Breaking down email activity during Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022 (and what you can do to beat the averages)

Email best practices that properly address the importance of Holiday are not unique to Holiday.  But these best practices take on more importance during Holiday, because it’s of such critical importance. These best practices are all focused on optimizing inbox performance and user engagement, as the two metrics are symbiotically related by the importance attached to engagement in ISP spam-filtering protocols. And we can’t overstate the importance of optimizing inbox performance. Messages that don’t reach the inbox can’t be opened, clicked-on or bought from. Forrester has stated, “Take deliverability seriously, or leave money on the table.”  If you monetize your email programs and know their value, you can easily show the annual revenue upside of even small improvements in inbox performance. Many factors can affect the outcome, but we’ve seen cases where even a 1% improvement in email inboxing can yield a 5% improvement in related revenue.

‍Subscriber Acquisition
Opt-In/Permission

• Use an active, positive opt-in protocol in acquiring email subscribers to your commercial or marketing emails.

• Don’t any form of passive opt-in, in which the potential subscriber is automatically opted-in through some small print as part of a purchase transaction, with or without an option to uncheck an opt-in box, or to otherwise unsubscribe.

• We actively discourage the use of any purchased email lists, which tend to be expensive, unproductive, and a big source of spam complaints.

  
  

Importance of Welcome Emails

• Promptly acknowledge an opt-in, ideally with a Welcome email to the new subscriber, which arrives within minutes of the opt-in.  The Welcome email should include a description of the type and frequency of messages to be sent, as well as clear opt-out procedures. 

List Management/Hygiene

• Address cleansing: All new email addresses should be subject to basic screening to ensure that they contain essential and valid elements.  Your ESP will almost certainly perform this service.

• Periodic Email Change of Address (ECOA) Processing: A significant percentage of email addresses become undeliverable every year.  The main reason is that your subscribers change their email addresses and fail to notify you.  You may see this happening through the emails that ‘bounce’ or become longtime open/click inactives. There are vendors who can help you do this.  They will then send out a Permission Message to the updated email addresses, to ensure deliverability and permission.  This message includes an email change of address link, permitting the capture of the customers’ current preferred email address.

• Facilitating subscriber email change of address: Your website and emails should contain clear indication of how a subscriber can change an email address.  A significant number of email opt-outs are merely trying to change their email addresses.  During the opt-out process, ask the subscriber if they’re actually trying to change their email address, and if so, divert to that process instead.  That way, the entire subscriber record can be saved.

Engagement Screening

• Don’t email any customer who hasn’t opened/clicked your emails and/or browsed your website in the past 90-180 days, and/bought in the past twelve months.

• Consider re-opt-in/reactivation programs for inactives (however defined).  In these, the targeted email/purchase inactive subscriber is acknowledged as such, and asked if s/he wishes to continue receiving your email. Although these are important programs, they should not be attempted during the Holiday period, given the inbox risks associated with over-mailing into inactive audiences.

Relevance Targeting

• A large driver of spam complaints and email opt-outs are untargeted or mistargeted messages.  A subscriber is much more likely to engage with an email if it’s relevant; that is, targeted to likely customer interests, based on data reflecting customer location, status, preference and browse/purchase behavior.  Audience and program optimization require considerable data and programming resources, but successful execution drives improved audience engagement, which In turn drives better inbox performance.