© 2019 eMarketer Inc.
7 Email Deliverability Strategies to Tackle Every Inbox
Mike MaddenHead of Commercial Demand GenMarketo
Nancy Taffera-SantosSVP, Media Solutions & StrategyeMarketer
Presented by
PRESENTER MODERATOR
April 30, 2019Tech Talk Tuesday
7 Email Deliverability Strategies to Tackle Every InboxMike MaddenHead of Commercial Demand Gen
Housekeeping This webinar is being recorded! Slides and recording will be sent to
you after the webinar concludes. Have a question? Use the chat box and I’ll get to your questions
after the webinar. Posting to social? Use our hashtag - #mktgnation There is a brief survey after the webinar
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Agenda
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Why Email Deliverability Has Become Tougher
1 7 Tactics for Stronger Deliverability
2Q&A
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Getting your emails delivered is tougher today than ever before…
#1: Set Lower Bounce Thresholds
Soft Bounce vs. Hard Bounce
What is a Soft Bounce?A soft bounce is a temporary problem with email deliverability, usually due to an unavailable server or a full inbox.
Harm Level: Low, but could result in bigger issues
What is a Hard Bounce?A hard bounce is a permanent failure to deliver an email, usually a result of an email address being non-existent, invalid of blocked.
Harm Level: High
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Lower Soft Bounce Thresholds Are Healthy
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Whether you use an ESP or marketing automation, you should be able to set a soft bounce threshold.
At Marketo, if an email soft bounces more than 6 times in 30 days, we retire that email for good.
Step 1: Clean Up All Reoccurring Soft Bounces
The Audience
Step 1: Clean Up All Reoccurring Soft Bounces
And How the Audience is Processed
Step 2: Clean Up Soft Bounces in Real-TimeThe Audience
Step 2: Clean Up Soft Bounces in Real-TimeAnd How the Audience is Processed
Lastly, Set The Hard Bounce Threshold to 1
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After the first hard bounce, retire that email for good.
At Marketo, an email is marked as invalid after the very first hard bounce.
Before We Implemented Bounce Management
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10%
11%
12%
13%
14%
15%
16%
17%
90%91%92%93%94%95%96%97%98%99%
100%Jan 2016 – Sep 2016
% Delivered
% Opened
After Bounce Management
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10%
11%
12%
13%
14%
15%
16%
17%
18%
90%91%92%93%94%95%96%97%98%99%
100%Jan 2016 – Jun 2017
% Delivered
% Opened
Bounce Mgmt.
#2: Practice Good Email Hygiene
The Two Aspects of Hygiene You Can Influence
1. What you can do2. What an external data vendor
can do for you
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What You Can Do – Scrub Email Addresses
Using marketing automation, set up campaigns that listen for junk email values to enter the database: Syntax errors – [email protected] Role account emails – [email protected] Rude emails – [email protected] Bad language (you don’t need an example)
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What Data Vendors Can Do For You
Use data validation vendors to tell you which emails you should market to! They tell you which emails are… Good Bad Unknown
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#3: Clean Code is Happy Code
Internet Service Providers Love Two Things…
The Anatomy of Clean HTML – Close All TagsHTML tags are written with a start tag, an end tag, and contain content in between.
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Nobody Likes Dupes, Especially Not In CodeWISYWIG editors are notorious for inserting random or duplicate code.
Example<span style=“color:blue;”>Please<span style=“color:blue;”> keep your code clean.</span></span>
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Books Have Titles & Emails Should Too!
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Alt Tags Give Images More Value
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The following elements have alt tags:
Logo (top left) Social buttons (top right)
Banner
Example Code:
<img src="http://pages2.marketo.com/rs/561-HYG-937/images/11319-YourMarketingAutomationChecklist-Email_564x355.jpg" alt="Your Marketing Automation Checklist" width="564px" height="355" border="0" />
A Real Life Example – Marketo’s Old Templates
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Desktop
Tablet Mobile
After Code Updates, Visual Changes are Small
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Desktop
Tablet Mobile
But the Test Results are BIG!
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31% higher click to
open rate
28% higher CTR
27% higher unique clicks
#4: Measure and Optimize Email Inboxing
Beyond Deliverability, There’s Email InboxingDid you know that when an email goes to the spam or junk folder, it still counts as delivered?
There are Tools that measuring inboxing, which is the percentage of delivered emails that actually hit the primary inbox.
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Does This Look Familiar?
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What Does Inboxing Look Like?
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Inboxing with Spam Filter Breakdown
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How to Increase Your Inboxing Rates
1. Lower your soft bounce thresholds2. Remove hard bounced email addresses after one hard bounce3. Scrub your lists, using either a double opt-in process to verify emails or an
external data vendor4. Make sure that you only send to subscribers who are engaged and opted in5. Stop sending to old email addresses
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#5: Segmentation by Engagement and IP Address
The #1 Thing Internet Service Providers Love?
Use Engagement to Your Advantage
Last Engagement < 90 Days Last Engagement > 90 Days Total
Delivered 20,000 80,000 100,000
Open Rate 18.0% 3.0% 6.0%
CTR 3.0% 0.2% 0.76%Unsubscribe Rate 0% 0.31% 0.25%
Inboxing 95% 55% 63%
Staggered Sends Inboxing 95% 70% 75%
Separate Email Campaigns by IP Address
Email campaigns can be separated by IP address, depending on three variables:1. Importance2. Engagement3. Purpose
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#6: Don’t Buy Lists
The Four No-Nos of List Buying
Buying lists seems attractive to increase your database size.
Here’s four reasons why you shouldn’t do it:1. Unsolicited emails2. Quality3. Spam Rate4. Bad Metrics
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#7: Reactivate Unengaged Subscribers
What is a Reactivation Campaign?
A reactivation campaign is an email campaign or multiple campaigns specifically targeted towards unengaged subscribers, which are subscribers that haven’t engaged with your marketing campaigns in a year of more.
Why use them? Awaken sleepy subscribers that still want to hear from you Determine who doesn’t want to hear from you Clean out your emails lists
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Example 1 – Crocs
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Example 2 – Kate Spade
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Example 3 – Marketo
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Why this email works: Unfamiliar language Sad dog, it really works Extremely different subject line – “We
really miss you, first_name!” Calls out the unsubscribe link
Key Takeaways
Set lower email bounce thresholdsScrub your email listsKeep your code clean and conciseLook beyond email deliverability at actual inboxing ratesSegment your audience by engagement and IP addressDon’t buy listsReactivate sleepy subscribers
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