Session Title

LAZ TYREKIDISDigital Marketing and Audience DirectorMetropolis International Group

Getting off the Blacklist: How a publishing company cleaned and optimized its database to increase online revenue 8%

Laz TyrekidisDigital Marketing and Audience DirectorMetropolis International Group

3

Metropolis International Group

• 31 Brands

‒ Property Week, Electronics Weekly, Motor Trader, What Mortgage, AV Magazine, etc.

• 350 Staff

• 7 Offices

‒ 5 UK, 1 Ireland, 1 U.S.

Business and

Consumer Media

Reward and

Loyalty Programs

Business Software

4

Blacklist

• Email servers got blacklisted – All email activity was suspended‒ IP address was listed on an anti-spam database (e.g., SORBS, SpamCop)

‒ Low Sender Score levels <40

‒ Email opens reduced; higher bounce rates %

Status Campaign Name Emails Sent Email Displays Open Rate % Email Bounces Bounce Rate %

Non-Blacklisted EW-1409 Solus 5,446 1,587 29.14% 81 1.49%

Blacklisted EW-1433 Solus 3,791 299 7.89% 395 10.42%

5

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

Email Volumes (for an example IP)

Before After

IPs and subaccounts

• Allocated 24 brands into: ‒ 34 Subaccounts

‒ 10 IPs

‒ 10 Domains

6

Database cleansing

• Clean Email Addresses: 98.02%

‒ Reduced bounces

‒ Improved deliverability

‒ Excellent Sender Score

• Non-Clean Email Addresses: 1.98%

11%

2%

3%

Non-Clean Email Addresses

Invalid & Bad MX

No-replies

Spam Traps

No replies

Spam traps

84% BOUNCED

Invalid and bad MX

7

Sender Score

• Sender Score: 96%

• Reputation measures‒ Blacklists and complaints

‒ Infrastructure

‒ Message filtered and sender rejected

‒ Spam traps

• Versus regional trends*‒ U.S. — 66.93%

‒ Australia — 55.79%

‒ UK — 50.75%

‒ France — 47.43%

‒ China — 35.56%

80%

82%

84%

86%

88%

90%

92%

94%

96%

98%

100%

IP1 IP2 IP3 IP4 IP5 IP6 IP7 IP8 IP9 IP10

Sender Score

*The Return Path Sender Score Benchmark Report 2014

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List segmentation

• Types of email campaigns‒ Editorial newsletters

‒ Marketing campaigns

‒ Events/exhibitions

‒ Third party from selected partners

‒ Digital magazines

• Types of content (Electronics Weekly)

- Gadget news

- Android news

- Raspberry Pi news

- Products comparison

62%Editorial

Newsletters

18%Third Party

Partners

9%Marketing

6% Events

5%Digital

Magazines

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• Reached inactive contacts:‒ Audience who haven’t opened or clicked any

of our email campaigns in the last six months

• Trust: Take use of data and your privacy very seriously

• We Are Changing: Amend your preferences

‒ Edit contact details

‒ Update newsletter lists

Email Opt-in Campaign

10

Email Templates: BeforeDesktop Mobile

Not mobile responsive

Right sidebar

11

Email Templates: After• Clean HTML and CSS Code

• Fresh design

• 100% mobile responsive

MobileDesktop

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

Before After

Open Rate

22%

12

Send time optimization• Stats from January 2014 – September 2014

• 3,500 email campaigns

• Send Time: 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.

• UK audience

Best Slot 13:00

Second Best Slot 17:00

Third Best Slot 11:00

13

Subject line optimization

• A/B split testing

• Daily newsletter

• Prefix testing‒ “Top Story:”

‒ “Don’t Miss:”

‒ “Latest News:”

‒ “Daily News:”

‒ “Daily Bulletin:”

20.00%

20.50%

21.00%

21.50%

22.00%

22.50%

23.00%

23.50%

24.00%

24.50%

Top Story Don't Miss Latest News Daily News Daily Bulletin

Open Rate

Open Rate

14

15%

15%

17%

20%

24%

37%

47%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

In-person conversations

None

Billboards

Text message

Radio ads

Email on my smartphone

Print ads

Source: MarketingSherpa Consumer Purchase Preference SurveyN = 2,021

Preferred Methods of Communicating With CompaniesWhen Away From Computer

15

HP to shed another 25-30,000 jobs

Breaking news from Electronics industry

Preheader optimization

Second-most popular story

Prefix

Default snippet

Just in: US government funds online data security projects

Just in: US government funds online data security projectsSymbol

No snippet

16

Preheader optimization

• A/B split testing

• Treatment‒ Second most popular story

‒ Prefix

‒ Default snippet

‒ ASCII symbols

‒ No snippet

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

No Snippet "Just In" Prefix

Open Rate

2.8

3

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4

No Snippet "Just In" Prefix

Clickthrough Rate

30%

17%

17

60% increase in email opens

8% increase in online revenue

90% increase in traffic coming from the email campaigns into the brand websites

Results (May 2014 – March 2015)

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• Always think about your audience and what they want to receive.

• Use testing and optimization to learn about your audience.

• Continually test as the market changes.

Top takeaways

Thank YouLaz Tyrekidis@laztyrekidis