comfortable in their abilities. Overall, this concern should spark marketers in any industry to look at the security best practices of those industries that have been pushed to lead the way, such as online banking and credit cards.



Special Report: Spam Complainers Survey NOTE: Many of the charts in this special report appeared in last year‘s edition of the Email Benchmark Guide. Because the findings were unusual and the opportunity to survey this particular audience doesn‘t come along very often, we‘ve chosen to include the study again for new readers. SURVEY OBJECTIVE

A few years ago, Q Interactive executed a small survey to AOL complainers to determine their motivations for complaining. In this survey, assumptions were made about consumer perceptions of the ‗report spam‘ button and its consequences, which returned some unexpected results. Based on these results, QI decided to construct a more in-depth survey to determine consumers‘ perceptions of: 1) What they consider to be spam 2) Why they report emails as spam 3) What they think happens when the ‗report spam‘ button is clicked 4) Do they feel their email service/domain is filtering spam correctly It becomes increasingly important to gather and publicize these learnings as spam complaints have become a black-and-white metric used by ISPs for filtering email delivery to the consumer‘s inbox. We see the issue of consumers‘ perceptions of spam lending a shade of gray that is currently not accounted for in ISP filtering. The survey was sent in daily batches over a two-month period in fall 2007 using a third-party survey tool (Vovici). SUMMARY DEFINITIONS

Complainer: A permission-based member from an internal or external partner list on the Q Interactive email network who has reported an email as ‗spam‘ and returned to QI via an ISP complaint feedback loop, collected between August and November 2007. AOL Domains: includes aol.com, aim.com, cs.com, wmconnect.com, gateway.net, netscape.com, and netscape.net. MSN Domains: includes msn.com, hotmail.com, and email.msn.com. Yahoo! Domains: includes yahoo.com, sbcglobal.net, and att.com.



DEMOGRAPHICS AND EMAIL USAGE

Females made up 65% of all survey respondents. Complainer respondents with AOL and Other domains were more likely to be older (age 55+). Complainer respondents with MSN and Yahoo! domains were more likely to be younger (age 18-34). More than 80% of all survey respondents use email daily or even more frequently. 84% of complainer respondents use email to keep in touch with family or friends. Approximately 35% of all respondents indicated they use their email to receive sales or deals from companies. Interestingly, almost the same percentage said they use their email to receive updates on news and world events. More than half of all respondents indicate they check 1-2 email addresses regularly. Almost 25% said they check five or more email addresses regularly. 57% of all survey respondents considered themselves ―intermediate‖ when it came to describing their technical abilities.



3.17 Chart: Have You Ever Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button?

100% % Complainers

80%

% Control

87%

60%

65%

40% 27%

20% 6%

7%

8%

0% Yes

No

Dont recall

Source: MarketingSherpa and QInteractive, November 2007 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=4,181

Control or Non-Complainers: A randomly selected permission-based member from an internal or external partner list on the Q Interactive email network who has been registered for at least one month (at the time of survey) and has not been returned to QI via an ISP complaint feedback loop. It is possible these members may have reported an email as spam elsewhere, but there is no record of this in the QI network.



3.18 Chart: Why Have You Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button?

I didn‘t sign up to receive e-mail from the sender

52%

The e-mail received was not of interest to me

41%

I receive too much e-mail from the sender

25%

I receive too much e-mail from all senders

20%

I found the e-mail offensive

15%

I do not recall reporting e-mail from the sender as Junk/Spam

13% 0%

20%

40%

60%


Overall, 52% of respondents report as spam any email that they didn‘t sign up to receive. The majority of complainers with Yahoo! and other domains (61% and 64%, respectively) claimed the main reason they reported an email as spam was because they did not sign up to receive mail from the sender.



3.19 Chart: Consumers Reporting Emails That Aren‘t Spam

21% knowingly report email that is not spam as such

Yes 21% Dont know/No opinion 28%

No 51% Source: MarketingSherpa and QInteractive, November 2007 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=4,181

Approximately 18-19% of all survey respondents said they use the ‗report spam‘ button to unsubscribe even though the email is not technically spam. Overall, 39% of complainer respondents said they used the ‗report spam‘ button ―often‖ or ―very often.‖



3.20 Chart: How Often Do You Use the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button?

35% 30% 30% 25%

20% 15%

20%

19%

17%

10% 5% 2%

2%

2%

0% Very often

Often

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

Depends Dont know / No opinion


3.21 Chart: Why Click the Spam Button?

Sender name or e-mail address

43%

E-mail content/body

38%

Subject line

35%

I do not recall

20%

None of the above

13% 0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


When asked what about the email prompted them to report it as spam, more than 50% of Yahoo! & other domains cited the sender name or email address.



3.22 Chart: Why Haven‘t You Clicked the ‗Report Spam‘ or ‗Junk‘ Button?

I prefer to delete unwanted e-mail

48%

I prefer to filter unwanted e-mail

30%

I don't know what it does

28%

I don't want it to change/affect delivery of e-mail to my inbox

15%

I don't think it is useful

14%

I haven't received anything I consider spam/junk in my inbox

Control

8%

0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


When the control group of non-complainers was asked why they did not use the ‗report spam‘ button, 48% indicated they prefer to delete unwanted email. Of the control respondents who answered they had never clicked the ‗report spam‘ button, 45% indicated they did not know what would happen if they hit this button.



Consumer Definitions of Spam 3.23 Chart: What Consumers Consider to be Spam (Known vs. Unknown Senders)

69%

Dif = 19.2%

E-mails that arrive too frequently

50% 63%

Dif = 17.8%

All advertising or marketing messages

45% Unknown

E-mails that were once useful, but aren‘t relevant any more (such as travel info about a route you no longer travel)

Dif = 17.5% 49%

Marketing messages or newsletters that are just not interesting to me

Dif = 12.6%

Known

31% 68% 56%

E-mails with objectionable or suggestive content

86%

Dif = 6.1%

80%

All e-mail messages I did not sign up to receive

82%

Dif = 6%

76%

Marketing messages or newsletters that I did not sign up for

86%

Dif = 1.3%

85% 0%

50%

100%


The chart above shows what makes consumers report an email as spam and has been sorted by the difference, or delta, between known vs. unknown senders. You can see quite clearly that consumers judge companies they are familiar with less harshly than those that are new to them. That said, even among emailers they know or have found useful in the past, if the emailer crosses a certain line, that emailer becomes a spammer.



76% of complainer respondents indicated that they consider all emails they did not sign up for from companies they know to be spam. More than 8 out of 10 complainer survey respondents (85%) considered marketing messages/newsletters from companies they know but did not sign up to receive to be spam. 80% of complainer survey respondents defined emails from companies they know with suggestive or objectionable content to be spam (this is less than marketing messages). All respondents were split on what they considered to be spam for ―all advertising and marketing messages‖ and ―emails that are just not interesting to me‖ from companies they know. From companies they don‘t know, 69% of complainer respondents defined ―emails that arrive too frequently‖ as spam. An overwhelming majority of all survey respondents considered all emails from companies they don‘t know as spam.



3.24 Chart: What Did Consumers Think Would Happen When They Clicked ‗Spam‘?

Tell my e-mail service to filter out emails from that mailer in the future

56%

Be unsubscribed from all email from that sender

47%

Tell the mailer that I didn‘t find that specific e-mail useful so that they would do a better job of mailing me

21%

File a complaint about that specific e-mail

8%

0%

20%

40%

60%


After reporting an email as spam, 71% of complainer respondents do NOT expect to continue receiving email from that sender. But for 29%, the button doesn‘t equal opting out, so those messages that seem superfluous on unsubscribe pages asking whether people really want to stop receiving make sense.



3.25 Chart: After Clicking ‗Spam‘ — Do Consumers Expect More Email?

72% do not expect to continue receiving email from a sender once they report an email as spam.

I don't know 16%

Yes 12%

No 72% Source: MarketingSherpa and QInteractive, November 2007 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=4,181

The majority of complainers with AOL and MSN domains (~56%) said that by reporting an email as spam, they were attempting to tell their email service to ―filter out emails from that mailer in the future.‖ Similarly, the majority of complainers with Yahoo! and other domains (~70%) indicated they expected their email service would filter all future similar emails as spam automatically when they reported them as spam.



3.26 Chart: What Do Consumers Do When They Want Off the List?

Use the ‗Unsubscribe‘ Button

68%

Ask the sender to remove me from their list

51%

Use the ‗This is Spam‘ Button

43%

Ignore or delete the e-mail

42%

Set up a filter

7%

Other

2% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


The majority of all respondents (63%-68%) indicated they would unsubscribe using the ISP control. Complainers with Yahoo! and other domains were more likely to indicate that they would use the ‗report spam‘ button. Control survey respondents were more likely to indicate that they would ignore or delete the email.



3.27 Chart: What Consumers Do When They‘re Not Getting Email They Signed Up for?

I search my Junk/Spam folder

48%

Subscribe again

46%

I add the sender‘s address to my address book or ‗safe sender‘ list

36%

I complain to the company I signed up with

10%

I complain to my e-mail service

3%

0%

20%

40%

60%


Email subscribers are nearly as likely to subscribe again as they are to search their junk folders. The obvious implication is that repeat subscribers probably don‘t understand how spam filters work. Whenever emailers come across a repeat subscriber, they should send explicit instructions on how to ensure that future emails don‘t get blocked. Overall, 44%-48% of all respondents indicated that they search their bulk/spam folder. The same percentage of them also indicate they would re-subscribe. Complainers with MSN domains were slightly more likely to respond that they would add the sender‘s address to an address book or ‗safe sender‘ list.



3.28 Chart: Spam Is Forever

My e-mail service would filter all future similar e-mails as Spam automatically

70%

I would no longer receive similar emails from that sender

57%

I would be unsubscribed from all future e-mail from that sender

36%

My feedback will be used to prevent the sender from delivering to other subscribers of my e-mail service provider in the future

26%

I expect my complaint/feedback to be received by the sender so that they can make future e-mails more relevant to me

11%

I don't know what happens

3%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Overall, 70% of those who report an email as spam expect to never see an email from that individual or organization again; 36% falsely believe they have unsubscribed.



3.29 Chart: People Prefer Letting Filters Determine What Is Spam

Allowing my e-mail service to decide what is Spam

56%

To receive all e-mails into my inbox and decide for myself

36%

To not receive any e-mails unless I specify the sender‘s e-mail addresses in my address book

22%

0%

20%

40%

60%


Overall, the majority of all respondents (54%-56%) preferred that their email service provider decide what is spam. However, complainer respondents with MSN domains were more likely to indicate their preference to receive all emails in their inbox so they could decide for themselves.



3.30 Chart: Why Did Consumers Choose Their Email Service Provider?

The service is free

50%

Recommendation by family or friends

42%

Spam filtering capabilities

40%

Special features (such as weather, news, etc)

34%

Other

27%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%


More than half of all respondents indicated they chose their email domain because it is free; 40% chose an email service specifically for its spam-filtering capabilities.



3.31 Chart: How Often Does Spam Make It to the Inbox?

35% 30%

33%

27%

25%

25%

20% 15% 10% 8%

5%

1%

3%

Never

Don't know/No opinion

0% Very often

Often

Sometimes

Rarely


In general, 55%-60% of all survey respondents said messages they consider to be spam end up in their inbox ―very often‖ or ―often.‖ Of those respondents, complainers with Yahoo! and other domains were more likely to indicate this occurred.



3.32 Chart: How Often Do Legitimate Emails Go to the Spam Folder?

50%

40% 39% 30% 25% 20%

10% 5%

11%

10%

Never

Don't know/No opinion

7%

0% Very often

Often

Sometimes

Rarely


In terms of messages respondents want to receive, 50% of complainers cited that they end up in their bulk or spam folder ―rarely‖ or ―never.‖ Control respondents were more likely than complainers to respond in the same way.



False Positives 3.33 Chart: Are Issues with Email a ‗Big Problem‘?

60% 2005 (Pew)

2007

2008

52% 45%

49%

48% 42%

30%

34%

34%

32%

18%

15%

14% 4%

N/A

N/A

0% SPAM or junk email

Legitimate emails Phishing - emails that get that look accidentally filtered legitimate, but aren't

Inbox clutter simply getting too many emails

Source: MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey,September 2008 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=1,438

Above, we see the percentage of respondents who called these aspects of email a ‗big problem.‘ Overall, the news is encouraging. The percentages have dropped across the board, in the case of spam from over half of all respondents in a 2005 Pew study to just over one-third in 2008. In 2007, we saw a jump in concern over false positives (legitimate emails that get mistakenly tagged as spam), but unfortunately that concern has ebbed. Additionally, the number of people who monitor their junk folders has dropped as the sheer volume of spam has increased in an attempt to overwhelm filters. While those filters are doing an increasingly better job, the dozens or hundreds of bad emails that hit the inbox every day are discouraging recipients from looking for false positives.



Special Report — False Positive Study This study follows up on 2005 research conducted by Pivotal Veracity into the effect of false positives (legitimate email that‘s misidentified as spam by ISPs). We wanted to see how things had changed and ask new questions about the impact of reputation and authentication on ISP false positive rates. To understand the charts in this section, it‘s important to understand a key limitation: We aren‘t able to measure the volume of emails that are blocked entirely and never arrive. So the actual effect of ISP filtering is, without question, undercounted. Since we can‘t know how many emails were sent, only how many were received but misdirected, our baseline metric for this study is the percentage of companies affected, not the percentage of emails. In every study, the question of how to count is as important as what gets counted. Our approach was to be as conservative as possible. For example, if no email was received from a specific company, it was removed from the list and replaced. We did not count these as instances of false positives because that organization might have simply sent no email. Given the emailers in question, though, that‘s not very likely. For more on the setup of the study, see the end of this section. 3.34 Chart: Percentage of Companies Affected by False Positives

Unaffected by false positives 51%

Companies affected by false positives 49%

Source: MarketingSherpa and Pivotal Veracity, False Positive Study, November 2007 Methodology: 100 emailers monitored over 90 days.



In the course of the study, just under half of the organizations we examined were affected by false positives. That would be a shocking figure, if it didn‘t jive closely with the 2005 results. In other words, things haven‘t improved, and on the face of it, they should have. In the last two years, there have been strides taken in adopting reputation and authentication systems by both ISPs and emailers. Presumably, that would have had a positive effect on false positives, but that‘s not what we found, based on the volume of companies affected. However, we‘re not able to measure the depth of the problem — the percentage of emails from those companies that are mistakenly filtered — so perhaps there‘s been an improvement on that front. The study focused on three ISPs for obvious reasons: AOL, Hotmail/WindowsLive, and Yahoo! These three make up well over 50% of free, consumer-level email accounts.



3.35 Chart: False Positive Rates by ISP

35% % of companies affected 30%

31% 28%

25% 20%

15% 10%

13%

5% 0% AOL

Yahoo!

Hotmail/Windows Live


AOL affected only 13% of companies, substantially less than the others. For a number of companies, this was because of their use of the GoodMail certification service. It should be noted that this certification didn‘t have any ancillary benefit with the other ISPs. Perhaps most interesting, none of the mistakenly filtered emails were flagged at all three ISPs. A number were affected at two out of three, but the general lack of overlap underscores the main finding of this study — there‘s no silver bullet. The ISPs use unique and fluid measures to filter spam, and what works for one won‘t necessarily apply to another. Organizations affected by two out of the three included the AARP, Department of Defense, United Nations and Postini (a spam blocking and compliance company), hardly examples of emailers who tread heavily on their recipients.



3.36 Chart: Overlap of ISP False Positive Filtering

Degree of false positive overlap in ISPs.

3 ISPs 8%

2 ISPs 31% 1 ISP 61%


Even at the company level, overlap is minimal. Only 8% of the companies affected by false positives were flagged by all three ISPs during the study. This begs the question that if agreement is 8% at a company level, what is it at a campaign level?



3.37 Chart: Which Authentication Tools Are Emailers Using?

60% Affected by False Positives 57%

54%

50%

47%

47%

40%

30%

33%

20%

10%

0% None

SPF Only

SPF + SID

SPF+DK/IM

All 3


Naturally, we were curious about how false positive rates correlated with authentication and reputation systems. This chart shows the average incidence rate for those organizations employing the various authentication systems. The combinations above were all of those observed in the study. For example, no companies used Sender ID separately from SPF, so that‘s not a category. Usage: 85% - Sender Policy Framework (SPF), up from 72% in the previous study 32% - Sender ID (SID) 29% - Domain keys 15% - Nothing It was interesting to find that some heavy and/or sophisticated brands — Newsweek, BlackBerry, Oracle, Barnes & Noble, Southwest Airlines, TigerDirect and others — were among the 15% not employing any authentication protocol.



More information is available on these three methods at the links provided below. Note that this is not an exhaustive list of the various authentication methodologies being explored within the internet community. SPF (Sender Policy Framework): http://spf.pobox.com/ Sender-ID: http://www.microsoft.com/senderid Yahoo! Domain Keys: http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys 3.38 Chart: Which Authentication Tools Are Emailers Using?

All 3 15%

None 15%

SPF+DK/IM 14%

SPF + SID 17%

SPF Only 39%




3.39 Table: Free Reputation Scoring and Effect on False Positive Rates Accurate in Predicting spam Folder

Accurate - Overall

12%

55%

26%

59%

4%

57%

Sendmail‘s ―Spam Ratio Score‖ (i.e., a score of 70-100 should = better delivery; a score of 0-30 should = bad delivery)

24%

58%

Sendmail‘s ―Total Risk Score‖ (i.e., a score of 70-100 should = better delivery; a score of 0-30 should = bad delivery) www.sendmail.com

31%

60%

Ciphertrust‘s ―Email Reputation‖ (i.e., a ‗trusted‘ score should = better delivery; a score of unverified/untrusted should = bad delivery) www.trustedsource.org Return Path‘s ―Sender Score: Deliverability Risk‖ (i.e., a score of ‗low‘ should = better delivery; a score of ‗high‘ should = bad delivery) Return Path‘s ―Sender Score: Total Score‖ (i.e., a score of 70-100 should = better delivery; a score of 0-30 should = bad delivery) www.senderscore.org

Source: MarketingSherpa and Pivotal Veracity, Emailer Practice and False Positive Study, November 2007 Methodology: The emails of 100 top publishers, retailers and business-to-business companies were monitored for 90 days via seeds accounts established with Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail/WindowsLive.

Another phenomenon we observed was that no company saw all of their emails sent to the spam or bulk folder. This implies that content filtering is not dead. If reputation were the only measure used, delivery would presumably be more consistent on a per mailer/per ISP basis. It also suggests that reputation is not universal. Other findings support this conclusion, as we see that free reputation scores were not always accurate in predicting a company‘s likelihood of being filtered. The free reputation scores of the companies studied were examined. If their scores were in a middle range, they weren‘t included in the calculation. If their scores were negative and they were affected by false positives, that went toward their accuracy score in predicting the spam folder. The overall score reflects their ability to accurately predict either inbox or spam designations. As we see above in the second column of the table, the free reputation scores were only modestly successful at predicting that companies would be affected by false 139 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


positives. That doesn‘t mean these free services aren‘t a valuable contribution — a negative score correlated with inbox issues, so they‘re a good place to start. But they‘re not a replacement for campaign monitoring and testing. 3.40 Chart: Permission Levels of Tested Companies

Permission levels of tested companies.

Opt-out 15% Double Opt-in 21%

Opt-in 64%


During registration, we documented the primary permission method used by the company. In all cases we registered, ―opt-out‖ in this analysis refers to those companies that either pre-checked the box for receiving emails or required our email address for some other purpose (e.g., to get access to the website/to get an insurance quote) and did not make it clear we would be receiving emails from them. We then examined the relationship between permission method used and spam folder placement. The results illustrate that using more strict forms of permission was not useful in preventing spam folder delivery. In fact, the 15 companies using opt-out had the lowest false positive rate (only 40% of them had 1 or more emails placed in the spam folder). That‘s no reason to move toward opt-out, though. This method is in the minority for a reason — it‘s intrusive and ultimately muddies the waters for permission marketing.



3.41 Chart: Correlation Between HTML/Text Option and False Positives

100% 48%

69%

90% 80% Inbox 70% 60% 50%

52%

40% 30%

31%

20%

False Positive

10% 0% No Option

Text/HTML Option


Only 13% of companies offered a choice between text and HTML, which is surprising as mobile becomes an increasingly important email channel. But why are these companies less prone toward false positives? There‘s no causal relationship here, but we suspect that offering this choice is a reflection of responsible marketers who focus on the relationship and best practices, and benefit as a result. They garner fewer spam complaints, send more relevant messaging, and don‘t flood the inbox.



3.42 Chart: Correlation Between Third-Party Permission Practices and False Positives

100% 51%

33%

54%

90% 80% 70% 67%

60%

Inbox

50% 49%

46%

40% 30%

False Positive 20% 10% 0% No 3rd Party

Bundled Permission

Separate Permission


Above, we see what you would expect to find —companies that don‘t require a separate permission step for third-party emails are more likely to be affected by false positives. In multiple pieces of research, we‘ve found that co-registration relationships are most effective when separate permission is asked for. The volume of leads may be smaller, but the rise in quality is the vital dynamic.



3.43 Table: False Positive Study — Tested and Affected Emailers Company

Emailer Type

Affected by False Positives (M arked w ith ‗X‘)

1800 Flow ers

B-to-C

X

AARP

B-to-C

X

ALLRecipes.com

B-to-C

Amazon

B-to-C

American Consumer Opinion (panel)

B-to-C

AOL (w eekly travel new sletter)

B-to-C

X

ArtSelect

B-to-C

X

Avis

B-to-C

Barnes & Noble

B-to-C

Bass Pro Shops

B-to-C

Best Buy

B-to-C

Billboard.com

B-to-C

X

Bizrate

B-to-C

X

Blackberry/ RIM

B-to-C

X

Brightmail/ Symantec

B-to-B

X

Brooks Brothers

B-to-C

Brookstone

B-to-C

X

Business Week (BW Insider)

B-to-C

X

Buy.com (deals new sletter)

B-to-C

Classmates

B-to-C

ClickZ / Search Engine Strategies

B-to-B

X

CNN

B-to-C

X

Coach Leatherw are

B-to-C

Coldw ater Creek

B-to-C

Crains NY Business

B-to-B

Crutchfield

B-to-C

Daily Reckoning (AGORA)

B-to-C

DM New s

B-to-B

X

Dollar Rent A Car

B-to-C

X

Domino‘s Pizza

B-to-C

X

eBay

B-to-C

eDiets.com

B-to-C

X

eLoans

B-to-C

X

Exxon M obil

B-to-C

X

GE Appliances

B-to-C

X

Harris Interactive (poll new sletter)

B-to-C

HBO (entourage new sletter)

B-to-C

X

X




Company

Emailer Type

Hilton Hotels

B-to-C

HomeGain

B-to-C

Honeyw ell

B-to-B

X

Horchow Collection

B-to-C

X

Hotw ire.com

B-to-C

X

IBM (isource new s)

B-to-B

X

Intel (Pulse new sletter)

B-to-B

Internet.com/ Jupiter M edia

B-to-B

Johnson & Johnson (babycenter)

B-to-C

X

Juniper Netw orks - America‘s new sletter

B-to-B

X

LL Bean

B-to-C

Lyris (EmailAdviser New sletter)

B-to-B

M acy‘s

B-to-C

M atch.com

B-to-C

M idas

B-to-C

M ontgomery Ward

B-to-C

X

National Geographic

B-to-C

X

Neiman M arcus

B-to-C

New sw eek

B-to-C

NFL

B-to-C

Nokia (enew sletter)

Hybrid

Nordstrom

B-to-C

Northw est Airlines

B-to-C

Omaha Steaks

B-to-C

Oracle/ PeopleSoft

B-to-B

Orbitz

B-to-C

Palm Source

Hybrid

Performance Bike

B-to-C

X

Pfizer (new s release alerts)

Hybrid

X

Postini (new sletter)

B-to-B

X

Procter & Gamble (brandsaver)

B-to-C

Ralph Lauren / POLO

B-to-C

RandomHouse / Doubleday

B-to-C

REI

B-to-C

Return Path new sletter

B-to-B

SAS (new sletter)

B-to-B

Sears

B-to-C

X

X




Company

Emailer Type

Sidestep travelfinds new s

B-to-C

Smartbargains

B-to-C

Southw est Airlines

B-to-C

Starw ood Resorts

B-to-C

Synovate (new sletter)

B-to-B

X

Target

B-to-C

X

Tesco

B-to-C

X

Ticketmaster

B-to-C

X

Tigerdirect

B-to-C

TJ M ax

B-to-C

Toys R Us

B-to-C

Travelocity

B-to-C

Tribe.net

B-to-C

United Nations UN Wire

Government/.org

X

Universal Studios

Government/.org

X

US Dept. of Defense

Government/.org

X

US Dept. of Education (The Achiever new sletter)

Government/.org

X

US Gov. - FDA: (FDA Consumer Health new sletter)

Government/.org

X

Venetian

B-to-C

X

Verizon (w ireless updates)

B-to-C

x

Walgreen

B-to-C

X

Walmart

B-to-C

X

WashingtonPost

B-to-C

Webex (Connect magazine)

B-to-B

X

WeddingChannel

B-to-C

X

Williams Sonoma

B-to-C

X

Source: MarketingSherpa and Pivotal Veracity, Emailer Practice and False Positive Study, November 2007 Methodology: The emails of 100 top publishers, retailers and business-to-business companies were monitored for 90 days via seeds accounts established with Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail/WindowsLive.



Study Methodology Account Setup Three personal email accounts were set up — one each at the largest Web mail providers: Yahoo!, MSN-Hotmail, and AOL. These providers were selected because of their market share, they are free of charge, and are used by individuals around the world as primary and secondary email accounts. A fourth account was set up for Pivotal Veracity that was used to monitor the technical configuration of the emails received. Account & Spam Filter Configuration In all cases, absolutely no changes were made to the default settings provided by Yahoo!, MSN-Hotmail, and AOL. No blacklists or whitelists were created, no custom filters were added, and no changes to existing filters were made. Additionally, no received emails were ever identified as ―spam‖ or ―not spam‖ via the buttons provided in the interface. Interaction with Email Received Throughout the monitoring process, interaction with emails received at these accounts was kept to an absolute minimum. The only emails that were ―clicked on‖ were the opt-in confirmation requests from those organizations that required double opt-in. Additionally, for the purpose of this report, some emails had to be opened to identify the senders and to capture header information. Finally, where automatic spam-folder deletion by the Web mail provider would have erased emails contained in that folder, a secondary folder was created and emails were moved there to avoid automatic deletion. Replacement of Companies from Whom No Email Was Received Of the original 100 companies tested, there was no email received from nearly onequarter. Although they may well have been the victims of filtering, we took a conservative approach and simply assumed that they hadn‘t sent anything. These companies were replaced by others in a similar vein to achieve the 100 total. Ultimately, 101 companies were tested; the last company alphabetically was removed for the sake of generating percentages based on 100 test companies. Summary ISPs do care about reputation, but each one defines the nature of reputation in its own way. Apparently, they also care about content because the companies aren‘t consistently filtered by any one ISP, as they would be were reputation the only measure. As for authentication, it‘s helping on the phishing problem, but doesn‘t carry over to inaccurate filtering.



Whitelisting 3.44 Chart: Are Consumers Whitelisting Commercial Emails?

60% All Respondents

40% 39%

20%

23% 19% 10%

9%

Have never done this

Don't know/Not applicable

0% Very likely - do Somewhat this frequently likely - do this occasionally

Unlikely - do this rarely

Source: MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey,September 2008 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=1,438

A surprisingly high percentage of people responded that they were somewhat or even very likely to whitelist emails from commercial sources if they found them valuable. However, we suspect that there‘s a big difference between willingness and practice. However, there‘s no reason not to continue to encourage whitelisting in every email.



3.45 Table: Likelihood to Whitelist by Demographic M en

Women

Youth

Adult

M ature

Senior

Very likely - do this frequently

21%

25%

20%

27%

29%

23%

Somewhat likely - do this occasionally

40%

37%

36%

44%

36%

42%


18%

19%

22%

10%

19%

17%


11%

9%

10%

6%

10%

11%


11%

9%

12%

13%

5%

7%

3.46 Table: Likelihood to Whitelist by HH Income Low

M edium

High

Very likely - do this frequently

24%

25%

22%

Somewhat likely - do this occasionally

36%

44%

42%


21%

15%

19%


10%

10%

8%


9%

5%

9%



Chapter 4. Email Tactics & Testing 4.01 Chart: ESPs Describe How Their Clients Are Using Email Technology…Or Not

Over 50%

36 - 50%

21 - 35%

Segmentation of any kind

11 - 20%

Under 10%

50% 13% 14% 11% 12%

Segmentation by customers/prospects

42% 14%

Personalization by *more* than name only

26%

A/B testing of emails

16%

17% 13%

24% 15% 11%

Segmentation by user details (past purchases, etc.)

23%

Dynamic messaging - using data to drive targeted content in emails to specific users

19%

21% 9% 15%

0%

20%

40%

23% 12% 9%

28%

19%

18%

30%

17%

23%

21%

60%

34%

80%

100%


First we asked ESPs about the capabilities they offer, and then asked them to estimate the percentage of their clients using those capabilities. The answers range from dismal to mildly encouraging. The broadest category (any segmentation) also had the highest response, with 50% of ESPs reporting that over 50% of their clients use the capability. More complex efforts see less use, as in the case of dynamic messaging, where over onethird of ESPs see less than 10% of their clients taking advantage. The most puzzling lapse is in A/B testing, the most basic and useful test available to marketers. It doesn‘t require advanced statistics, can be easily administered and, most importantly, can have a tremendous impact on the success of email templates or landing pages.



Targeting Businesses

4.02 Chart: Marketers Targeting Content by Budget Size

75% Small Budgets

Medium

74%

Large

60% 56%

54%

56% 57%

45% 41% 34% 35%

30% 27% 15%

22% 21%

23%

0%

-15%

Size of prospect's Prospect's stage in Prospect's role in Prospect's industry organization the sales cycle the buying process niche (research vs. (influencer vs. purchase decision phase, etc.) maker, etc.)


Multiple studies conducted by MarketingSherpa and other organizations have identified the opportunity for creating content that is tailored to different variables, such as those explored above. As business sales cycles get longer, and as the number of people involved in product research and decision making grows, the opportunity is becoming a necessity for content to stand out. As might be expected, organizations with large marketing budgets are more likely to be tailoring content, but there‘s some movement among small-budget marketers as well.



4.03 Chart: Where Would Lead Generation Marketers Start to Fix Their Processes?

Stage Two: Lead identification - figuring out which names are valuable

28.5%

Stage Three: Lead nurturing - moving people from consideration toward purchase intent

35.7%

Stage Four: Lead impact understanding fully what happens with the leads

21.4%

Stage Five: Proving lead gen. revenue/arguing for more lead gen. budget

14.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Source: MarketingSherpa, Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey, April 2008 Methodology: See details in Study Methodologies Section, N=915

You‘ll notice that we started this chart with Stage Two. That‘s because Stage One is generating leads … and would get overwhelming attention. Our hope was to look beyond that to the long process of converting inquiries to sales. The first two stages we asked about got the highest response. More than 28% of marketers identified the lead identification stage as the one where they would like to fix their process. This is a real challenge today, as the research process begins far in advance of the sale, usually with a casual search inquiry that leads to vendor content pages. At this stage it‘s unlikely that the traditional measures of what makes for a hot lead – budget, time to purchase etc. – are a known quantity for the researcher. Behavioral actions can be a guide, such as whether multiple content pieces were downloaded or subsequent site visits within a given time period. Lead nurturing, Stage Three, garners the highest concern. Almost 36% of technology marketers identified this stage. The essential issue is that with elongated sales cycles, it‘s increasingly difficult to stay connected to leads throughout. Email newsletters, events, 151 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com

50%


branding ads, white papers and webinars all play a role, as do the emerging tactics of podcasts, RSS feeds and virtual events. But all those touch points are insufficient without the capabilities of tracking how prospects interact with them in a holistic manner and across the cycle. For most B-to-B marketing units, the work of manually creating targeted content, distributing it, collecting the leads and then carefully nurturing them is overwhelming. Many companies are looking to the technologies that can aid in this process – Web analytics, marketing automation, CRM and others. Stage Four is when marketing starts to lose control of the leads, after they are passed to sales. More than 20% of our respondents chose this stage. Typically, the issue is one of lead tracking, which depends on the mutual involvement of sales. Without accurate, consistent feedback, it‘s difficult for marketing to track any but closed sales. This allows leads that came close to completion but didn‘t close to fall through the cracks, and while sales doesn‘t typically have a mechanism to re-acquire them, marketing does (or should) but doesn‘t get the opportunity. Stage Five – proving lead gen impact – doesn‘t cause the same concern as the others, but is vitally important and often overlooked. In many organizations, the work that marketing does is a costly mystery to the finance department. Tracking the impact of brand efforts, thought leadership, research on lead generation is difficult and often avoided, but this is the only ways in which the total results of marketing efforts can be accounted for.



4.04 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Large Organizations (More Than 1,000 Employees)

Rated 'Very Effective' 25%

2008

Solo emails to house lists 31% 19%

Testing/optimization of email campaign landing pages

26% 10%

Solo emails to 3rd-party (outside) lists

10% 9%

Offers in 3rd-party newsletters

Offers in your email newsletter

2007

12% 5% 22% 0%

15%

30%

45%


This chart may make things look worse than they are in reality because, although we see a marked decline in several areas, the bulk of marketer responses moved them from ―very effective‖ to ―effective.‖ In other words, they‘re working but not as well as they have or, at least, aren‘t perceived as working as well.



4.05 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Medium Organizations (100-1,000 Employees)


2008

Solo emails to house lists 2007

23%

32%


38%

25%


37%

14%


16%

9%


7% 0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


Companies targeting medium-sized businesses are often medium-sized themselves, and they appear to be moving from the time-tested newsletter as a platform for offers to the solo email blast. This is probably a good idea because research suggests that emails that contain multiple actions generate a lower conversion rate across all of them, while focused blasts tend to see higher response. The newsletter still has a profound function, especially for organizations that can segment content and match it to the stages of the buying process, but it‘s not a great sales tool. This is also a group that sees a higher success rate with solo emails to third-party lists.



4.06 Chart: Email Tactical Effectiveness Rated – Marketers Targeting Small Organizations (Fewer Than 100 Employees)


2008

Solo emails to house lists 36% 32%


35% 14%


17% 6%



2007

13% 1% 4% 0%

15%

30%

45%


The issue for smaller companies is often one of measurement across lead generation and nurturing programs. Only about 50% of B-to-B companies are able to accurately measure conversion (lead or sale) from email through action. This leaves many who are using inaccurate secondary metrics, such as open rates, as a gauge for success.


60%


4.07 Chart: Email Design Tests Rated (2007-2008)

Rated 'Very Effective' 2008 27%

Landing page content tests

2007 27%

26%

Landing page design tests

22%

25%

Subject line tests 27%

17% Email offer tests 19% 0%

10%

20%

30%


Landing page tests continue to garner high ratings. What‘s important to understand is that landing page content goes beyond copy. Because the landing page is built around a single action and idea (or should be), the design of the copy can be as important as the words themselves. Changes as simple as converting long paragraphs about the benefits into bulleted lists can be very effective. The performance of a landing page is a complex interplay between wording, offer, placement of text, images and overall design, as well as any form elements. See the section on building the bionic landing page in Chapter 4.


40%


4.08 Chart: Email Targeting Test Rated (2007-2008)

Rated 'Very Effective' Welcome message/ welcome campaign (email sent only to recent subscribers)

30%

2008 2007

24% 29%

Personalization by product profile/ user details

35% 27%

Timed email (ex: email prior to warranty expiration)

25% 25%

Personalization of emails by making them appear to be from a specific sales rep.

30% 24%

Sending one newsletter to customers and another to prospects

22% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


More companies have tried specific welcome campaigns and more have given the tactic a top rating. Welcome campaigns are especially useful in the long sales cycle and to meet the content needs of disparate members of the buying committee, but it takes some segmentation and preliminary data gathering about the prospect. For example, if you have a range of white papers supporting a product that are targeted at different roles – finance and technology, for example – then the welcome campaign can be targeted based on what was downloaded. If targeting information is unavailable, ask questions so it can be. A simple voluntary preference center can provide the marketer with good targeting information and a more relevant experience for the prospect.



Targeting Consumers w/Transactional Email 4.09 Chart: Email is the Preferred Method of Delivery for Many B-to-C Messages

% responding that email is their preferred method of delivery for each type of communication 73% Shipping notices

84% 93% 62%

Receipts and transaction confirmations

73% 81% 49%

Customer service questions and answers

58% 62% 40% 47%

Coupons for retailers (not food)

58% 34%

Mortgage/banking notices

2008 Average

42% 43%

Youth

34%

Monthly statments from utilities

44% 47% 0%

20%

40%

Affluent 60%

80%

100%


Consumers like email for good reason. It‘s an instant, paperless conduit for relevant information that can be stored indefinitely. Above, we see that not all messages are equally well-suited, but that email is the preferred method of delivery for many, especially for some demographics. People over 55 are less comfortable with digitally delivered information than other demos, and they drag down the overall average. Even they have a strong preference for email in some respects – shipping notices and receipts, for example. Younger people are comfortable with a wider range of content types using email. So are the affluent. For example, almost half of affluent respondents prefer to receive emailed utility statements. The important takeaway is that all of these types of emails offer an opportunity for marrying effective, relevant marketing with transactional messages.



4.10 Chart: Transactional Email Opened More Often Than Other Types

60%

2006 54%

2008

52%

40%

20% 16%

14%

15% 12%

12%

13% 3%

9%

0% Very often or always

Frequently

Not applicable

Sometimes

Rarely/Never


People are more likely to open transactional messages. This allure has led some marketers to swaddling pure marketing messages in the guise of transactional email. Fortunately, this practice doesn‘t seem to have soured people, yet. Smart marketers will follow best practices when tying product messaging alongside transactional information. 1. Keep the transactional portion front and center. Not only is this part of the CANSPAM code, but it‘s simply a good idea. Recipients will be turned off by a message that makes them hunt for their shipping information. 2. Keep the design simple, and don‘t include too many products/offers. If the commercial aspect is overwhelming, it becomes just another email to be avoided. 3. Use the information contained in the transactional message to optimize relevance. If it‘s a shipping notice, you know about the product(s) and where the customer lives – that‘s lots of information. If it‘s a receipt for travel, again, a wealth of information about them, and what they‘re going to be needing.



4.11 Chart: Consumers Open to Transactional Email Marketing

13%

I like it as long as it provides information that's relevant

2006

13%

2008

I don't mind as long as the important service information is readily seen I don't notice when it happens

23% 25% 2% 4% 24%

I don't really care; I just ignore it

24% 20%

I don't like it, but I accept it

17% I don't like it and avoid doing business with companies that do this

17% 16% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


The chart above shows how the entire sample breaks out across various opinions about transactional marketing. There‘s been little movement since 2006, and what there was is positive, with people moving from the negative end of the spectrum towards the neutral middle (don‘t notice, don‘t care, etc.). By and large, the data tells marketers that if they‘re respectful and smart, transactional marketing can be a powerful opportunity.



Testing and Tracking 4.12 Table: What Metrics Should Marketers Be Tracking? M etric

Definition

Value

Click-to-open ratio

Click rate divided by open rate

Provides a measure of relevance by removing the unopened emails from the equation. Asks the question: ― Once someone opens, how relevant do they find the content?

Click times conversion

Clickthrough times conversion rate

Takes open rates out of the calculation of success and looks at how the campaign performed w ith recipients w ho clicked.

Revenue per email

Total revenue generated by a campaign divided by emails sent

Assesses the value of different messages, offers, etc., by comparing the revenue attached to specific campaigns. A good metric w ith w hich to communicate the value of email marketing at budget time. Also a pow erful metric w ith w hich to evaluate the dollar impact of poor deliverability.

Order size per email

Total orders divided by emails delivered

Effective for comparing campaign messaging. Categories based on order size may also be good for segmentation.

Leads per email

For lead generationfocused marketers — total number of leads divided by emails delivered

Allow s for easy comparison of offers and lists.

Engagement per campaign

Based on marketers‘ activities

Looks at non-financial impact by measuring engagement activities, such as registering, entering a contest, commenting to a list, amending a profile, etc.



Tactics – Newsletters 4.13 Chart: Effectiveness of Email Newsletters

Routinely justified


Main Sample

Not justified

56%

Advanced Emailers

36%

44%

SMBs

46%

51%

Large orgs.

0%

20%

10%

39%

57%

10%

31%

40%

60%

9%

12%

80%

100%


The venerable newsletter doesn‘t have the cache it once did. It‘s more difficult to get new subscribers, response rates have dropped steadily, if not precipitously, and the task of generating new and interesting content never gets any easier. But, for all that, marketers still find great value in their newsletter programs. Over half say that their newsletter efforts are ‗routinely justified‘ by ROI and only 9% see no justification. After all, newsletters serve one purpose, whether they get opened or not, which is to remind current and potential customers that your organization exists. That‘s branding in the purest sense, and no measure of clicks or opens can capture what it‘s worth.



4.14 Table: Industry Wisdom – Marketers Share Innovative Tactics Instead of putting "This email was sent to you by XYZ Company" in the email header, putting the subject of the email in that line to improve open rates in preview panes. 1) new or improved technology that allows for easier or more robust click-stream tracking 2) new or improved technology for tracking or measuring email deliverability Adding social media features to e-mail marketing. adding video as either an added information source or as a choice of how the recipient would like to receive their email content. After our initial email newsletter is sent, one week later we look at click details and open rates. We resend the newsletter with a different subject line to those that did not open the first newsletter which increases the overall open rates for each of our bimonthly newsletters. Allowing consumers to choose the day they receive their personalized opt-in email. Allowing field sales to send product/solutions videos of subject matter experts which are embedded in MS Outlook emails directly to decision makers at customers. No links to click or websites to navigate - they just click the video icon in the email and the full featured player launches in the customer's browser. Primo content delivered right to the decision maker. And marketing did it together with sales!! Great concept!! Amazingly, in our tests of using one of our consumer products vs. a lifestyle photo that would evoke an emotion and shows no product the one that shows no product has 3x's click rate. asking for customer reviews in transactional e-mails automation confrontational Email subject lines. creating digital continuity series -- after first item in a series purchase, send triggered email every 4 to 6 weeks on next item in sequence. Currently I'm facilitating electronic invites to our clients and prospects for an upcoming thought leadership conference. To not come across as SPAM since we send out invites 1x - to 2x per week I have my creative department have each invite look completely different for each segment that we are reaching out to. This does not follow a "consistent look and feel" rather goes against the grain, but attendance is up considerably year over year with the different approach. Designing for both Macs and PCs Determining what a customer is likely to buy, based on web behavior, average spending, past purchases, etc, and then targeting emails based on that information. Different aspects of Video E-Mail.. Differentiating content in newsletter based on sale or no sale. I know, it is SO BORING, but we are not doing it and when an outside consultant validated my epiphany others finally saw the light! Dynamic Relevant Transactional Email Folks still do not grasp best practices without adhering to those basic principle Innovative won't get delivered.



Graphical personalization - it has a huge impact on response rates. I found the recent report on subject line length interesting although we haven't performed our own tests yet. incorporating links to share e-mail content on social media sites like Facebook. Ralph Lauren does this. Instead of adding send to a friend, giving an option to forward as the recipient is not comfortable in typing the email Ids of the friends. Integration into and of Webanalytics in Email-Tactics (Landingpage/ShopOptimisation, Fokus on High-profit margin products) Segmented Lifecycle dialog (partly automated) integration with DM to optimise integrated user journey It's not innovative really, but one client is calling their customers to update their contact info and get their email address if they don't already have it. Another client will be adding text on the bottom of their receipts directing customers to their website to enter their email address and preferences. links to videos Loved the Create your own Coupon by Quizno's. Multi-touch follow-up email series with escalating offers in which each offer is presented 2X. Response rates are more than 2X the traditional one-time follow-up email. multi-variate testing by geographical location (ie East/West) and making revisions to the remainder of the send based on early results. Narrative Management. The automated process of carrying on an email "conversation" with a prospect/customer through the lifecycle of engagement. Most email marketers attempt this in some manual fashion, but it is generally unwieldy and ineffective over any extended period of time. We are evaluating a variety of technologies to enable this and hope to have something in place by mid-2009. Not necessarily innovative but we are not doing and I would like to: Using video .jpgs in email and doing RSS summary newsletters. Obama's sign up to be the first to know about his VP choice through email or text, great way to get cell #'s. Offer more exclusive content before requiring an email registration. personalization through opt-in selection for timing of delivery. Personalized emails triggered by actions are most relevant and thus the best converting. This isn't a new idea but it's a good one. Position matching in B2B email. Sending communications from one job position internally to the same job title in the prospects business. For example sending an email from the Marketing Director to fellow Marketing Directors. Pre-header messages. Providing video clips that require an opt-in halfway through purging old unresponsive email addresses by the thousands and leaving in the 10% of active users. Then launching a re-engagement campaign to the inactive. List is much smaller but more targeted.



re-mailing: my email consultant never heard of it! Heard about it in a Bronto Software presentation and we're going to try it to increase open rates. reporting level of engagement (who is clicking/interacting with emails the most) over a selected time frame return to plain text emails Sending out an campaign targeting recipients who's corporate spam filters prevent delivery of e-communications to their inbox. The campaign assumes some users check their junk mail occasionally, and gives easy instructions on how to add the sender's email address to the recipients address book thus ensuring future delivery. survey within an email Text headline above a header graphic to ensure a recipient at sees some sort of message. Text only emails are perfect for getting through filters, being able to be viewed on mobile devices and for forcing you to focus your message. After all, when text is all you have, you learn to be really straight forward - because no one is going to read a long block of text. The biggest recent impact has been rising spam rates, especially from Hotmail/MSN and AOL subs. Even if you follow every permission protocol available, you can still run into significant problems. the use of audio and video avoiding email but using rss feeds instead The use of including interactive presentations as a method to educate/inform regarding a given topic or to promote an upcoming event. Tiered Promotion based on gimmick. Olympic Events resulted in gold, silver or bronze medal. Total ticket discount, Free Shipping or Free Gift were offered based on the event that was chosen. Timing email deployment to recipients based on the time that they opened the last e-mail they received. Tracking email addresses that click then following up with personalized emails to them based on the interests they show. use more "forwarded" message approach- a new product has more validity if coming from a recognized names, including an introduction from an editor or publisher of an existing product to which they subscribe use of personalized URLS to drive better response rates using other medias like video/audio clips in email marketing promotions, also cross channel online promotions (i.e. SEM/email campaigns) Using short video/audio clips within eMails. video emails that push the service Video on email but actually taking a few frame and creating an animation. When recipients click on the animation, it will open up their browser and start playing the video. We are B to C and Wed or Thursday are our best ROI days We are combining a variety of tactics with incentives, to penetrate front line sellers in thousands of retail locations across country. Take up rates much better than if provided only one tactic and one incentive. Source: MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, August 2008



Online Coupons 4.15 Chart: Emailed Coupons – Use in Online Stores

In the last 12 months, have you used an emailed coupon for an online store?

Don't know/recall 10% Saved but never used 10%

Yes 39%

No 41%


Emailed coupon use is strong. Almost 50% had some interaction, with 80% of those actually using the coupon. Even for those that ‗saved but never used‘ there was clearly a powerful branding experience. Note that the definition used by consumers for ‗emailed coupon‘ may be somewhat broader than a marketer might like. Is a specific ‗free shipping‘ notice in an email going to stick in a consumer‘s mind as a ‗coupon‘ – possibly.



4.16 Chart: Emailed Coupons – Offline Use

In the last 12 months have you used an emailed coupon for a "brick and mortar" store?

Don't know/recall 12% Yes 31%

Saved but never used 9%

No 48% Source: MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Nationally representative sample. N=1,438

When we asked consumers about non-food related coupons, close to half said that they preferred email as the medium. That‘s especially true of affluent households, which are significantly more likely to prefer email. Above, we see that even emailed coupon redemption in brick-and-mortar stores is fairly common, with almost one-third of respondents having experienced it in the last year, and another 9% taking the first step.



4.17 Table: Types of Online Coupons Register-to-postalmail

Starting on the low -tech end, you can go to some manufacturers‘ sites and register to receive a printed coupon through the mail. Procter & Gamble offers this kind of option on their site.

Offline retailer coupons

These are also on the low -tech side of things. Retailers, from corner pizza places to Target, put coupons up on a w ebsite or deliver them through email. There is virtually no security on these coupons — you can see them on screen and print them from your screen. There is no coupon clearing house, and no third party w ho is on the hook for the value of these coupons.

Redeemable Codes

This sort of online coupon is simply a code that you use w hen you go to an online retailer to make a purchase. You enter the code in your shopping cart to receive a discount. These codes may be given out by the retailer, by a third party (such as a surveying firm) as an incentive, or even as gift certificates by consumers themselves.

SubsequentPurchase Electronic Coupon

Confusingly, there is actually a difference betw een the terms ― online coupon‖ and ― electronic coupon.‖ When people say ― electronic coupon,‖ they mean the Catalina-style red-bordered coupon that you get w hen you check out of a brick-and-mortar grocery store. If you shop in a store that has the Catalina system and buy Kleenex, for example, the printer may spit out a coupon for 50 cents off Puffs. This is NOT a coupon — yet. You bring the printed page into the store and buy the product associated w ith it. On that purchase, you do NOT receive any discount. But, the Catalina system w ill spit out a coupon w ith the stated value for your NEXT purchase of the item.

Print-at-Home Coupons

With the term ― print at home coupon,‖ w e have w hat 99% of people mean w hen they say ― online coupon.‖ It is also w here 99% of the angst and debate comes in. A print-at-home coupon w orks this w ay: You go to a site — it could be a manufacturer‘s site or a savings-type portal site — and you register. As part of the registration process, you dow nload a little piece of softw are. You select the offer you w ould like and click, ― print my coupon.‖ Then the softw are you have dow nloaded becomes active. It sends the coupon to your printer and — here‘s the key — you never see it on your screen. The coupon has your name on it, a unique bar code, and is trackable back to you.

Frequent Shopper Card Coupon

At a w ebsite, you register your frequent shopper card or the credit card you use to do your grocery shopping. You select w hich offers you w ould like, then, those offers are automatically ― loaded‖ onto your card. Clearly, your card has not been touched. But the data on your requested offer has been transmitted to the participating retailers. Then, w hen your card is scanned at checkout, the discount is applied to your purchase.




COUPON METRICS — BASIC REDEMPTION DATA

When we talk about traditional coupons, we usually mean the coupons you get in your Sunday newspaper. Also referred to as free-standing inserts or FSIs, these traditional coupons account for the vast majority, 84%, of all coupons used by shoppers in the United States. For grocery products, print-at-home coupons have relatively high redemption rates. According to NCH, FSI-type coupons are redeemed at a 1.2% rate. No single average number exists yet for online coupons. Coolsavings.com reports redemption rates in the 10-20% range. SmartSource reports a range of 4% to 22%. According to SmartSource, the high redemption rates occur on products with strong brand equity and a high frequency of use. Most agree that online coupons, because they are sought out by consumers and not received passively in the Sunday paper, have a significantly higher redemption rate than traditional coupons. 4.18 Table: Coupon Redemption Rates Type of Coupon

Average response range

Free-standing inserts (FSI)

1.2%

Online

5% -20%

In-store fliers

4% -8%

In package/ On package

5% -22%

Source: Multiple industry sources.



Notes from the Field: Testing Make-Your-Own Coupons Cooks Up Tasty Results Using an emailed coupon is a common marketing tactic, but could you get better redemption rates if you added a Web 2.0 element into the mix and let your customers make their own discount offers? One fast-food chain combined email and a custom-built landing page that got staggering open and clickthrough rates, plus download rates nearly double their average. Challenge Industry statistics and common sense tell marketers that incentivizing email with a ―proven‖ offer bolsters response rates. Correy Honza, Director, Internet Marketing, Quiznos, and his team wanted to improve their incentivization capabilities. At the same time, they hoped to: Create a stronger bridge between the national brand and local stores Test user-generated content Optimize coupon offers without a consumer survey. Campaign Honza and his team devised an email-based concept that covered all of their initiatives: a campaign that let customers create their own coupons. Subscribers put together their own redeemable coupons after receiving an email they could click through to a customized landing page. On the landing page, they could select from several coupon combinations. And, it took only three steps to get the initiative going: Step #1. Create a landing page Honza and his team designed a landing page based on best practices. Generally, their layout for the create-your-own-coupon page involved a clean, easy-to-follow design in three columns from left to right. The first column was a ―Choose Your Food Mood‖ station where viewers were asked to click on one of four buttons: ―Toasty Sub‖ ―Fresh Salad‖ ―Gourmet Breadbowl‖ ―Feeding a Group‖ After clicking on that selection, consumers had a slew of options to choose from. One example: Viewers who selected the ―Toasty Sub‖ line were asked to choose -- in the middle column -- one of these coupon details: ―$1 Off Small, $2 Off Large‖ ―$6 Meal‖ 170 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


―Buy One, Get One Free w/2 Drinks‖ If viewers chose one of the other food stations, the discount reflected those product lines. The third column was used to get viewers to redeem the coupons in stores. The following copy appeared at the top of the column: ―Print it Out & Bring it In.‖ A ―Print Coupon‖ button was featured just below the copy. Step #2. Create email Next, Honza and his team put together an email that used several images from their usual campaigns that represented their catering, subs, soups and salads. But they stressed the UGC point with copy that displayed the following text stacked vertically at the top of the email: ―Create-Your-Own-Coupon‖ ―Because YOU should be in charge of YOUR appetite!‖ ―Quiznos allows you to create your own coupon in 3 easy steps‖ In bold type, ―Click to select your offer type‖ They then defied industry norms that support punchy subject lines. They chose a 77character phrase to plug in the UGC opportunity and two other offers: Quiznos: CreateYour-Own-Coupon, TV Ad Challenge and 500 Dollar Shopping Spree.‖ Step #3. Get stores on board The last step was to get their franchisees on board. They emailed and faxed marketing materials and other important info to franchise owners more than a month in advance of the promotion. Results Turning over some promotional control to customers was a memorable win for Honza and his team. ―It was more successful than anything we had done in several month.‖ Outlets across the nation took to the idea in a great fashion and accomplished one of Honza‘s goals. ―Participation was close to system-wide on traditional stores.‖ Although they were unable to code the coupon and allow individual stores to track exact redemption data, they saw the following numbers, which exceeded recent averages for email coupons: 55.6% opened (vs. 49.8% average) 41.1% clicked through (vs. 25.8% average) 34.4% of the clickthroughs printed the coupon (vs. 19.4% average)



Timing

4.19 Chart: How Opens Accumulate

Q1 2008 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

228 240

216

206

194

182

168

156

144

132

120

108

96

72

60

48

36

24

12

Send

84

Hours from email send

0%

Source: MarketingSherpa, September 2008 Methodology: Aggregated mailings

If you were to plot the accumulation of ‗opens‘ of any of your email campaigns (and you can with a spreadsheet and a free hour), your result would probably look something like the chart above. About 50% of the ‗action‘ takes place within the first 12 hours, and hits 70% within a day. After hitting 90% in about three days, response levels off and can extend weeks or months into the future with responses trickling in. The thing about that ‗trickle‘ is that these open and clicks tend to convert better than the average. That‘s because they are drawn to something in the subject line rather than simply opening what arrives. So, it may be worth considering how the passage of time affects your content. If the email invites consumers to take advantage of a sale or special, how soon does it end? What happens when someone clicks after the special ends? Are there simple changes to the landing page that can be planned in advance to maximize its impact for late arrivals?



4.20 Chart: Effectiveness of Event-Triggered Emails

Routinely justified Main Sample


49%

Advanced Emailers

Not justified

39%

12%

63%

SMBs

37%

55%

Large orgs.

38%

51%

0%

20%

36%

40%

60%

0%

7%

13%

80%

100%


The most common type of event-triggered email is the welcome message, but that‘s just scratching the surface. By definition, event-triggered emails are more relevant than most, and that‘s reflected by the ringing endorsements above, especially that of the ‗advanced‘ email marketers. Some examples follow on the next page.



4.21 Table: Examples of Event-Triggered Emails

B-to-B

B-to-C

Both

Replies to request for content, such as white papers, webinars

Reminder emails when a product hits a certain price

Welcome emails

When new pieces of content become available, especially on user-specified topics

Shopping cart abandonment follow-up emails

Confirmation of service changes

Subscribers sign up for info about specific products, such as upgrades, add-ons

When a purchase triggers a follow-on, like qualifying for airline miles, warranty info Timed needs, like printer ink



Notes from the Field: Testing the Timing of Consumer Email Campaigns Smart marketers develop email strategies based on industry-average facts and figures, then optimize their programs by testing to determine important email elements, including when is the best time to send your blast. An eretailer wondered how much of a difference they could make by testing the time of day to send their blasts. Turns out a lot – clickthroughs increased 15.63% and revenue jumped, too. Challenge An etailer who began a monthly newsletter blast started applying best practices to their email right away. They revamped their email signup page to include 16 preference selections and began segmenting their database accordingly. Then, they ran a series of best-day email tests. When the results came back, they were surprised to find that Tuesday beat Monday and Wednesday for opens and clickthroughs. But they didn‘t want to stop there. They wondered if time of day would make a difference, too. Campaign They knew a big portion of their orders were being placed during regular business hours and decided to zero in on their at-work consumer audience. Here are the four steps they followed: Step #1. Use analytics to determine busiest time To get started, they checked for their website‘s busiest windows of time and verified what they suspected: The site was most active during the 9 a.m.-5 p.m. workday. The difference in traffic wasn‘t tremendously different between 9 a.m. and 30 or 60 minutes later, for instance, so they didn‘t test slight variations. Instead, they used analytics to boil down the test to three different send times (in Central Standard Time). Their rationale for each: 9 a.m.: People are just getting settled at their desks and aren‘t yet focused on work. 12 p.m.: When most recipients begin their lunch hours and often order online. 4 p.m.: The time they wanted to test to determine whether email would perform better than the website at this slot -- when workers begin winding down their days and start thinking about home and their family needs there. The team speculated that a little call-to-action email might pick up sales. Step #2. Segment the list The team made use of recently instituted preference segmentation. They took a file of consumers who signed up specifically for weekly coupon alerts and split it evenly in an A/B/C fashion. This file made sense because it was filled with names mostly from the Central, Eastern and Mountain Time zones (in that order).



This was important because they weren‘t ready to segment separately to all four U.S. time zones; all of their campaigns in the near future were going to be sent to an entire file at the same time. Hence, it seemed smart to concentrate on the three time zones that were not only most prominent in their database, but also ―closest together‖ on the world clock (e.g., 9 a.m. Central is closer in the work-day sense to both 10 a.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. Mountain when compared to 7 a.m. Pacific). Step #3. Keep variables consistent Because they wanted time of day to be the only variable, each file received the same subject line with the same message and the same offer (Apple iPods sale). Step #4. Pay attention to what matters They also focused only on clickthroughs. Opens were inconsequential because the subject line was the same for all three splits. Because the sophistication of their landing pages was still in its infancy, what was most important was to get people from the email message to the site. Results Test returns produced a clear winner -- 9 a.m. The clickthrough rates for each: 9 a.m. performed 15.63% better than 4 p.m. 9 a.m. performed 9.4% better than 12 p.m. 12 p.m. performed 6.9% better than 4 p.m. Because the only variable was time of day, the results were conclusive enough for them to implement the 9 a.m. mailing tactic as an important strategy from this point forward, although they plan to continually monitor with more tests down the road. In the end, their hunch that people at work most often read their emails first thing in the morning turned out to be correct.



Notes from the Field: Viral Email Produced 100% Response From Best Customers Could asking your best customers to share an email offer with family and friends really pay off? Marketers for an international hotel chain crafted a simple email that got a 100% response rate from their most active loyalty club members. Ultimately, 1,766% more people than were initially sent the email responded. Challenge Cassandra Jeyaram, Social Marketing Manager, InterContinental Hotels Group, and her team wanted to thank the 150 most active members of their Priority Club rewards program while boosting stays at the same time. They intended to boost the already strong loyalty of their club members and get more people into rooms at hotels such as the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Hotel Indigo while keeping costs at a minimum. Such a campaign required a balancing act. What type of campaign would make their biggest fans feel rewarded and leverage their passion for the hotels without making them feel like pawns? And still provide a solid ROI? Campaign Jeyaram and her team crafted a viral email campaign to target the club‘s most active members – less than 1% of total membership. Those members stayed frequently in InterContinental Hotels and applied for rewards points. With a single, text-only email, Jeyaram asked these Priority Club members to share the offer with friends and family. Here are the steps they took: Step #1: Create an offer members can’t refuse To inspire club members to refer friends, she made them an offer they couldn‘t refuse. The members received triple rewards points for each three-night stay between May 1 and June 15. This ensured that the campaign provided some real value to the company‘s bottom line while being more than just a simple thank you to the club‘s most devoted members. ―This was, by far, the best offer that we had running at the time,‖ Jeyaram says. ―If I said something like, ‗Hey, everybody who signs up for this gets a free TV,‘ that would have fallen flat because that‘s not what is important to this group.‖ Members were emailed a code to use after completing their stay. They entered this code at the club‘s website to obtain the bonus points. Step #2: Craft a straightforward message with a viral element Jeyaram and her team used a text-only email that was fast and inexpensive to create. The email: Let members know they were appreciated: ―We couldn‘t do it without you!‖ 177 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Explained the offer Linked to a redemption/registration page Encouraged sharing the offer with friends and family Provided promotion codes for the offer Listed contact information Recipients were given three additional codes and were encouraged to send them along to friends and family who would receive the same offer. This touch made members more likely to praise the service while forwarding it. The triple-points offer also acted as a promotion to encourage non-members to visit an InterContinental hotel and register for the program. Step #3: Create a simple landing page or repurpose an existing one The landing page accepted the members‘ information and code and linked to a registration page for new members to sign up. The page was generic and worked with other offers and codes. What the page lacked in targeted messaging, it made up for in practicality. This page had already been created for other code-based offers. Jeyaram and her team did not have to wait or pay for it to be built. Results Every person in the initial seed – 100% – took advantage of the triple-rewards offer and forwarded the email to at least one friend. ―We hypothesized that the members who consistently contributed to the online community would take up the offer at a high rate. [But] we were not bold enough to anticipate a 100% follow-through!‖ she says. ―The first week, we got a couple hundred [people using the offer], and toward the end of the campaign, it was just exploding.‖ Eventually, more than 17 times the number of people who received the initial email (1,766% more) ended up going to a hotel for at least three nights and registering for the bonus points. The offer was mailed only to U.S. residents, but spread to more than 30 countries. The highly-active club members who first received the offer loved the promotion. ―We got emails back from the people who we sent to in the community. They were really excited about this. They thought it was a great benefit. They felt like they were kind of inthe-know and felt privileged to have this opportunity….‖



Rendering and Image Suppression

4.22 Chart: Preview Panes Common Among Consumers

Are you using a preview feature for your personal email?

Using preview pane 53%

Don't have/don't use preview feature 47%


Preview panes used to be a predominantly B-to-B headache, but no longer. More than half of our sample reported using some type of preview feature to view their personal emails. That‘s a 50% increase over the last two years. That means that consumer mailers need to be concerned with issues of design and optimization. 1. Don‘t use up your most valuable space with generic content, such as large headers and logo images. Not only will they push the unique content below the preview pane‘s fold, but given image suppression, they may not show up at all. 2. Don‘t get rid of the logo entirely, of course, just reduce the amount of ‗prime real estate‘ it takes up. 3. If there‘s one action you hope to elicit from the email, make sure that there‘s a piece of simple, HTML text that highlights that action in the first couple of inches, preferably on the left half of the email.



4.23 Chart: Preview Pane Configurations (2006 vs. 2008)

50%

Version #1 Horizontal w/small preview

2008

49%

2006

26%

Version #2 Horizontal w/large preview

27%

13%

Version #3 - Vertical w/small preview

13%

11%

Version #4 - Vertical w/large preview

11% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Time and adoption hasn‘t changed the way that people configure their preview panes – the figures are remarkably flat from 2006. Horizontal dominates with 76% of consumers, which makes design changes more straight forward. To get an idea of what your recipients are seeing, look at the images on the next page.



4.24 Image: Preview Pane Configurations



4.25 Chart: Images Usually Blocked, Even for Consumers

60% 2006

2008

55%

43%

40%

33% 29% 25%

20% 16%

0% They look like version #1 - They look like version #2 images are turned OFF images are turned ON

Not applicable


Security fears and the need to add features have driven ISPs and free email services to move toward blocking images by default. In two years, we see a 50% rise in the number of consumers who identify the blocked image version (next page) as looking like their inbox. Those with images turned on by default have fallen to only one-third from over half of the sample in 2006.



4.26 Image: How Consumers See Your Emails



4.27 Table: How Email Clients Show Images (or Don‘t) Name of Email Client

Softw are or Hosted Solution?

AOL 7

Images on by Default

Images Blocked by Default

User View s Images by Clicking on Links in M essages

Softw are

X

X

AOL 8

Softw are

X

X

AOL 9

Softw are

X

X

AOL.com

Hosted

X

ATT.net

Hosted

X

ATT WorldNet 5.0

Softw are

X

Bellsouth Web Email

Hosted

X

Comcast.net

Hosted

X

CompuServe 7.0

Softw are

X

Compuserve.com

Hosted

X

EarthLink Total Access

Softw are

X

X

EarthLink Web M ail

Hosted

X

X

Eudora 6

Softw are

X

Excite.com

Hosted

X

Gmail.com

Hosted

X

X

Go.com

Hosted

Hotmail.com (also see Window ‘s LiveM ail)

Hosted

X

X

iWon.com

Hosted

X

Juno

Softw are

X

Juno Web M ail

Hosted

X

Lotus Notes 6

Hosted

X

Lycos.com

Hosted

X

M ac.com

Hosted

M ail.com (Outblaze)

Hosted

X

Netscape.com

Hosted

X

Netzero.net

Hosted

X

Outlook 2000

Softw are

X

Outlook 2003

Softw are

X

X

Outlook XP (2007)

Softw are

X

X

Outlook Express w ith Service Pack 2

Softw are

X

X

X



Name of Email Client

Softw are or Hosted Solution?

Images on by Default

Images Blocked by Default

User View s Images by Clicking on Links in M essages

Outlook Express w ithout Service Pack 2

Softw are

X

PeoplePC.com

Hosted

X

SBCGlobal.net

Hosted

X

USA.net

Hosted

X

X

Verizon.net

Hosted

Window s LiveM ail

Hosted

X

X

Yahoo! .com

Hosted

X

X

Yahoo! M ail Beta

Hosted

X

X

X




4.28 Table: Email Clients Technology Compatibility by ISP Brow sers

Versions

HTM L

TEXT

FLASH

VIDEOS

XHTM L

CSS

IE

7

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

6

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

5.5

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

5.01

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

7.2

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

7.02

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

4.08

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

9

Yes

Yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

8

Yes

Yes

No

no

yes

yes

7

Yes

Yes

No

No

yes

yes

5

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

M ozilla

1.7.2

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

M ozilla Firefox

0.9.3

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

0.9

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

6

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

5.5

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

5.1

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

7

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

6.51

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

6

partial

Yes

No

No

No

No

Netscape

AOL

Outlook Express

Lotus Notes

Keys XHTM L

Xtensible Hyper Text M arkup Language

CSS

Cascading Style Sheet

DOM

Document Object M odel




Notes from the Field: ―Table Cells‖ a Solution to ―Red X‖ Dilemma ALT-text tags are a no-brainer for marketers looking to combat email images that are turned off. But there‘s another solution that will get more of your message seen and, for one etailer, nearly doubled clickthroughs and increased revenue 379%. Challenge Last fall, an etailer was perusing email industry benchmarks for deliverability, open, clickthrough and conversion rates. Their stats weren‘t bad, but they knew they could do much better. Ultimately, they decided it was how they were putting their message together -- not the content -- that was disconnecting with email subscribers. With essentially all email systems not automatically rendering images, they also had a hunch their HTML-heavy campaigns were often getting the dreaded ―Red X.‖ They knew they could add more ALT-text tags to their emails so that descriptive words would show up along with the red X, but they wondered if another solution existed. Campaign They dug out an ―old-school‖ email design feature called a table cell. Table cells -- often referred to simply as tables -- can contain various types of information and can span multiple rows or columns. Their inherent delivery advantage is in the idea that Web mail providers don‘t strip their color or text, even if recipients‘ images are turned off. It may not be a full-color picture, but it‘s better than a big white box with a little red X in the corner. Here‘s how they implemented the feature: Stage #1. Set up an A/B split test First, they took an already scheduled free-shipping campaign and created a second version for an A/B split test. Content similarities The control and test group received the same content: a main text offer in relatively large, reverse Arial font stacked vertically in a red-brown color box that measured 441 pixels by 400 pixels (see creative samples below). ―Limited Time Offer‖ (font size -- 49 pixels) ―Free Shipping‖ (57 pixels) ―Ends 10-31-07‖ (35 pixels) ―Start Now‖ button (18 pixels) ―Free Shipping available on orders over $99 to a single destination within the U.S.‖ (15 pixels) Additionally, recipients viewed the same six product categories that let them click through to a different section of the site: Men‘s, Women‘s, Kids, Home, Gifts and Specials.



Formatting difference How the two samples differed on technical levels was of greater importance. Here‘s how each sample appeared on the back end: For the control group, they used a regular template with six main vertical columns of HTML ―strips‖ (e.g., design boxes). The columns helped construct the HTMLonly coded image that pitched the key offer. For the test group email, Kaiser and his team used five HTML strips: the header, two side ads and a pair of ads placed near the bottom. If subscribers had images turned off, these strips appeared as red Xs. However, they used different HTML programming for the main offer, employing simple text and color code with an ad designed in a table cell. The reverse text was placed on top of a red-brown background inside the table cell, and the background and text were one piece (see creative samples below). They used the same table-cell layout technique for the product categories at the bottom of the test email. Content in the table cells rendered even with images turned off. Stage #2. Use ALT-text tags to identify brand To get their brand name to show up in the HTML header when images were turned off, the team used ALT-text tags. Kaiser didn‘t want recipients to be confused by who was pitching the promotion that was in the table-cell ad. Results They were right about the underperformance of their email list. The test results proved that focusing on your images-off crowd can pay big dividends: Deliverability was 10.1% higher Open rate rose 28.6% Clickthrough rate jumped 83.4% Revenue skyrocketed 379.3%



Segmentation and Personalization 4.29 Chart: Effectiveness of Unique Content by Segment

Routinely justified


Main Sample

55%

Advanced Emailers

Not justified

39%

62%

SMBs

33%

55%

Large orgs.

20%

5%

40%

56%

0%

6%

38%

40%

60%

5%

12%

80%

100%


Segmentation is an expression of relevance and naturally one of the most effective email tactics. The ratio of very positive to very negative reviews is 10 to 1 in the responses charted above. Segmentation can be simple or complex, even the smallest organizations can benefit from starting an ongoing initiative to start simple segmentation and evolve over time. Anything which distinguishes an email record is a possible lens for segmentation: 1. What did they buy? 2. When did they buy it? 3. Are they still looking or a current customer? 4. When will they need another one/refills, etc.? 5. Are they a regular customer or new to list? 6. Where did they come from – search, email, etc.? 7. Have they indicated any specific preferences during sign-up or post-purchase? 189 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


4.30 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records (All Respondents)

Collect and use

Collect, but do not use

Name

77%

Lead source (where the lead came from)

53%

Behavior (purchased product, downloaded a white paper, viewed specific content, etc.)

50%

Age of record (specific content to recent subscribers)

32%

Demographic data (age, gender, etc.)

22%

0%

20%

18%

24%

20%

24%

17%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Before segmentation can begin you need information. Based on the data above, it appears that the average email program has a long way to go. It‘s important to note that most of the information above doesn‘t require building a longer form and annoying your subscribers. Lead source (search, email, website, direct mail landing page, etc.), behavior and the age of record are all valuable and require nothing of the subscriber.



4.31 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – B-to-C Collect and use this information


Do not collect this information

Name

72%

Behavior

41%

Lead source

40%

Age of record

22%

20%

29%

29%

32% 0%

37%

31%

34%

Demographic data

22% 6%

37%

27% 40%

41%

60%

80%

100%


4.32 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – Targeting SMBs Collect and use this information



Name

79%

Lead source

61%

Behavior

53%

Age of record

28%

Demographic data

15% 0%

19%

18%

20%

30%

19%

52%

9% 20%

17% 4%

77% 40%

60%

80%

100%




4.33 Chart: Information Collected for Email Records – Targeting Large Businesses Collect and use this information



Name

82%

Lead source

67%

Behavior

64%

Age of record

30%

Demographic data

19%

19%

22%

20%

15%

18%

47%

14% 10%

0%

13% 5%

76%

40%

60%

80%

100%




4.34 Chart: Segmentation Strategies by Target Customer

49%


66% 62% 30%


66% 67% 21%


46% 48% 19%


37% 31%

1 PT/FT

15% None of the above

2-5 FT

7% 5+ FT

7% 0%

15%

30%

45%

60%

75%


Larger email marketing groups are clearly better able to justify and handle the time and expense of segmentation. Interestingly, there‘s no real difference once the headcount goes over the 2-5 range. In fact, the middle range seems more likely to be testing and tweaking. Of these, the most easily accomplished (and one of the most powerful) is the simple preference center. A few questions about content can be very illuminating and help you successfully tailor to each segment. For example, a clothing retailer might show photos from a few distinct clothing lines and ask subscribers to choose their favorite, helping define their personal tastes. Or, a business newsletter registration page might ask whether potential subscribers are interested in technical or business-related content in a niche.



4.35 Chart: Segmentation Strategies Used by Size of Email Budget

51%


64% 75%


42% 62%

69% 30%


37% 40%


17% 29% 40%

Small Budget 12% None of the above

Medium Budget

2%

Large Budget

2% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Budget size certainly helps organizations act on email optimization, but we‘ve included this chart to inspire small budget marketers. There are those with small budget who can be found using all of the tactics above; they‘re the minority who are raising the bar, and their numbers should grow because, simply, segmentation works.



Analysts and email marketing experts have long been touting the positive impact of segmentation. In the next two pages, we look at the tangible difference in performance of email based on the degree of segmentation. We‘ve also broken out the results by the length of time recipients have been on the given email lists. This allows us to see that the effects of segmentation are consistent over time. It should be noted that, while we believe segmentation to be the primary factor in the difference between the two campaign groups, there are other contributors that are impossible to tease out. For example, companies that practice high segmentation might also have better list hygiene or superior design standards. The segmented campaigns have at least a 30% edge on undifferentiated mailing, and that difference can be significantly greater, especially early in the relationship. 4.36 Chart: Impact of Segmentation on Open Rates — Average

45% High segmenation segmentation

Low segmentation

39.8% 34.7%

30%

31.2%

20.8%

20.8%

15%

19.2%

0% 0 to 30 days

60 to 90 days

270 to 360 days

Recipient time on email list Source: MarketingSherpa and EmailLabs, November 2007 Methodology: Analysis of Open/Click data from 000s of aggregated campaigns.



4.37 Chart: Impact of Segmentation on Click Rates: Average

25%

segmentation High segmenation 20%

15%

Low segmentation

20.1% 16.4%

11.9%

10% 8.2% 5%

4.7%

4.8%

0% 0 to 30 days

60 to 90 days

270 to 360 days

Source: MarketingSherpa and EmailLabs, November 2007 Methodology: Analysis of Open/Click data from 000s of aggregated campaigns.



Special Section: The 12-Point Plan to Increase Email Performance In a sprawling 325-plus page Benchmark Guide, it‘s easy to miss some useful tidbits. In this section, we‘re going to bring some of the key best practices together in one place. Some have been written about before, some can be found in other places in the Guide, and some appear here for the first time. #1. RAISING OPT-INS: OFFER BENEFITS TO ENCOURAGE CONSUMER SUBSCRIPTIONS



43%


23%

32%

29%


27%

30%


25%

32%


22%

0%

28%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Across the board, at least 50% of the sample would be at least somewhat more likely to subscribe if offered any of the benefits listed. The highest response is for email privacy, but special pricing and customization capabilities also rate very well. It all goes to a central point that people want more from email programs than they‘ve been given. They want special treatment, and they deserve it; they‘re giving you their precious time in exchange for the benefit of your content, so that content should convey some real benefits.



#2. RAISING OPT-INS: START WITH A FIELD

Repeated tests have shown that starting the opt-in process with a field is more compelling than a link alone. In the test above, for example, opt-ins rose by 31% after the form field on the right was added. Giving people a field asks them to do something, and that clearly has a profound effect. Another advantage is that this captures the essential piece of information on the first page – the email address – while still giving the marketer the opportunity to ask for more information. If someone abandons after clickthrough, their email is already a true opt-in. #3. RAISING OPT-INS: OPTIMIZE FORMS

Form fields are an essential part of the marketing process. Without the form, there wouldn‘t be any registrations, any purchases or any impact of email. Yet they are often relegated to Web designers or technologists without the oversight and attention of marketing. Tip #1: Minimize fields to increase volume; add fields to increase lead quality. Every form sits somewhere on the continuum between asking for an email address at one end and a host of personal information at the other. Forms that ask for the minimum of info tend to enjoy higher opt-in rates, but they don‘t do much to categorize or rank the leads they produce. It‘s a balance that should be of great concern for marketers, and the answer isn‘t always as simple as reducing a form to one or two fields. Some organizations benefit from having more in-depth questions, because it raises the quality of the lead. Testing can determine the optimal mix of fields to attract strong volume and high quality.



Tip #2: In general, the easier the path to conversion, the better a registration page performs. Multiple columns (example, left) can have the effect of splitting or misdirecting attention, and delaying or confusing the path of a visitor through the page. Designing pages with a single, logical progression from benefit through conversion can greatly improve performance. Sometimes in our efforts to keep everything above the fold, we cram too much information into the top of the page, and that can distract visitors. In our experience, as long as the key benefits and a chance at conversion sit above the fold to engage visitors (and allow enthusiasts to convert), people are willing to scroll if necessary.



#4. RAISING OPENS: SUBJECT LINE LENGTH

Usually, studies will say that the ‗From‘ line is the number-one determinant of someone opening your email. And it‘s true that people won‘t bother with most emails that aren‘t from a familiar or trusted source. But once you‘ve begun an email relationship, the ‗From‘ line only gets you so far. Unless you‘ve done a great job of segmenting your content, no newsletter is necessarily going to be interesting enough to open every time. There are exceptions but, by and large, the ‗From‘ line is simply going to grease the wheels; it‘s the subject line that‘s going to affect opens issue to issue. Tip #1: Keep subject lines to less than 50 characters. Space is limited and getting more crowded all the time. Studies have shown a correlation between shorter subject lines and higher open rates. Tip #2: Examine your ‗stock‘ language and decide whether it needs to be there. Many companies will have their names in the ‗From‘ line and the beginning of the subject line. That‘s a redundancy that is unnecessary and wastes key real estate. MarketingSherpa recently reduced its subject header, to good effect. Open and click rates rose after the change was implemented. New Version Old Version

#5. RAISING OPENS: INCLUDE ACTION WORDS

In a study conducted in 2007, we showed that ‗action‘ words attracted the eye and elicited opens. Action words are those terms which call on the recipient to act on an offer or event, such as a registration confirmation. Of hundreds of subject lines, the winners are shown to the right, all of them related to an action or an eye-catching, specific concept, such as ―$5 off.‖



#6. RAISING OPENS: DESIGN FOR THE RED ‗X‘

60% 2006

2008

55%

40%

43% 33% 29% 25%

20% 16%

0% Images Off

Images On

N/A


By now, most marketers know that many, if not most, of their emails are arriving with images blocked. Their beautiful emails aren‘t being seen the way they look on the designer‘s screen, but as a collection of empty boxes and text. Only one-third of our sample reported having images on by default, so this problem has gotten substantially worse since our last survey. What to do about it? For the full story, read ―Notes from the Field: Table Cells a Solution to the Dreaded Red X‖ earlier in this chapter. The bottom line is that by cleverly using ALT tags, your emails can say a great deal – even when images are blocked.



#7. RAISING OPEN & CLICKS: PERSONALIZATION AND SEGMENTATION

45% High segmenation

Low segmentation

39.8% 34.7%

30%

31.2%

20.8%

20.8%

15%

19.2%

0% 0 to 30 days

60 to 90 days

270 to 360 days

Recipient time on email list Source: MarketingSherpa and EmailLabs, November 2007 Methodology: Analysis of Open/Click data from 000s of aggregated campaigns.

The more you know about your email list members, the more segmented and effective your campaigns will be. Once marketers engage in advanced segmentation (anything beyond prospect versus customer), they often become obsessed with finding those unusual segments that pop with results. To begin, figure out what you already know. What are you (or can you) record about your visitors. Age of record? Source of email name? What they‘ve bought or downloaded? After that, you can also actively pursue information from them, through preference centers. Beyond their inclination for text versus HTML, you can learn industry segment, or shoe size.



#8. RAISING CLICKS: DESIGN TO THE PREVIEW PANE

Over 80% of business people and 53% of consumers are now using preview panes. That adds another layer of design and intention to creating effective emails. The most popular of the possible configurations for the preview is shown at the right – the ‗horizontal w/small preview‘ was chosen by about half of consumers as looking most like their home setup. Fortunately, ‗horizontal w/large preview‘ ranks second, so marketers can address the visual needs of about 76% of consumers with uniform design changes. What are they? 1. Avoid large image headers because they take up too much of your precious top/top-left real estate. 2. Make sure that there is something representing the key content of the email in the first inch or two of the email. A bullet point, headline, etc. will let the user know what‘s in store for them, and having it in the subject line may not be enough reinforcement. 3. Some companies have designed templates with text questions and links on top, suggesting whitelisting, offering a Web-based or mobile version. It‘s worth testing these tactics although, at this stage, they may be taking up more room than their benefits are worth. #9. RAISING CLICKS: MORE LINKS = MORE CLICKS

Open

Clicks

Emails with 25or more links

+12%

+29%

Emails with less than 25 links

-

-

Source: EmailLabs, 2004

This may be an old study, but it‘s been corroborated since. Emails with more links get higher open and click rate than emails with fewer links. The study made the delineation at 25 links, but that‘s more or less arbitrary. The underlying message is that more links imply more ideas and actions that are expressed in the email, which appear to appeal to more people.



#10. RAISING CLICKS: REDUCE THE NUMBER OF ACTIONS

60% CTR… 50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% One action

Two actions

Three actions

Four actions

Five actions

Source: NextStage Evolution, February 2008 Methodology: 18 month analysis of over 1,400 newsletter programs.

These findings really fit well with our own studies of what works in landing pages – clear pages that are focused on a single action. Every additional action that‘s added to a newsletter email appears to muddy the waters for readers and reduce clicks. There‘s a precipitous drop in observed click rates as each action is added to the mix.



#11. RAISING CLICKS: TRANSACTIONAL EMAIL MARKETING

% responding that email is their preferred method of delivery for each type of communication 73% 84% 93% 62% 73% 81% 49% 58% 62% 40% 47% 58% 34% 2008 Average 42% 43% Youth 34% 44% Affluent 47%

Shipping notices Receipts and transaction confirmations Customer service questions and answers Coupons for retailers (not food) Mortgage/banking notices Monthly statments from utilities 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Email is a godsend to consumers. It can eliminate clutter and effortlessly store vital information that can be retrieved remotely. To a large degree, consumers have caught on, especially those prized demographics that are highly educated, affluent or under 39 years old. That means that there‘s a steady stream of opportunities for marketers to be relevant because any transaction inherently carries information about the user, and that information should inform any marketing that is attached. 1. Take an inventory of all the emails your organization sends. You may be surprised to find that there are transactional messages that come from outside the marketing organization. Having done that, bring command and control of those emails into marketing. 2. Look for opportunities, but keep in mind that transactional emails get opened because people trust that the information in them is relevant – and that extends to marketing. If the email is a receipt for a product, market complimentary accessories. If it‘s an itinerary, include site specific messaging. Batch and blast of standard offers may not play well in a transactional context.



#12. RAISING CLICKS ON ADS IN EMAILS: CATCHING THE EYE

Almost every email newsletter carries ads. Even in a strictly house newsletter that never mentions another brand, there are generally house ads for products, services or content pieces. The problem is that readers quickly identify ad content. In the heatmaps above, we track the diminishing attention paid to the ad space over the course of only three newsletters. While 80% of readers note the ad in the first email, that drops by half in each subsequent message – hitting only 20% attention by the third mailing. The ways to fight this example of ‗banner blindness‘ are all related to changing up what people see. 1. Rotate ads as much as possible. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, apathy. Create multiple versions of house ads and rotate them regularly. This also applies to sponsorships. The same ads over and over again may subtly help brand association, but they won‘t communicate a specific message after the first few views. 2. Change the position of ads. Create several different email templates or build flexibility into one template, allowing ads to be placed in different positions. The same instinct that allows us to rapidly map where ads sit also works to look for differences on a page. 3. Change the look/feel of ads. In tests we found that switching in ads that looked like text lists instead of the graphical banners that preceded them sparked a rise in attention. Variety works.



Special Report – Email Eyetracking Year Four This round of eyetracking research was split into three separate tests. The first two were essentially confirming preliminary findings, while the third explores a new question – what ‗pops‘ in a text email (or an email that looks like text)? Test #1 – We identified an email that we felt did a good job of structuring content in case of image blocking and tested it to see whether readership would be consistent with images blocked. The question then is whether a properly designed email can outsmart image blocking? Test #2 – If you‘re sending product heavy emails, what‘s the right combination of text to images and is there a best practice on the number of products in an email? Test #3 – We examined five versions of an email with the same copy, each one representing a different design treatment that was either predominantly or completely text-based. What are the TEST METHODOLOGY

Heatmaps in the study were produced by Eyetools as the result of two test series. Series 1 (N=25 per heatmap) viewed the emails in Tests #1 and #2. Series #2 (N=20 per heatmap) viewed the text email variations in Test #3. Participants ages ranged from 21 to 58. Vision for all subjects was normal or corrected to normal. Tests #1 and #2 Participants were shown a single test email and 4 distracter emails in an inbox (Outlook emulator). Emails were image mapped to appear and act like live emails (when a user moused over a link their pointer would change shape just as a live email would. Clicking on a link either took them to a product information page on Amazon.com (product emails) or a "Thank you for clicking. You have finished viewing this email prototype" message (other emails). Test #3 Distracter emails in the text email inboxes included actual opt-in communications from Forbes and Score. This kept the focus of emails in each inbox weighted towards finance. At least one other text-only email was included in the inbox. The text-only distracter was an online order confirmation.



EYETRACKING

To conduct these tests, we worked with Eyetools and their eyetracking technology, a way of looking at content ‗through the customer‘s eyes.‘ Eyetracking measures and analyzes the movements of the human eye, and is used in everything from medical research to advertising. Eyetracking measures the two most basic aspects of how our eyes move — when they are fixed on something (called ‗fixations‘) and when they are moving to another position (called ‗saccades‘). Together, a series of fixations and saccades form what is called a scanpath, which can show not only what people look at, but how intently they look at it. Most of the eyetracking information comes from the direct line of what people are looking at — their peripheral vision is not considered informative.

During most of its history, eyetracking has depended on cumbersome, mounted camera systems to record eye movement (above, left). In recent years, however, the technology has improved to the point where unobtrusive sensors are mounted on the computer, providing the same degree of accuracy without the headgear (above, right). HEATMAPS EXPLAINED

The data imaging produced by eyetracking tests are called ―heatmaps.‖ They summarize the viewing and clicking behavior of multiple people on a single page. The heatmap images use color to represent the percentages of the group who view particular portions of the page. They also depict markings directly on the image that represent the actions that members of the group demonstrate, such as clicking and scrolling. Colors Various colors represent the different percentages of the group that looked at a given region of the page. For example, an area that is deep red was viewed by 80%-100% of the group. A given spot on a page where the viewing of 10 out of 15 people overlaps would be rated as having 66% viewing and would be coded with a yellow color. 208 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Red represents 80%-100% of the group Orange represents 70%-80% of the group Yellow represents 60%-70% of the group Green represents 50%-60% of the group Light Green represents 40%-50% of the group Blue represents 30%-40% of the group Black represents 0%-30% of the group Purple Xs The purple Xs are the places that people clicked during the trial. A participant ID number appears in white font on top of the purple X so that it is easier to tell who clicked where when doing analysis. Sometimes people click multiple times in the same spot. When they do that, all those clicks appear overlaid on the heatmap. Red Lines The red lines that extend across the bottom portion of the heatmap images are the ―scroll extents‖ — the place furthest down the page that a person scrolled. There is a white flag along the left side of the line that indicates the participant ID number. For the person whose ID number appears in the white flag, the portion of the page below the red line never even appeared on the screen and could not be viewed. Dotted Lines The yellow dotted line indicates the fold line. The portion of the page above the yellow dotted line is what is served into the browser window when it first loaded and what was visible without scrolling. Background Image The image that appears under the color mapping is the background image — the email itself. In cases where all participants saw exactly the same page, the background image and the image they looked at are the same. In these cases, it is accurate to derive conclusions about specific aspects of the content on the page and how they relate to what people viewed.



Test #1: Can Good Design Outsmart Image Blocking? 4.38 Image & Heatmap – TripAdvisor Email with Blocked Images

Source: MarketingSherpa and Eyetools, September 2008 Methodology: See Test Methodologies at the beginning of this section.



4.39 Image & Heatmap – TripAdvisor Email with Images Enabled




4.40 Images & Heatmaps – Comparison of Image Emails


On the previous two pages you can get a better look at the nuances of the heatmap images above, but the central point is clear – by properly formatting an HTML email marketers can achieve readership that is roughly equivalent to the unblocked version. In fact, we sometimes find that image use actually confounds the primary content. Although readers spent approximately 40% more time with the image rich image on the left, little of that extra time was spent on primary content; rather it went to the image based header. Readership of the blocked version was actually better in some respects, with that version getting a more complete scan of the intro paragraph and content. Why does it work? Because the table formatting and Alt tags ensure that the basic messages of the email are easily read, and fall in roughly the same relationship to each other that they do in the version with images enabled. The similarity of the scan path shows clearly that the difference is not that keen to the viewer.



Takeaways: 1. Following best practices in table formatting pays off with nearly similar attention patterns. 2. Some images that cross an entire column, as above, may actually decrease attention to content below as they act as a ‗wall‘ to further attention. 3. There is an overall benefit to images as there appears to be a correlation between time spent and having images in place. However the nature and placement of these images is paramount.Test #2: Optimizing Intro Paragraphs for Ecommerce Mailing

Test #2: Optimizing Intro Paragraphs for Ecommerce Mailin 4.41 Image & Heatmap – Catalog Style Email w/Intro Paragraph




This very common ecommerce template can teach us a great deal about how the eye and mind work together in responding to typical marketing and design techniques. 1. Starting at the top, the centered headline drags attention to the middle of the page, focusing it on the middle two columns of products. Generally, you want attention to work from left to right, with key content in the left column with supporting benefits to the right. 2. The headline is so generic that it doesn‘t ‗move the ball‘ by enhancing attention to the rest of the email – it just takes up space. Headlines that feature a specific benefit (10% off for the next 48 hours for example) will both anchor attention and increase viewing of the rest of the content. 3. The introductory paragraph of fluffy, set-up text is a vestigial organ of catalog writing. Unless it‘s packed with tangible information, virtually no one will read it. It just moves the more compelling content down the page. 4.42 Image & Heatmap – Product Email with Intro Paragraph




4.43 Image & Heatmap – Postcard Style w/o Intro


Short, postcard style product mailings have the advantage of asking less of viewers, so their attention is heavier. The downside is that there are fewer products to catch their fancy. The ideal scenario is to match products to recipients with segmentation based on past purchases, preferences, etc. What‘s interesting about these examples is that the bottom version appears to be too stark, and somehow doesn‘t involve the viewer as well as the top version. Even though there is very little attention paid to the paragraph of text, it seems to set a context for the mailing and add some ‗weight‘ to the email. Overall, we see a ‗sweet spot‘ in example 4.42, where the weight of the content is just enough, but not so much as to diffract the viewers‘ attention.



Test #3: Text and ‗Text-like‘ Email Design Comparisons 4.44 Image: Version One – Long, Dense Text


Analysis follows at the end of this section.



4.45 Heatmap: Version One – Long, Dense Text





4.46 Image: Version Two – Long Text, Short Paragraphs





4.47 Heatmap: Version Two – Long Text, Short Paragraphs





4.48 Image: Version Three – Bulleted Text





4.49 Heatmap: Version Three – Bulleted Text





4.50 Image: Version Four – Bulleted Text w/Emphasis





4.51 Heatmap: Version Four – Bulleted Text w/Emphasis





4.52 Image: Version Five – Long Text w/Personalized Photograph





4.53 Heatmap: Version Five – Long Paragraph w/Personalized Photograph





Text Email Findings

one

two

three

The first thing to note about the emails on the left is that every one of them has the same content, or more specifically, the same words. The changes in how each is read owe entirely to design elements. That‘s not to imply that copy doesn‘t count – it matters a great deal, but isn‘t the subject of these tests. When it comes to copy, the rules are simple; keep it concise and packed with specific, relevant information. All of the text messages tested this round were very copy heavy. They were letters which did not contain multiple stories or headers. This is a very common choice in business-to-business marketing, as well as some consumer verticals, especially finance and health care. This style of email carries a certain gravity, like a formal letter, but they‘re not necessarily a natural fit for email, so we‘ve looked for ways to make them more compelling and easier to read. The text-based email has been around since the beginning, and has some adherents. For certain topics and certain demographics it can be very useful. Technologists have a reputation for preferring text emails, for example. They are also good for cutting through the clutter because it‘s unusual to receive a text email from a mailer who usually sends brightly colored postcards. The primary advantage is delivery. Some mailers have had such delivery problems that they‘ve turned to text entirely. But, these are the minority. Most mailers use HTML, but many play with text-like design; clean, minimal design and usually focused on a single product or concept.

To conduct the test we started with a standard form of three heavy paragraphs that would seem appropriate for a direct mail pieces, but antiquated in email (version one). The long four paragraph version of this letter suffered most due to poor copy as well as a lack of bulleted list or other visual breaks. Users who skimmed or scanned this email did not receive much, if any, critical messaging about the specific company or services discussed. Only 1 test subject read the entire middle paragraph, which was where many of the selling points were made. Emails should cater to skimmers, keeping information as fast and easy to absorb as possible. five Breaking the text into more paragraphs (version two) wasn‘t enough2008 to positively impact reading. In fact, the version #1 had Source: MarketingSherpa and Eyetools, September Methodology: See Test Methodologies at better the beginning of this section. attention to the bottom paragraph because the block text moved people quickly down, looking for anchor points (names, numbers, proper nouns) so they ended up viewing more of the last paragraph.



Simply adding bullet points broke up the text creating a "new section" indicator at the top of the bulleted list (version three). Users started reading paragraph 1 and then the first bullet point. Note: Text links usually provide visual anchor points, and in these heatmaps we see some higher concentration of viewing at or near the text links in the last paragraph. The bold and underlining of text within the bullet points (version four) did draw visual attention and increased read through. A more effective presentation of these items would have been a short list consisting almost entirely of just the underlined text. It‘s likely that in a shorter list, the underlining would not have been necessary, which might be a positive – the underlining might not fit the brand message for a sober financial letter for example. Read through of the paragraph-only text was better when a photo was included (version five). Good read through was not maintained due to poor copy. Please note that the photo did 2 key things: (1) Decreased the width of the first paragraph, and (2) added a small bit of personalization to the communication. Key Takeaways: 1. Certain pieces of text are almost always going to be read, but they‘re also almost always fragments of text. The beginning of paragraphs, the first bullet point or two and the first words of titles and subheads tend to be read – or at least glanced at – which suggests that these spaces are prime real estate. In other kinds of writing, there‘s sometimes a runway of adjectives or setup to key content, but that‘s not the case with email design. 2. It‘s clearly possible to use text enhancements to increase reading. Bulleted, bolded, underlined and hyperlinked text all worked to spike attention. But what‘s important to note is that these same enhancements are much less predictable on a graphically heavy page. They may work (especially bullets) but when text elements become more ‗graphical‘ they start interrelating with images, colors, etc. in unpredictable ways. This isn‘t the case with a text-only or largely text email, where these elements aren‘t competing with design. 3. Breaking up text helps reading. Shorter, narrower paragraphs work better than long, wide ones. Bullets work better than paragraphs. 4. The effect of the photograph in version five is fascinating. The same dense paragraph structure from version one is dressed up with a seemingly personal photograph and it has great positive effect. The photo alone is enough to increase the perceived relevance and validity of the email. For companies capable of associating specific sales or account people with emails, this is an important lesson. There‘s no question that a photograph of a specific person – as opposed to a stock photo – is what resonates with readers. 5. Finally, we don‘t want to leave anyone with the idea that layout and design are going to do more to determine whether text will be read than copy. That‘s certainly not the case. Copywriting is more important in the age of the Internet than ever before, as attention spans shrink and demands for precious content increase.





Chapter 5. Measuring Success – Email Benchmarks 5.01 Chart: How Marketers View Email Marketing Measurement

Measuring and Proving the Total Impact of Email Marketing 60% Avanced Email Marketers

40%

Rest of Sample

44%

32% 26% 20% 20%

0% Improving

Getting worse


Accurately measuring the impact of email goes beyond opens and clicks. It means being able to associate email programs with growing lists, qualified leads, impact on other media and, most importantly, sales. Most emailers don‘t go far enough, but the situation is slowly improving. The most positive view comes from those who are practicing ‗advanced‘ email – segmenting, personalizing and testing. They are twice as likely to feel that their ability to track and prove email impact is improving rather than getting worse. For the rest of the sample, responses are more evenly divided. Like any marketing program, proof of email‘s contributions becomes a self-sustaining process. Email works…proof is shown to management…budgets are increased…the program gets more staff and better technology…email works even better.



5.02 Chart: Email Metric Measurement (2007 vs. 2008)

86% 88%

Open rate (% of emails sent that are opened)

85% 86%

Delivery vs. bounce rate (% of emails sent that make it to an…

75% 78%

# of clicks per email

66% 68%

# of clicks on each link 54% 53%

Conversion rate among clickers 35% 31%

Response variations by list segment (buyers vs.…

24% 22%

Clickstream data of those who click from emails Response variations by major ISP

18% 15%

2007 2008

4% 5%

None - we do not track 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


The metrics that marketers are recording around email marketing haven‘t changed significantly in the last 12 months. Perhaps they should have. Open rates and clicks are useful (although the value of opens is debatable), but the kinds of information that can really inform decision making require that marketers go deeper. Conversion rates are the place to start, even in B-to-B where it may seem like a daunting task. Working in reverse, you can determine whether buyers were email subscribers, for how long, and what they read, hopefully making a compelling case for the role of email in the purchase process.



Open Rates Open rate is the ‗standard‘ metric of email marketing, collected by more marketers than any other, but it faces three challenges to accuracy. 1. Preview panes – if HTML images are enabled, whenever a recipient tabs past an email and it appears in the preview pane, however briefly, an open is recorded. That increases the open rate without necessarily correlating to a real interaction with the message. 2. Blocked images – many email clients block HTML images by default, including new version of Hotmail (Windows LiveMail) Yahoo! email beta, AOL, and Outlook 2003. As a result, the tiny piece of HTML code which allow open rates to be recorded do not get activated. This has had a serious deleterious affect on open rates over the last several years, including a 20% drop between our 2004 and 2005 research. 3. Deliverability – many organizations calculate open rates based on delivered emails. Many emails which are filtered by various means will be reported as delivered, even though their ‗recipients‘ are not likely to have ever seen them. In addition to these issues, there‘s another. There‘s no industry-wide method of calculating open rates. As we see in the chart on the next page, organizations are split on the formula for calculating opens. As a result, no one industry benchmark applies to all mailers. Throughout the benchmark section of the Guide, we‘ve tried to take that into account.



5.03 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Open Rates

The percentage of emails delivered that are opened

75%

The percentage of total emails sent that are opened

23%

Unique opens/total emails sent

1%

I look at the percentages of both the 1st and 2nd options

1%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Many analysts and email experts have tried to move the industry away from open rates as a success measure, and towards using them as simply a benchmark to gauge the success of subject lines. The assumption is that while the open rate may be inaccurate, it‘s still valuable as a week to week, or month to month gauge of the interest level in a given email. Last year we saw the number of marketers regularly tracking email open rates drop for the first time, suggesting that more marketers are looking for better alternatives. 5.04 Table: Comparison of Open Rate Calculations

Mailed Delivered

Opened

Resulting Calculations Rate

Method 1: Unique opens/emails delivered

100

90

15

15/90

16.7%

Method 2: Unique opens/total emails sent

100

90

15

15/100

15.0%

The table above shows how the two primary methods of calculating open rate differ.



5.05 Chart: Newsletter Open Rates – All Respondents

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30% 2007 25%

2008

26% 24%

20% 20%

20%

15%

10% 5% 0% Average



After dropping over the last several years, many categories of open rates appear to have stabilized. 5.06 Chart: Sales Blast Open Rates – All Respondents

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30% 2007

2008

25% 20%

23% 21%

20%

20%

15% 10% 5% 0%

Average





5.07 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-B Sales Blast

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30%

2007

2008

25% 25% 23%

20% 20%

20%

15% 10% 5% 0% Average



5.08 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-B Newsletters

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30% 2007

2008

27%

25%

25% 20%

23% 20%

15% 10% 5% 0% Average





5.09 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-C Sales Blast

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30% 2007 25%

2008

27% 25%

25%

20% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Average



5.10 Chart: Open Rates for B-to-C Newsletters

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails 30% 25%

2007 26%

2008

25% 23%

20%

20% 15%

10% 5% 0% Average





5.11 Chart: Open Rates by Industry Sector

Open rate = unique opens/total delivered emails Average

19%

Computer Software/ Hardware

Open Rates

12%

Construction

16%

CPG

17%

Education

9%

Financial Svcs.

26%

Government

35%

Manufacturing

21%

Professional Services

25%

Publishing/Media

14%

Retail

24%

Travel

13%

Average

19% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


There‘s a strong correlation between open rates and industry niche. That‘s due to a number of variables, such as list size and typical frequency, but relevance and self-interest are the dominant factors.



Clickthrough Rates 5.12 Chart: How Marketers Calculate Clickthrough Rates

The percentage of emails opened that gets clicked

43%

The percentage of emails delivered that gets clicked

39%

The percentage of total emails sent that gets clicked

Other

14%

4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


5.13 Table: Comparison of Open Rate Calculation Methods

Calculations

Clickthrough rate

Mailed

Delivered

Opened

Clicked

Method 1: Unique clicks/ unique opens

100

90

15

3

3/15

20%

Method 2: Unique clicks/delivered emails

100

90

15

3

3/90

3.3%

Method 3: Unique clicks/ total emails sent

100

90

15

3

3/100

3.0%



5.14 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Newsletters

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens

30% 25% 20% 20% 15%

2006

29% 27% 26%

2007

2008

24% 23% 21%

16% 14%

14% 12% 11%

10%

14% 13% 12% 10% 8%

5%

6%

0% Less than 2%

2.1%-5%

5.1%-10% 10.1%-15% 15.1%-20%

Over 20%


5.15 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Sales Blasts

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 30% 29% 27% 25% 20%

2006 28%28% 26%

23%

2007

2008

26% 22% 21%

15% 10% 10% 8%

5%

9% 6%

7%

8% 8%

9%

5%

0% Less than 2%

2.1%-5%

5.1%-10% 10.1%-15% 15.1%-20%

Over 20%




5.16 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Sales Blasts to Third-Party Lists

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 5%

4%

4.1%

4.3% 3.9%

3%

2%

1%

0% 2006

2007

2008


5.17 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-B Ads in Third-Party Newsletters

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 6% 5% 4.8%

4.7%

4% 3%

3.1%

2% 1% 0% 2006

2007

2008




5.18 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Newsletters

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 35% 30% 25%

2007

2008

26% 22% 21%

20% 15%

2006

34% 32% 31%

18% 16% 15%

10%

13% 11%

11% 10% 8%

5%

9% 9%

8% 6%

0% Less than 2%

2.1%-5%

5.1%-10% 10.1%-15% 15.1%-20%

Over 20%


5.19 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Sales Blasts

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 35% 30%

2006

2007

2008

31%

25% 25% 20% 23%

27%27% 24%

15%

16%15%17% 12%13%

10%

8%

5%

10% 9% 10%

12%11% 10%

0% Less than 2%

2.1%-5%

5.1%-10% 10.1%-15% 15.1%-20%

Over 20%




5.20 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Mailings to Third-Party Lists

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 5%

4% B-to-C Sales Blasts to Third Party Lists 3% 2%

2.3%

2.5%

2.3%

1% 0% 2006

2007

2008


5.21 Chart: Click Rates for B-to-C Ads in Third-Party Newsletters

Click rate = unique clicks/unique opens 4% B-to-C Ads in Third Party Newsletters 3% 2.5%

2.7% 2.4%

2%

1%

0% 2006

2007

2008




Conversion Rates in B-to-B 5.22 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-B Newsletters

30% 2006 27%

25% 25%

23%

27%

25%

2007

2008

27% 25%

24% 22%

20%

15%

10% 9% 7%

5%

6%

8% 6% 6%

9% 7%

8% 6%

4%

3%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher




5.23 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-B Newsletters

30% 2006 25%

27%27% 26% 25% 25% 24%

20%

2007

2008

28% 23%

20% 15% 14% 10% 10%

11% 9%

8%

5% 5%

2% 4% 3%

5% 1% 3%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher


5.24 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-B Sales Blasts

40% 2006

30%

2007

2008

31% 26%

20%

21%

25% 26% 22%

17%17% 15% 10%

11% 11%10% 9% 9% 8%

11% 9% 8% 6% 5%

3%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher




5.25 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-B Sales Blasts

30% 2006

2007

2008

25%

26% 26% 25% 24% 24%24% 23% 23% 20% 21% 15%

16% 13%13%

10% 8% 8% 8% 5% 2%

4% 4%

3% 2% 2%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher




Conversion Rates in B-to-C 5.26 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-C Newsletters

30% 25%

2006

2007

2008

28%

27% 25%

26% 24%

20% 22% 20%

21% 20%

15% 10%

11% 10% 9% 8% 8% 7% 7% 7%

5%

8% 6% 4%

2%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher


5.27 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-C Newsletters

35% 2006

2007

2008

33%

30% 25%

25%

27% 25% 24%

20% 20% 17%

15% 10%

14%

13% 10%10%

13% 10%

13%

10%

9%

9% 7%

5%

6% 4% 1%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher




5.28 Chart: Conversion Rates of Free Offers in B-to-C Sales Blasts

35% 2006

30%

2007

2008

31% 27%

25%

24% 20%

27% 26% 23%

21% 19% 15% 17%

17% 13% 11%

10%

9% 7%

5%

6%

6%

4% 3% 4%

3% 1%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher


5.29 Chart: Conversion Rates of Sales Offers in B-to-C Sales Blasts

40% 2006

2007

2008

30%

32% 29% 26% 26%25% 23% 20% 20% 17% 15%16%14% 14% 10% 12% 7%

5%

7%

4% 5% 0% 2% 1%

0% Less than 1%

1%-1.9%

2%-3.9%

4%-5.9%

6%-10.9% 11%-20.9%

21% or higher




Chapter 6. Special Topics in Email – International Email, Mobile and Video Special Report: International Email Marketing As email lists continue to grow with subscribers located beyond domestic borders, marketers are being forced to think more strategically about how they send email on an international scale. This special report was prepared as a guide through some of the complex cultural, legal and localization issues of international email marketing. 6.01 Chart: Is International Email Marketing a Priority?

35%

Not on the radar at present

14% 37%

On the radar, but no plan around this

36% 19%

It's a priority with a plan, but not urgent

17%

SMBs (<500 Employees) Large Org. (500+ Employees)

9% High priority

33% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Source: MarketingSherpa, Search Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 2, 2008, N=1,522

For 50% of North American organizations with more than 500 employees, international email marketing is a priority. An additional 36% of these large businesses have it on their radar but have yet to formalize a strategy for optimizing their international email marketing efforts. For small and mid-size businesses with fewer than 500 employees, international email is much less of a concern with only 28% giving it priority status and 35% not even having it on their radar. This difference reflects the fact that, the larger the organization, the more likely it is to have the resources and capabilities to serve international markets. 247 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


6.02 Chart: Percent of Email List Located Outside of North America

Don't Track

48.8%

Less than 1%

17.5%

1% - 10%

16.3%

11% - 20%

7.3%

21% - 40%

6.0%

Over 40%

4.1% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%


The reason international email marketing has risen to priority status for so many organizations is the increasing number of foreign subscribers populating their database (or their increasing knowledge of those subscribers.) Nearly half of North American marketers don‘t track the number of foreign subscribers contained in their email marketing database, a majority of 51% do. At what point does your database reach a critical mass of foreign subscribers, forcing you to prioritize the issues impacting international email marketing success? For 1 in 10 email marketers, overseas subscribes already account for more than 20% of their database.



6.03 Chart: Tracks Percent of Email List Located Outside North America

38%

Less than 1%

35% 25%

1% - 5%

18% 12% 10%

6% - 10%

7%

11% - 15%

11%

16% - 20%

7% 5%

21% - 30%

7% 5% 5%

31% - 40% Over 40%

20% 3%

Large Org. (500+ Employees)

15% 0%

10%

SMBs (<500 Employees)

20%

30%

40%

50%


No surprise! Large organizations have a much higher percentage of foreign subscribers in their email marketing databases than their smaller counterparts. Half of the large organizations who keep tabs on the percent of their email list located outside of North America, 15% are foreign. An impressive 35% of these large organizations have email lists with more than 30% of the addresses located outside North America. While not as populated with foreign addresses as large organization databases, 29% of small and mid-size businesses have email lists with more than 10% of the recipients located outside North America.



6.04 Chart: Tactics Used to Grow Email Lists in US/Canada and UK/Europe

66% 58% 56% 55% 51% 55% 50%

Offline advertising/direct marketing

Tradeshows Online marketing/search Viral marketing

40% 44% 47% 42%

Cross promotions Call centre In-store/point of sale/purchase process Co-marketing Non-branded list rental List appends Co-registration

22% 27% 31% 25% 29% 23% 24% 17% 9% 17% 24% 0%

20%

US/Canada UK/Europe 40%

60%

80%

Source: silverPOP, 2006 Email List Growth Survey Methodology: N=321 (65% US), respondents evenly distributed across B-to-B and B-to-C.

Many marketers have transitioned from a state of passive international email list growth to actively building lists of foreign subscribers. As the chart above demonstrates, there are some differences in the list growth tactics used by marketers in North America and Europe. The tactics used most often to grow email lists in the United States and Canada are the same in the United Kingdom and Europe. Offline advertising/direct marketing ranks number one in both regions followed trade shows and online marketing/search. While list appends was the least often used tactic in all regions, Co-registration was the second least used tactic in the US/Canada and call center was the second least often used tactic in the UK/Europe.



6.05 Chart: Email List Growth Tactics Rated Very Successful in US/Canada and UK/Europe

16% 13% 16%

Tradeshows Offline advertising/direct marketing

9% 15%

Online marketing/search Call centre

20% 13% 4%

10%

Cross promotions

6% 9% 11% 9% 11%

Viral marketing In-store/point of sale/purchase process Co-marketing List appends Co-registration Non-branded list rental

6% 4% 4% 4% 4%

9%

US/Canada

3% 2% 0%

UK/Europe 10%

20%

30%

Source: silverPOP, 2006 Email List Growth Survey Methodology: N=321 (65% US), respondents evenly distributed across B-to-B and B-to-C.

Marketers in the United States and Canada consider tradeshows, offline advertising/direct marketing and online marketing/search equally successful tactics for growing email lists, marketers in the United Kingdom and Europe consider Online marketing/search most successful. Co-registration breaks rank from the group of mutually unsuccessful tactics for both regions due in large part to the success of co-registration vendor networks throughout Europe. Call center is a far more successful tactic in the US/Canada than in the UK/Europe.



Marketers Share Insights on Email Issues and Opportunities Marketers from all over the world were asked to share their insights into the issues and opportunities of email marketing in their regions. AFRICA

South Africa Email marketing is still fairly young in SA. Our biggest problem is that Internet usage in SA is low - around 1.4 million people accessing the internet daily in a country with a population of 46 million - adult population approx. 22 million. Broadband is still a relatively new concept as well due to its pricing and availability in many areas where optical lines have not been laid. Accessing the internet through wireless technology is growing very slowly but it is advanced in language and understanding and is also fairly expensive. We have 11 official languages in SA. English is the prominent language used in business. Culture plays a large part here especially in language and this has to be taken into consideration when creating advertising. Apart from purchasing behaviors, race, language, age, geographic and income are important segmentation tactics for success with many products and services. ASIA

Southeast Asia Sophisticated and advanced in many ways (especially mobile use) but incredibly backward in many others (terrible data collation and selection/ cleaning of database). The main issue 'out here' is that many short term tactics (lucky draws!) are very well received and oversubscribed, so actually too much data is a constant issue in as much as each response is so good it's expensive and difficult to resource and segment so why not just keep growing the list as opposed to cleaning and updating it! EUROPE

Austria Deliverability: big problem. Language: no problem. Technology: needs a lot of improvement. Cultural complexity: none. Mobile marketing: quite developed. Belgium, Luxemburg and Netherlands For only 10 million Belgians, we have 3 official languages (French, Dutch & German). Because we are a technology distributor (mainly Citrix) we tackle this problem by sending our communications in English. In IT most of the white papers and other info is in English. Europe I am overseeing online marketing activities across Europe. What strikes me as an important obstacle that is often overlooked is not so much the attitude of customers and prospects towards e-marketing but also the 'in-house' attitude of sales and business managers towards



e-marketing. In my case, it varies enormously from country to country. In some countries it feels like I'm 'evangelizing'. France Connection speed in France is great. This enables us to embed videos without worrying about download issues. Germany Extremely low tolerance to anything that has not been "requested". Don't even think about spamming, sharing lists, co-registration if not totally open. Language is key in Europe. Action buttons may remain in English, but Subject lines need to be clearly understood. Ireland Time of sending for business customers is absolutely key in Ireland. Mails sent outside business hours have a much lower success rate. Italy Very slow increase in confidence of email marketing. Obsolete marketing techniques. Russia Spam is a MAJOR issue for both recipients and senders. Spain It's not so overwhelmed by email marketing. I think the open rates are higher due to this, but there is much less online purchasing culture, so it's easier to communicate and deliver the message but more difficult to convert to an online purchase than in USA for example. UK and Ireland The language that we can use in the UK is far more aggressive than we can use in Ireland. UK Most of the corporations have restricted the use of online access or internet access at work because there is a greater percentage of untimely clicks.



Explaining to recipients how to improve deliverability - they want to get the mailing but don't understand how as individuals they can make it arrive in their inbox. Similarly, they find it hard to make a case to their IT department to white list mailings. As the UK subsidiary of a US company, email marketing and the availability of email lists are more common in the states, and legal restrictions are less severe than in the UK. Difficult to say at the moment, our first tracked email campaigns went out this week. So much of the insight is in getting the house list cleaned up and working properly, as well as sorting out the website and developing landing pages which will convert. Mainland Europe seems to be more interested in value-added content than offers, compared to UK. Email continues to be the most effective direct channel for ongoing marketing communications to consumers. Scandinavia The general knowledge about deliverability in Scandinavia is extremely limited. Even the system and software providers can't handle fx throttling at a satisfying level.

OCEANIA/PACIFIC

Australia It comes down to relevance and timing. In Australia, we've found that Tuesdays at 10am are the best time to send B2B email promotions. Aussie B2B prospects run a mile from the hard sell that Americans seem to find compelling. Small population means greater competition for consumer attention but many of our consumers are still catching up on the benefits of online purchasing, and even the major internal stakeholders need some convincing of spend! Despite this, we are culturally able to lead in these areas for the same reasons but work more at the moment with the more cost effective aspects of online marketing - such as direct email marketing and staying abreast of website usability/optimisation. Australian anti spam law is rather complicated and forces different processes than in other areas such as Europe and USA Australia / New Zealand Open rates very unreliable, don't know effectiveness of our delivery because of corporate firewalls and spam filters. I'm still getting better responses with Direct Mail than email, but that may well be because I haven't figured out the right tweaks yet.



New Zealand We are way behind on best practices. Most companies do not even understand why they need to employ best practices. As the companies grow and increase their email marketing budgets, the often get into trouble. Philippines My university is a not-for-profit institution. The lack of knowledge in how we can implement e-mail marketing in a nonprofit setting is, I think, what prevents us from making the leap towards a more widespread implementation of e-mail marketing.

SOUTH/CENTRAL AMERICA

Latin America Language issues need to be taken into account as many countries across Latin America have different industry-specific terms and business processes. Peru Deliverability and potential Internet users are increasing, and there are still good niche. Uruguay In our country, there are still many chances to use technology on marketing, because you can surprise and be original. You can still be the first to do it. But is impossible to reach all targets. Not everybody is connected. Source: MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008 Methodology: Fielded August 13 - September 2, 2008, N=1,522



Overview of Regulations Effecting International Email Marketing ―Europe very much has a consent-based approach to email marketing and, coupled with the cultural expectations; it is fair to say that Europe is an opt-in consent regime. Asia, on the other hand, sets the legal expectation at an opt-in level, but questions abound as to how serious the governments are about enforcing this standard. Australia more closely resembles Europe in its consent-based standard, but its law is written in such as a way as to create obvious loop holes.‖ Quinn Jalli, Chief Privacy Officer, Datran Media Quite simply, the rule of thumb for email marketers is to err on the side of caution when it comes to privacy and use of personal information. Before dispatching permission-based email campaigns to foreign countries, become familiar with local laws and industry regulations. In many of these countries, laws are vague and often difficult to comply with, yet may be enforced by civil or criminal penalties. MarketingSherpa and third-party sources of the following information are not responsible for its accuracy and highly recommend seeking the advice of an attorney before proceeding with campaigns related to these regulations.



6.06 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Canada Specific Laws

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act 2000/2006 Canada currently has neither federal nor provincial legislation dealing specifically with the regulation of spam. However, in circumstances where spam was fraudulent or of an illegal nature, civil suits have been brought against spammers or, in some cases, criminal charges enforced.

Data Protection

Personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law. The knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information.

Acceptance of the recipient

At the time email addresses are collected, marketers are required to identify, either through a dialogue box or prominent notice backed up by a more detailed privacy policy, why an email address is being collected and the intended purposes for which the email address may be used.

Email imprint

The identification of the marketer and source of the email must be clearly and obviously specified. The opt-out opportunity must not be buried in the email message, and must be website and/or email enabled.

Source: MarketingSherpa and Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act 2000/2006



6.07 Table: European Union Data Protection Directive Specific Laws

Every EU Member State passes its own regulations to implement the EU Data Protection Directive.

Overview

Validated in all countries of the European Union. Permission to send emails for direct marketing purposes only after acceptance of the recipient. Validated for the completely automated, partially automated or non-automated handling of individual-related data.

Source: MarketingSherpa and rabbit eMarketing

6.08 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Austria Specific Laws E-Commerce Securities Law (WAG) Acceptance of the recipient

Is required (if you receive the address in conjunction with a business connection, you are allowed to advertise related products or services). Email to be recognizable as commercial communication. Recipient can reject the sending of mails by registering on a list of the RTR GmbH for free.

Right of objection

You have to point out to your user before he accepts your use of his data that he has the right to cancel his acceptance anytime in the future.

Email imprint

Your imprint needs to name the natural or legal person which commissioned the commercial communication.




6.09 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Belgium Specific Laws

Loi du 11 Mars 2003 (the first spam-specific law to be enacted in the European Union)


The use of electronic mail for advertising without the prior specific and informed consent of the recipient is forbidden. The sender must prove that advertising by electronic mail was solicited.

Right of objection

When advertising by email, the sender has to ensure that he supplies clear and comprehensible information concerning the right to refuse such advertising in the future. The sender has to indicate an appropriate method to exercise the right to refuse efficiently by electronic means.

Email imprint

It is forbidden to use the electronic address or identity of a third party or to falsify or disguise information which makes it possible to identify the origin of the message or its routing.


6.10 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Denmark Specific Laws

Danish marketing practices act (Markedsfoeringsloven)

Right of objection

Consumers have to be informed about the possibility to object to any form of electronic advertising material, free of charge and in an easy manner, both when giving his contact details to the trader and in the event of subsequent communications.


Prior consent of the recipient is required. Consumers can register on a list of the Civil Registration System (CPR), which companies have to accept, to object against emailadvertising. If the consumer has, in connection with a purchase on the internet, forwarded his or her email-address to a company, the company is allowed to mail or spam the consumer‘s emailaddress for similar services.

Email imprint

An advertisement has to be framed to be clearly understood to be an advertisement irrespective of its form.




6.11 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Finland Specific Laws

Act on Data Protection in Electronic Communications (516/2004) Consumer Protection Act (38/1978)


Finnish law forbids sending unsolicited commercial advertisements to persons and to newsgroups.


6.12 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in France Specific Laws

Law of June 21, 2004 for confidence in the digital economy, Stop spam

Data Protection

Databases of legally collected details (i.e., those obtained directly from the addressee at some point in the past) may be used to send promotional materials.


Sending advertising by email to persons who have not registered their prior consent is prohibited.

Right of objection

In all cases, a clear option to cease all further correspondence must be provided.




6.13 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Germany Specific Laws

Teles Media Services State Treaty (MDStV) Data Protection

You aren‘t allowed to request more information of the user than needed for the intended purpose. You have to inform the user at the beginning about the character, amount and intention of investigation, handling and use of his individual-related data.


Is required – recipient has to announce his acceptance to receive emails explicitly. If you receive the address in conjunction with a business connection, you are allowed to advertise related products or services – under special circumstances. Possibilities: Signature on a form; by telephone or electronic. The sender of the email has to prove that he has the permission.

Right of objection

You have to point out to your user before he accepts your use of his data that he has the right to cancel his acceptance anytime in the future.

Email imprint

Your imprint needs the name, address, person authorized to represent, telephone number, email-address, trade register and tax number.


6.14 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Hungary Specific Laws

Article 14, Act CVIII of 2001 on Electronic Commerce


Must have recipient‘s prior consent




6.15 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Italy Specific Laws

Data Protection Code

Data Protection

Organizations are encouraged to make use of non-personal data and whenever possible to minimize data.


Organizations are required to obtain consent before sending electronic marketing to consumers. Violations can be penalized with fines from around EUR 500 to 5,000, which could be doubled in cases of severe or repeated offenses.

Email imprint

There is a ban on sending e-marketing from anonymous addresses. The sender has to reveal its identity.


6.16 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Netherlands Specific Laws

The Netherlands have no laws concerning email marketing.




6.17 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Norway Specific Laws

Marketing Control Act, Section 2b Norwegian Personal Data Act

Data Protection

Any person who receives direct advertising shall be informed as to who provided the personal data. The company has to notify the Data Inspectorate before processing personal data by automatic means or establishing a manual personal data filing system which contains sensitive personal data.


Acceptance is required – email-advertising without acceptance of the recipient is forbidden and prohibited by the state.

Right of objection

Any person may demand that his name is blocked for use in direct marketing in both the central marketing exclusion register and in the marketer's register of addresses. Companies shall update their register of addresses in relation to the central marketing exclusion register prior to sending out mailings for the first time and at least four times yearly. The right to request blocking in the central marketing exclusion register does not apply to marketing of the products of controllers with whom the person has a current customer relationship.

Email imprint

Has to provide information regarding name and address, the purpose, an overview of the categories of personal data that are to be collected and the sources of the personal data.




6.18 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Poland Specific Laws

Law of 18 July 2002 on providing services through electronic means (Offici Law of 16 April 1993 on combating unfair competition (Offi Act of 16 July 2004 Telecommunications Law (Official Journal No 171, Item 1800)

Data Protection

There has to be a strict protection of customers‘ email addresses, which are treated as personal data.


Acceptance is required – sending of unsolicited commercial material by means of electronic communications is punishable by a fine. Only marketing through electronic media is permitted (includes email and SMS).


6.19 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Spain Specific Laws

Act 34/2002 of 11 July (amended in the General Telecommunications Act 32/2003 of 3 November and A . Constitutional Act 15/1999 of 13 December


It is prohibited to send advertising or promotional communications by electronic mail when not solicited or expressly authorized in advance by the recipient. If there is a prior contractual relation (if contact details of the recipient are legally obtained and used to send commercial communications referring to products or services that are similar), sending is admitted.

Right of objection

At all events, the sender must offer the recipient the opportunity to object, free of charge and in an easy manner, to the processing of his data for promotional purposes, both at the time the data are collected and on the occasion of each commercial message addressed to the recipient.




6.20 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Sweden Specific Laws

Swedish Marketing Act Swedish Personal Data Act

Data Protection

Personal data can be collected only for specific, explicitly stated and justified purposes. Personal data cannot be processed for any purpose that is incompatible with that for which the information is collected. No more personal data can be collected than is necessary having regard to the purposes of the processing.


A businessman may, when marketing to a natural person, use electronic mail only if the natural person has consented to this in advance. If a businessman has obtained the natural person‘s electronic contact details for electronic mail in the context of a sale of a product to the person, the requirement for consent does not apply, provided the natural person has not objected to the electronic contact details being used for the purposes of marketing with the use of electronic mail and the marketing relates to the businessman‘s own similar products.

Right of objection

The person has to be clearly and distinctly given the opportunity to object, free of charge and in an easy manner.

Email imprint

When marketing with electronic mail, the message shall always contain a valid address to which the recipient can send a request that the marketing should cease. This also applies in connection with marketing to a legal person.




6.21 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Switzerland Specific Laws

Telecommunications Law Data Protection Law

Data Protection

It is now allowed to demand ―excessive‖ data of the subscriber (principle of commensurability). Every subscriber has the right to have insight into his data profile anytime.


Personal data can be obtained only legitimately. Purchasing of data where the source is not known is forbidden. Acceptance of the recipient is required. Who is sending unwanted advertising via email has to count on penalties or even prison sentences.

Right of objection

Advertising emails have to contain an indication that the subscriber has the right to reject further advertising.

Email imprint

Correct data of the sender is required. Fake addresses are seen as unfair competition and are forbidden.


6.22 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in the United Kingdom Specific Laws

Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 2426


A person may send electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing if the contact details of the recipient are obtained in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient and the direct marketing is in respect of that person‘s similar products and services only. OFCOM maintains and keeps up-to-date, in printed or electronic form, a register of people who have notified them that they do not wish to receive unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes.

Right of objection

The recipient has to be given a simple means of refusing (free of charge) the use of his contact data for the purposes of such direct marketing, at the time that the details were initially collected, and, when he did not initially refuse the use of the details, at the time of each subsequent communication.

Email imprint

The identity of the person on whose behalf the communication has been sent cannot be disguised or concealed. There has to be a valid address to which the recipient may send a request that such communications cease has not been provided.




6.23 Table: Asia-Pacific Countries Specific Laws

The Seoul-Melbourne Anti-Spam Agreement of 2005 established a cooperative, multilateral memorandum of understanding to combat spam in member nations including Australia, Korea, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The following are spam and privacy regulations specific to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

Source: MarketingSherpa and Seoul-Melbourne Anti-Spam Agreement

6.24 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Hong Kong Specific Laws

Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance (UEMO) enacted in May 2007. Unsolicited Electronic Messages Regulation (UEMR) supplement the rules for the sending of CEMs set out in the UEMO and came into operation on 22 December 2007.


Unless consent has been given by the registered user of the relevant telephone or fax number, commercial electronic messages should not be sent to numbers registered in the Do-not-call Registries.

Right of objection

Senders are required to provide an unsubscribe facility and a statement in the message. Senders are also required to honor unsubscribe requests within ten (10) working days after the request has been sent.

Email imprint

All senders of commercial electronic messages (including emails, short messages, faxes, pre-recorded telephone messages) are required to provide clear and accurate sender information in the message, including name, contact telephone number and address. If the message is an email, the sender is also required to provide the contact email address. If the message is a fax or a pre-recorded telephone message, the sender must not conceal or withhold the calling line identification information. It is not permitted to send email messages with misleading subject lines.

Source: MarketingSherpa and OgilvyOne



6.25 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in India Specific Laws

Spam legislation is non-existent in India. The much-touted Information Technology Act of 2000 does not discuss the issue of spamming at all. It only refers to punishment meted out to a person, who after having secured access to any electronic material without the consent of the person concerned, discloses such electronic material to any other person. It does not have any bearing on violation of individual's privacy in Cyberspace. The illegality of spamming is not considered. With the establishment of the Indian arm of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mails (an International Organization against spam) some efforts are being made to combat the spam menace. However, in the absence of stringent laws and technical advancements, the proliferation of spam seems inevitable.

Email imprint

Authentication of electronic records. Subject to the provisions of this section any subscriber may authenticate an electronic record by affixing his digital signature. The authentication of the electronic record shall be effected by the use of asymmetric crypto system and hash function which envelop and transform the initial electronic record into another electronic record.


6.26 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Indonesia Specific Laws

Indonesia has no laws concerning email marketing.




6.27 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Japan Specific Laws

Act on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic mail (Act No.26 of April 17, 2002 and amended last by Act No.87 of July 26, 2005). Ref: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications


A person who has notified the sender of the request or the consent to send Specified Electronic Mail prior to the transmission thereof (except a person who has notified said sender of the request not to send said Electronic Mail after said notification). A person who has a business relationship with a person engaged in sales activities relating to advertisement thereof. Other person who is specified in the applicable cabinet order.

Right of objection

Any sender shall not send specified emails to persons who received Specified email from the senders, and who, as specified in the applicable MIC ordinance, have notified said sender of the request not to send Specified email (in cases where requesting said sender not to send Specified emails pertaining to given matters, of the request), against their wish.

Email imprint

Any sender shall make such a Specified email correctly display the following matters on a screen of a communications terminal being used by a person who receives said Specified email. The fact that said mail is a Specified email. Personal name or legal name and address of said sender. Email address of said sender for receiving the notification under the following article. Other matters specified in the applicable MIC ordinance.




6.28 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Korea Specific Laws

Information Network and Privacy Protection Act (―INPPA‖) of Korea. INPPA sets out the minimum procedural requirements for lawful online transmissions in Korea whereby transmissions of advertised materials against recipients‘ refusal to accept are strictly prohibited. Although these rules are applicable to unsolicited commercial e-mails via the internet, they were intended to apply to all modes of telecommunication such as cellular phones, facsimiles, etc. The Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Data Protection (APICNUDP) Article 50 added the antispam provisions in a 2002 amendment.

Acceptance of recipient

The following are approved methodologies whereby service providers in information and communications can acquire a person‘s information with his or her consent: Publish a consent form on the internet and get users to express their consent. Present consent forms to users via face-to-face, mailing or fax and get them to submit the forms that include consent. Email consent forms to users and get them to reply with the consented form via email. Acquire users‘ consent via phone or drive them to a website where they can check the information and phone them back to get their consents.

Data protection

Law prohibits automatic generation of e-mail addresses, the harvesting of e-mail addresses from Web sites and the use of technical means to get around spam blocks.

Right of objection

Law prohibits spam going against explicit refusal of email.

Email imprint

The INPPA further requires spam to contain the word "Advertisement" in the subject line and provide opt-out instructions both in Korean and English. The sender must disclose his name, contact information (e.g. e-mail/ mailing address, telephone number), the purpose/content of the transmitted materials (i.e. "advertising materials") as well as an opt-out procedure both in Korean and English. (INPPA, Art. 50).


6.29 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Philippines Specific Laws

The Philippines have no laws concerning email marketing.




6.30 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in the PRC Specific Laws

Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) of People‘s Republic of China adopted the ―Regulations on Internet E-Mail Services‖, effective 30 March 2006. Article 57 of the Regulations on Telecommunications of the People‘s Republic of China


Follows an ‗opt-in‘ principle - clear and definite consent is required before sending messages containing commercial advertisements.

Right of objection

Recipients must be able to opt-out of commercial email in the future. To facilitate this, senders of commercial email must provide their contact information within their messages, including email addresses and clear instructions on how to unsubscribe. This information and mechanism must remain valid for at least 30 days after sending the message.

Email imprint

Add the label ―AD‖, (or in Chinese ―insert symbol‖) which is the abbreviation for ―Advertisement‖, in front of the subject line of a commercial email even with having prior consent from the recipients. The regulations apply to any message containing advertisements.

Other

Chinese regulation also regulates the providing of email services. For example, email service providers are asked to strengthen the protection of their email servers to avoid their fraudulent utilization by spammers. To make it easier to find the evidence of spamming, ESPs are asked to log the email related behavior of their users. Mailers must obey specified content restrictions. Commercial email cannot, include content in violation of Article 57 of the Regulations on Telecommunications of the People‘s Republic of China. Specifically prohibited content may include email advertisements for pornography, firearms, gambling, tobacco, and illegal drugs, but not necessarily alcohol.


6.31 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Thailand Specific Laws

The Philippines currently have no laws concerning email-marketing however a pending draft of the Data Privacy Protection Law is part of the five key Thai IT laws plan, which includes: Digital Signatures Equal Right of IT Access Data Privacy Protection Law Electronic Funds Transfer Law IT Criminal Law




6.32 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Singapore Specific Laws

Spam Control Bill 2007 Applies to email in which a Singapore link exists, as stated in Clause 7 of the Bill, when for instance the message originates in Singapore, or if the recipient of the message is physically located in Singapore. If sent in bulk, containing same or similar subject matter: > 100 messages within 24 hours; or > 1000 messages within 30 days; or >10,000 messages within 1 year.


Singapore uses an opt-out approach, so businesses can send unsolicited messages but must provide a way for consumers to unsubscribe and opt out within 10 days of receiving marketing messages from the organization.

Right of objection

Contact information - That can be in the form of an e-mail address, an Internet location address, a telephone number, a facsimile number or a postal address that a recipient can use to submit an unsubscribe request. It is strongly suggested that this contact takes the same form as the spam message itself – an e-mail spam should offer an unsubscribe facility through e-mail. Clear statement – This will state explicitly for the recipient that he or she could use the above contact to submit an unsubscribe request. This statement should be in English. But if the statement is presented in two or more languages, the English language shall be one of the languages. The above contact should be a valid contact for at least 30 days, that could receive unsubscribe requests from recipients of spam. Once an unsubscribe request is submitted, the spammer should remove the recipient‘s electronic mail address or mobile phone number from the mailing list within 10 business days.

Email imprint

Correct and not misleading title in the subject field of the message, if the message has a subject field. before the title of the message, or where there is no subject field, before the actual content of the message. Correct, non-misleading header info where applicable. An accurate and functional e-mail address or telephone number by which the spammer could readily be contacted.




6.33 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Vietnam Specific Laws

Article 38 Right to Privacy Act The collection and publication of information and data about the private life of an individual must have the consent of that individual, or where that individual has died, has lost the capacity for civil acts or is not yet fifteen (15) years of age, the consent of a parent, spouse, adult child or representative of that individual must be obtained, except in the case where the collection and publication of information and data is required pursuant to a decision of an authorized State body. The safety of the mail, telephone, electronic mail and other forms of electronic information of an individual shall be ensured and kept confidential. Control of the mail, telephone, electronic mail and other forms of electronic information of an individual may only be conducted in cases stipulated by law and subject to a decision issued by an authorized State body.




6.34 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in Australia Specific Laws

Spam Act 2003 covers commercial electronic messages originating in Australia that are sent to any destination, or originating overseas that are sent to an address in Australia. The National Privacy Principles

Data Protection

Businesses must not use electronic address harvesting software, or lists which have been generated using such software, for the purpose of sending unsolicited commercial electronic messages.


Your commercial messages should only be sent when you have consent. This may be express consent from the person you wish to contact – a direct indication that it is okay to send the message, or messages of that nature. It is also possible to infer consent based on a business or other relationship with the person, and their conduct.

Right of objection

The person‘s consent must be withdrawn within five working days from the date that the unsubscribe was sent.

Email imprint

Commercial electronic messages must contain: Accurate information about the sender of the message. A functional way for the message‘s recipients to indicate that they do not wish to receive such messages in the future and wish to unsubscribe.

Penalties

A business that is found to be in breach of the Spam Act may be subject to a Court imposed penalty of up to $220,000 for a single day‘s contraventions. If, after that finding, the business contravenes the same provision, they may be subject to a penalty of up to $1.1 million.

Source: MarketingSherpa and Australian Communications Authority



6.35 Table: Spam and Privacy Regulations in New Zealand Specific Laws

Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007


A positive consent (or an ―opt-in‖) to receive future emails is required. The consent requirement applies to the sending of one-off emails as well as bulk mail-outs. The consent of recipients can be either expressed, inferred or deemed.

Email imprint

Information which clearly identifies the person who authorizes sending the message and how to contact person. A ―functional unsubscribe facility‖ which allows the recipient (at no cost) to inform the sender that such messages should not be sent to them in the future.

Source: MarketingSherpa and Mobilize Mail



6.36 Chart: US and UK Companies Sharing Personal Data with Third Parties for Marketing Use

80% US

UK

76%

70% 60% 50%

40% 40% 35%

30%

25%

20% 15%

10%

9% 0% Yes

No

Unsure

Source: StrongEmail 2008 US & UK Study Email Marketing Practices and Privacy Methodology: Survey of 713 US marketers and 499 UK marketers

When asked if their organization limits the type of personal information it will share with third parties for the purpose of marketing, marketers in the United Kingdom appear to be much more liberal than their United States counterparts in the practice of sharing personal information with vendors, business partners and contractors. However, US marketers appear to be less knowledgeable about their organization‘s privacy practices than marketers in the UK.



6.37 Chart: US and UK Marketers Rate Privacy Practices that Create Competitive Advantage

Making sure consumers only receive ads and marketing messages that are relevant to their interest

71% 56% 65%

Performing email and other marketing campaigns in-house

46%

Making a commitment to not share consumers' personal information with third parties for marketing purposes

59% 53% 50%

Regulating the number of marketing messages and ads sent to consumers

29%

41%

Respecting the privacy preferences of customers

34% 22%

Giving consumers choices in the marketing messages received None of the above create a competitive advantage

25% US

13%

UK

16%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Source: StrongEmail 2008 US & UK Study Email Marketing Practices and Privacy Methodology: Survey of 713 US marketers and 499 UK marketers

Relevancy – ―Making sure consumers only receive ads and marketing messages that are relevant to their interest‖ – was rated by marketers to be the privacy practice most likely to create a competitive advantage. Privacy – ―Making a commitment to not share consumers‘ personal information with third parties for marketing purposes‖ – was rated by UK marketers as the second most likely privacy practice to create a competitive advantage, despite the apparent high rate of personal information sharing by UK organizations shown in the previous chart.



LOCALIZATION IS THE LANGUAGE OF INTERNATIONAL EMAIL SUCCESS

The global marketplace consists of 230 countries communicating in more than 6,700 languages. China alone has 70 regions and 80 languages. ―It is vital to get a Mainland Chinese translator to repurpose American content. A common mistake is to have a Taiwanese translator do the drafting, and it is written in the wrong character set – traditional as opposed to simplified. The tone is also usually totally different.‖ Micah Truman, CEO, Wanmo, Bejing, China Communicating with your audience in their native tongue – not in English or in the generic language of a non-local translator – has proven to increase email clickthrough rates, brand trust and other metrics significantly. The Portuguese dialect spoken in Brazil differs from that spoken in Portugal, Spanish in Mexico is different than in Spain, French in Montreal is different than in France, and these differences are clear to email recipients. Unless your company happens to have a satellite office in the target country, it may be difficult to find a reliable local translator but well worth the effort. While language translation may be the most visible aspect of localization, it is only part of the equation. Also critically important to a successful international email localization strategy are creative, cultural and deliverability considerations. ―With regards to the cultures, deliverability is the biggest challenge in Asia. Often, ISP contacts are impossible to identify and cultural expectations make negotiations very challenging. European ISPs tend to be easier to deal with, making deliverability in Europe similar to what we experience in the United States.‖ Quinn Jalli, Chief Privacy Officer, Datran Media Partnering with email service providers native to, or at the very least, experienced in your target countries will allow you to localize the creative and cultural aspects of email communications more effectively. In addition, many ESPs will provide native language translation services, ensure relationships with local ISPs to aid in deliverability, and advise you on local spam and privacy regulations.



6.38 Chart: Localizing Content for International Email Recipients

58%

No - no effort to localize content by region/country/language

21%

22% Yes - Some/all content is localized by language 46%

20% Yes - Some/all content is localized by region

SMBs (<500 Employees) 32%

0%

20%

Large Org. (500+ Employees) 40%

60%

80%


78% of North American organizations with more than 500 employees reported that they do localize the content of email campaigns sent overseas by either language or region. 46% of large organizations localize by language, which is the most prevalent localization tactic. A promising 42% of small and mid-size businesses localize the content of the email campaigns they send to overseas recipients by either language or region. This group is almost equally divided between the two localization tactics. Only 21% of the large organizations conducting cross-border email campaigns make no effort to localize content either by language or region. These marketing stragglers have yet to reap the benefits of increased email clickthrough rates, brand trust and other metrics that ultimately contribute to their bottom line.



6.39 Chart: Money Spent on Translation by US Companies

50% U.S. Companies 40% 40% 30%

24%

20%

21%

10% 9% 6% 0% Less than $10,000

$10,000 to $50,000

$50,000 to $200,000

$200,000 to $500,000

More than $500,000

Source: MarketingSherpa & Byte Level Research, Going Global Survey Methodology: 1939 marketing executives surveyed in March, 2007

Whether related to email messaging or the website landing pages linked to emails, language translation is a high priority in the localization of marketing strategies. When asked how much money marketers spend on web translation, 36% responded that they have spent between $50,000 and $500,000.



6.40 Chart: Translation Spending by Company Size

80% 79%

Small Orgs.

Medium Orgs.

Large Orgs.

60% 56% 40% 33% 26% 26%

20%

21%

18%

15%

12%

0%

0% 6% 8%

0% 0%

0% Less than $10,000

$10,000 to $50,000

$50,000 to $200,000

$200,000 to $500,000

More than $500,000

Source: MarketingSherpa & Byte Level Research, Going Global Survey Methodology: 1939 marketing executives surveyed in March, 2007

Not surprisingly, large companies have allocated the largest budgets for Web translation, with 18% of these companies exceeding $500,000. On the other end of the scale, 100% of the responding small organizations said they spend less than $50,000 on language translation to achieve their localization goals.



Video and Email Common sense will tell you that the more human senses media can engage at once, the easier it is for the recipient to process the information. It is for this reason that television advertising remains king among ads; it can engage a viewer with high quality sight and sound. However, as video gets better, bigger, and more available online, television is slowly being forced to share the crown with its online cousin. Just as television ads are generally for more effective at moving consumer perceptions of a brand than print ads, Dynamic Logic‘s Marketnorms data shows that online video is generally much more effective at moving awareness of and favorability towards a brand than are online text and graphics, including animated Flash ads. While video via email isn‘t for everyone, it makes a lot of sense and a growing number of marketers are figuring out how to take advantage of this fledgling form of media distribution. 6.41 Chart: Online Video Ads Getting More Clicks Than Image Ads Clickthrough Rate by Format

1.00%

0.74% 0.50% 0.40%

0.00% In-stream Video Ad

Standard Image Ad

Source: DoubleClick, 2006 Methodology: Analysis of 301 campaigns with 2.7 billion impressions.

In addition to being better at branding, and likely because they are, online video ads are getting more attention and more clicks than standard text and graphic ads. Well executed ads in prime placements can get click rates in the single and even double



digits. In aggregate across billions of impressions, the ad-server Doubleclick found the click-through rate for video ads to be nearly twice that of standard image ads. THE ALL-IMPORTANT PLAY BUTTON

For most consumers viewing your video email, they won‘t know or understand what technology is being used to drive the experience. What they do know is that if they see something that looks like this, when they click on that play button a video is supposed to start.

It may seem odd, but by replacing a text call to action, or a regular ―click here‖ button with a static image of a video player window and play button, consumers are much more likely to click and launch the video. In the end, it really doesn‘t matter if the play button image isn‘t ―real‖, as long as it results in the action the consumer who clicks it expects it to do. CODING AND RENDERING FOR DELIVERABILITY

Every email, video or not, needs to crafted in a such a way that it avoids the common pitfalls of overzealous spam filters and improperly rendered email clients. Keeping your video email simple by including only text, some graphics, and a link out is generally the best way to ensure you make it into the inbox. However, even simple, static graphics will often not render properly or will be blocked. Make sure when designing your email that it‘s understandable and usable with or without the graphics. If you do decide to insert or attach video directly into the email itself, be sure not to use JavaScript or anything that plays automatically. For the time being, at least, simpler is better.



Notes from the Field: Conversions Increased More Than 50% with Embedded Video Most marketers believe that videos embedded in email can grab attention or cause deliverability problems and rendering nightmares, but a few say their data speak otherwise. Challenge Conversion rates on email campaigns for a UK entertainment brand hit a plateau late last year and the marketing team didn‘t take the news lightly. They particularly wanted to shake things up before the all-important summer season began. Enter the idea of stimulating conversion rates with videos embedded in the email message body – considered a no-no by some email experts. Campaign The team‘s concept was emboldened by data found in MarketingSherpa‘s Email Benchmark Guide indicating that online consumers react positively to video, with in-stream video ads getting clickthrough rates nearly twice those of static images. Their email service provider also convinced them that, with the right preparation, an embedded video can be delivered successfully and catch people‘s attention. Here are the five steps they took: Step #1. Improve reputation The first thing they did was work to improve their sender reputation. Indeed, the idea of sending videos in emails almost begins and ends with deliverability concerns. This boiled down to ―regularly‖ observing one best practice – routinely scrubbing their list to get rid of addresses that were bouncing in the months leading up to the test. Step #2. Produce video The creative process began by deciding to produce a 5-minute video that could be edited down to the most appropriate size for an email. Then, they focused on the content, which revolved around the parks‘ amenities. Step #3. Test video clip size Working with the promo video, they tested the length to eliminate two problems – file size that email systems wouldn‘t bounce, and a download that wouldn‘t take forever for recipients to receive. To discover the optimal length, they sent clip sizes to the in-house accounts for their UKbased audience‘s 10 most-popular Web mail providers or receivers. The receivers they tested: Outlook 2003 Outlook 2000 284 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Outlook Explorer Hotmail Yahoo! AOL Webmail Virgin NTL World Tiscali Gmail From the test results, they learned that clips at 20 seconds were optimal for deliverability. That also gave their audience something to chew on. The 5-minute clip was edited to 20 seconds – or 1 megabyte in file size. Step #4. Create test design They picked an Easter holiday email for the test. At the top of the HTML design appeared the copy in blue type: ―Fun Filled Easter at Haven‖ Just below this was a four-buttoned navigation bar. The copy, ―Come and enjoy the Best Easter Holiday ever,‖ appeared in a white font. A 320x180-pixel video box appeared when the video automatically started rolling inside the preview pane when the message was opened. They knew that the video was going to go unseen for some users no matter what they did in testing. For instance, Gmail users who didn‘t have HTML images turned on simply did not see the video automatically roll in the message. They accounted for those types of situations by including a link to a microsite where a 60second version of the clip could be seen. The email copy for the link read: ―If you can‘t see our video … Click here.‖ Step #5. A/B test subject lines They also tested the word ―video‖ in the subject line – even if the copy got a bit long. Results Plain and simple – embedding a video in emails worked. The Easter campaign became a smash hit with a 3.38% conversion rate – 50.2% higher than previous non-video campaigns. Another point of great importance was the fact that the 20-second clip got through to inboxes with a deliverability rate of 96%. It showed that, if done correctly with attention placed upon sender reputation and thorough testing, video can work in the body of the message. Clickthroughs also were a healthy 27%.



Mobile Marketing

6.42 Chart: Advanced Mobile Usage Continues to Rise

Posted an online comment or review about a product or company

16% 6% 14%

Checked email on a mobile device (phone or PDA)

7% 13%

Surfed the web on a mobile device (phone or PDA)

5% 12%

Listened to a podcast 3% 9%

Paid to download a music file

3% 2008 (Weekly or more often)

Paid to download a television program or film

8% 2006 (Weekly or more often)

2% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%


Less than two years ago, only 5% of consumers were accessing the mobile Internet with any regularity. Today, that number has almost tripled and growth is accelerating. In a recent study of iPhone users, almost 90% were accessing the mobile Web, up from less than 30% for the same group previously. That demonstrates how large a role usability plays in mobile adoption, and how quickly things can and probably will change.



6.43 Chart: Mobile Spending Plans (2006 – 2008)

42% 40%

We don't see mobile applying to us in the near future.

64% 39% 38%

We're following mobile marketing, but won't be allocating resources in the next year. We've allocated resources to test mobile marketing.

We've already spent money on mobile, and will be doing so again. For the first time, we've allocated budget for mobile marketing campaigns. We've already spent money on mobile, but won't be allocating budget on it.

28% 10% 10% 5% 4% 6% 2% 2% 2% 3%

2008

1% 1% 0%

2006

0%

2007

20%

40%

60%

80%


What should have been another year of rapid growth in mobile may have been somewhat stymied by the downward shift in the economy. Test and pilot programs are often the first to be cut back or maintained at current levels.



6.44 Chart: Mobile Spending Plans by Size of Marketing Budget

52%

We don't see mobile applying to us in the near future.

44% 26% 29%

We're following mobile marketing, but won't be allocating resources in the next year. We've allocated resources to test mobile marketing. Other We've already spent money on mobile, and will be doing so again. We've already spent money on mobile, but won't be allocating budget on it. For the first time, we've allocated budget for mobile marketing campaigns.

46% 40% 7% 4% 13% 6% 0% 6% 4% 1% 11% 1% 0% 2% 1% 4% 2% 0%

Small Budget Medium Budget Large Budget

20%

40%

60%


The good news for mobile is that the large players are still playing. Only about a quarter of the organizations with large marketing budgets responded that mobile wasn‘t going to apply to them in the near future, with another 40% in a pre-investment stage, leaving the remainder with varying levels of mobile investment and exploration.



6.45 Chart: Marketers Still Largely Unmoved by Mobile Email

We do not optimize emails for mobile rendering We create light versions of emails for mobile devices

73%

10%

We streamline subject lines and/or leading copy for mobile devices

5%

We include a link to 'mobile-friendly' versions of our emails

4%

We have surveyed our recipients to explore the need for mobile-optimized email

4%

Other

3% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Almost three-quarters of emailers aren‘t doing anything to optimize emails for mobile readership. The remainder take one or another of the steps above to meet this increasing need.



6.46 Chart: Most Emailers Fail to Test Mobile Rendering

80% 70%

74%

60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

22%

10% 4%

0% Never

Sometimes

Always


There‘s no good reason not to test what your emails will look like on mobile platforms. The audience is there, and it‘s an important one. Stats show that they‘re reading emails online and there are a number of emulators to make the job easier.



Mobile Glossary 3G (third-generation) - Third generation wireless employing wideband frequency carriers and a CDMA air interface. Networks must be able to transmit wireless data at 144 kilobits per second at mobile user speeds. AMPS (advanced mobile phone service) - The analog cellular standard. Another name for the North American analog cellular phone system. Affiliate - Companies that assist carriers with building a wireless network. The affiliate may use the primary carrier's brand name, network operations, customer service or other facilities. Air interface - The standard operating system of a wireless network. Technologies include AMPS, TDMA, CDMA and GSM. Bent pipe technology - Satellite technology to transmit calls from one point on Earth to a satellite and back down to another point. Bluetooth - Technology that enables data connections between electronic devices such as desktop computers, wireless phones, electronic organizers and printers in the 2.4 GHz range. Bluetooth would replace cable or infrared connections for such devices. Bluetooth depends on mobile devices equipped with a chip for sending and receiving information. CDMA (code division multiple access) - A form of digital phone service that assigns a code to all speech bits, sends a scrambled transmission of the encoded speech over the air and reassembles the speech to its original form at the other end. CPNI (customer proprietary network information) - The carrier's data about a specific customer's service and usage. The FCC governs the usage of CPNI. Generally, information about a customer's account is considered proprietary until the customer authorizes its use. Charge back - The funds a carrier will "charge back" to an agent or dealer if a customer discontinues service shortly after buying a product. Downlink - The portion of a telecommunications path from a satellite to the ground. Also referred to as the reverse link. GSM (global system for mobile communications) - digital cellular or PCS network used at PCS 1900 MHz frequencies in the U.S. and 900 MHz frequencies in other parts of the world. HDML (handheld device markup language) - Written to allow Internet access from wireless devices such as handheld personal computers and smart phones. Derived from hypertext markup language. IMSI (international mobile subscriber identifier) - A unique 15-digit number which designates the subscriber. This number is used for provisioning in network elements. Interactive Messaging - Interactive Messaging is a Short Message Service that allows users to send alphanumeric messages from their wireless handset to other wireless handsets or to email addresses.



Interoperability - The ability of a network to operate with other networks, such as two systems based on different protocols or technologies. Mobile advertising - Like Internet or TV advertising initiatives, this is the ability to offer a call to action or brand banner within the mobile application, whether it's mobile Web (WAP), text messaging (SMS), pictures (MMS), or video. MMS (multimedia messaging service) - Taking pictures with your phone and sending them to friends or via email. That's MMS. SMS (short message service) - Often referred to as "text" or "text messaging."The ability to send text-based messages person to person (P2P); from person to application, such as a voting application (P2A); or application to person, as with an acknowledgement or information (A2P). Pull SMS - The ability to request services (e.g. ringtones or games) from a wireless handset. The service requested is sent back to the handset via SMS. Push SMS - The ability to request services (e.g. ringtones or games) from a wireless handset via sending a preset SMS code to a predetermined number. The service requested is sent back to the handset via SMS. Smart phone - A class of wireless phone handsets with many features, and often a keyboard. What makes the phone "smart" is its ability to handle data. Subscriber profiling - Compiling subscriber usage information (such as frequency of calls, locations called to or from and monthly airtime usage), to identify potentially fraudulent use or to identify customers likely to terminate service. This information can also be used to target customers when marketing a carrier's product and service offerings. TDMA (time division multiple access) - A digital air interface technology used in cellular, PCS and ESMR networks. TDMA allows a large number of users to access a single radio frequency channel without interference by allocating unique time slots to each user within each channel. WAP (wireless application protocol) - A protocol that allows the easy transmission of data signals, such as Internet content, to micro-browsers built into advanced wireless devices. Specifically, WAP is simply the wireless Web. When you access an Internet session on your mobile device, you access via a WAP session.



Appendix 1: The Ultimate Email Marketing Glossary 1st-Party Cookie: A piece of code placed on the user‘s browser by the website they are currently visiting that is used to track visitor behavior. 3rd-Party Cookie: A piece of code used to track user behavior, placed on the user‘s browser by someone other than the website they‘re currently visiting. Third-party cookies are used in Web analytics and ad serving, among other areas. 4PC: In print advertising, the abbreviation for four-page, full-color — a standard unit on most print media price lists. A/B Split: Refers to a test situation in which two randomized groups of users are sent different content to test performance of specific campaign elements. The A/B split method can only be used to test one variable at a time. Abandonment: As in call or site abandonment, when people leave a site, phone call, etc. The ‗abandonment rate‘ measures the efficiency of the marketing tool. The abandonment rate is the number of users who abandon divided by the total number of unique visitors for a given period. Above the Fold: The part of an email message or Web page that is visible without scrolling. Material in this area is considered more valuable because the reader sees it first. It refers to a printing term for the top half of a newspaper above the fold. Unlike a newspaper, however, email and Web page fold locations aren‘t predictable. Your fold may be affected by the users‘ preview pane, monitor size, monitor resolution and any headers placed by email programs such as Hotmail, etc. Acquisition Cost: In email marketing, the cost to generate one lead, newsletter subscriber or customer in an individual email campaign; typically, the total campaign expense divided by the number of leads, subscribers or customers it produced. Acquisition List: A rented list of prospects to which email can be sent. Prospects on a legitimate acquisition list are supposed to have opted-in to the list, and possess a certain set of characteristics. Example: dog owners who shop online. Ad Swap: An exchange between two publishers who agree to run each other‘s comparably valued ad at no charge. Value is determined by rate card, placement, size of list, quality of list, name brand fame, etc. Address Book Whitelisting: When a consumer adds a company‘s email address or domain name to their email address book. This prevents inadvertent ‗false positive‘ filtering out of content that the consumer wants to receive. 293 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Affiliate: A marketing partner that promotes your products or services under a paymentfor-results agreement. The affiliate relationship ranges from simply carrying a button on a Web page to full-blown email campaigns by the affiliate. Affirmative Consent: An active request by a reader or subscriber to receive advertising or promotional information, newsletters, etc. Generally, affirmative consent does not include the following — failing to uncheck a pre-checked box on a Web form, entering a business relationship with an organization without being asked for separate permission to be sent specific types of email or opt-out. Agent Name Delivery: The attempt to direct Web page visitors to one page, while sending search engine spiders to another, optimized page. This tactic has fallen out of use as search engine spiders generally appear to be standard browsers. Alert: Email message that notifies subscribers of an event or special price. Algorithm: A set of mathematical rules that describe or determine a circumstance or action. In the case of search engines, unique algorithms determine the ranking of websites returned within search queries. Although some of the qualities used to determine ranking (number of referring sites, metatags, etc.) are known, the precise functioning of search engine algorithms is a closely kept secret to prevent the manipulation of the system Applet: Small programs (usually written in Java) or another Web-friendly language that run within a Web browser. Some applets may be negatively viewed by search engine spiders, affecting indexing and page rank Application Program Interface (API): How a program (application) accesses another to transmit data. A client may have an API connection to load database information to an email vendor automatically and receive data back from the email. Application Service Provider (ASP): Company that provides a Web-based service. Clients don‘t have to install software on their own computers; all tasks are performed on (hosted on) the ASP‘s servers. Attachment: A text, video, graphic, PDF or sound file that accompanies an email message but is not included in the message itself. Attachments are not a good way to send email newsletters because many ISPs, email clients and individual email recipients do not allow attachments since hackers use them to deliver viruses and other malicious code. Authentication: An automated process that verifies an email sender‘s identity. Auto responder: Automated email message-sending capability, such as a welcome message sent to all new subscribers the minute they join a list. They can be triggered by users joining, unsubscribing, or by email arriving at a particular mailbox. Auto responders



may be used for more than a single message — can be a series of date or event-triggered emails. Awareness: The first phase of the product marketing cycle, during which prospects gain awareness of the product/service. Bait-and-Switch: (aka agent name delivery or IP delivery) The attempt to feed search engine spiders different content from what is delivered to ―human‖ website visitors in an attempt to optimize for page ranking. BANT: An acronym for the basic pieces of lead development information: Budget … Authority … Need … Timeframe. Bayesian Filter: An anti-spam program that evaluates header and content of incoming email messages to determine the probability that it is spam. Bayesian filters assign point values to items that appear frequently in spam, such as the words ―money-back guarantee‖ or ―free.‖ A message that accumulated too many points is either rejected as probable spam or delivered to a junk-mail folder. AKA content-based filter. Blacklist: A list developed by anyone receiving email — or processing email on its way to the recipient, or interested third parties — that includes domains or IP addresses of any emailers suspected of sending spam. Many companies use blacklists to filter inbound email, either at the server level or before it reaches the recipient‘s inbox. Also Blocklist and Blackhole List. Blast: In direct postal mail or email, and also referred to as ‗solo blasts,‘ a reference to promotional campaigns done on a one-time basis. Distinct from ongoing communications like email newsletters. Block: A refusal by an ISP or mail server to forward your email message to the recipient. Many ISPs block email from IP addresses or domains that have been reported to send spam or viruses or have content that violates email policy or spam filters. Bonded Sender: A private email-registration service, owned by email vendor IronPort, which allows bulk emailers who agree to follow stringent email practices and to post a monetary bond to bypass email filters of Bonded Sender clients. The program debits the bond for spam or other complaints from recipients. Bounce: A message that doesn‘t get delivered promptly is said to have bounced. Emails can bounce for more than 30 reasons: the email address is incorrect or has been closed; the recipient‘s mailbox is full, the mail server is down, or the system detects spam or offensive content. See Hard Bounce and Soft Bounce. Bounce Handling: The process of dealing with the email that has bounced. Bounce handling is important for list maintenance, list integrity, and delivery. Given the lack of consistency in bounce messaging formats, it‘s an inexact science at best. 295 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Bounce Message: Message sent back to an email sender reporting the message could not be delivered and why. Note: Not all bounced emails result in messages being sent back to the sender. Not all bounce messages are clear or accurate about the reason email was bounced. Bounce Rate (also Return Rate): Number of hard/soft bounces divided by the number of emails sent. This is an inexact number because some systems do not report back to the sender clearly or accurately. Broadcast: The process of sending the same email message to multiple recipients. B-to-B: Business-to-business (also B-2-B and B2B). B-to-C: Business-to-consumer (also B-2-C and B2C). Bulk Folder (also Junk Folder): Where many email clients send messages that appear to be from spammers or contain spam or are from any sender who is not in the recipient‘s address book or contact list. Some clients allow the recipient to override the system‘s settings and direct that mail from a suspect sender be sent directly to the inbox, e.g., Yahoo! Mail gives recipients a button marked ―Not spam‖ on every message in the bulk folder. Call to Action: In a marketing message, Web ad, email, etc. the link or body copy that tells the recipient what action to take. CAN-SPAM: Popular name for the US law regulating commercial email. (Full name: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003.) Catch-All: An email server function that forwards all questionable email to a single mailbox. The catch-all should be monitored regularly to find misdirected questions, unsubscribes or other genuine live email. Cell: (aka test cell or version) A segment of your list that receives different treatment specifically to see how it responds versus the control (normal treatment). CGI: Abbreviation for Common Gateway Interface. It is a specification for transferring information between the Web and a Web server, such as processing email subscription or contact forms. Challenge-Response System: An anti-spam program that requires a human being on the sender‘s end to respond to an emailed challenge message before their messages can be delivered to recipients. Senders who answer the challenge successfully are added to an authorization list. Bulk emailers can work with challenge-response if they designate an employee to watch the sending address‘ mailbox and to reply to each challenge by hand.



Churn: How many subscribers leave a mailing list (or how many email addresses go bad) over a certain length of time, usually expressed as a percentage of the whole list. Circulation: Total distribution of individual copies of a publication. Distinct from the ‗total readership,‘ which refers to the total copies printed times the average number of passalong readers, which is different for each pub. Clickthrough: The process of clicking on a link in a search engine output page to visit an indexed site. Clickthrough Rate: Total number of clicks on email link(s), search ads, etc. divided by the number of emails sent, page views, etc. Also (CTR) Clickthrough Tracking: When a hotlink is included in an email, search ad or online ad, a clickthrough occurs when a recipient clicks on the link. Clickthrough tracking refers to the data collected about each clickthrough link, such as how many people clicked it or how many clicks resulted in desired actions such as sales, forwards or subscriptions. Click-to-Open Ratio: An email metric that looks at the quality of content by comparing the number of people who opened the email with those that clicked. Several factors can have a dramatic impact on CTO ratio, including filtering of images that suppresses open rate, and newsletters that include only snippets of content in an email, elevating click numbers. Client: Commonly, the user‘s computer, browser or application that requests information from another online application. Most client applications request information from a ‗server-side‘ application. Collaborative Filtering: (aka social filtering) Using the experience of previous searchers to return more relevant results. Commercial Email: Email whose purpose, as a whole or in part, is to sell or advertise a product or service, or to persuade users to perform an act, such as to purchase a product or click to a website whose contents are designed to sell, advertise or promote. Conditional Content: Use of a database to allow or block content based on user behavior. This is done with ―if‖ and ―then‖ statements. Confirmation: An acknowledgment of a subscription or information request. ―Confirmation‖ can be either a company statement that the email address was successfully placed on a list, or a subscriber‘s agreement that the subscribe request was genuine and not faked or automatically generated by a third party. Confirmed Opt-in: Inexact term that may refer to double opt-in subscription processes or may refer to email addresses which do not hard bounce back a welcome message. Ask anyone using this term to define it more clearly.



Consideration or Consideration Phase: The second phase of the buying cycle, when consumers familiarize themselves with products, features and benefits. Consideration is the phase during which relationship marketing using email, telemarketing, etc. is commonly used to ‗warm‘ the lead, or move the lead from consideration to the sales funnel. Content-Based Filters: A type of filtration that sorts messages based on strings or keywords located within the message. Filtering can take place based upon a score assigned to some words or phrases, or based on binary if/then statements. Example: Block if ‗free‘ in subject field. Conversion: When a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action based on a mailing you have sent. A conversion could be a monetary transaction, such as a purchase made after clicking a link. It could also include a voluntary act such as registering at a website, downloading a white paper, signing up for a Web seminar or opting in to an email newsletter. Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors/users who ‗convert‘ on the action of a Web page or campaign. For example, actions may be purchasing, submitting a form, downloading content, calling a phone number, or making an extended site visit. Co-registration: Arrangement in which companies collecting registration information from users (email sign-up forms, shopping checkout process, etc.) include a separate box for users to check if they would also like to be added to a specific third party list. Cost per Lead: (aka CPL) Where the advertiser pays a set amount for each lead generated by a marketing campaign. Cost per Thousand: (aka CPM) An ad-buying model more common in Web publishing than search where the advertiser pays for a set number of page impressions, paying by the thousand. CPA (Cost per Action or Cost per Acquisition): A method of paying for advertising in which payment is based on the number of times users complete a given action, such as purchasing a product or signing up for a newsletter that takes place as a result of the marketing effort. CPC (Cost per Click): A method of paying for advertising. Different from CPA because all you pay for is the click, regardless of what that click does when it gets to your site or landing page. Creative: An email message‘s copy and any graphics. CRM: The abbreviation for Customer Relationship Management, the software and processes of tracking the information that defines a prospect or customer relationship. CRM systems typically store contact and interaction data, such as number and dates of touches, products considered. 298 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Cross-Campaign Profiling: A method used to understand how email respondents behave over multiple campaigns. Cross-Post: To send the same email message to at least two different mailing lists or discussion groups. CTR (Clickthrough Rate): Slightly inexact because some clicks ―get lost‖ between the click and your server. Also, be sure to ask if the CTR is unique, meaning that each individual user is only counted once no matter how many times they click on a link. Customer Lifetime Value: A measure of the total amount the customer is going to spend with a merchant during their tenure. Usually calculated by their spending per year multiplied by the average number of years they are likely to be a customer. Daypart/weekpart: Division of the month and day into sections for the purposes of targeting marketing. For example, a radio buyer might target ―drive time‖ while a restaurant might target weekends vs. weekdays. Dedupe: Identifying and consolidating duplicate names, usually done in a merge/purge operation. Dedicated Server: An email server used by only one sender. A dedicated server often costs more to use because the expense isn‘t spread among multiple users, but it performs better than a shared server. Email usually goes out faster, the server is more secure, and it eliminates the possibility that another sender could get the server blacklisted for spamming. Delivered Email: Number of emails sent minus the number of bounces and filtered messages. A highly inexact number because not all receiving ISPs report accurately on which email didn‘t go through and why. Deduplication (also Deduping): The process of removing identical entries from two or more data sets such as mailing lists. aka merge/purge. Deep Linking: Links that direct the person clicking on the link to a page beneath the home page of a website. Sometimes used to mean linking to a deep page on someone else‘s website, which has different legal issues than simply directing someone to a home page. Deferred Conversions: (aka Latent Conversions) Sales that take place following a website session that may result from it. With many online marketing tactics, it‘s not always possible to discern whether a sale took place as the result of some past interaction. Deliverability: The degree to which emails are successfully delivered, or not. Also refers to the general issues surrounding this question. Delivery Tracking: The process of measuring delivery rates by format, ISP or other factors and delivery failures (bounces, invalid address, server and other errors).



Deploy: To send a marketing campaign into the field. Digest: A shortened version of an email newsletter which replaces full-length articles with clickable links to the full article at a website, often with a brief summary of the contents. Discussion Group: An email service in which individual members post messages for all group members to read (―many to many‖). In contrast, a newsletter is a ―one to many‖ broadcast, where comments by members or subscribers go only to the message sender. Also known by the trademarked name Listserv. Domain Name System: How computer networks locate Internet domain names and translate them into IP addresses. The domain name is the actual name for an IP address or range of IP addresses, e.g., MarketingSherpa.com. See Reverse DNS. DomainKeys: An anti-spam software application developed by Yahoo and using a combination of public and private ―keys‖ to authenticate the sender‘s domain and reduce the chance that a spammer or hacker will fake the domain sending address. Double Opt-in (also Verified Opt-in): A process that requires new list joiners to take an action (such as clicking on an emailed link to a personal confirmation page) to confirm that they do want to be on the list. Sometimes interpreted incorrectly by some email broadcast vendors to mean a new subscriber who does not opt-out of or bounce a welcome message. Dynamic Content: Email newsletter content that changes from one recipient to the next according to a set of predetermined rules or variables, usually according to preferences the user sets when opting in to messages from a sender. Dynamic content can reflect past purchases, current interests or where the recipient lives. Early Adopters: The first to experiment and benefit from new technologies. They are often beta testers and tech companies themselves. ECOA (Email Change of Address): A service that tracks email address changes and updates. Effective Rate: Metric that measures how many of those who opened an email message clicked on a link, usually measured as unique responders divided by unique opens. Email Address: The combination of a unique user name and a sender domain ([email protected]). The email address requires both the user name and the domain name. Email Appending: Service that matches email addresses to a database of personal names and postal addresses. Appending may require an ―OK to add my name‖ reply from the subscriber before you can add the name to the list. Email Client: The software recipients use to read email, such as Outlook Express or Lotus Notes. 300 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Email Domain: The portion of the email address to the right of the @ sign. Useful as an email address hygiene tool, e.g. identify all records where the consumer entered ―name@aol‖ as their email address and correct it to ―[email protected]‖. Email Filter: A software tool that categorizes, sorts or blocks incoming email, based either on the sender, the email header or message content. Filters may be applied at the recipient‘s level, at the email client, the ISP or in combination. Email Friendly Name (also Display Name, From Name): The portion of the email address that is displayed in most, though not all, email readers in place of, or in addition to, the email address. Email Harvesting: An automated process in which a robot program searches Web pages or other Internet destinations for email addresses. The program collects the address into a database, which frequently gets resold to spammers or unethical bulk mailers. Many US state laws forbid harvesting. CAN-SPAM does not outlaw it by name but allows triple damages against violators who compiled their mailing lists with harvested names. Email Newsletter: Content distributed to subscribers by email on a regular schedule. Content is seen as valued editorial in and of itself rather than primarily a commercial message with a sales offer. See Ezine. Email Prefix: The portion of the email address to the left of the @ sign. Email Vendor (also Email Service Provider — ESP): Another name for an email broadcast service provider, a company that sends bulk (volume) email on behalf of its clients. Enhanced Whitelist: A super whitelist maintained by AOL for bulk emailers who meet strict delivery standards, including less than 1 spam complaint for every 1,000 email messages. Emailers on the enhanced whitelist can bypass AOL 9.0‘s automatic suppression of images and links. ESP: Email service provider. Event Triggered Email: Pre-programmed messages sent automatically based on an event such as a date or anniversary. Eyetracking: A type of Web page testing that follows the eye movements of participants to gauge how they interact with the page. Ezine (also E-zine): Another name for email newsletter, adapted from electronic ‗zine or electronic magazine. False Positive: A legitimate message mistakenly rejected or filtered as spam, either by an ISP or a recipient‘s anti-spam program. The more stringent an anti-spam program, the higher the false-positive rate.



FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. Fast Followers: They keep themselves informed about new technologies as they appear, and move to integrate them as soon as they‘ve proven effective. The sale process can be a long one with fast followers because they want information long before they‘re ready to buy. Filter: See Email Filter. Footer: An area at the end of an email message or newsletter that contains information that doesn‘t change from one edition to the next, such as contact information, the company‘s postal address or the email address the recipient used to subscribe to mailings. Some software programs can be set to place this information automatically. Forward (also Forward to a Friend): The process in which email recipients send your message to people they know, either because they think their friends will be interested in your message or because you offer incentives to forward messages. Forwarding can be done through the recipient‘s own email client or by giving the recipient a link to click, which brings up a registration page at your site, in which you ask the forward to give his/her name and email address, the name/email address of the person they want to send to and (optionally) a brief email message explaining the reason for the forward. You can supply the wording or allow the forward to write his/her own message. AKA viral marketing. Frequency: The number of times someone is exposed to an advertisement or marketing message. From: Whatever appears in the email recipient‘s inbox as the visible ―from‖ name. It is chosen by the sender and may be a personal name, a brand name, an email address, a blank space, or alpha-numeric gobbledygook. Note: This is not the actual ―from‖ contained in the header (see below) and may be different than the email reply address. Easy to fake. aka email friendly name. Full Service Provider: An email vendor that also provides strategic consulting and creative support, in addition to sending messages. Gateway Page: A page submitted to a search engine that‘s designed to give the spider what it‘s looking for (fitting the algorithm for that particular search engine) and increasing the relevance of the site. This practice is both banned by the search engines, and actively. Most, if not all, search engines seek to discover and eliminate the use of these pages, because it is another form of ―gaming,‖ or trying to fool, the algorithms. Gmail: A free email service offered by Google, giving users 2+GB of storage space, email search, instant messaging and conversation threading. Gmail also uses technology to add advertisements next to messages containing keywords that match those advertisers in its AdWords program, a policy that means promotional materials sent by one company could



carry text ads of its competitors. GMail is still technically in beta, but has grown from 1.5% to 4.5% of consumer email names. Goodbye Message: An email message sent automatically to a list member who unsubscribes, acknowledging the request. Always include an option to re-subscribe in case the unsubscribe was requested accidentally. Hard Bounce: Message sent to an invalid, closed or nonexistent email account. Header: Routing and program data at the start of an email message, including the sender‘s name and email address, originating email server IP address, recipient IP address, and any transfers in the process. Heatmap: An image of a Web page that displays where test subjects directed their attention. Hero Shot: A shot of a product or brand from its best position to make it look as good as possible. Heuristic Filters: Heuristic filters attempt to identify UCE using reiterative guesswork and past experience, to establish filtering rules. The longer a heuristic filter system is in place and its experience grows, the more accurate it becomes. Honeypotting: Occurs when planted email addresses find their way into permission email marketers‘ lists. ISPs and spam-fighters place these addresses on the Web waiting for them to be harvested by a spammer or unreputable list creator. If an emailer sends to a list containing a honeypot, all mail going to the ISP using the honeypot is blocked, even if some or most list recipients did opt in. House List: The list of email addresses an organization develops on its own. Your own list as a marketer. HTML: The most common of the programming languages used to create Web pages. HTML Message: Email message which contains any type of formatting other than text. This may be as simple as programming that sets the text in a specific font (bold, italics, Courier 10 point, etc.). It also includes any graphic images, logos, and colors. HTML Sniffer: Technology embedded in email software that determines if users‘ email clients can receive HTML content. HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol. The (main) protocol used to communicate between Web servers and Web browsers (clients). Hygiene: The process of cleaning a database to correct incorrect or outdated values. See also List Hygiene. IM (Instant Message): A real-time exchange of communication between two people through a service.



IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol): A standard protocol for accessing email from a server. Impression: A single view of one page by a single user, used in calculating advertising rates. Inactivity: When a list member or registered user has been inactive for some period of time. There are no industry standards, as inactivity depends on the nature of the relationship, and frequency of communication. For example, a list member who is mailed quarterly wouldn‘t be considered inactive as quickly as one who is mailed weekly. Index: Provides a comparison against the average. 100 = the average in an index. Influencer: Someone who contributes their input to the buying process but doesn‘t make the final decision. IP Address: A unique number assigned to each device connected to the Internet. An IP address can be dynamic, meaning it changes each time an email message or campaign goes out, or it can be static, meaning it does not change. Static IP addresses are best because dynamic IP addresses often trigger spam filters. ISP (Internet Service Provider): Examples: AOL, EarthLink, MSN, RoadRunner, etc. Joe Job: A spam-industry term for a forged email, in which a spammer or hacker fakes a genuine email address to hide his identity. Laggards: They make up only 17% of respondents in this survey, but we know anecdotally that often the largest buyers of technology in the Fortune 1000 and government are laggards. They depend on tried and true technology and are more concerned with stability and security than the slight edge new tech might grant them. LAN: Local Area Networks. Technologies and industries that create and maintain data communications networks which are geographically small, and allow interconnection of terminals, microprocessors and computers within nearby buildings. Landing Page: The destination Web page for people responding to an advertisement, designed specifically for that campaign and audience. The campaign might be in any medium, but is typically email, search or online ad driven. The key difference between a home page and landing page is that the former must be all things to all visitors, while the landing page should be very narrowly designed for the campaign, and perhaps for a segment of the audience responding to it. Latency: In regards to marketing and conversion, the likelihood of a conversion to take place after an initial contact or site visit. Lead Development: The process of moving a qualified lead toward becoming a prospect (someone in the sales funnel).



Lifestage: In marketing, the division of life into stages based on age and family status, from ‗young singles‘ to ‗empty nesters.‘ List: The list of email addresses to which you send your message. Can be either your house list or a third-party list that sends your message on your behalf. List Fatigue: A condition producing diminishing returns from a mailing list whose members are sent too many offers, or too many of the same offers, in too short a period of time. List Host: See Email Vendors. List Hygiene: The act of maintaining a list so that hard bounces and unsubscribed names are removed from mailings. Some list owners also use an email change-of-address service to update old or abandoned email addresses (hopefully with a permission step baked in) as part of this process. List Management: How a mailing list is set up, administered and maintained. The list manager has daily responsibility over list operation, including processing subscribes and unsubscribes, bounce management, list hygiene, etc. The list manager can be the same as the database manager but is not always the same person as the list owner. See List Owner. List Owner: The organization or individual who has gathered a list of email addresses. Ownership does not necessarily imply ―with permission.‖ List Rental: The process in which a publisher or advertiser pays a list owner to send its messages to that list. Usually involves the list owner sending the messages on the advertiser‘s behalf. (If someone hands over their list to you, beware). List Sale: The actual purchase of a mailing list along with the rights to mail it directly. Permission can only be ―sold‖ if the subsequent mailings continue to match the frequency, brand name, content, and ―from‖ of the past owner‘s mailings — and even then this is a somewhat shaky procedure on the spam-front. You are in effect buying a publication, and not just a list. Live Chat: A website alternative to customer service using real-time chat. Typically much cheaper than 800 numbers, but not as widely used or accepted. Loyalty Program: A program initiated by a company to create or maintain customer loyalty by offering benefits for continued use of the brand. Mail Bomb: An orchestrated attempt to shut down a mail server by sending more messages than it can handle in a short period of time. See DOS. Mail Loop: A communication error between two email servers, usually happening when a badly configured email triggers an automated response from the recipient server. Mailing List: A list of email addresses that receive mailings or discussion group messages.



Mailto: A code to make an email address in either a text or HTML email immediately clickable (mailto:[email protected]). When the link is clicked, it usually opens the user‘s email client and inserts the email address in the To: link of a blank message. Mentions: Number of times your brand is mentioned in any publicly communicated capacity. Mentions consist of press release pick-ups, news article coverage and financial message board postings. This is used as a barometer of PR share of voice. Modality: Generally used as a synonym for ‗category‘ such as ‗Direct mail is among the oldest modalities of offline marketing.‘ MSP: Marketing Service Provider or Mail Service Provider, such as Hotmail. MTA (Mail Transfer Agent): A computer that forwards email from senders to recipients (or to relay sites) and stores incoming email. MUA: Mail User Agent. See Email Client. Multichannel: A differentiator of merchants that employ multiple sales channels, as opposed to being strictly one (brick and mortar) or the other (Web-only or ―pureplay‖). Multichannel Marketing: Marketing efforts that use multiple media to target unique prospects. For example, sending direct postal mail and email with complimentary messaging and offers to the same people with coordinated timing. Multi-part MIME: Also known (confusingly) as an ―email sniffer.‖ Message format that includes both an HTML and a text-only version in the same message. Most (but not all) email clients receiving messages in this format will automatically display the version the user‘s system is set to show. Systems that can‘t show HTML should show the text version, but this doesn‘t always work — in particular for many Lotus Notes users. Multivariate Testing: Using a statistical model to allow the simultaneous testing of multiple variables. Contrast with A/B testing which can only effectively examine one variable at a time. Also known as the Taguchi Method. Nth Name: The act of segmenting a list for a test in which names are pulled from the main list for the test cell by number — such as every 5th name on the list. See also A/B Split. Offline Conversion: Sales or other conversion events which take place in the real world, typically in a brick-and-mortar store. Open Rate: The number of HTML message recipients who opened your email, usually as a percentage of the total number of emails sent. The open rate is considered a key metric for judging an email campaign‘s success, but it has several problems. The rate indicates only the number of emails opened from the total number sent, not just those that were actually delivered. Opens also can‘t be calculated on text emails. Also, some email clients 306 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


allow users to scan message content without actually opening the message, which is falsely calculated as an open. See Preview Pane. Open Relay: An SMTP email server that allows outsiders to relay email messages that are neither for nor from local users. Often exploited by spammers and hackers. Opt-in: A specific, pro-active request by an individual email recipient to have their own email address placed on a specific mailing list. Many list renters and buyers now require list owners to provide proof of opt-in, including the email or IP address date and time the request was received. Opt-out: A specific request to remove an email address from a specific list or from all lists operated by a single owner. Also, the process of adding an email addresses to lists without the name‘s pre-approval, forcing names who don‘t want to be on your list to actively unsubscribe. Pass-along (also Viral): An email recipient who got your message via forwarding from a subscriber. (Some emails offer ―forward to a friend‖ in the creative, but the vast majority of pass-alongs happen using email clients). Pass-alongs can affect the formatting of the email, often stripping off HTML. Passed Parameters: The act of including known subscriber information in a redirect URL. This allows you to provide Web applications that can pre-populate form values requiring the subscriber to do less typing. Permission: The explicit approval given when a person actively requests to have their email address added to a list. Persona-Based Design: Personas are virtual customers; useful templates based on common customer types that can guide site design, offer testing, etc. Personalization: A targeting method in which an email message appears to have been created only for a single recipient. Personalization techniques include adding the recipient‘s name in the subject line or message body, or the message offer reflects a purchasing, link clicking, or transaction history. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy): Software used to encrypt and protect email as it moves from one computer to another. Can be used to verify a sender‘s identity. Phishing: A form of identity theft in which a scammer uses an authentic looking email to trick recipients into giving out sensitive personal information, such as credit card or bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, and other data. Plain Text: Text in an email message that includes no formatting code. See HTML.



POP (Post Office Protocol): Used by email clients to send to or receive messages from an email server. Not to be confused with Point of Presence, an access point for the Internet. Postmaster: The person to contact at a website, ISP or other site to request information, get help with delivery or register complaints. Preference Center: In email or website registration, the practice of asking the registrant questions that tell the marketer more about them. Typical preference centers will ask about interests and preferences for HTML vs. text emails. They can, however, be more sophisticated and guide frequency and segmentation. Preferences: Options a user can set to determine how they want to receive your messages, how they want to be addressed, to which email address messages should go and which messages they want to receive from you. Preview Pane: The window in an email client that allows the user to scan message content without actually clicking on the message. See Open Rate. Privacy Policy: A clear description of how your company uses the email addresses and other information it gathers via opt-in requests for newsletters, company information or third-party offers or other functions. If you rent, sell or exchange your list to anyone outside your company, or if you add email addresses to opt-out messages, you should state so in the privacy policy. State laws may also compel you to explain your privacy policy, where to put the policy statement so people will see it, and even in the form the policy should be displayed. Qualified Lead: While the definition varies from marketer to marketer, a qualified lead is generally the next step up from inquiry — the lead fits some criteria to warrant lead development. It may be as simple as ‗anyone who searched for this term is qualified‘ to ‗they only corresponded to 3 of 5 criteria from our registration form, they‘re not qualified.‘ Queue: Where an email message goes after you send it but before the list owner approves it or before the list server gets around to sending it. Some list software allows you to queue a message and then set a time to send it automatically, either during a quiet period on the server or at a time when human approval isn‘t available. Ranking: A Web page‘s position in search engine results for a particular keyword/search phrase. Higher rankings typically indicate better SEO, more traffic, and higher quality traffic. Read Email: There is no real measure of ‗read‘ email, although the term is sometimes used as a synonym for opened email. Only opens and clicks are measurable. You can never know if a recipient read your message. Readability: The degree to which an email client correctly renders an HTML email. 308 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Readership: Circulation multiplied by average readers per copy. Equal the total reach of a publication. Recency: A measure of how recently information was produced. Usually refers to the age of contacts on a rented or third-party list. Record: A file in a marketer‘s database. It may contain anything from an anonymous code with preferred site characteristics to an extensive profile of a customer or prospect. Referrer: (aka referring URL) The address of the Web page from which a visitor arrived. Registration: The process where someone not only opts in to your email program, website membership program, etc. but provides some additional information, such as name, address, demographic data or other relevant information, usually by using a Web form. Relationship Email: An email message that refers to a commercial action — a purchase, complaint or customer-support request — based on a business relationship between the sender and recipient. Generally are not covered by CAN-SPAM requirements. Reply-to: The email address that receives messages sent from users who click ―reply‖ in their email clients. Can differ from the ―from‖ address which can be an automated or unmonitored email address used only to send messages to a distribution list. ―Reply-to‖ should always be a monitored address. Research Phase: Initial stage of the buying process, when consumers are beginning to understand a product and its role in the market. Return Rate: The percentage of total sales (by item, category or all sales) that is ultimately returned by customers. Reverse DNS: The process in which an IP address is matched correctly to a domain name, instead of a domain name being matched to an IP address. Reverse DNS is a popular method for catching spammers who use invalid IP addresses. If a spam filter or program can‘t match the IP address to the domain name, it can reject the email. ROI: Return on Investment, either mathematical or anecdotal analysis of payback for a project. RSS (Really Simple Syndication): XML-based content distribution method that powers many blogs and other types of content websites. RSS gathers ―feeds‖ of information from user-designated sources. The ―feeds‖ include clickable headlines and blurbs about full pieces of content. RSS is seen as an alternative to some types of email communication, but has yet to become an established marketing medium. Sales Cycle: The time between first direct contact (may simply be a registration on a Web site) and ultimate sale. Sales cycle is a measure of efficiency of the sales organization.



Seed Emails or Seed Addresses: Email addresses placed on a list (sometimes secretly) to determine what messages are sent to the list and/or to track delivery rate and/or visible appearance of delivered messages. Seeds may also be placed on websites and elsewhere on the Internet to track spammers‘ harvesting activities. Segment: The ability to slice a list into specific pieces determined by various attributes, such as open history or name source. Select: A segment of a list determined by any number of attributes, such as source of name, job title, purchasing history, etc. CPM list renters pay an additional fee per thousand names for each select on top of the base list price. Selections: Information about people, households, companies, etc. that is used to target direct marketing. Demographic selectors may include age, income, gender, hobbies, holding a credit card, etc. B-to-B selectors include role, title, purchasing history, etc. Selective Unsubscribe: An unsubscribe mechanism that allows a consumer to determine which email newsletters they wish to continue receiving while stopping the sending of others. Sender ID: The informal name for a new anti-spam program combining two existing protocols: Sender Policy Framework and Caller ID. Sender ID authenticates email senders and blocks email forgeries and faked addresses. Sender Policy Framework (also SPF): A protocol used to eliminate email forgeries. A line of code called an SPF record is placed in a sender‘s Domain Name Server information. The incoming server can verify a sender by SPF record before allowing a message through. Sent Emails: Number of email names transmitted in a single broadcast. Does not reflect how many were delivered or viewed by recipients. Server: A program or computer system that stores and distributes email from one mailbox to another, or relays email from one server to another in a network. Share of Wallet: A measure of how much business in a given category is owned by a merchant. Of everything that someone might be expected to spend on product X this year, how much are they spending with merchant Y? SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol): The most common protocol for sending email messages between email servers. Soft Bounce: Email sent to an active (live) email address but which is turned away before being delivered. Often, the problem is temporary — the server is down or the recipient‘s mailbox is over quota. The email might be held at the recipient‘s server and delivered later, or the sender‘s email program may attempt to deliver it again. Soft-bounce reports are not 310 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


always accurate because they don‘t report all soft bounces or the actual reason for the bounce. Solo Mailing: A one-time broadcast to an email list, separate from regular newsletters or promotions, and often including a message from an outside advertiser or a special promotion from the list owner. Spam: The popular name for unsolicited commercial email. However, some email recipients define spam as any email they no longer want to receive, even if it comes from a mailing list they joined voluntarily. Spamcop: A blacklist and IP-address database, formerly privately owned but now part of the email vendor IronPort. Many ISPs check the IP addresses of incoming email against spamcop‘s records to determine whether the address has been blacklisted because of spam complaints. Spamdexing: Any technique designed to fool search engine spiders, and increase or artificially change a search ranking or result. Specifier: Someone whose role in the technical purchase process is to identify specific needs, features, etc. needed from a product. Spider: (aka bot or crawler) A small program that surfs the Web to index information for a search engine. Spidering: The process of surfing the Web, storing URLs and indexing keywords, links and text. Because there is far too much information available to index it all, every search engine has unique (and highly proprietary) ways in which it saves time and space. Spoofing: The practice of changing the sender‘s name in an email message so that it looks as if it came from another address. Subject Line: Copy that identifies what an email message is about, often designed to entice the recipient into opening the message. The subject line appears first in the recipient‘s inbox, often next to the sender‘s name or email address. It is repeated in the email message‘s header information inside the message. Subscribe: The process of joining a mailing list, either through an email command, by filling out a Web form, or offline by filling out a form or requesting to be added verbally. (If you accept verbal subscriptions, you should safeguard yourself by recording it and storing recordings along with time and date, in a retrievable format). Subscriber: The person who has specifically requested to join a mailing list. Suppression File: A list of email addresses you have removed from your regular mailing lists, either because they have opted out of your lists or because they have notified other 311 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


mailers that they do not want to receive mailings from your company. Required by CANSPAM. Test: A necessary step before sending an email campaign or newsletter. Many email clients permit you to send a test email before sending a regular email newsletter or solo mailing, in which you would send one copy of the message to an in-house email address and then review it for formatting or copy errors or improperly formatted links. Email marketers should also send a test campaign to a list of email addresses not in the deployment database to determine likely response rates and how well different elements in the message perform. Text Newsletter: Plain newsletter with words only — no colors, graphics, fonts or pictures; can be received by anyone who has email. Thank-you Page: Web page that appears after user has submitted an order or a form online. May be a receipt. Throttling: The practice of regulating how many email messages a broadcaster sends to one ISP or mail server at a time. Some ISPs bounce email if it receives too many messages from one sending address at a time. Top 2 or Top 3: Scoring method in which only the top 2 responses are used in calculation. Top 2 responses are usually expressing favorability toward the selection and usually include ―very‖ and ―somewhat‖ as the two responses. Transactional Email (also Transactive Email): An email that is part of a transaction, usually a receipt. Also, has been used to refer to rich-media emails with transactional capability embedded in the email itself. However, this term has largely fallen out of use as filtering of email has limited the utilization of rich media elements. UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email): Also called spam or junk mail. Unique Reference Number: A unique number assigned to a list member, usually by the email broadcast software, and used to track member behavior (clicks, subscribes, unsubscribes) or to identify the member to track email delivery. Universe: The total membership of a defined group. The universe of influencers on technology purchases, for example, includes technical staff, IT management, Line of Business managers and executives at the VP and C-level. Unsubscribe: To remove oneself from an email list, either via an emailed command to the list server or by filling in a Web form. Usability: The study of how people interact with their environment. In online marketing, a specialized form that focuses on Web page design. Vendor: Any company that provides a service. See Email Vendor. 312 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Verification: A program that determines an email came from the sender listed in the return path or Internet headers; designed to stop email from forged senders. Video Email: An email message that includes a video file, either inserted into the message body, accessible through a hotlink to a website or accompanying it in an attachment (least desirable because many ISPs block executable attachments to avoid viruses). Web Bug (also Web Beacon): A 1-pixel by 1-pixel image tag added to an HTML message and used to track open rates by email addresses. Opening the message, either in the preview pane, or by clicking on it, activates the bug and sends a signal to the website, where special software tracks and records the signal as an open. Webmail: Any of several Web-based email clients where clients have to go to a website to access or download email instead of using a desktop application. Some examples are Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. Welcome Message: Message sent automatically to new list members as soon as their email addresses are added successfully. Whitelist: Advance-authorized list of email addresses, held by an ISP, subscriber or other email service provider, which allows email messages to be delivered regardless of spam filters. See also Enhanced Whitelist. Wish Lists: A merchandising technique that allows registered website users to store a list of products they would like. Like a digital version of a wedding registry. Word of Mouth or WOM: An emerging area in marketing that attempts to measure and/or harness the power of personal recommendations. With the explosion of blog readership, WOM has become a hot topic in virtually every industry. XML Feeds: A method of feeding page information to search engines using XML. Some feeds are paid on a CPC or subscription basis. XML: Extensible Markup Language, a new language that promises more efficient data delivery over the Web. XML does nothing itself. It must be implemented using ‗parser‘ software or XSL.





Appendix 2: Demographic Profile of Survey Participants Benchmark Survey A2.01 Chart: Size of Respondents‘ Organizations

35% 30% 29% 25% 24% 20% 20% 15%

16%

10%

11%

5% 0% 1 - 10 employees

11 - 100 employees

101 - 500 employees

501 - 2,000 employees

More than 2,000 employees




A2.02 Chart: Respondents‘ Areas of Specialty and Oversight

Did this myself

Oversaw tasks

email marketing

No involvement

68%

online marketing analytics

50%

marketing website creation/upkeep

27% 4%

27%

45%

offline marketing/PR

41%

42%

search marketing

27%

34%

online display advertising

28% 0%

20%

23%

31%

29%

37%

27% 40%

14%

45% 60%

80%

100%




A2.03 Chart: Breakdown of Respondents‘ Organizations

In-house Marketer for a Company

55%

Other Marketing Company

15%

Independent Marketing Consultant

13%

Advertising Agency

8%

Email Service Provider

5%

Media Agency

4% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%




A2.04 Chart: Breakdown of Respondents‘ Sales Targets

Consumers (B-to-C)

44%

Small businesses (1-99 employees)

17%

Mid-sized businesses (100-500 employees)

18%

Large businesses (501-2,000 employees)

13%

Very large orgs (> 2,000 employees)

8%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%




A2.05 Chart: Respondents‘ Annual Email Marketing Budgets

30%

25% 24% 20% 20%

19%

15% 14%

13% 10% 10%

5%

0% <$1,000

$1,000 to $4,999

$5,000 to $9,999

$10,000 to $49,999

$50,000 to $100,000

>$100,000




A2.06 Chart: Respondents‘ Industries

Computer Software/Hardware

26%

Publishing/Media

13%

Retail

Education

10% 5%

Medical Services

3%

Construction

3%

Consumer Packaged Goods Manufacturer Legal Services

2% 1%

Other

37% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%




A2.07 Chart: Size of Respondents‘ Email Databases

30% 25%

25.7%

26.4%

20% 19.3% 15% 15.0% 13.6% 10% 5% 0% Under 5,000 5,000 - 24,999

25,000 99,999

100,000 500,000

More than 500,000




Consumer Email Survey A2.08 Chart: Gender Breakdown

Female 55%

Male 45%




A2.09 Chart: Age Breakdown

40% Share of Respondents

38%

30%

23%

20%

10%

22%

11% 6%

0% Under 18 years old

18 - 26 years 27 - 38 years 39 - 54 years Over 55 years old old old old




A2.10 Chart: Household Income Breakdown

40% Respondent HH Income Breakdown 35% 35% 30% 25%

20% 19%

15%

17%

10%

11%

5%

9%

10%

0% Under $35,000

$35,000 to $50,001 to $75,001 to $50,000 $75,000 $100,000

Over I would $100,000 prefer not to answer




A2.11 Chart: Education Profile

Other/Not applicable Graduate Degree Technical/ Specialty Degree

Respondents Education

2%

8% 4%

Bachelors Degree

16%

Associates Degree

8%

Some college

32%

High school diploma or equivalent Some high school

24% 5% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%




A2.12 Chart: Urban vs. Rural

Large city (over 1,000,000 residents)

18%

Medium city (100,000 to 1,000,000 residents)

22%

Small city (20,000 to 100,000 residents)

22%

Town (up to 20,000 people)

14%

Suburban (near but not inside a town or city)

11%

Rural

14% 0%

10%

Respondents' Areas of Residence

20%

30%




A2.13 Chart: Respondents‘ Online Spending

40% Respondents' Online Spending 38% 30% 26% 20% 17%

10%

11% 8%

0% Nothing

Under $300

Between $301 Between $501 and $500 and $1,000

Over $1,000






Research Partners MarketingSherpa works with partners to deliver the best possible array of research for every Benchmark Guide. Partners are invited to participate in research because they bring a unique skill, survey population, data set or research-related technology to the project. MarketingSherpa is not paid by partners and does not accept outside advertising in our Benchmark Guides. Partners may provide discounted or free access to research tools. Partners‘ names are indicated in the Source/Methodology displayed under each chart, table, or illustration to which they contributed data, insight or resources. For more information, go to http://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/Research-Partners.

Eyetools lets you see your website through your customers‘ eyes — literally. Eyetracking quantifies how people visually process websites, email campaigns, advertisements and landing pages. Eyetools provides you with actionable information that will dramatically increase conversion and usability based on what people actually read and ignore in your marketing. All you need to get started is a URL and the demographics of your target audience. For more information, email us at [email protected] or call 916-792-4538.

Founded in 2003, Pivotal Veracity is an independent email delivery auditing and optimization company that works with permission-based companies and their vendors to improve the delivery of their marketing and service communications. Pivotal Veracity‘s customers are Fortune 1000 marketers, as well as leading direct marketing providers including @Once, Blue Hornet, Direct Media, Eloqua, ExactTarget, and Eclipse Direct Marketing. A supporter of CAN-SPAM, Pivotal Veracity believes in responsible direct marketing and works only with companies who employ 100% double-opt-in list generation. For more information on Pivotal Veracity, please visit www.pivotalveracity.com 329 © Copyright 2002-2008 M arketingSherpa LLC. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions, contact [email protected]. For more copies, go to http://w w w .SherpaStore.com


Q Interactive is an online marketing services provider for advertisers and publishers. Using a unique combination of demographic, behavioral and transactional data in a proprietary targeting engine, Q Interactive is fundamentally improving the relevancy of advertising on the Internet. Every year, more than 1500 leading brands rely on Q Interactive to generate quality results, more than half of the nation's top 100 advertisers as ranked by Advertising Age, such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. Q Interactive operates an extensive advertising network with more than 1000 high traffic partner sites, including Weather.com and About.com, as well as its own savings and shopping sites, including CoolSavings.com. Q Interactive's services include Online Lead Generation and E-mail.

Survey Sampling International LLC (SSI) has been the trusted partner to survey researchers since its founding in 1977. Researchers trust that our focus is on quality sample and superior service, making us the first choice in Internet, telephone, mail, and in-person sampling. More than 1,500 research firms choose SSI each year, including 43 of the top 50 research firms in the world. SSI provides sampling solutions in more than 40 countries. With offices in Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, UK, and the Eastern and Western US, and an international staff of 220 employees representing more than 15 countries and 25 languages, SSI is well on its way to establishing proprietary panels and service offices in all major economies in the world. www.surveysampling.com


NOTES FOR: 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide

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