Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from MarketingCharts, a Watershed Publishing publication providing up-to-to-minute data and research to marketers.
E-mail practices — from signup to unsubscribe — have significantly changed over the past five years reports Return Path, an e-mail marketing solution, in a recent study. Brands are asking for less information at sign-up, are more commonly starting their relationships with a welcome e-mail (but less frequently with an offer), and are making the unsubscribe process easier. But which of these practices appear to be working for brands today?
Return Path set out to answer this question by analyzing the results for a variety of practices employed by brands and comparing them against the performance of brands not employing those practices.
Requisite — and very important — disclaimers apply here: these results are not necessarily prescriptive, and could very well differ by list. Identifying and comparing single variables in e-mail practices may also ignore the impact of other variables, such as sender reputation.
Nevertheless, the results can provide a launching point for brands to conduct their own testing. For readers wanting some quick hits: brands sending e-mails less than weekly tended to see better inbox placement, read and complaint rates than those sending more frequently, while those sending personalized messages fared worse in each metric than those who did not.
Here are the individual practices and related results (each variable is a comparison of results for brands employing the component against those not employing it):
- Collect only e-mail at signup: slightly better inbox placement and complaint rates; no difference in read rates;
- Collect more than name and zip: worse inbox placement and complaint rates; no difference in read rates;
- Require confirmed opt-in: slightly better inbox and read rates; sharply better (i.e., lower) complaint rate;
- Send welcome message: no difference in inbox and complaint rates; better read rates;
- Begin regular sending within a week: no difference in inbox placement or read rates; sharply better complaint rate;
- Open with an offer: better inbox placement rate; slightly better read rate; slightly worse complaint rate;
- Personalize messages: sharply worse inbox placement rate; worse read and complaint rates;
- Send more than weekly: worse inbox placement rate; no difference in read rate; better complaint rate;
- Send weekly: better inbox placement rate; no difference in read rate; worse complaint rate;
- Send less than weekly: sharply better inbox placement rate; better read rate; and slightly better complaint rate; and
- Include whitelisting reminder: slightly worse inbox placement rate; no difference in read rate; better complaint rate.
Following are some highlights regarding how e-mail practices have changed from 2008:
- One-third of the tracked brands now require just an e-mail address at signup, up from 20 percent in 2008;
- Four-fifths of the brands now send welcome messages, double the percentage from 2008;
- Just 39 percent included an offer in their first message this year, down from 65 percent in 2008;
- A quarter of brands now offer opt-down alternatives to unsubscribes, up from just 3 percent in 2008.