Deliverability Advice: Avoid image-only Emails

Building an email consisting solely of images is a tempting practice; it can greatly reduce development time … and in some cases, it can increase the open rate of an email campaign (insofar as it is calculated when the images are displayed).

However, as you may already know, many email clients and webmails block images by default. So, if your email contains only images, neither the message nor call-to-action will be displayed, so you have drastically reduced the effectiveness of your actions.

In addition, spammers have long used images in order to conceal certain keywords.

To summarize, creating emails consisting solely of images is a bad idea because: 

• This is what spammers do;
• It does not help the immediate comprehension of the email’s content;

Conclusion: images in your emails should never represent more than 50% of the email’s surface. The ideal is to stay below 30%.

How To Measure The Performance Of Your Transactional Emails?

To measure a newsletter’s performance and compare it to previous campaigns is clearly a beneficial practice. On the other hand, broaching the subject in regards to transaction emails is…less obvious.

This is less evident because transactional emails are typically sent from a system that does not support tracking (CMS or others). But also, it often stems from a lack of interest, as no one concerns themselves with their performance.

Nevertheless, by measuring the effectiveness of your transactions, it is possible to optimize your transactional emails and generate additional sales. If optimization is a topic for another article, let us consider the different measurement points for transactional emails.

Measuring Points

• Number of emails sent: Much more than a newsletter, the number of emails sent is an indispensible metric since it depends on the number of transactions generated. This is a key indicator of the level of activity of your business.
• Opening Rate: This is the most obvious measure when it comes to confirmation emails. But beware, the opening rate is measured only when the images are displayed in the email. The results shown are consistently below the actual number.
• Click Rate: Depending on the type of transaction analyzed, the click rate will be very different. It is interesting to categorize the different types of links in order to distinguish the clicks related to the transaction, clicks for promotions and clicks for product recommendations. In this way, you can distinguish the performance of your different calls-to-action.
• Return on investment: This is a measure that is very rarely done with transactional email. And yet, if you add value to them with recommendations or promotions, it is essential to evaluate their performances.

Data representation

As we have seen, the different measuring points for transactional emails are the same as those used for analyzing marketing emails. When you send a newsletter, you are able to view the results after a week. For transactional emails, it’s very different. Indeed, as they are sent continuously, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions based on the results. The analysis should be done on a different basis.

It is particularly interesting to study the seasonality of transactional email to detect factors influencing the analyzed results. To analyze this seasonality, it may be beneficial to visualize the results on a graph aggregating data each week. This weekly data will then be compared to various factors that can influence campaign performances (specific actions, vacation, holidays…).

In conclusion, the main focus of statistical analysis of transactional emails lies in the performance variations between different types of emails and the level of response (opens, clicks…), but also across a period of time.

Photo Credit: Meggar - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Towards a Return to Customized Email Solutions?

Ten or so years ago, many advertisers used in-house solutions (developed internally) to send their email campaigns.This was prehistoric email marketing. It was then that numerous email sending solutions first appeared: AWeber in 1998, Emailvision in 1999, Exacttarget in 2000, Mailchimp in 2001, …

Over time, as the market became more professional, turnkey solutions became the norm. With it, problems of deliverabilty also appeared to reinforce this trend.

In spite of this, there was always a segment of the email market that avoided this logic: notification and transactional emails (see “The different types of email”)

The emergence of cloud emailing to reinforce transactional strategies

In the past several years, email marketing players became aware of the enormous potential of notification and transactional emails. Traditionally, transactional emissions were always linked to information management and mainly to CMS platforms.

But recently, several platforms like Mailjet have arrived to shatter the monotony of the transactional email market. These cloud email platforms offer a measure of professionalism in the management of deliverability, as well as greater flexibility in the integration of email (whether marketing or transactional) in different business systems.

Another advantage of cloud email platforms is that it isn’t necessary to share the bulk of one’s information with third parties. The problems of consumer information theft are regularly reported on. Cloud emailing allows you to keep your information internally and to manage its security yourself.

The return of internal solutions… with deliverability services in the cloud.

Cloud emailing is thus an opportunity to return to customized email solutions, which have the advantage of adapting to needs that are, at times, very specific, all while integrating the most modern tools in terms of deliverability:

• Priority management of email sending;
• Statistical analysis of opens, clicks…;
• Geolocation;
• Reputation monitoring;
• Processing of bounces;
• …

For more information on the functionalities of Mailjet’s API, read our documentation.

Photo Credit: Edwin Levick - Public Domain

Email Press Review #6: 4 Posts to Read this Week!

Stay up to date about email with our press review. Here are the posts we’ve picked especially for you this week!

1) Deliverability: Warming Up Your IP Address in Four Steps
Just like you have to break in the engine of a new car, you also have to warm up IP addresses first. Email providers don’t know you yet, and you have to gradually work on the email reputation of your new IP address to gain their trust. 

2) 10 things that will destroy an email marketing program
Your consumers are empowered by their choices, with their devices, and have the ability to leave you with a click of a button. Here are 10 things that concern them and can force them off your list. 

3) 10 Tips on How to Identify a Phishing or Spoofing Email
Two single dollar bills is all it costs for a hacker to create an email pretending to be from your trusted retailer or bank, asking for your login details, and instantaneously obtaining your confidential information.

4) Did You Know 144.8 Billion Emails Are Sent Every Day
We all send and receive a lot of email. In fact, a report earlier this year indicated that workers spend 28% of their time in their inbox. 

See you soon!

What Types of Transactional Emails Should You Develop First?

While attempting to create a list of all the types of notification and transactional emails that might exist…I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of possibilities! Just as the marketing segment of email often takes the form of newsletters or promotional emails, transactional emails can also take many different forms.

It is impossible to tell you which types are more advantageous or more important than others…Nevertheless, one can name two which should absolutely be developed before all others:

Subscription Confirmation

In order to keep their clients, ISPs and webmail services are making their email inboxes more and more intelligent. This not only allows them to filter spam, but also to detect email that will interest the consumer. This is, for example, Gmail’s Priority Inbox, which sorts email by order of importance, or Outlook.com filters, which automatically classifies emails in folders such as Groups, Newsletters, Social Updates…

Subscription confirmation being the first point of contact with your subscribers, this initial communication is essential for the success of your future actions. With the development of intelligent email inboxes, the earlier you succeed in engaging the relationship, the better your chances of reaching the consumer’s main inbox with a high priority level.

It is absolutely essential to inititate engagement from the first interactions by placing attractive and, of course, relevant content in your subscription confirmation emails!

Reactivation Emails

This, along with the subscription confirmation, is one of the automated emails that should be implemented by all businesses that use email to communicate with their clients!

Every business faces subscribers who, over time, become less and less interested by the information sent to them or who stop visiting your website. In these cases, it is a good idea to take some time to build an automated reactivation program. This program may take various forms:

• A survey to understand why the subscriber lost interest in your activities and how he might be enticed to reactivate through his responses;
• A series of ultra-personalized emails demonstrating your service’s relevance to the consumer;
• …

There is a solution for every situation imaginable! Keep in mind that it is always less expensive to reactivate an old client than to acquire a new one.

Only two examples?

We are trying to be brief here! There is a third type that seems rather obvious, which is the type of confirmation email that…makes your business profitable. If you manage an e-commerce website, it’s the purchase confirmation, if you run a service activity, it’s the payment confirmation, etc.

This type of confirmation email is indispensable…indeed, it is vital for your business! With it, your customer will feel reassured by the seamless execution of his order.

Photo Credit: Public Domain - George Grantham Bain collection

Email Throttling : Why You Should Optimize Sending Speed?

Email throttling is one of the minor components of email deliverability. This is a technique that consists of carefully adjusting the speed of email/campaign sendings - which will in turn respect the filters of major ISP & receivers across the globe.

The average ISP/receiver utilizes unique thresholds which allows them control email flow and filter out bad email - which is rarely published. As often is the case with email deliverability, it is a great idea to surround one’s self with experienced folks who can redefine delivery speed to various ISPs and receivers.

How it works technically

The technique involves configuring several different parameters:

• The number of emails sent per minute or hour
• The number of smtp connections per minute or hour
• The number of emails sent by each connection

According to ISPs and webmails, these parameters are to be used simultaneously or separately. Depending on the email platform you use, you may not always have the opportunity to set these parameters yourself (which could be a good thing). Here are some scenarios:

• The email sending platform allows you to configure the parameters yourself;
• It is impossible to optimize the parameters; they are configured by default;
• The paramenters adjust automatically according to sending conditions.

Reputation and volume

For some ISPs and webmails, the number of accepted connections and the email volume limit may vary depending on your reputation and the number of emails you send. For example, if you suddenly increase the number of emails sent, certain ISPs and webmails will block a portion of your emails.

To detect this type of temporary blockage, if your provider does not do it for you, you must analyze the SMTP error messages like: “Too many connections from your host.”

And with Mailjet?

Mailjet adapts sending speed and the number of simultaneous connections to optimize the deliverability of your emails in real time. In this way, you do not have to worry about this aspect of your email campaigns and you benefit from the experience of our deliverability team.

Photo Credit : Rainer Ebert -  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Email Press Review #5: 4 Posts to Read this Week!

Stay up to date about email with our press review. Here are the posts we’ve picked especially for you this week! 

1) Creating an Interactive Conversation thru Email and Social Media
An “engaged” consumer is a connected consumer. So if you grab your recipients’ attention when they are interested in your brand and you can carry on the conversation further — you will excel!

2) Don’t Close the Doors on Email Marketing
Although it has become fashionable to promote businesses with social media and text messages, email remains an effective option. 

3) 3 Obsolete Email Practices
It’s time to scrap three all-too-common email programs.

4) The 10-Step Content Marketing Checklist
Everyone knows that content marketing is the “new” marketing approach that all the cool kids are supposed to be doing. 

See you next week !

Deliverability: Benefits And Risks of Transactional Email

The issue of deliverability as related to transactional emailing has two disctinct facets. On the one hand, thanks to its high reactivity rates, the transactional email enjoys a significant advantage in terms of deliverability. On the other hand, however, a transactional email that lands in your recipient’s spam folder could potentially spell disaster for your business.

An advantage related to reactivity level

For the past several years, anti-spam filters have analyzed the reactivity rates of emails sent by a publisher (opens, clicks, deletes…) to define their reputation score. This reputation score influences whether an email is identified as spam or not. The reactivity rates of transactional emails being extremely high, they are at an advantage as compared to marketing campaigns.

How to avoid bad delivery of your transactional emails?

Unfortunately, it is not the case that because the transactional email has many advantages in terms of deliverability, your email will always arrive in your recipient’s mailbox. Imagine that all your double opt-in emails land in the spam folder! This represents a significant loss in terms of revenue.

Luckily, it is possible to avoid this pitfall:

• By separating the sender IP addresses of your transactional emails and your marketing campaigns.
• By properly configuring your email platform (SPF, DKIM, …).
• By using the same IP address and the same domain name for your transactional emails.
• By increasing interactions through an intriguing subject line and calls to action in the email.
• By using a specialized platform… like Mailjet, for example ;-)
• In keeping with the set of good practices related to deliverability (a complete checklist to come in Mailjet’s documentation).

Photo Credit : Paulus - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Deliverability Advice: Personalize the Sender Domain Name

Have you ever heard of identity theft? These people will steal someone’s identity in order to subscribe to various services, such as an application for credit or mobile phone subscriptions.

Is this practice acceptable? The answer is obviously no!

In the world of email marketing, it’s the same thing. Why should an email service or ISP agree to receive emails sent from the address igor3333@gamail.com if all the links in your email go directly to the website www.mycompany.ext?

A question of consistency

One of the criteria used to classify your email as spam or not is the consistency of your communication. If your identity as a sender is not consistent, you will receive a negative rating, which will be added to other criteria used to measure your reputation.

Conclusion: Use your website’s domain name in your sender email address.

Email Press Review #4: 4 Posts to Read this Week!

Stay up to date about email with our press review. Here are the posts we’ve picked especially for you this week!

1) 7 Reasons Why Your Email Marketing Program May Fail  
Let’s look at some common problems and if these hit close to home - do something about them. 

2) 3 New Ways To Measure Email Campaign Effectiveness
Almost 70% of all messages in people’s inboxes are non-personal. This is both good news and bad news for marketers. 

3) Email as a patient communications tool? Read before you hit ‘send’ 
Before you decide to open the lines to an email conversation, you may want to take a good look at the pros and cons of doing so. 

4) Effective, proven strategies to use subject lines
The subject line of your email is critical in driving engagement after the email reaches your consumers in-box.

See you next week!