Designing & sending emails · 3 I GUIDELINES I Designing & sending emails 1. PURPOSE 4 2. EMAIL DESIGN 5 2.1 Brand optimization 5 2.2 Pre-header & header 5 2.3 Email layout & visual

GUIDELINES

Designing & sending emails

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Selligent

2 I GUIDELINES I Designing & sending emails

TERM DESCRIPTION

DNS Domain Name System; is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network.

DKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail.

ESP Email Service Provider; a company that helps senders create and deliver email cam-paigns.

ISP Internet Service Provider; in the context of email, these are the companies that own the domains and/or mailboxes that emails get sent to, e.g. Gmail.

OPT-IN A term used when someone is given the option to receive “bulk” email.

JMRP Junk Mail Reporting program.

OPT-OUT A term used when someone is given the choice to request to be taken out.

PHISHING Attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in email communication.

SPAM The use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, espe-cially advertising, indiscriminately.

SPF Sender Policy Framework.

SPOOFING The creation of email messages with a forged sender address.

UTF-8 A variable-width encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set.

GLOSSARY


1. PURPOSE 4

2. EMAIL DESIGN 5

2.1 Brand optimization 5

2.2 Pre-header & header 5

2.3 Email layout & visual impact 6

2.4 Content & copy 7

2.5 Footer 7

2.6 What you need to avoid 8

2.7 What you can consider 8

2.8 Mobile emails 8

2.9 Test your email 9

3. AVOIDING THE SPAM FOLDER 10

3.1 Email setup 10

3.2 Spam-triggering words 11

4. EMAIL REPUTATION 12

4.1 Get to the inbox 12

4.2 Identify yourself 13

4.2.1 SPF 13

4.2.2 DKIM 13

4.3 Feedback loops 14

4.4 List-unsubscribe 14

4.5 Opt-in management 14

4.5.1 Opt-in types 15

4.5.2 Legal concerns 16

4.5.3 Best practices 16

4.6 Opt-out management 17

4.6.1 Decrease the number of unsubscribes 17

4.6.2 Best practices 18

4.7 Bounce management 19

4.8 Maintain permissions over time 20

TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. PURPOSE

Email marketing can be a wonderful tool, if done right. In fact, email marketing does not have to be all about pushing readers into clicking on call-to-action buttons (although it is very effective at that). It is also about keeping your brand in their mind so that when they do need your services, they will think of you and not your competitors.

Good email marketing does not only create benefits for the sender. It should provide real benefits to the reader too. It should help them solve problems, keep them informed and provide added value. After all, that is what they expected when they signed up.

The problem is often that subscribers do not make a conscious decision to sign up. Next to that, more and more people read their emails on a variety of devices. Ensuring a proper layout on each device can raise quite some questions. And you surely want to avoid a user’s spam folder. Consequently, we can safely state that email marketing is a rather complex subject.

In this guide we will give you some tips and best practices for setting up effective email campaigns. In the first chapter, we tackle the email design process. Designing emails may look easy. However, there are a lot of points that need special care as you want your email to draw a recipient’s attention and look similar across all devices.

The second chapter focuses on ways to avoid a user’s spam folder, by looking into the content and structure of an email.

In the final chapter, we deal with email reputation and deliverability. These are the key success factors for your email campaigns. We try to give an overview of actions you can take to improve your reputation with the different ISPs.


2. EMAIL DESIGN

It is not easy to get noticed between the hundreds of emails that crowd a recipient’s inbox. And it is equally important to avoid sending your emails to a user’s spam box. Therefore, it is essential to put considerate effort and thought into your email design. The next sections contain some best practices for elaborating the concept design of your emails, as well as some pitfalls that can hurt performance.

2.1 BRAND OPTIMIZATION

People recognize your products and offers mostly by your brand. Therefore, it is important to:

• Include your brand name in the From name [A].

• Use a recognizable From address and an existing reply-to address [B].

• Put some effort into personalization by including the recipient’s name in the To field [C].

• Display your logo clearly and use your brand colors. If possible, reflect the design of your website.

Next to that, be careful with your subject lines. Use an informative and short subject line and avoid spam-triggering words or capitals for entire words or phrases (see section 3.2 for more details). Also, only use UTF-8 special characters like or if they are really relevant and create added value.

2.2 PRE-HEADER & JOHNSON BOX

A pre-header is the text that follows the subject line when an email is viewed in the inbox. After the sender and the subjectl ine, it is your last chance to convince the receiver to open your email.

How to add a pre-header to your email? Very simple. The first readable text at the very top of your email will be considered by the email clients as the pre-header [D].

Most emails nowadays contain a so called Johnson Box (or preview pane), which is essentially a box of 400x300 pixels found at the top of emails, containing the key message of the email. The purpose of the box is to draw the reader’s attention to this key message first, and hopefully grab their attention, enticing them to read the rest of the email. The Johnson box should always contain a line of text that describes the content or purpose that motivates your recipient for further reading. It is recommended to try to keep the header [E] less than 150 pixel in height, to avoid pushing your main message and call-to-action below the Johnson Box [F].


Some best practices for pre-headers are:

• Add a compelling reason to open your email. Choose a compelling subject line above all. Then think of a pre-header in addition to that subject.

• Limit to 100 characters in length. Gmail shows about 140 characters for subject line and pre-header text combined. Iphone displays about 90 characters for the pre-header (in the traditional vertical view) regardless of the subject length.

• Don’t drop the “view online” link, just put it after the pre-header.

• Try A/B testing on the pre-header to see what works best for your recipients and your emails.

• Like with many other things in email design, test your pre-header in multiple email cli-ents and view your email on mobile devices in both vertical and horizontal view.

2.3 EMAIL LAYOUT & VISUAL IMPACT

Currently, emails can be read on a wide variety of devices, such as desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Therefore, it is not always easy to come up with an ideal layout that covers all devices. For emails that are read on a desktop or laptop, the ideal width is 500 to 650 pixels. For smartphones however, you should opt for a maximum width of 320 to 550 pixels. Nevertheless, the current trend is to implement responsive design, which provides an optimal viewing experience across almost all devices.

Additionally, you should take into account the following considerations:

• A vertical layout is preferable over a horizontal one, as vertical scrolling is easier on most devices.

• Text and images should be used in a correct proportion. If the balance is off, emails will have a greater chance on triggering a spam filter.

• If you have a lot of content to cover, include a table of contents in the top of your email.

• When displaying a broad range of products or categories, provide a navigation bar.

• Make sure that key offerings are taken up in separate sections which are visually emphasized.

• Put a lot of effort into call-to-action buttons, as the design should naturally lead the user to the call-to-action. You do want your customers to easily find and click them. The same approach should be followed for product offers and feature headers.

• Whenever images are used, it is important to provide fallback colors and alt-text for the images, as not every email client will be able to display them correctly.

• Try to avoid background images layered with text, as they are not supported across all email clients (e.g. Outlook).


2.4 CONTENT & COPY

Most users have a crowded inbox and quickly scan through their emails. As you do not want to waste their time and risk a potential unsubscribe, make sure to use short sentences and paragraphs.

Additionally, legibility is crucial if you want to convince recipients to read an entire email. Therefore, use design elements like spacing and dividing lines to distinguish content sections from one another [F]. Also, if you want to put focus on specific headers or sub-headers, put them in a bold typeface. Or reversely, if you only want to draw attention to certain words, put them in a bold typeface and leave the remainder in a regular font [G].

When offering products, it might be a good idea to use bullet points to showcase their benefits and put additional

emphasis on them. In this way, the customer will get a clear overview and you might just persuade him enough to click through [H].

As text is the core of most emails, you should take special care of the fonts that you are using. If you want to play safe, you can stick to web-safe standard fonts like Arial, Georgia or Tahoma. However, there are ways to setup non-standard fonts in an email by including @font-face CSS tags in your styling. It is important that you do not forget to provide one of the web-safe fonts as fallback font, in case an email client cannot render the chosen font correctly. Also make sure to choose a large enough font size as you never know on which device your recipient will read your email. The ideal font size for body copy is 14-16 pixels and titles are best shown with a minimum of 22 pixels [I].

2.5 FOOTER

The footer can be easily overlooked, but is a very important part of your email. The footer is the ideal place to include the following details:

• Your organization’s complete contact details. You want to make sure that people can find and contact you if needed [J].

• An unsubscribe link or button [K]. Never hide this link, as a user clicking on it does not always have to result in an effective opt-out. It might be that the user just wants to change his email address or choose to receive fewer emails. You should offer him alternatives on your unsubscribe page. For more details, you can check out sections 4.5 and 4.6.

• If possible, include links to the main sections of your website or key services and product categories.


• Encourage the viral effect by making it easy for your audience to share your email. You should always include social sharing links like Twitter or Facebook and offer the possibility to forward your email to friends (“Tell-a-friend” principle) [L].

• To decrease the chances on spam complaints, explain to your recipients why they are receiving this email [M].

2.6 WHAT YOU NEED TO AVOID

Many marketers like to include videos, Flash, Ajax and other advanced features to spice up their emails. However, we strongly discourage taking up these features as most email clients do not know how to display them properly. Additionally, avoid using GIF files for the same reason. If you do want to implement these kinds of features, rather use a still image which links to a landing page containing the feature.

2.7 WHAT YOU CAN CONSIDER

Relying on images to draw attention to your emails is not always a good practice. Many email clients require you to do an additional action to display images (e.g. Outlook: “Click here to download images”). Therefore, design your email keeping in mind that your message should be clear without relying on the images to load.

Some email clients do not support HTML messages or a user might choose not to enable the setting. In these cases, a plain text version will be shown instead. Consequently, you should include a plain text version that is easy to read and structured for quick scanning when creating HTML emails.

2.8 MOBILE EMAILS

As stated before, more and more recipients use their mobile phone to read their emails. Therefore, you should put quite some effort in making your emails easily readable on these devices. As an overall approach towards email design, you could employ responsive design. In this way, you cover all devices at once. But be aware that this is not a straightforward matter. To help you on your way, you can find some tips below:

• For optimal legibility, your email width should be limited to 600 pixels (for Android). Litmus suggests 320 to 550 pixels.

• Create call-to-action buttons that can be easily clicked or tapped. Your calls-to-action need to be eye-catching, centered and clickable, with a minimum size of 44 x 44 pixels.

• While desktop newsletters are typically designed in two or three columns, a mobile optimised email should be designed in a single column template.


2.9 TEST YOUR EMAIL

Many email clients have their own way of interpreting and displaying email code. While a lot of effort is put into reviewing current email client standards, nothing beats actually testing a newsletter in as many clients as possible. It is always a good idea to send some test emails to your own address(es), before launching the whole campaign. Make sure every link is working and that any personalization appears as expected.

Fortunately, there are several services/tools on the market that can make your life a lot easier. The following range of tools can help with design and spam testing:

• Litmus: a company specialized in email testing, spam filter testing and email analytics. For more information, visit http://www.litmus.com and http://litmus.com/blog.

• Email on Acid: a self-serve email testing platform which assists you with email rendering, deliverability, click-through data and conversions. For more information, visit http://www.emailonacid.com.


3. AVOIDING THE SPAM FOLDER

It goes without saying that every marketer wants his email campaigns to arrive in the recipient’s inbox, rather than the spam folder. However, it is not always easy to construct an email in such a way that you escape every ISP’s spam filter.

In order to maximize the chance on inbox targeting, you should take into account the tips in the following sections.

3.1 EMAIL SETUP

A professionally designed email with the correct HTML code throughout will ensure your email looks its best in all browsers and will avoid high spam scores for bad coding.

• Make sure your email does not have any missing or redundant code.

• Always include an email title.

• Pay attention to your spelling.

• Ensure that your email does not solely consist of images. This is a well-known tool that spammers use to get past content filters. Try to get a good mix of HTML text and images for the best results.

• Always send a plain text version with your HTML email to ensure that – if the recipient cannot use HTML or is opening it on a PDA or phone – he will still be able to view it.

• Try to ensure the plain text version matches the HTML version as closely as possible.

• Never use capitals when you do not have to. It is even worse when whole lines are printed in capitals.

• Avoid italics, colored and very large fonts.

• Stay clear of using non-standard colors and colored backgrounds.

• Avoid forms in the email body, as they do not work in most email clients.

• Images accompanied by little or no text are not recommended.

• When you send out emails, try to use a phased approach and defer from very long lists of recipients. Most domains can only handle a limited number of emails per minute.

• Always ensure the email address is valid.

• Large or very long messages exceeding a recipient’s mailbox limit should be avoided.

• Stay clear from attachments as most ISP’s label them as “dangerous”. Many spam emails contain attachments with malicious software or viruses.

• Pay attention to your subject lines and do not use punctuation in the subject line.


3.2 SPAM-TRIGGERING WORDS

There are a lot of words that should be avoided, as they put spam bots in a frenzy. The list below is only an indication, but gives a good overview:

• Dear Friend (either personalize properly or use Sir/Madam).

• Free – Free offer, Free trial, Free application, Free sample, Free access, Free quote, Free anything can cause spam problems especially when used in capitals.

• No obligation.

• No risk, low risk, risk free.

• “Click here” or “click below”.

• Order now.

• No catch.

• Money back guarantee.

• Click to be removed.

• Have you been turned down.

• Never mention spam or spam legislation in your emails.

• Click

• Trial (our trial product…)

• Dear ….

• Not intended for residents of… (this could be in the disclaimer)

• Bankruptcy (discussing your workout practice)

• Call now (to register for your seminar)

• Limited-time offer

• Full refund

• Save up to…

• Guaranteed

• Cash (as in “the acquiring company agreed to a deal composed of cash and stock…”)

• Millions of pounds (in the verdict or transaction…)

• Income

• Urgent matter

• Potential earnings

• Breakthrough


4. EMAIL REPUTATION

Email sending and deliverability is all about domain/IP reputation. If your domain – that you use for sending – has a good reputation with an ISP, your emails will arrive almost constantly in your recipient’s inbox. In case of a bad reputation, you will notice a drop in delivery speed and your emails can arrive in the spam box. In worst case, you can get blacklisted. As ISPs consider you as “not trustworthy”, they limit the number of emails per minute you can send to them and scan the content more strictly. Fortunately, you can influence your reputation in a positive sense by following the guidelines described in the next paragraphs.

4.1 GET TO THE INBOXThe image below (provided by Return Path1) gives a good overview of the complexity of the process.

As you notice, a lot of factors influence your reputation and deliverability. Moreover, reputation is not a snapshot taken at one single moment in time. It is a continuous effort that should be constantly monitored and managed.

1 Return Path is the worldwide leader in email intelligence. Their email intelligence solutions maximize the performance and accountability of email, build trust across the entire email ecosystem and protect users from spam and other abuse. For more information, visit http://www.returnpath.com.


4.2 IDENTIFY YOURSELF

Authentication allows the receiver of an email and the ISP to confirm the identity of the sender. If the identity of the sender can’t be authenticated, ISPs may reject the message or put it through additional filters to determine whether it should be delivered or not. Without authentication, your chances of being filtered by major ISPs are greatly increased.

Email authentication is important because it addresses one of the main security problems inherent to the email sending technology. Authentication is integral to prevent phishing and other fraud. As a legitimate business, authentication is not optional. It is essential to securing your brand and online reputation.

Authentication can be realized with the setup of SPF and DKIM records in the Domain Name System (DNS). Both are described in the next paragraphs.

4.2.1 SPF

The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email validation system designed to prevent spam by detecting email spoofing, a common vulnerability, through verification of sender IP addresses. SPF allows administrators to specify which mail servers are permitted to send email on behalf of a given domain. Therefore, they create a specific SPF record (or TXT record) in the DNS. Email exchangers use the DNS to check if email from a given domain is being sent by a host sanctioned by that domain’s administrators.

The purpose of an SPF record is to prevent spammers from sending messages with forged From addresses at your domain. Recipients can refer to the SPF record to determine whether a message claiming to be from your domain comes from an authorized mail server.

If your domain does not have an SPF record, some recipient domains may reject messages from your users because they cannot validate that the messages come from an authorized mail server. Therefore, we recommend that you create a SPF record for your domain.

4.2.2 DKIM

Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is a method for associating a domain name to an email message. It allows a person or organization to claim responsibility for the message. The association is set up by means of a digital signature which can be validated by recipients. Responsibility is claimed by a signer, which acts independently of the message’s author or recipient, by adding a DKIM-Signature field to the message’s header.

As mentioned above, spammers can forge the From address of email messages so that the spam appears to come from a user in your domain. To help prevent this sort of abuse, you can add a DKIM Signature field to the header of email messages sent from your domain. Recipients can check the domain signature to verify that the message really comes from your domain and that it has not been changed along the way.

Prominent ESPs implementing DKIM include Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, AOL and Fastmail. Any email from these organizations should carry a DKIM signature.


NOTEEmail authentication, like SPF and DKIM, will not solve your deliverability problems. Validating a domain only authenticates the identity of the sender. It does not speak of the content of the email message. However, authentication will make it harder for your domains to be forged and is critical to your brand reputation and subscriber trust.

4.3 FEEDBACK LOOPS

A feedback loop is an inter-organizational system by which an ESP forwards complaints from their mailbox owners to the sender’s organization. These complaints are registered when a user clicks the “Report spam” button in their email client.

Consequently, the sender receives these complaints and processes them according to its company policy. In most cases, the best way to deal with spam complaints is unsubscribing the user and registering the complaint in a campaign report. This is a fairly typical way of how feedback loop complaints are dealt with.

If you choose to use a specific ESP, you can check with them as to whether they are integrated with feedback loops. While it might seem risky to open yourself up to such direct complaints, it is better to handle them right away than having to find out that you have been blacklisted later on. You can find a list of the major feedback loops at http://blog.deliverability.com. Hotmail offers a feedback loop under the name of JMRP (Junk Mail Reporting Program) for instance.

4.4 LIST-UNSUBSCRIBE

The List-Unsubscribe header is an optional block of text that email publishers and marketers can include in the header part of their emails. Recipients do not see the header itself. Instead, they see an unsubscribe button that can be clicked when they would like to automatically stop future messages.

Including a List-Unsubscribe header in your emails will reduce complaints, improve deliverability and improve the experience of your subscribers. One obvious benefit is that recipients will be able to easily and reliably unsubscribe if they want to, as opposed to frustrated users who do not find the actual opt-out link and are likely to hit the “Report Spam” button or complain in some other way, hurting your sender reputation in the end.

4.5 OPT-IN MANAGEMENT

To build reputation, it is important to maintain a healthy subscriber list. Such a list ensures that spam complaints are kept to a minimum. Also, the last thing you want to achieve is deterring your customers from buying your products or visiting your website by sending them unsolicited emails. Therefore it is a good idea to request a customer’s permission for your electronic newsletters and advertisements.


4.5.1 OPT-IN TYPES

For every subscriber list, you basically have the choice between a single opt-in or a confirmed opt-in. You could also set up an automatic opt-in, but in general, this is not a good practice. Many studies show that people who did not explicitly give their permission to receive your emails, will more easily mark your emails as spam, unsubscribe or ignore them completely. It goes without saying that all three options are bad for your business.

SINGLE OPT-IN

In a single opt-in process, a person is automatically added to a subscriber list as soon as he/she completed a subscriber form. No additional confirmation is required. In general, the subscribe flow consists of a subscribe form or page and a confirmation page.

As an extension of this process, you could send a confirmation email to the subscriber in which you offer him the possibility to unsubscribe. In this way, any unwanted or erroneous subscriptions can be easily undone.

CONFIRMED OPT-IN

Description

Unlike a single opt-in, a confirmed opt-in (or double opt-in) requires a person to validate his email address before you can add him to your subscriber list. When a person completes the subscribe form, a confirmation email is immediately sent to the address he provided.

This email contains a verification link which the recipient needs to click to confirm that he is the owner of the email address. Once the link has been clicked, the email address is added to the subscriber list. In case the subscriber does not click the verification link, he is not added to the subscriber list. However if the person later fills in the subscription form again, he will receive another verification email.

Advantages

• Confirmed opt-ins reduce the probability of spam complaints. As the person gave his permission twice, he/she explicitly agreed to receive your emails. Note however that this process does not guarantee a complete elimination of spam complaints.

• The quality of the email addresses in your subscriber list will increase significantly. As people need to confirm their subscription, they need to enter a real email address. This also eliminates misspelled addresses and typos. After all, invalid email addresses can be a mild annoyance in the best case. But they can also be an expensive problem, impacting your campaign metrics and delivery rates.

• You will potentially have more responsive subscribers. Those who are genuinely interested enough to confirm their subscriptions may also be more inclined to respond to your email campaigns or newsletter.

Disadvantages

• You may lose a number of potential subscribers because people may not bother to confirm their requests.

• Potential subscribers who genuinely want to receive your newsletter may not understand the confirmation process and fail to click the link.


4.5.2 LEGAL CONCERNS

When dealing with opt-ins, it is important to consult your country’s legislation. Some countries are stricter than others with a view on a user’s privacy. Probably the most famous anti-spam legislation is the US Can-Spam Act, but it is not the only one. In the Netherlands for example, you may want to consider a confirmed opt-in process, as their Telecom legislation is rather strict and organizations like ACM fiercely defend the rights of consumers.

Consequently, a confirmed opt-in is the safest option for international companies, sending out emails to a large subscriber base divided over many countries.

4.5.3 BEST PRACTICES

To get the most out of your subscriber lists, you will want to personalize and target the best recipients by gathering relevant subscriber data. In general, the impact of the opt-in process on your subscriber list growth and email quality is easily overlooked.

THE OPT-IN PAGE

During the opt-in process, asking for too much information can deter subscribers. However, you should not be afraid to ask more details than just a name and email address. The following considerations may help you to create a relevant opt-in page.

• Keep it simple. Your goal is to get the site visitor to subscribe. So avoid cluttering the page with any unnecessary information and make the signing up form easy to fill in and clearly visible.

• Explain to your subscribers what you plan to do with the data they filled in. It is also a good idea to mention the frequency of possible email traffic (e.g. twice a week), what kind of messages they can expect, how they can edit their opt-in preferences and where they can unsubscribe.

• Provide a sample of previous newsletters so that subscribers can see what emails to expect.

• Adopt a privacy policy and provide a link to it from your opt-in page. The policy should describe how you handle the data you collect and how people can contact you in case they have concerns or questions.

THE OPT-IN FORM

The form itself requires a lot of consideration. You need to capture the data required to segment, personalize and optimize your email campaigns. However, you want to avoid scaring off potential subscribers with a lengthy form.

• Only ask for information that you really need. First name, last name and email address should always be collected. But you might be interested in other data as well, like location or birthdate. If the latter data is necessary, ask for it by all means. However, do not ask for data that you do not plan on using. The more you request, the more wary subscribers becomes. You could split up the data gathering process by sending out a follow up email in which you ask for more information (e.g. refer to a profile page).

• Do not pre-check opt-in boxes. You can trick people into signing up, but do you really want to collect subscribers that way? Additionally, you might risk increasing your spam rates and potentially have legal repercussions.


• Have subscribers add your email address to their contact list or address book. When people sign up for your list, it is a good idea to ask them to add your reply-to email address to their address book. This helps to ensure that any emails coming from your email address will land in their inbox rather than being filtered into spam folders.

• Send a welcome message. After sign-up, send a confirmation email in which you thank a customer for signing up and repeat the manner in which his data will be used. Make him feel secure and convince him that being part of your subscriber list will be beneficial to him. Additionally, you should set expectations about frequency and content: tell your subscribers how often they will receive emails and let them know what type of information they can expect.

WHERE TO USE OPT-IN FORMS

You could put an opt-in form in many places. However, the more relevant the positioning, the better the results will be. Subscription forms are best placed in the following locations:

• Home Page. If you want to draw the attention of all site visitors, add an opt-in form on your home page, or provide a clear link to it from the home page.

• During the registration process. If you have a registration-based web site, ask for opt-in permission during the registration process.

• During download. If you are providing something valuable enough that a user is taking the effort to download it, then they will likely be willing to subscribe as well.

• During Checkout. Providing an opt-in during a checkout process is a good idea, especially if you offer something valuable to those that opt-in during checkout (e.g. a discount on a future purchase).

4.6 OPT-OUT MANAGEMENT

A quick, easy and reliable unsubscribe process is an essential element of your email marketing program. However, not everyone who clicks the unsubscribe link actually wants to end the relationship with your company. But, if you do not give them any choice, make the options you have hard to find or create a needlessly complex unsubscribe process, you will certainly lose your subscribers. Moreover, you risk being tagged as spam and endanger all your future mailings. For recovering from a bad-sender reputation is a very long and tedious process.

4.6.1 DECREASE THE NUMBER OF UNSUBSCRIBES

Having fewer unsubscribes is every marketer’s dream. Unlike many people might think, you do have the possibility to influence the number of unsubscribes: you only need to proactively manage and meet your subscribers’ expectations.

• Manage expectations by being clear from the very beginning what types of emails you will send and how often.

• Send a welcome email to reiterate these expectations.

• Deliver relevant, targeted and timely email messages that meet expectations.

• If it is within your capabilities, offer a preference center on your website to give subscribers more control over the content and timing of your emails.


4.6.2 BEST PRACTICES

If a customer does decide to unsubscribe, you need a good opt-out strategy. A successful strategy consists of three key elements:

• Make the process easy, but not too easy.

• Provide alternatives to opting out.

• Leave on good terms.

Unsubscribing should be a one-click action according to many people. But the reality is that a lot of subscribers might simply want to change the nature of the relationship, not end it. If someone truly wants to leave your list, however, make it quick and easy. Never hide the unsubscribe link in your email and avoid misleading the subscriber by making the link not recognizable. Creating a difficult opt-out process will only result in spam complaints and ultimately potential delivery problems. Therefore, you should never put your unsubscribe process behind a login. You will only end up frustrating your customers even more.

Secondly, when users do click the unsubscribe link, direct them to a page offering alternatives to opting out. It is a good idea to set up that page as a combination of a preference center and an unsubscribe page. Again, avoid confusing the subscriber, but make it clear that they can choose to do something besides opt out.

Your subscribers’ needs and interests change over time. Maybe they just want to receive fewer emails, e.g. on a weekly basis instead of on a daily basis. Perhaps they just need to change their email address or prefer a text version which they can read on their mobile. If you do not offer them a choice in how to make your emails more relevant and valuable to them, you could lose them forever.

Most subscribers might click your unsubscribe link for the following reasons:

• Email address change.

• Frequency of the emails.

• Channel of communication (email, RSS feed…).

• Changing interests and preferences.

• Email format: HTML versus plain text.

• Subscription to multiple newsletters. If you publish multiple newsletters, allow subscribers to uncheck the box next to the newsletter they no longer want to receive and check another that now fits their needs.

Lastly, it is essential to offer your subscribers a good opt-out experience. While they will no longer receive your emails, they may still continue to visit your business in the future. Thank them as they unsubscribe and tell them you regret seeing them go. Most of all, make the entire process simple and pleasant.

Also, use the opportunity to ask why they are unsubscribing. This allows them to give feedback, but it also gives you a view on the reasons why people are leaving your list. It is a good idea to provide a dropdown field or checkboxes containing the most common reasons. Additionally, you might want to foresee a free comments field. In this way, you can more easily aggregate common reasons, yet still capture individual feedback.


4.7 BOUNCE MANAGEMENT

• Soft bounce: the email message can temporarily not be delivered. This happens e.g. when a user’s mailbox is full.

• Hard bounce: the email message can permanently not be delivered. This is the case for misspelled email addresses for instance.

Bounces should be monitored and cannot be ignored, as improper bounce management can result in a decrease of reputation, endangering the deliverability of future campaigns. Also, the risk of hitting spam traps increases significantly.

But how do I reduce my bounce rate? Maintaining a good list hygiene is the easiest way to ensure that bounces are kept to a minimum. In most cases, this can be achieved in your email marketing tool. In the Selligent Manager, you can activate “Email Quality” and configure the level of strictness as shown in the picture above.

However, it also pays off to manually check for typos and incorrectly formatted email addresses from time to time, especially when importing addresses and sending to a list for the first time. Good opt-in and opt-out management, as described in the previous chapters, also assists in list maintenance. Using a confirmed opt-in process, for example, ensures that each address is validated by the subscriber before it can be added to your list.

There are a lot of reasons why emails may bounce. In most cases, it is the result of people abandoning their email accounts, changing jobs or configuration issues. On the other hand, bounces as a result of invalid email addresses can be minimized or avoided altogether.

Bounces are essentially email messages that cannot be delivered for one reason or another. We distinguish two types of bounces:


4.8 MAINTAIN PERMISSIONS OVER TIME

When someone gives you permission to communicate with them, the clock starts ticking. If you defer from communicating with them right away, you run the risk of permission expiration (and eventually spam complaints). People usually forget that they subscribed for a newsletter or email campaign after six months.

Therefore, it is a good idea to communicate with your subscribers on a semi-regular basis. As with all marketing efforts, balancing the frequency of your messages is extremely important. Most sources indicate that either a biweekly or monthly sending schedule produces the best results. This may vary, however, based on your type of newsletter and subscribers that you have.

It is also important to note that Internet service providers (ISPs) and email service providers (ESPs) are increasingly looking for ways to stop spam by using filtering, black lists and white lists. A much used practice is the so-called spam trap. This is essentially an email address designed to receive spam and trap mailers that spam or use questionable mailing practices.

Spam traps come in three flavors:

• Recycled email addresses: typically an ISP will deactivate an abandoned email address. The email address will return an unknown bounce code. At some point however, the ISP will recycle the address, reactivate it, convert it into a spam trap and allow email to be received again by the email address.

• True spam traps: these are email addresses especially conceived to capture spammers. These addresses will never subscribe to receive emails. Many spam trap operators will post these email addresses on websites, forums, etc. Malicious people will harvest these email addresses to be mailed to and sell or trade them.

• Unknown users: this is a type of hard bounce that indicates that an address is invalid, expired or abandoned by the user. After a certain period of time (usually 6 - 12 months), the ISP will recycle these email addresses into a spam trap and stop sending ‘unknown user’ error codes. These kinds of email addresses are taken up a lot in sellable email lists.

Sending emails to a spam trap address can quickly damage your deliverability reputation and cause you to be blocked or get you blacklisted. Fortunately, they can be avoided by following some simple rules:

• Only use permission based email sending (see section 4.5).

• Never purchase third party email lists, as they often contain spam trap addresses.

• Set up a proper bounce handling process for hard and soft bounces. Also, never reactivate bounced subscribers.

• Send on a regular basis.


Next to that, you might want your subscribers to re-subscribe if they have not responded to an email during the last six months. You could do this by asking them if they still want to continue to receive your messages and register their response. After all, inactive users have a negative effect on your statistics and your sending speed. Their email address can also be easily converted into spam traps and add additional risks to your mailings. Besides, as these subscribers have been inactive for a considerate amount of time, is it worth your while putting a lot of marketing effort into it? Chances are small that they will start to generate revenue all of a sudden.

It is also beneficial to allow subscribers to manage their preferences (e.g. via a profile page). In this way, people can choose the content and the frequency of the emails they want to receive. By giving subscribers control, you reduce the chance of spam complaints.

Finally, you should remind people that they subscribed. This can easily be done by including a standard message in the header or footer of each email you send. A short note in the header – like “Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Here is our latest issue:” – can make a big difference: you remind your subscribers that you are not sending unsolicited content.


SOURCES

Allis R., “Best Practices for Email Marketing”, 2009.

Burko R., “Email Deliverability Spam Traps and Honey Pots: Definition, Prevention and Elimination”, 2013.http://www.drh.net/articles/email-deliverability-spam-traps-and-honey-pots-definition-prevention-and-elimination/

Campaign Monitor, “Landing in the Inbox”.http://www.campaignmonitor.com/guides/landing/

EmailMonks, “The Commandments of Email & Newsletter Design”. http://www.emailmonks.com/design/email-newsletter-designs.html

Holden-Bache A., “Best Practices for Optimizing the Email Opt-In Process”, 2012.http://masstransmit.com/broadcast_blog/best-practices-for-optimizing-the-email-opt-in-process/

Iverson A., “Even More on Confirmed Opt-in Best Practices”, 2007.http://www.spamresource.com/2007/06/even-more-on-confirmed-opt-in-best.html

Lapides M., “Email Marketing Best Practices – Unsubscribing Do’s and Don’ts”, 2013.http://www.fulcrumtech.net/blog/best-practices-unsubscribe/

Loynes C., “5 Email Unsubscribe Best Practices”, 2013. http://www.emailcenteruk.com/blog/2013/05/5-email-unsubscribe-best-practices/

Marini M., “Let Go Gracefully: Unsubscribe Best Practices and Two Big Reasons to Use Them”, 2012. http://blog.emailexperience.org/blog/clickmail-marketing-at-eec/let-go-gracefully-unsubscribe-best-practices-and-two-big-reasons-to-use-them

Patterson M., “Design and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul)”, 2010.http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/19/design-and-build-an-email-newsletter-without-losing-your-mind/

Documents

Designing & sending emails · 3 I GUIDELINES I Designing & sending emails 1. PURPOSE 4 2. EMAIL DESIGN 5 2.1 Brand optimization 5 2.2 Pre-header & header 5 2.3 Email layout & visual