Brands today have to contend with increasingly complex data environments involving multiple touchpoints, data silos, and hundreds of customer data points. So what happens when major changes need to happen within the marketing technology stack? We’ll look at how one company successfully migrated to a new ESP, surfaced new targeting attributes, and improved their customer experience in the process.

1. Switching ESPs in a Complex
Data Environment
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Allyson Lutz
Dir. of Revenue Marketing
Spark Networks

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4. About Spark Networks
• Started in 1997
• 20+ brands
• Over 18M registered users across our
dating sites
• ChristianMingle is responsible for more
Christian marriages than all other dating
sites
• JDate is responsible for more Jewish
marriages than all other dating sites
combined

5. Email is important to Spark Networks
• Highest-performing marketing channel
• One of the main drivers of traffic to our
sites
• ~50 million emails per month
• Extremely high engagement
• Key product features are delivered by
email

6. The Existing Email Setup
• Previous email provider was set up in 2006
• Two separate implementations, plus a
home-grown system
• Data coming from unknown sources
• Temporary patches that had become
permanent
• Lack of faith in our customer email data

7. The Final Straw
Then we tried to run a test with our users,
based on their subscription duration
SubDuration
THREE MONTHS

8. Ideal Structure
API Layer

9. Our Data Structure

10. Not The Goal

11. Something had to be done

12. The Goal
API Layer
Everything
Else

13. Existing Systems Audit
• Know your business requirements
– Data going in
– Data going out
– Data formatting
– Field types and values
• Know what you need vs. what you want
– Necessary features
– Nice-to-have features

14. Spark’s Email Types
• Process Triggered Emails
– Triggered via API
– Logic managed internally
• Batch Email Processes
– Data sent over on a set schedule
– Could not modify fields being imported
• Marketing Emails
– Designed, Scheduled, targeted by email
marketing team

15. Other Requirements

16. Independent Research
https://www.g2crowd.com/categories/email-marketing-best-of-breed

17. Other Requirements

18. Data Migration
• Set up standardization rules and know their impact
before you start
– Eliminated “generic_char1” and “generic_num2” field names
• Set up import limits
– Only imported the last two years’ worth of user data
• Determine your preferred data transfer process(es)
– Secure FTP transfer
– API Triggers
• Thoroughly review data
• Know your systems and your timing
– Our import process needed to happen during low-traffic
hours
– Data migration took about three weeks

19. Content Migration
• New ESP migrated all email content
• Update the emails being migrated
– Review tracking tags
– Switch out Javascript for liquid markup
– Create dynamic content
• Build out new features
– Design and build new drip campaigns, workflows
– Set up new sending automation rules

20. Our Results
• Added ~50 additional targeting attributes to
increase audience segmentation abilities
• Increased speed of A/B tests
• Decreased email build time by half
• Increased deliverability across all brands
• Gained the ability to track specific users across
campaigns
• Increased open rates on key emails by 50%+
• Saved us over $150,000/year

21. Key Takeaways
• Be very sure you want to switch
• Know your system and your capabilities
• Know your data
• Clearly differentiate between your wants and
your needs
• Always check unaffiliated references
• Make sure the ESP you decide on has similar
business priorities

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