Improving Email Open Rates

5. 5 Simple Tips to Improve Your Email Open Rates )IP Reputation (Your Sender Score") Email open rates are impacted by more than just your ceputation scores (i.e. Sender Score). The reason we refer to the Sender Score, in particular, is because it is widely used in the industry for overall evalyation. of the health of your emajl campaign. IP reputation IS important!! While a bad overall reputation can almost guarantee low open rates among other things, a good reputation doesn't guaran- tee inbox placement and sub- scriber engagement. Having said, that... your IP reputation IS important. And this is really the first place you vant to look when examin- ing the health of your program. Sender score Volume This requires a lot of proactive management ensuring that your list hygiene is optimat Ok score VE spam Complaints are low regularly monitoring blocks and bounce logs to resolve any issues quickly This is where EmajiDelivered comes into play, with the goal of obtaiming - and maintaining - reputation scores in the 90s. So... the first step is to find out what your IP score is and take any necessary steps to improve it. NOTE: If you are using an ESP (email service provider), you are probably rotating through dozens, if not hundreds of IP addresses that you're sharing with dozens, if not hundreds (maybe even THOUSANDS) of other marketers. NOTE: Low scores are often due to poor list quality Cold, outdated, lists with a lot of bad email addresses,and often spam traps) and spam Complaints. Naturally, if your messages arent making the inbox, your email open rates are gojng to suffer. Assuming that your scores are 90 or greater, these primary issues are probably not a factor with regard to your email open rates. (If your scores ARE lower than 90, you will need to correct some fundamental issues first and foremost.) 2 List Quality old leads uploading old leads? Leads that you have Are hok purchased? Co-reg leads? (Basically any leads that did not specifically opt in to your list or engage within the past 12-18 months.) LEADS LEADS LEADS For obvious reasons, you will see lower email open rates here simply because the relationship is stale. segment high leads NOTE: If you are adding a lot of these leads to your existing list, not only can this affect your open rates, but it can also Consider sending from different IPs/domajns based on engagement AND creating a re-engagement sequence for older leads. affect the overall inbox placement of your emails. metrics and are dojng so more and more as of late. (See the next section). The ISPS pay attention to engagement 3 Subscriber Engagement Subscriber engagement is key, and it is becoming more and more impor- tant as the ISPS change theic algorithms. In the past, you Could continue to mail to subscribers as long as they didn't opt out or Complain that your messages are spam. However... that's changed! For example, say that your entire list is double-opt in. If, over the years, subscriber A stops opening your emails, eventually, all of your emails for that subscriber will be filtered into his/her junk folder. IN BOX SPAM When this happens on a large scale, overall inbox placement can be affected - even if you have an ábsolutely perfect reputation. To help combat this, consider teaching your subscribers to whitelist your emajl address at the point of opting in. wwww w ww inbox (34567) Drafts (3) Sent mum Spam New Folder Mail mail mail Wait, it's safel! Here is a free subscriber-level whitelist generator you can use http://vww.emajldelivered.com/whitelist-generator/ For example, many ESPS provide you with TOTAL opens while many self-hosted email applications provide urique opens. If this is the case, then naturally, when comparing old dress that your emails Come from in the generator. TIP: Be sure to use the From" emajl ad- The other thing to consider with regard to subscriber engagement (i.e. increasing email open rates, Clickthroughs, etc.) is where you results to new, there may be a skew. So, you may not be Comparing apples to apples if you're using different systems to are getting your metrics. Compare your results/trends. Message Content Split test subject lines... Subject ines are the single most important "content" factor when it Comes to improving (or even maintaining) your email open rates. Subject A Subject B Review your content... Make sure that it's relevant to your subscribers and in line with what was promised at the point of opting in. Consider dropping your less frequent openers to a lesser frequency and/or patting them through a re-engagement serjes, We cover message content in greater detail in a number of other articles. And certainly this is a big deal when it comes to Clicking through. Timing 5 CALENOAR Test the days of the week and times of your emails. What works for one marketer does not necessarily work for another. We have clients that have better results mailing between 2-4pm Eastern while other customers vith the same general market have best results mailing at 4am. TEST FOR YOUR LIST. The other thing to Consider is time of year. Overan Internet activity declines over the Low INTERNET summer. ACTIVITY Open rates drop, interaction drops, etc. People are simply not ás engaged during the summer months. Conversely, in the fall and winter, engagement tends to increase. NOTE: DO NOT use misleading subject lines simply to get the open! This increases spam Complaints and can do more harm than good in the long term (not to mention, misleading subject lines are an absolute violation of CAN-SPAM). Bonus TIP: Follow Best Practices lastly, it is always a good idea to Verify that you are following the best practices for the ISPS. All of the ma jor ISPS provide specific best practices and it's a good idea to review them regularly. This impacts deliverability, inbox placement, and Consequently Clicks through rates and email open rates. If have high reputations and are not hitting the inbox, we can contact the ISPS and request whitelisting of verify find that you check you your IPs. However, you are limited to I request per ISP every if you are not following all of the best practices for a particular ISP, this can cause more ham than good. 6 months with several ISPS, so One Final Note! Goal To Achieve best results! Manage your reputation As Email Partner Keeping your scores high Alerting you of potential problems Going to bat on your behalf with the ISPS Constantly look at your list quality As Marketer Interaction Relationship with your list Overall Campaign Słrategy RESOURCE BOX: For more information on how to boost your email open rates and to stay on top of the best practices and insider resources: Click here http://www.emaildelivered.com/email-delivered/5-simple-tips-to-improve-your-email-open-rates. While you're there, sign up for the FREE Email Delivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources for email marketers. For over a decade Heather Seitz used email marketing to build successful companies and had to solve the biggest barrier to consistent profitability: deliverability. Today she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Email Delivered.