96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them

96% of Email Campaigns Fail –
Don’t Let Yours Be One of Them
September 10, 2015

Today’s Presenters
Scott Roth
Chief Marketing Officer
Return Path
Shar VanBoskirk
Vice President &
Principal Analyst
Forrester Research
James DeStefano
Director of Email
Marketing and CRM
Gilt City

Scott Roth
Chief Marketing Officer

“96% of Email Campaigns Fail”

Your inbox knows a lot about you

We help the world’s leading companies
promote and protect their brand.
About Return Path
2,000+
Customers
Partnered with
ESP’s/ISP’s
480+
Employees
12 Global
Offices

Return Path Business Solutions

Shar VanBoskirk
Vice President, Principal Analyst
Forrester Research
The Future of Email Marketing
How Context Will Make Email Even More Valuable

9
Welcome to The Age Of The Customer

10© 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Theme
› Email is the best marketing tool
for building brand relationships

Agenda
• Why is it so important to do email
well?
• How can improve your current email
efforts?
• How can you put email to better use?

Agenda
well?
efforts?

© 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 13
Customers are empowered
Base: 58,583 US online adults (18+)
Source: Forrester's North American Consumer Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey, 2014
Number of connected devices used:

Tech gets used in very intimate places
Base: 58,583 US online adults (18+)
Source: Forrester's North American Consumer Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey, 2014
Bathroom??

Source: Forrester’s North American Consumer Technographics Online Benchmark Survey (part 2), 2014; Forrester's North American Technographics Online
Benchmark Survey (Part 2), Q3 2012 (US, Canada_; and Forrester’s North American Technographics Omnibus Online Survey, Q1 2010 (US)
Attitudes toward email continue to
improve

Note: All numbers rounded down
Source: Forrester Research Email Marketing Forecast, 2014 To 2019 (US)
Email continues to grow at a 9% CAGR

Most emails could be better
Base: 98 emails
Source: The Best And Worst of Email Marketing, 2014, June 20, 2014

Agenda
well?
efforts?

Balance user need with business goals
1)What do my users need?
2)What is my business goal for email?

Forrester’s email user experience
review evaluates four dimensions
▪ Subscription
▪ Value
▪ Presentation
▪ Trust

Good: inviting
registration front
and center on the
home page
Better: collecting
email address
directly
Make email registration easy

HP’s registration is clear and explanatory
HP provides
explanations
and benefits
associated
with data
collection . . .
. . .At each step in
the registration
process

Poor targeting keeps this email from
providing essential content

Kraft includes peer reviews in its email
Best practices:
•Includes social
content in the email
•Encourages
interactivity by inviting
users to review
recipes
•Makes sharing easy

Citi Cards emails make sense with no
images
And it has
several, above-
the-fold calls to
action

The NY Times uses headlines to ease
content navigation

McKinsey provides a user-centric footer
Footer reminds subscribers:
•What emails they get, why
•How to change email address
or preferences
•Of privacy policies

Agenda
well?
efforts?

› Fails to differentiate
› Creates crippling complexity
› Doesn’t guarantee relevance
Email for CRM isn’t enough
It:

A contextual understanding of
consumers allows companies to deliver
on the promise of customer-centricity

What this is right now
Triggered emails are
contextual by nature:
Shopping cart
abandonment emails tap
a $4 trillion opportunity

AIMIA showed locations
nearby at time of email open
where Nectar Rewards could
be redeemed
Open rates increased by
67%
Geo-targeted content:

• Conversion rates by 375%
• Bookings by 60%
• Share of voice by 650%
…with no incremental investment
Red Roof Inn
applied weather
in another way:

What this will become
› A business traveler receives an email from a retail chain to
which she is a loyal shopper.
› Email technology shows that the customer is traveling when
she opens the email.
› The chain has stores in the city where she is traveling and
makes the logical leap that she is staying at a
› The retailer personalizes email content at open time to
promote items such as water, snacks, or umbrella; or room
delivery

To summarize
› Your customer relationships are your primary
competitive differentiator
› Email is a key way to build customer
relationships
› Apply best practices to improve email
performance
› Context will take email beyond CRM

We have unprecedented visibility into the inbox
CONSUMERS & DEVELOPERS
and
2M+
Consumers
eCommerce receipts
from over
5,000
Retailers
Data Examples:
Message arrived, message read,
message deleted, subject line, creative,
purchase receipts, travel notifications
PROVIDERS
Data Examples:
Mail logs, spam traps, complaints,
deliverability stats, IP authentication,
SPF/DKIM/DMARC records
70+
Providers
2.5B
Inboxes
with

96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them

Return Path Email Optimization Suite
With The Right
Message
• Inbox Preview
• Subject Line Optimizer
• Email Client Monitor
• Inbox Insight
Reach The Right
Inbox
• Certification
• Inbox Monitor
• Reputation Monitor
At The Right
Time
• Send Time
Optimization
Return Path’s Email Optimization Suite helps companies build better relationships, drive
more responses, and increase revenue from their email marketing efforts.

James DeStefano
Director of Email Marketing and CRM
Gilt City

Who We Are: Gilt
Gilt City offers its 3.7M+ members coveted access to exclusive experiences in
select U.S. cities, all at insider prices.
CityWomen Men
KidsHome DuJour
Gilt is a members-only lifestyle destination and e-commerce site
that provides insider access to today’s top designer labels.

September 2010
Gilt City Launches
Gilt City Quick Facts
160
Sales Launch Weekly
Beauty, Retail, Dining, Spa, & Fitness
Largest Revenue Driving Categories
$60K Virgin America Charter Flight
Most Expensive Experience Sold
13
Local Markets

The Power of Email at Gilt City
Over 50M promotional emails
sent per month
Most cost efficient marketing
channel
RP Certified since November 2011
Primary means of
communication with our
members
Largest driver of traffic and
revenue

Delivering Relevant Content
Challenge
• How to maintain fresh copy and creative
• Waning engagement
• Lapsed purchase behavior
• Increased inbox competition
Solution
• Hyper personalized campaign
• Use witty and playful copy
• Walk each lapsed customer through their own unique journey from
registration through last purchase
• Capturing his/her attention
• Reigniting their passion for the brand
13% Conversion Rate Lift
44% CTO Lift

Delivering Relevant Content
Control Creative:

Creating Urgency
Goal
• Drive excitement and urgency
• Create a more nimble franchise that is agnostic of seasons, holidays,
cultural events, etc.
159% Conversion Rate Lift
Concept
• “The Rush” franchise plays off the idea of getting a rush from shopping
• Urgency of a rush
• Deep discount for a limited period of time
Results
• RP Certification allows us to bypass certain filters and so reach our
members’ inboxes at the start of the redemption window

Merchandise Authority
Goal
• Establish Gilt City as the go-to
destination for can’t miss local
experiences
Concept
• Editorialized content that tells a
story
Learnings
• Most relevant for members with
brand/category affinity AND who
have purchased before
Conversion Rate Lifts of Up to 11%
CTO Lifts of Up to 20%
From: To:

Onboarding Experience Optimization
Goal
• Educate
• Reinforce the value prop
• Deepen the relationship w/ our members
• Increase activation rate while driving incremental
revenue
Solution – TEST, TEST, TEST!
• Copy and creative
• Incentive
• Incentive max redemption
• Responsive design vs. mobile friendly
• Banner vs. dedicated email
• Timing
Sets frequency
expectations
Speaks to value
proposition

Inbox Placement
Overview
• GC relies heavily on Inbox Monitor – alerts go to
senior management
Challenge
• Seeds for smaller transactional emails and our
welcome email showed sporadic bulking at Gmail
• Tried to resolve, but were unsuccessful –
• Updated creative
• Updated SL and copy
• Recoded the HTML
Solution
• Worked closely with our account team
• After reviewing the volume, it became apparent
we had too many IPs
• Reduced the number of IPs and issue resolved

Thank You
Questions?
Contact
James DeStefano
jdestefano@giltcity.com
Scott Roth
scott.roth@returnpath.com
Shar VanBoskirk
svanboskirk@forrester.com

96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them

96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot(20)

Similar to 96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them

Similar to 96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them(20)

More from Return Path

More from Return Path(20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded(20)

96% of Email Campaigns Fail - Don't Let Yours Be One of Them