Thursday, June 11, 2015

How 'Little Data' Basics Yield Big E-mail Results

E-mail marketers can get lost in "big data" analytics and lose sight of the "little data" basics of e-mail delivery that reveal faster response improvements, advises Scott Roth of consumer intelligence company Return Path in a recent ClickZ post. Roth's "little data" fundamentals go beyond engagement rates to inbox placement rates, authentication policies and domain security, and Roth provides a number of real-life examples of how analyzing these basics improved e-mail results. For example, large U.S. retailer Dillard reversed a trend of declining open and click-through rates by checking inbox placement rates across all major mailbox providers. Dillard found that 20% of promotional e-mails failed to reach subscribers, with many e-mail addresses no longer existent. Plus, subscribers who did get e-mail marked it as junk at an above-average rate. The retailer focused corrective actions to pump engagement rates 100% and push open rates above pre-decline levels. Similarly, when another brand saw inbox placement rates drop 50%, they checked their sending basics and discovered that an improperly configured authentication policy for their sending domain had caused most mailbox providers to treat e-mails as spam. With corrective action, the brand saw inbox placement rise 46% to 92%. Financial firms especially need to track basic data for signs of security problems, as Roth points out. For example, he notes how a financial services firm tracking a rise in suspicious domains and call center traffic was able to correlate its e-mail data with phishing outbreaks and then implemented e-mail security protocols. For the whole article, read http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2410356/sweat-the-small-stuff-big-results-through-email-marketing-fundamentals

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

The First Step to an A/B Test Win: An Open Mind

Although A/B testing is a marketing given, marketers often unknowingly limit their potential response results with preconceived notions about what audiences prefer. Approaching A/B testing with an open mind can yield the surprise wins that create market leaders. A recent DirectMarketingIQ article by Rohan Ayyar, of the E2M digital marketing agency, cited some telling A/B testing results for marketing efforts as diverse as mobile landing pages, e-mail subject lines and even product design. One example of a surprise test win comes from health insurer Anthem. For a mobile PPC campaign, Anthem A/B tested a landing page with no images and three different calls to action in a text-only format against a landing page with the image of a smiling woman, a single call to action and descriptive copy. Based on common assumptions about the digital conversion power of images, Anthem expected the version with the image to win--but they were wrong. On a mobile platform, the all-text version increased leads by 166% at a 95% confidence level. It turned out that mobile users scrolling small screens preferred multiple calls to action, including an easy call to customer care, to reading small soft-sell text. Another famous example of thinking out of the A/B testing box comes from President Obama's 2012 re-election e-mail fundraising. Politics is serious business, so the assumption was that e-mail appeals with formal subject lines would deliver more dollars. In reality, casual subject lines that even contained mild profanity ("Hell yeah, I Like Obama") or just the recipient's name did better, and the big winner was the famous "Hey" subject line series. The President's name as the sender combined with a friendly personal approach in the subject line to push winning e-mails $2.2 million ahead in revenue compared with the worst performing e-mail. For more on surprise A/B testing wins, see http://www.directmarketingiq.com/article/3-unexpected-wins-that-emerged-from-a-b-testing/1