HOLIDAY DELIVERABILITY STAY OFF THE NAUGHTY LIST & GET TO THE INBOX 1
MEET YOUR SPEAKERS Karen Balle Director of Deliverability, BlueHornet Tom Sather Sr. Director, Research, Return Path
TODAY S AGENDA Understanding deliverability key components Setting yourself up for success Resolving issues quickly B2B, mobile & more We want to answer your most pressing deliverability questions! Use the Question feature andtom and Karen will respond in real time.
In which of these ways do marketing/advertising emails influence your purchase decisions? 2015 Consumer Views of Email Marketing, BlueHornet
HOLIDAY EMAIL PATTERNS Increased volume and frequency to more subscribers Lowered engagement Increased bounces, complaints and opt-outs Changes should be slight, not dramatic YoY data is key
MSPs & THE HOLIDAYS Code freeze goes into effect pre-thanksgiving MSPs don t touch anything on their servers if they can avoid it Filtering is the same as the rest of the year Increased volume causes strain on physical resources, slowing delivery Yahoo and Gmail use traffic shaping to deal with the increased volume
MSPs TRACK ENGAGEMENT CLOSELY Does a subscriber open and read the email? How much time does a subscriber spend reading the email? Is there a rule or filter to place the email in a certain folder? Is the sender in the address book? Are there multiple IPs and domains sending the same content? What is the reputation of any third party content or URL shorteners? Is the combined reputation of all the above positive or negative?
EMAIL VS INBOX ENGAGEMENT Email: Opens Clicks Shares Purchases Inbox: Regularly logs in Reads and sends email Files email TIS/TINS button
GMAIL Gmail uses unsupervised machine learning (since 2014) Google s other reputation systems, such as SafeBrowser, are integrated Your domain and URL reputations effect email delivery with Gmail If you are using a new domain, ramp it up just like an IP, using DKIM and DMARC
FINGERPRINTING Fingerprints are any unique data: URLs, domains, landing pages, subject line, from address, commonly used phrases, images Each fingerprint has it s own reputation score Third Party sends, shared landing pages and shared images can hurt your reputation Using the same fingerprint in your send and a Third Party send ties your rep to theirs and can hurt you. Vet your third parties carefully and give fingerprints unique identifiers
AND THEN THERE S FRAUD MSPs are more interested in protecting users against fraud than SPAM Increased spending means a greater number of phishing attempts Phishing and fraud emails are designed to closely mimic legitimate email Make it easy for MSPs to identify your mail as legitimate. Here s how
BEFORE YOU SEND Set up sender authentication: SPF simple to set up, but easy to break DKIM ensures no changes en route to the receiver DMARC Helps ISPs know what to do if SPF and DKIM fails. Requires testing before implementing p=reject Google may require DMARC in the near future.
BEFORE YOU SEND Ensure all feedback loops (FBLs) are configured to manage spam complaints: Do an annual audit. Talk to your ESP to confirm your complaints are being processed OR Send an email to a test address of yours and report it as spam. Then check your list to ensure the test address has been suppressed. MSPs introduce new FBLs regularly. Talk to your ESP to ensure new FBLs are being configured for you, then take action on the confirmation email.
DATA HYGIENE IS A MUST Minimize sends to old and/or unengaged addresses If you haven t tested them previously, the holidays is not the time to send to these addresses Don t incentivize POS email collection Customers will give you bad addresses Setting quotas for email address collection will encourage junk addresses Automate email collection, verify addresses
USE SOCIAL MEDIA WISELY Sending to inactive email subscribers can cause a social media backlash Use social media to drive users to update their email addresses Cross-check against social media to confirm valid accounts Use Google Custom Audiences, FB, Twitter to validate email addresses and reach unengaged email subscribers
HOLIDAY SEGMENTATION IDEAS Consumer Source Activity Recent Grad Home Page Opens Retired In Store Clicks Married w/kids Banner Ads Website Visits Married no kids Online Purchase Site Login Single Search Purchase
USE DATA FROM EMAIL FOR INSIGHTS INTO OTHER CHANNELS Q. Should I buy ads on Facebook? Your Company Facebook A. Yep!
BULKING & BLOCKING Bulking - Into a Spam folder Open and click rates can drop 10%+ Complaints will also drop Partial bulking Open and click rates will drop at a much smaller rate Blocking - Not being accepted at all Block bounces will increase, the rate will vary depending on when you begin to be blocked. Can be anywhere from 2% to 60%-80%. Know your YoY data, so you can compare holiday trend Anything more than 2% is a problem Use your monitoring tool proactively to find out what s really happening
RESOLVING ISSUES QUICKLY 1. Tools: Inbox Monitor uses seed lists & panels to track deliverability Inbox Preview will check content and 3 rd party issues DNSbl and multirbl checkers MSP postmaster pages, Gmail postmaster tools 2. Change your engagement plan: Fall back to core subscribers Use only subscribers who have been previously tested 3. Deliverability Services: Ask the experts
BLACKLISTING
IF IT HAPPENS Use a blacklist monitoring system to be aware of issues before your customers or CMO does. Check email bounce codes for block reason and instructions for removal Before requesting removal, gather the right data, like: List acquisition sources List management practices Mailing practices Be Honest It helps to have a guide
DISASTER EMAIL PREP Be ready for: Website traffic overload Common customer service complaints Unforeseen login restrictions Out of stock Oops! emails Offer mix-ups Segmentation errors
B2B Resolving issues in the B2B space is more difficult as it s more fragmented across providers than B2C Look at your bounce logs to see which B2B provider is involved Ask partner companies to whitelist you prior to big sends can help avoid blocking problems
WHAT ABOUT MOBILE?
OPENS BY DEVICE
DESIGN FOR ALL DEVICES 70% will discard a badly formatted email Design for multiple devices mobile, tablet, desktop Whether you take a mobile-first or responsive design approach to email, use a tool to verify rendering
NEED MORE HELP? bluehornet@bluehornet.com