Back by popular demand for three years running, StrongMail hosted the Ultimate Email Marketing Championship at the DMA Annual 2011 in Boston. Watch email marketers from Turner, StubHub, HauteLook and Joss & Main.

3. THE RULES
Weight Classes:
Lightweight = Batch and Blast
Middleweight = Mail Merge
Heavyweight = Scary Good Email Marketers
HEAVYWEIGHT

4. THE RULES
Bout Duration:
45 Minutes
(or until somebody says uncle)
Fouls:
- Boring the Audience
- Physical Abuse (Verbal Abuse is Encouraged)
- Audience Not Asking Questions

5. THE RULES
How to Win:
Convince the audience that you are the…

6. THE FIGHTERS

7. THE FIGHTERS

8. THE FIGHTERS

9. THE FIGHTERS

10. LET’S BATTLE!

11. THE BUSINESS
Company: Turner Classic Movies (TCM)
Industry: Cable Network
Industry Size: Available in over 85 million homes
Product: Over 50,000 unique SKUs of DVDs, licensed
merchandise, and other classic movie products
Employees: 200
Target Market: Males and females 25-54, slight female skew
Years of email experience: 3

12. THE CAMPAIGN
Campaign Objective:
Series of emails to gain increased engagement and revenue lift through
more targeted, relevant and personalized campaigns
Campaign Strategy:
Leverage purchase history data to serve up titles consumers have a
higher propensity to purchase based on preferences
Key Metrics Tracked:
Click-throughs, Open Rate, Orders, Revenue
Definition of Success:
Improved revenue generation from previous Q1 & Q2 campaigns

13. THE CAMPAIGN
Email #1 in Series:
Dynamic Content Blocks
• Consumer segments based on Top 10
selling genres
• Different content block for each genre
• Six titles for each genre, based on top
sellers and new releases
• Control group established for consumers
purchasing from genres not in Top 10

14. THE CAMPAIGN
Email #2 in Series:
Personalized Recommendations
• Using an automated recommendation
engine, titles were personalized 1-to-1
• Titles already purchased by the
consumer and titles displayed in email
#1 were removed from the list
• Recommended titles were displayed
only if they had been purchased with
consumers’ preferred titles at least
three times

15. THE CAMPAIGN
Email #3 in Series:
Dynamic Content +
Personalized Recommendations
• Combined personalized title
suggestions with preferred genre titles
• Titles already purchased and titles in
campaigns1&2 were removed
• Control Group for consumers with
unclear genre preferences
• Focused on delivering titles that were
in the top sellers during the two weeks
before email launch

16. THE RESULTS
• Compared to other emails in the
targeted campaign, personalization
email produced:
• 40-50% more click-throughs
• 25-35% higher revenue
• 30-40% more orders
• Compared to previous Q1/Q2
campaigns, personalization email
produced 30-40% more orders on
average than other top campaigns
• Increased engagement
• Increased revenue/ROI

17. THE RESULTS
• What’s Next:
• Continue to further define
consumer preferences
• Increase transactional emails
based on triggered events
(shopping cart abandonment,
birthdays, welcome, etc.)
• Dig deeper into data to define
other retention programs such
as loyalty and winback
• Continue to target and
personalize

18. TAKE YOUR SHOT

19. THE BUSINESS
Company: StubHub, Inc.
Industry: Secondary Ticket Market
Industry Size: $4 Billion worldwide – Expanding as more countries
standardize event ticketing
Product: The world’s largest fan-to-fan ticket marketplace:
Provide fans a safe, convenient place to get tickets to the
games, concerts, and theater shows they want to see,
and an easy way to sell their tickets when they can’t go.
Employees: 650+
Target Market: Fans everywhere
Years of email experience: 11

20. THE CAMPAIGN
Campaign Objective:
Recap order details and set buyer expectations for the next milestone
to reduce inbound customer service contacts
Campaign Strategy:
Provide a streamlined look and feel that highlights key order attributes
and artifacts
Key Metrics Tracked:
Customer Service Contacts per order, Buyer NPS, Delivery Rate
[Coming soon: open rate, click-through rates, cross-sell]
Definition of Success:
Enhance user experience in a way that drives buyer expectations,
increases satisfaction and reduces number of contacts per order

21. Description
THE CAMPAIGN
• Update and inform buyers
who have a recently placed
order or whose order has
reached a key milestone
Goal
• Engage and inform users
throughout the lifecycle of
their order
Target Audience
• Buyers who have an order
that has not yet reached the
order completion milestone
Frequency
• On-demand [ongoing]

22. THE CAMPAIGN
Why it Works
• Sets clear expectations for delivery
timelines and next steps
• Leverages database triggers Real-time
dynamic content updates
Results
• Campaign launched August 31, 2011:
Not enough data

23. THE CAMPAIGN
What’s Next
• Onboard 70 additional transactional
emails into this format
• Consolidate existing marketing channel
into a single channel to leverage cross-
sell/recommendation campaigns
• Allow large-volume users to opt-out of
non-essential transactional email
campaigns [reduced noise]
• Multi-language support

24. TAKE YOUR SHOT

25. THE BUSINESS
Company: Joss & Main
Industry: Online Home Furnishings Retail
Size: $380 Million
Product: Exclusive members-only access to the world's
most recognized designers and brands for the
home at up to 70% off retail.
Employees: 900
Years of email experience: 8

26. THE CAMPAIGN
Campaign Objective:
Maximize member sign-ups with only one touch per customer
Campaign Strategy:
Iterative creative testing starting with least active customers to
maximize sign-ups from high-response customer group
Key Metrics Tracked:
Open rate, click-to-open, enroll-to-click
Definition of Success:
Total new members

27. THE CAMPAIGN
Description
• Daily iterative creative testing from
top of the subject through sign-up
• Closely managed – daily recaps to
analyze results and plot next day’s
creative
• Subject line testing on 4th most
responsive group
• Creative testing on 3rd most
responsive group
• Landing page testing on 2nd most
responsive group
• Optimized invitation for top
customers

28. THE CAMPAIGN
Goal
Ensure optimal invitation for top customers
Target Audience
Previous Wayfair customers
Frequency
One mailing per day for 5 days
Why it Works
• Each day’s learnings improve the next
day’s response rate
• Staged testing ensures better experience
for better customer groups
• All learnings from testing are applied to
daily new customer invitations

29. THE RESULTS
Results
• Open Rate Up 15%
• Click-to-Open Up 55%
• Signup-to-Click Up 90%
• Total Improvement: 240%
What’s Next
• Continued subject line testing
• Test timing for triggered
invitation for new Wayfair
customers

30. TAKE YOUR SHOT

31. THE BUSINESS
Company: HauteLook
Industry: Online Retail Flash Sales
Size: 6 million members
Product: The future of retail: Limited time sale events of
great brands in women’s and men’s apparel &
accessories, beauty, kids, home and travel, all
at 50-75% off. Purchased by Nordstrom in
March, 2011
Employees: 250 in Los Angeles, NYC & Chicago
Target Market: “Jessica” is young, affluent, cosmopolitan and
owns a dog named Bailey. She’s stylish and
loves a great deal and thinks a great pair of
jeans will take her anywhere she wants to go.
Years of email experience: I’ve lost count

32. THE CAMPAIGN
Campaign Overview: Brand Affinity Emails
Campaign Objective:
Drive member engagement and
purchase conversion.
Campaign Strategy:
Targeted email that notifies members
that their favorite brand is back, two
hours before event launches.
Key Metrics Tracked:
Open Rates, Click-through rates,
Purchase Conversion, Revenue/Email
Delivered.
Definition of Success:
Lift in engagement and purchase
conversion metrics.

33. THE CAMPAIGN
Description
Triggered email alerting members when their
favorite brands are back on HauteLook.
Goal
Drive purchase/repeat purchase and engagement.
Target Audience
Members who have purchased or carted an item
from targeted brand.
Frequency
Daily
Why it works
• One-to-one marketing. It doesn’t get much more
relevant than this!
• Access to your favorite brand at 50-75% off –
it’s a no brainer.

34. THE RESULTS
Results Brand vs Category Level Targeting
Compared to category-level 343%
targeted emails, brand affinity
emails drive:
• 52% more opens 216%
• 32% more clicks
• 2x more purchases/click
• 3.5X higher revenue/email
delivered
52%
32%
What’s Next Opens Clicks Click to Purchase Rev/Email
Scale and automate this Delivered
campaign!

35. TAKE YOUR SHOT

36. TIME TO VOTE