Email analytics
Email saw a global spike in delivered volume at the end of 2020 due to holiday season sales.
This spike dropped in early 2021 and returned to a regular level but is likely to trend upwards again as another christmas and year ending holiday season is soon looming.
This increase in volume means greater competition and senders need to focus on their deliverability and email placement rate through email marketing tactics and effective testing.
Apple’s privacy update will also come in to play soon. This will prevent email senders from using unique tracking pixels to measure open rates and device usage.
The update will also mask IP addresses, preventing retailers from tracking recipients’ location.
Email senders therefore need to put into consideration approaches and methods on how they can obtain data that will compensate for the data lost due to Apple’s update.
Subscribers will be asked outright for zero party data rather than inferring this from email opens. The update helps to monitor other metrics such as website visits and purchases.
Split testing
The webinar discussed how Phillips increased email engagement by 33% using split testing.
Phillips conducted a survey using a split testing strategy on whether subscribers reacted better to a range of factors which included images of products versus images of people.
- Black coloured products outperformed white coloured products 80% of the time
- Clear product images outperformed subtle product images
- Just by changing the colour of the CTA button, Phillips saw an increase in CTOR
- Adding text next to an image also improved results for all tests
Global compliance and privacy
In 2021 Australia introduced the Spam Regulations Act.
Businesses can’t request that subscribers provide personal information or force them to log into or create an account when they want to unsubscribe from a mailing list.
When someone wants to unsubscribe, it must be a simple and straightforward process.
Interestingly this doesn’t have to be seen as a bad thing as increased privacy and consent leads to greater transparency and further recipient choice, potentially increasing engagement.
What we can learn from this, is that we don’t have to wait for further national government laws around consumer privacy are introduced to start on this style of email marketing.
Starting now will lead to increased business performance due to trust and respect.
Opt-out surveys
Opt-out survey allow subscribers to easily unsubscribe through a simple one click process and also offer an optional survey to collect valuable data on why subscribers wish to unsubscribe.
The data from surveys can then be used to refine emails for remaining subscribers. Some of the Australian companies successfully implementing this are The Iconic and Glue Store.
When individuals unsubscribe from The Iconic they also offer other channels for them to choose to engage through if email is not of interest, for example social media.
Engagement segmentation
It is of great importance, in the run up to peak sales season and with the upcoming introduction of Apple’s privacy update to deploy a tool to measure subscriber engagement.
Marketers need to measure customer engagement such as last purchase or website visit.
Apple’s privacy update will also mean senders can no longer infer data, they will need to ask subscribers outright for zero data. The Iconic is already deploying this successfully.
Subscribers signing up onto The Iconic platform are asked questions around what they are interested in which are including active wear, accessories and children’s clothing.
The subscriber is also offered a small incentive such as a discount off the next purchase. It will become increasingly important to give the power back to the subscriber.
This can also be done through the use of a preference centre where subscribers are facilitated to highlight what they are interested in seeing and how often they wish to receive updates.
