Thursday, July 24, 2014

Automation Revs E-mail Response, Data Demands

Automation technology can turbocharge e-mail response, provided your marketing organization is prepared to take advantage. Just take a look at Silverpop's impressive evidence of e-mail automation's impact on opens and clicks. According to Silverpop's annual e-mail marketing metrics benchmark study, automated messages achieved an open rate nearly 15% higher and a click-through rate nearly 79% higher than their manual counterparts last year. The study examined messages sent by more than 3,000 brands across industries and geographies in 2013. Response metrics like those recently inspired Ellen Valentine at ClickZ to urge expanded use of automation -- as long as the groundwork for success has been laid with marketing vision, skills and data. "If you don't have great data on your customers and prospects, you become much more limited in how you'll be able to deploy automation technology," warns Valentine. "Consider every way your customers interact with you -- whether it's on the Web, on a social channel, on a mobile app, or within an e-mail -- and how you can capture and integrate these behaviors into your marketing efforts." If the data tasks seem overwhelming to internal teams, she suggests calling in a third party to help augment databases and speed integration -- and that could include the data professionals at AccuList USA, of course. For the complete article, see.http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2355480/survey-says-automated-emails-outperform-manual-counterparts

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Sequenced Creatives Outdo CTA Ads, Per Study

Sequenced creative that walks customers down the sales funnel can outperform a call-to-action (CTA) digital ad campaign, according to new research from social media ad company Adaptly, Facebook, and fashion website Refinery29. Per a Direct Marketing News report, the test audience was built by Adaptly using a Facebook Custom Audience based on Refinery29's best e-mail subscribers, resulting in a Facebook lookalike audience of more than 2 million users split into three creative treatment groups. In May 2014, the sequenced creative was delivered evenly across 12 days to one test group, with the first creative a top-of-the-funnel brand message similar to a TV commercial introducing a brand's image and personality. The second creative in the sequence offered a product orientation similar to a brand website to spur middle-of-the-funnel consideration, and the last ad was a bottom-of-the-funnel CTA-based creative. The response of the sequenced-ad group was compared with response by a test group that received three CTA-focused ads, each delivered for four consecutive days, as well as behavior of a control group. The testing found that sequencing ads to move individuals down the marketing funnel generated 56% more conversions than a sustained CTA message delivered over the same period. The sequenced ads also increased view-throughs by 87%. To see the ad creatives, go to http://www.dmnews.com/in-the-age-of-storytelling-is-the-cta-still-viable/article/361103/