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Vancouver final

This document provides an agenda and summaries of presentations for the SendGridDelivered2014 conference in Vancouver. The agenda includes sessions on mastering email deliverability, leveraging APIs, understanding success metrics, building engaged subscriber lists, and optimizing email content. Presenters include Ryan Harris, Nick Quinlan, Jillian Wohlfarth, Ali Frusciano, and Paul Kincaid-Smith.

Marketing◦

2
• Wireless=Impressionist Room
• Password=impressionst
• Social Media: @sendgrid #SGDelivered
• Sales Rep = Tina
• Happy hour!

3
RyanHarris
Manager, Compliance and Email Strategy
ryan.harris@sendgrid.com
JillianWohlfarth
Senior Manager of Content
jillian.wohlfarth@sendgrid.com

4_________________________
IF YOU SEND
EMAIL
WE’LL MAKE
YOU BETTER
AT IT.
_________________________

5
ABOUT SENDGRID
Founded July 2009
TechStars Graduate
180+ Employees
Office locations in:
Boulder | Denver | Anaheim
San Francisco | Europe

6
Angel investors include:
Scott Petry
Founder, Postini
Matt Mullenweg
Founder, Wordpress
$27M
venture capital raised
(Series B closed
January 2012)
INVESTMENT

7
SENDIN
G
13 Billion
/month
450 Million
/day

8
Email Landscape
Transactiona
l
Marketing

16
The Challenges Of Sending
Email At Scale…

17
Inbox Obstacles
 ISPs (Internet Service Providers)
 Blacklists
 Spam traps

21
The Real Road to the Inbox
AOL
Yahoo
Google
Live
.edu
Etc…
ISPs
Spam Folder
Your Mail
Server
SORBS
BSB
CBL
PSBL
SPAMCO
P
Blacklists
Etc…
Google
McAfee
Mail
Trust
Spam
Assassin
Cloudmark
Etc…
Spam Filters
SPAM

How Does SendGrid Help?
1. Technology
2. Analytics
3. Customer Support

24
Sender
1. Email content
passed to
SendGrid via API
or SMTP
2. SendGrid
processes and
queues
messages
3. Messages
delivered to
recipients’
inboxes
Recipient
Powering Email Via APIs
4. Analytics captured
by SendGrid and
passed back to
customer

28
Today’s Agenda…
Your roadmap to
becoming an
email superhero

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Learn How To…
• Master email deliverability
• Leverage APIs
• Understand success metrics
• Build an engaged subscriber list
• Optimize your content

Ryan Harris
Nick Quinlan
Jillian Wohlfarth
Ali Frusciano
Paul Kincaid-Smith

Ryan Harris
Ali Frusciano
How to Be Awesome
When Sending Email

35
• Right Person
- at the
• Right Time
-with the
• Right Frequency
• Right Message
-to the

36
Let’s take a moment to
talk about
prerequisites…

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• Right Person
- at the
• Right Time
-with the
• Right Frequency
• Right Message
-to the

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• The Right
Message
• The Right
Person
• The Right
Time
• The Right
Frequency

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• The Right
Message
• The Right
Person
• The Right
Time
• The Right
Frequency

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• The Right
Message
• The Right
Person
• The Right
Time
• The Right
Frequency
Let’s talk about Spam Traps…

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• The Right
Message
• The Right
Person
• The Right
Time
• The Right
Frequency
Send messages when they need to
be sent!

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• The Right
Message
• The Right
Person
• The Right
Time
• The Right
Frequency

58
• Right Person
- at the
• Right Time
-with the
• Right Frequency
• Right Message
-to the
Key Takeaway

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• Clear
Identification
• Addresses
• Unsubscribing
• Consent
You should clearly
identify yourself in the
email…
This also must be done at
the point of consent!

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• Clear
Identification
• Addresses
• Unsubscribing
• Consent
CASL Requires…
You must provide a
functioning electronic
address as well as a
physical address where
the recipient can contact
you!

63
• Clear
Identification
• Addresses
• Unsubscribing
Rules
• Consent
Your Unsubscribe
method…
must be functional for 60
days after the message is
sent and must process a
request within 10 days.

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• Clear
Identification
• Addresses
• Unsubscribing
Rules
• Consent
Expressed Consent vs.
Implied Consent:
• Expressed consent is required for
email messages
• Implied consent is only valid for a
6 month window

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CASL allows implied consent for
the following:
• Messages send within a business (they must be
related to your business)
• Messages sent in response to a request
• Quotes or estimates
• Receipts
• Security info (recalls, warrantees, etc.)
• Ongoing usage with your business (ongoing
purchases)
• Service upgrades or updates
• Deliveries of a product
• Recipients choose to provide their electronic address
online without specifying that they do not want to
receive CEMs (SendGrid does not allow this)
• Recipients provide their electronic address to the
sender without specifying that they do not want to
receive CEMS (SendGrid does not allow this)

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SERVER SAYS: 220 some_mailserver.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8;
Tue, 6 May 2014 12:34:07 -0700
YOU SAY: helo localhost.localdomain
SERVER SAYS: 250 some_mailserver..net Hello ???? [???.???.???.???]
(may be forged), pleased to meet you
YOU SAY: MAIL From:example@example.com
SERVER SAYS: 250 2.1.0 example@example.com... Sender ok
YOU SAY: RCPT To:someone@example.comSERVER SAYS: 250 recipient
<somone@example.com> OK
YOU SAY: DATA
SERVER SAYS: 354 enter mail, end with line containing only ".”
YOU SAY: Loons sure are cool.
YOU SAY: .
SERVER SAYS: 250 message sent
YOU SAY: QUIT
SERVER SAYS: 221 goodbye

77
POST /api/mail.send.json
Host: api.sendgrid.com
to=example@example.com&from=someone@example.com&subje
ct=hi&text=Loons%20sure%20are%20cool.

Vancouver final

1.
SendGridDelivered2014 Vancouver Welcome
2.
2 • Wireless=Impressionist Room •Password=impressionst • Social Media: @sendgrid #SGDelivered • Sales Rep = Tina • Happy hour!
3.
3 RyanHarris Manager, Compliance andEmail Strategy ryan.harris@sendgrid.com JillianWohlfarth Senior Manager of Content jillian.wohlfarth@sendgrid.com
4.
4_________________________ IF YOU SEND EMAIL WE’LLMAKE YOU BETTER AT IT. _________________________
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5 ABOUT SENDGRID Founded July2009 TechStars Graduate 180+ Employees Office locations in: Boulder | Denver | Anaheim San Francisco | Europe
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6 Angel investors include: ScottPetry Founder, Postini Matt Mullenweg Founder, Wordpress $27M venture capital raised (Series B closed January 2012) INVESTMENT
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7 SENDIN G 13 Billion /month 450 Million /day
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8 Email Landscape Transactiona l Marketing
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11 Alerts & Notifications
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12 Newsletters & Promotions
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15 The Road tothe Inbox? Your Server
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16 The Challenges OfSending Email At Scale…
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17 Inbox Obstacles  ISPs(Internet Service Providers)  Blacklists  Spam traps
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18 ISPs
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19 Blacklists
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20 Spam Traps
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21 The Real Roadto the Inbox AOL Yahoo Google Live .edu Etc… ISPs Spam Folder Your Mail Server SORBS BSB CBL PSBL SPAMCO P Blacklists Etc… Google McAfee Mail Trust Spam Assassin Cloudmark Etc… Spam Filters SPAM
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22 550 HAZ SPAMMER?
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How Does SendGridHelp? 1. Technology 2. Analytics 3. Customer Support
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24 Sender 1. Email content passedto SendGrid via API or SMTP 2. SendGrid processes and queues messages 3. Messages delivered to recipients’ inboxes Recipient Powering Email Via APIs 4. Analytics captured by SendGrid and passed back to customer
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25 Actionable, Real-time Analytics
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26 24/7 Customer Support
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27 200 Billion
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28 Today’s Agenda… Your roadmapto becoming an email superhero
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29 Learn How To… •Master email deliverability • Leverage APIs • Understand success metrics • Build an engaged subscriber list • Optimize your content
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Ryan Harris Nick Quinlan JillianWohlfarth Ali Frusciano Paul Kincaid-Smith
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Here we go! SendGridDelivered2014
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Ryan Harris Ali Frusciano Howto Be Awesome When Sending Email
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35 • Right Person -at the • Right Time -with the • Right Frequency • Right Message -to the
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36 Let’s take amoment to talk about prerequisites…
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37 • Opt in •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation What is Opt In? How does Opt In cover your ass?
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38 • Opt In •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation • What is an Unengaged User? • How do you identify Engaged Users? • Create a Sunset Policy
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39 • Opt In •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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40 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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41 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation No-reply to Address
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42 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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43 Unsubscribe • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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44 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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45 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation List-Unsubscribe www.list-unsubscribe.com
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46 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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47 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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49 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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The SendGrid Mantra
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51 • Right Person -at the • Right Time -with the • Right Frequency • Right Message -to the
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52 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency
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53 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency
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54 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Let’s get beyond “Hey [fname], how is [geolocation]?” Profile your messages for meaningful content Segment your lists based on your user’s profile: • Geolocation • Products Purchased • Links clicked • Pages viewed
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55 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Let’s talk about Spam Traps…
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56 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Send messages when they need to be sent!
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57 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency
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58 • Right Person -at the • Right Time -with the • Right Frequency • Right Message -to the Key Takeaway
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Things you needto know about CASL
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60 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing • Consent You should clearly identify yourself in the email… This also must be done at the point of consent!
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61 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing • Consent CASL Requires… You must provide a functioning electronic address as well as a physical address where the recipient can contact you!
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62 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent You must store the following information for each address: • The type of opt-in (paper, landing page, sign up) • An example of the webpage (if applicable) • When they opted-in • Their connecting IP (if applicable)
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63 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent Your Unsubscribe method… must be functional for 60 days after the message is sent and must process a request within 10 days.
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64 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent Expressed Consent vs. Implied Consent: • Expressed consent is required for email messages • Implied consent is only valid for a 6 month window
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65 CASL allows impliedconsent for the following: • Messages send within a business (they must be related to your business) • Messages sent in response to a request • Quotes or estimates • Receipts • Security info (recalls, warrantees, etc.) • Ongoing usage with your business (ongoing purchases) • Service upgrades or updates • Deliveries of a product • Recipients choose to provide their electronic address online without specifying that they do not want to receive CEMs (SendGrid does not allow this) • Recipients provide their electronic address to the sender without specifying that they do not want to receive CEMS (SendGrid does not allow this)
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74 SERVER SAYS: 220some_mailserver.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8; Tue, 6 May 2014 12:34:07 -0700 YOU SAY: helo localhost.localdomain SERVER SAYS: 250 some_mailserver..net Hello ???? [???.???.???.???] (may be forged), pleased to meet you YOU SAY: MAIL From:example@example.com SERVER SAYS: 250 2.1.0 example@example.com... Sender ok YOU SAY: RCPT To:someone@example.comSERVER SAYS: 250 recipient <somone@example.com> OK YOU SAY: DATA SERVER SAYS: 354 enter mail, end with line containing only ".” YOU SAY: Loons sure are cool. YOU SAY: . SERVER SAYS: 250 message sent YOU SAY: QUIT SERVER SAYS: 221 goodbye
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77 POST /api/mail.send.json Host: api.sendgrid.com to=example@example.com&from=someone@example.com&subje ct=hi&text=Loons%20sure%20are%20cool.
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Editor's Notes

#10 JILLIAN Since email is the backbone of the social web, let’s talk about what affects its effectiveness and how to get it delivered! 22% of all email sent never arrives as intended. 22%! For context, our co-founder Tim Jenkins likes to posit, if eBay were to lose 1%, just 1% of their email, they would lose $14 million in revenue per year.
#13 JILLIAN
#14 If you drive revenue from email, you can directly quantify a 22% financial loss. If you have softer goals like new user acquisition or engagement, you miss out on a huge segment of potential users who can extend the viability of your brand. According to our survey, web apps rely on email: 80.5% for signups and subscriptions 79.5% for password recovery and account changes 49.8% for order and shipping confirmations 28% for friend/follower requests and confirmations Imagine 22% of these valuable communications going undelivered.
#16 RYAN The road to the inbox is not linear—not an easy A to B. Who employs an email deliverability expert in house?
#17 RYAN Sending email actually looks a lot like this. Most never hit the target. Your email encounters many obstacles from the server to the inbox. They are: ISPS, blacklists, spam traps. Let’s take a look at them.
#18 Ryan starts off preso for Housekeeping and Company Overview.
#22 RYAN Here’s the real road to the inbox. Jillian ask Ryan: And where is “delivered??” RIGHT BEFORE THE ISPS!! 250 response code. So “delivered” is at the gateway of the ISPs, not actually the inbox!!
#25 RYAN SENDGRID TECHNOLOGY
#26 RYAN SENDGRID TECHNOLOGY
#27 JILLIAN So, how has SendGrid scaled? 200B + emails Representing 2% of the world’s non-spam email What does 200 Billion look like? 100 Billion = Number of hamburgers sold by McDonalds form 1940 to 1994—non0spam emails 200 Billion = 2 (!) emails for every person that has lived on this Earth in the last 50k years Through sending over 200 billion emails and traveling to 15+ cities on this tour in the last year, we have a lot of tips to share. So, today, we’re going to share how you can get to the inbox quickly and how SendGrid can help.
#28 JILLIAN So, how has SendGrid scaled? 200B + emails Representing 2% of the world’s non-spam email They send as many emails per minute as there are Tweets on Twitter What does 200 Billion look like? 100 Billion = Number of hamburgers sold by McDonalds form 1940 to 1994—non0spam emails 200 Billion = 2 (!) emails for every person that has lived on this Earth in the last 50k years Through sending over 200 billion emails and traveling to 15+ cities on this tour in the last year, we have a lot of tips to share. So, today, we’re going to share how you can get to the inbox quickly and how SendGrid can help.
#29 So let’s take a look at what we’ll be covering today…
#31 JILLIAN Here’s who you’ll be hearing from today. Leverage us, we’re here to help. So, let’ get started. Ali and Ryan are going to teach you how to master your email deliverability now. Over to you Ryan and Ali.
#33 Ali – you’ve met Ryan, i’m ….. How to Be Awesome when Sending Email
#34 Ryan talking today about best practices to make you an email bad ass http://justincaseyouwerewondering.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dont-suck.png
#35 Ali - not much talk - If you don’t understand why your emails are not performing as planned, we are here to help http://jbarrineau.com/2013/06/12/think-before-you-hit-send-how-not-to-suck-at-email/
#36 Ali - our Mantra here at SENGRID Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers before diving in, there are some pre-reqs
#37 Before we get into RM RT TF jkfdjkls...Let’s go over some pre reqs http://www.theprospect.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/one-does-not-simply-skip-a-step.jpg
#38 ryan Single, Double, Confirmed Opt In Don’t assume opt in, Facebook and purchasing goods and auto-adding emails Disgruntled employee and single opt in Don’t assume opt in Facebook example with client hitting spam traps
#39 Ali is DA BOMB! -engaged users are one of the most important metrics in email today -you want to look for people that are opening and/or clicking your email -If they are NOT opening and clicking the email, you need to take them off your list. You can remove them completely, or send a re-engagement campaign. If they don’t respond to the re-engagement campaign...remove them...FOREVER. -How is it painful to not do this -Aaron has a graph to show sweet spot of engagement -Encourage people replying to email
#40 Ali Using different IP’s is one thing, but who separates by sub-domains or root domains - Gmail announced that these should be as separate as possible good better best
#41 Ryan Don’t just brand your marketing emails but brand your transactional emails as well. People overlook this and send lame transactional messages. Companies like send with us help optimize your transactional traffic
#42 Ryan No-reply showing up as the sender in Gmail Don’t want your clients to talk to a wall
#43 Ali
#44 Ali - have a visible unsubscribe link.
#45 ryan
#47 ryan HAve you ever experienced this…. http://www.psdgraphics.com/file/hand-pointer-icon.jpg
#49 http://tigerlilytoph.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/table-flip.png Preference page, to unsub from marketing and not from transactional message 10 days is the legal requirement a real email sending removes someone in seconds Careful not to unsub from transactional
#50 Ryan Have u ever been to a small town? Where everyone knows your business? The Anti-Abuse community is just like that Elaborate on Insider lists, entire abuse community fits in one hotel in San Fran (MAAWG). IP Domain Ali - Email service providers do the same - we had difficulty influencing the client. they abandoned us, we have great relationships with them, we reached out to them, here is what we advised, here are the struggles, ESP very thankful and it set them up for a better talk.
#51 Ryan Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers
#52 Ali - our Mantra here at SENGRID Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers before diving in, there are some pre-reqs
#53 Ali - its easy as a marketer to assume all communications are relevant, but it’s important to to understand the needs of your recipients and what they are really interested in. http://mattgivenstudios.com/images/uploads/main/relevance14.jpg
#54 Ryan Profile your user New Jersey deals to someone in Colorado
#55 ryan - Get beyond [fname]. This format is expected and your challenge as a business is to add more personalization for your recipients
#56 Ali - Spam Traps - Facebook addresses beware -Dive into a story - had a client they got all their addresses through facebook, this was a disaster because FB doesn’t reconfirm this is affecting deliveraiblity , confrimed opt in - spam traps disappeared
#57 Ali - another gross slide Daily deal’s on the day Knowing the time that your users engage (should we reference Embarke) - consumes your data, tells you the exact time a recipient opens an email. Either from 8 - noon, or at 8:30 specifically. Reputation, if you have to send a message that day, don’t want surprises - think about this with your warmup. warm up. Don’t position your company where you have to send a bizzalion messages tomorrow!
#58 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#59 You know who else is awesome!? Guest speaker is AWESOME!
#61 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#63 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#121 Today I’m going to talk about Email and Your Product
#122 My name is Linley Faulkner, and I work on the product marketing team at sendwithus I’m here today with sendwithus co-founder and CEO, Matt Harris AND Wesley Yu, our Extraordinary marketing coordinator **wave** A little [slide]
#123 A little bit about us, We have been around since Jan 2013, Our headquarter is in SF and out engineering team is based in Victoria, British Columbia Canada where the company was originally founded. Pictured here is some of our engineering team. We are committed to helping our customers control and optimize transactional email. We are graduates of Y Combinator’s recent winter batch. … But who are we?
#124 For Marketers, we are Easy template management and analytics without a developer. Our dashboard lets marketers and product teams run things like drip campaigns and segmentation.
#125 For developers, we are an API for templated emails, drip campaigns, segmentation and analytics for your SendGrid Account. Today [slide]
#126 I’m going to talk about Transactional Email. First, I’m going to talk a bit about what it is, and why it’s hard. I’m also going to share a reasons why transactional email is important for your product Then, I’ll share some of our tips and tools on how to improve your existing transactional email. And Finally, I’m going to share a quick case study.
#127 So what is Transactional email? SendGrid has a great definition. Transactional emails happen after a user has taken an action with your company. They can take the form of welcome emails, payment receipts, subscription renewals, password deliveries, product/account updates, alerts, and social notifications. Basically, transactional emails are sent when a user is engaged with your product or service.
#128 We also describe it as one-to-one messaging that closely ties to user engagement and actions. For example, you may get a facebook notification email saying “Linley has sent you a message” Or a Linked-in notification that says “Linley wants to connect with you” These email contains information that the customer needs right away. Most Importantly, transactional email is the email your customer actually likes. They have asked for this information. But just because the user has asked for this information, it doesn’t mean that’s it’s a pleasant experience every time.
#129 Worst Case Scenario… How often do you get emails like this: This plain text email has no call to action, wayyy to much text in the body and zero branding. This is an example of a “dead end email” Definition: dead-end email “An email that does not contain a clear call to action or next step for your user.” You’ve likely seen this in your own email inbox. If you are a marketer, it is likely that you want to improve this email, but don’t prioritize it because it’s trapped in source code. If you are developer, you probably hate coding HTML emails, so you are probably ignoring this email as well. At sendwithus, we find that [slide]
#130 Sometimes there is a bit of a tension. Over here, we have two examples of customer experience. On the left, we have a landing page – owned by the marketing or product focused team. Optimized for engagement Customer-centric On the right, we have a non-branded, plain text transactional email. This email is owned by a developer, bc the trigger is baked application behaviour or user behaviour As a result, the Focus is information – not necessarily consistent user experience. We’ve found that sometimes there is no easy way to get a developer to prioritize updating a transactional email. ... On the other hand, Because it’s typically trapped in source-code, marketing or product focused teams lack control over what happens to their transactional email. … This is a pain we solve, and we encourage teams to give transactional email to those who care about consistent customer experience. Let’s look at at couple examples
#131 This is an example of a notification email We have Frank and Oak on the left, and Linked in on the right. At first glance, both emails look like nicely branded HTML emails. Digging a bit deeper, Let’s look at the Frank and Oak Email, It is a lot of text. It is too hard to tell what the purpose of the email actually is… There is NO CALL TO ACTION THIS IS A DEAD END EMAIL. Meaning there is nothing the user can do to engage further. On the right, Linked In has a clean notification email You know exactly what to do. The CTA is direct, “Confirm that you know Linley” Our favourite example [slide]
#132 Is the payment receipt! We love the payment receipt, because this is when your customer is most engaged. They have just willingly given you money. On the left, it’s just a bit of a mess. There is no branding. I was looking to see the details of my recent SXSW payment, and it was not easy to spot. This did not make me excited to go to SXSW. Our favourite example is AirBNB There branding is similar to the rest of the customer experience of Airbnb Let me zoom into the top
#133 Clear call to action, I know exactly what I can do next. If anything, this makes me excited to use AirBnB. So those were just a couple of great examples of how large recognizable brands are doing this really well. Now let’s talk a bit about why transactional emails are so important
#134 At sendwithus, we know that it’s important for startups to do things that drive growth. Email is an extremely useful tool no matter the stage of your company.
#135 You’ve probably already heard of Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics Model This is your customer funnel. It represents the major stages of the user lifecycle for nearly every business. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue and Referral What I think is interesting, transactional emails bridges the gap between different stages of the Pirate Metrics model. I’m going to give some examples. These aren’t the only examples that could be included in this funnel, but it’s a start. Also, all of these emails can be tested, which I’ll speak a bit more about later on.
#136 Traditionally, we think of the acquisition channel in relations to other inbound tools. The welcome email falls somewhere in between acquisition and activation. Your first welcome email is critical for completing customer acquisition. They may have given their email through a landing page, but they may not have consented to anything further. Like this example of Vimeo, you can see that in order for a user to fully be acquired, they have to complete the registration. We’ve already talked a bit about why it’s important to have a consistent user experience for your transactional email as your landing page. Jillian will speak more to this, but the welcome email is that first impression. And we all know that first impressions matter.
#137 After your customer is acquired it’s time to activate them. That initial drip campaign letting them know what to do next is an easy way to get your customers started. Quora has three steps to get a new user up and running and loving their product.
#138 Engagement emails are great for user retention. It really depends on what type of engagement is important for your product. It may be further social media engagement, or emails reminding unengaged users that you miss them, or even something more interesting that is important to your own product goals. Here, Rdio is noting that I was listening to Mother Mother, and that I should check out more music. These emails are triggered within the application. I already love the product, and they are giving me another reason to come back.
#139 There are many triggered emails which could be optimized to drive revenue. This one is really exciting to us because this is where our customers get creative. But, emails like abandon cart, trial or subscription expiring, or other drips related to your product can actually drive revenue. I’ll explain how one of our customers optimized this type of email later on. Here, udemy noted that I had some courses saved in my wishlist that are one sale for a few more hours. This one actually worked on me, and I bought a couple $19 courses last night… because I’m a sucker.
#140 You can get creative with the content of your triggered emails. Referrals can be embedded within a notification email, like the classic Dropbox example. Depending on your product’s goals and audience, you can experiment with different content within your transactional emails. You can make an email you already send, a tool for retention or referral.
#141 The most important part about using transactional email in your customer funnel is measurement. You can run multivariate or a/b tests on various email components AND track the results. By making smart, data-driven decisions in your transactional email, you have a better idea of how to grow the right areas of your product. The second reason transactional email is important, is that
#142 As you saw earlier, not every email in your inbox has been well thought out. We described earlier that many emails we see are “Deadends” and have no call to actions. When you think of low cost, high volume and conversation marketing channels, top of mind blogs, SEO/SEM, and landing pages. But, there’s one everyone forgets: Automated emails, or ‘transactional emails
#143 Unlike regular marketing emails, transactional emails are a missed opportunity for optimization These emails are sent to your all customers – Everyone who interacts with your company gets multiple transactional emails while they’re using your product or service, so they’re high volume.
#144 I know I’m repeating myself, but I can’t emphasize testing enough! I’ll speak a bit more to some tools you can use to decide what email components to A/B test The great thing about transactional email and testing, is that it’s automated and easy.
#145 Lastly, are you even tracking your transactional email’s performance? You are likely tracking your landing page’s performance, why not extend that to your transactional email. …
#146 Not only to your customers and users want these emails, they expect them. They’re only sent when people are engaged with your company, so they’re more likely to open and click on them. At sendwithus, we have been diving into our customer data and figuring out various trends. We’ll be releasing a series of blog posts, so stay tuned. But one fact I’d like to share, is that Transactional email is important because people want them and they actually open these emails. In fact, we’ve found that
#147 Welcome emails alone generally experience almost a 50% open rate. That’s pretty exciting to us! This means that our customers on average are seeing extremely high open rates for their welcome emails.
#148 Like we talked this about earlier, welcome emails bridge the gap between acquisition and activation. But what we know, is that transactional email matters because it’s the emails people asked for.. And it’s the emails they want to open.
#149 So just to recap quickly. Transactional email matters. They are critical for growth! They are a missed opportunity for optimization, testing and analytics. And, your customers rely on them. So. Now. I’m going to talk about one case study that we’re excited about.
#150 Usell is a customer that used the sendwithus platform to identify transactional emails that weren’t working. They wanted to make all their customer engagement a delightful experience.
#151 uSell is exciting, bc they take away challenge of reselling old devices We were excited to work with uSell, bc they wanted to do something interesting with their transactional email.
#152 Not only did they want to improve the customer side of the marketplace, but they also wanted to improve a revenue generating conversion They wanted to test new ideas and measure results. After signing up with sendwithus, they were excited to run some a/b or split tests on their customer facing transactional email.
#153 Their goal was to optimize an offline metric they called a send-in rate. uSell customers, looking to sell their devices, received a ready-to-ship package in the mail. All they had to do, was to put their old phone in the package, and send it back The send-in rate, is the percentage of customers that did just that. This was the last step required to successfully convert a customer. The uSell marketing team wanted to increase the number of customers shipping their devices. And they wanted to use transactional email to do that. They decided to run TWO separate tests to see if they could improve customer send in rate.
#154 They first ran a subject line test in hopes to increase open rates. Their team brainstormed subject lines that they thought might work better – as you can see here And they used sendwithus to test them out. We are SUPER excited about their results.
#155 Through split testing, they found AMAZING improvement in open rate – specifically one of the subject lines they tested saw 25% more opens than the original. Also, they saw 7.5% more customers sending in their devices than ever before. This was great, and they wanted to see if they could do even better. So they came up with a second test.
#156 For their second test, they decided to specifically focus on increasing the send-in rate. Remembr when we talked about the Pirate Metrics? This is an example of a mutli varient test that is used to drive REVENUE They brainstormed more subject lines that spoke directly to customers wanting to sell old devices. They also wanted test putting the device name directly in the subject line, as you can see in the first two examples. Let’s look at their results.
#157 They saw 8.6% percent more customers sending in their devices. This is exciting because these emails were driving more revenue – all from a subject line test!
#158 Let’s talk about what they learned. The transactional emails they were sending before, were plain, boring and a missed opportunity. It’s important to brainstorm with you team about what content would perform best with your customers. It is not always what you expect. Most importantly, TEST it. What I love, is that they found a metric that is important to them. It’s critical for your team to decide what goals and metrics are important for your own company’s growth, and optimize that. Now let’s talk a bit about some tools you can use to improve your existing transactional email.
#159 We’ve created a couple tools you can use to better understand your email better.
#160 This is a matrix for analytics at a granular level, let me walk you through it. On one axis we have open rate The other we have click rate If you are experiencing high open and click rates! You are in the yay! Section. You are doing awesome.
#161 And you see a low open rate, and high click rate, your subject line could use better attention.
#162 If you see that your email is experiencing a high open rate, and low click through rate, then you could probably look at your body text, Or check your headings, improve your branding AND MOST importantly, improve the clarity of your CTA Also, be aware of the scroll
#163 If you see a low open and click rate, Then your email could use a make-over. Improving your subject line, body, CTA, branding… would go a long way. But maybe most importantly, you might want to revisit on why are you sending this email at all. We call our next tool “visual identification”
#164 So, Visual Identification This is easy Look at the email as though you were your own customer. And then ask yourself some really simple questions. Is it clear who this email is from? Is it clear what my next step is? Is there an opportunity for me to engage further? Think back to…. Airbnb email reference payment receipt
#165 Another step to visual identification, check out how your email looks in your inbox. Notice things like: Where is this email from? It’s hard to see on this slide, but this email highlighted in red shows it’s from Twitter. Second, in green, you can see the subject line. Third, notice the intro text. This is highlighted in orange. This is the first few characters in your email that shows up in your inbox. By improving these components, you have the opportunity to increase your open rates.
#166 Similarly, look at your email in an inbox. Jillian will speak more to this, but looking at making your branding consistent alongside ensuring your CTA is clear, will make your emails a better experience for your customers.
#167 So, Pro Tip: Test everything Don’t make any assumptions. In this day of age, it’s critical to quickly give your customers the information. Once they open your email, your customer wants to have a consistent experience and know exactly what to do next. Give your emails the same attention as you would your landing page There is so many things you can split test! Start simple, and figure out what you want to measure. You can measure: subject line intro text body style headings call to action and more!
#168 Wrapping Up! Treat Email as an extension of your product. Also, Your customers want a consistent experience Your customer-focused team wants control over email interactions, so let them have it. sendwithus makes that easy. We get your emails out of source code, and let your product and marketing teams take control. Also - Don’t miss an opportunity to further customer engagement by sending out dead end emails. And lastly, When in doubt. TEST EVERYTHING
#170 Sending millions emails / day Cool trends from data
#172 2% - what does that mean in absolute numbers?
#173 1 Billion in 2011 100 Billion in 2013 200 Billion in 2014
#174 Adding in more dimensions – speed, volume Industry delivery rate is 96%, we’re sitting nice at 99%.
#175 Now you know the numbers you’re dealing with Ali / Ryan As a sender – important to segment, so you can target
#178 We all know that it’s important to reach people wherever they are, but here are some concrete numbers from the past year. See this trend continue to increase as younger email readers drive the change of how content is consumed
#179 Gmail is top by long shot – 35% + 13% Important to know how performing at Gmail Just announced FBL – SG first tester Gmail sends aggregate report of worst offenders
#180 Gmail unsubscribe link in header = good Gmail promotions tab new feature – grid view
#181 Upward mobility for Chrome and iPhone browsers. IE declines Young adults disliking IE gaining purchase power
#182 We also saw Firefox fall down a couple slots Testing emails – top browsers to check Chrome, IE, Safari, Firefox, iOS / Android
#183 Covered where they are / technology they’re using. How do they approach email? Engagement data – put into different buckets
#184 Open as soon as it arrives Make actionable and easy to read when on the go.

Vancouver final

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SendGridDelivered2014 Vancouver Welcome
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2 • Wireless=Impressionist Room •Password=impressionst • Social Media: @sendgrid #SGDelivered • Sales Rep = Tina • Happy hour!
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3 RyanHarris Manager, Compliance andEmail Strategy ryan.harris@sendgrid.com JillianWohlfarth Senior Manager of Content jillian.wohlfarth@sendgrid.com
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4_________________________ IF YOU SEND EMAIL WE’LLMAKE YOU BETTER AT IT. _________________________
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5 ABOUT SENDGRID Founded July2009 TechStars Graduate 180+ Employees Office locations in: Boulder | Denver | Anaheim San Francisco | Europe
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6 Angel investors include: ScottPetry Founder, Postini Matt Mullenweg Founder, Wordpress $27M venture capital raised (Series B closed January 2012) INVESTMENT
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7 SENDIN G 13 Billion /month 450 Million /day
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8 Email Landscape Transactiona l Marketing
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11 Alerts & Notifications
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15 The Road tothe Inbox? Your Server
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17 Inbox Obstacles  ISPs(Internet Service Providers)  Blacklists  Spam traps
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18 ISPs
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19 Blacklists
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20 Spam Traps
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21 The Real Roadto the Inbox AOL Yahoo Google Live .edu Etc… ISPs Spam Folder Your Mail Server SORBS BSB CBL PSBL SPAMCO P Blacklists Etc… Google McAfee Mail Trust Spam Assassin Cloudmark Etc… Spam Filters SPAM
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22 550 HAZ SPAMMER?
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How Does SendGridHelp? 1. Technology 2. Analytics 3. Customer Support
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24 Sender 1. Email content passedto SendGrid via API or SMTP 2. SendGrid processes and queues messages 3. Messages delivered to recipients’ inboxes Recipient Powering Email Via APIs 4. Analytics captured by SendGrid and passed back to customer
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25 Actionable, Real-time Analytics
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27 200 Billion
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28 Today’s Agenda… Your roadmapto becoming an email superhero
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29 Learn How To… •Master email deliverability • Leverage APIs • Understand success metrics • Build an engaged subscriber list • Optimize your content
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Ryan Harris Nick Quinlan JillianWohlfarth Ali Frusciano Paul Kincaid-Smith
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Here we go! SendGridDelivered2014
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Ryan Harris Ali Frusciano Howto Be Awesome When Sending Email
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35 • Right Person -at the • Right Time -with the • Right Frequency • Right Message -to the
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36 Let’s take amoment to talk about prerequisites…
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37 • Opt in •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation What is Opt In? How does Opt In cover your ass?
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38 • Opt In •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation • What is an Unengaged User? • How do you identify Engaged Users? • Create a Sunset Policy
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39 • Opt In •Define Engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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40 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No Reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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41 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation No-reply to Address
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42 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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43 Unsubscribe • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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44 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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45 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation List-Unsubscribe www.list-unsubscribe.com
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46 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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47 • Opt In •Define engagement • Separate Marketing and Transactional Email • Branding • No-reply • Warm Up • Unsubscribe • Reputation
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The SendGrid Mantra
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52 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency
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53 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency
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54 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Let’s get beyond “Hey [fname], how is [geolocation]?” Profile your messages for meaningful content Segment your lists based on your user’s profile: • Geolocation • Products Purchased • Links clicked • Pages viewed
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55 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Let’s talk about Spam Traps…
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56 • The Right Message •The Right Person • The Right Time • The Right Frequency Send messages when they need to be sent!
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58 • Right Person -at the • Right Time -with the • Right Frequency • Right Message -to the Key Takeaway
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Things you needto know about CASL
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60 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing • Consent You should clearly identify yourself in the email… This also must be done at the point of consent!
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61 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing • Consent CASL Requires… You must provide a functioning electronic address as well as a physical address where the recipient can contact you!
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62 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent You must store the following information for each address: • The type of opt-in (paper, landing page, sign up) • An example of the webpage (if applicable) • When they opted-in • Their connecting IP (if applicable)
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63 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent Your Unsubscribe method… must be functional for 60 days after the message is sent and must process a request within 10 days.
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64 • Clear Identification • Addresses •Unsubscribing Rules • Consent Expressed Consent vs. Implied Consent: • Expressed consent is required for email messages • Implied consent is only valid for a 6 month window
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65 CASL allows impliedconsent for the following: • Messages send within a business (they must be related to your business) • Messages sent in response to a request • Quotes or estimates • Receipts • Security info (recalls, warrantees, etc.) • Ongoing usage with your business (ongoing purchases) • Service upgrades or updates • Deliveries of a product • Recipients choose to provide their electronic address online without specifying that they do not want to receive CEMs (SendGrid does not allow this) • Recipients provide their electronic address to the sender without specifying that they do not want to receive CEMS (SendGrid does not allow this)
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Editor's Notes

#10 JILLIAN Since email is the backbone of the social web, let’s talk about what affects its effectiveness and how to get it delivered! 22% of all email sent never arrives as intended. 22%! For context, our co-founder Tim Jenkins likes to posit, if eBay were to lose 1%, just 1% of their email, they would lose $14 million in revenue per year.
#13 JILLIAN
#14 If you drive revenue from email, you can directly quantify a 22% financial loss. If you have softer goals like new user acquisition or engagement, you miss out on a huge segment of potential users who can extend the viability of your brand. According to our survey, web apps rely on email: 80.5% for signups and subscriptions 79.5% for password recovery and account changes 49.8% for order and shipping confirmations 28% for friend/follower requests and confirmations Imagine 22% of these valuable communications going undelivered.
#16 RYAN The road to the inbox is not linear—not an easy A to B. Who employs an email deliverability expert in house?
#17 RYAN Sending email actually looks a lot like this. Most never hit the target. Your email encounters many obstacles from the server to the inbox. They are: ISPS, blacklists, spam traps. Let’s take a look at them.
#18 Ryan starts off preso for Housekeeping and Company Overview.
#22 RYAN Here’s the real road to the inbox. Jillian ask Ryan: And where is “delivered??” RIGHT BEFORE THE ISPS!! 250 response code. So “delivered” is at the gateway of the ISPs, not actually the inbox!!
#25 RYAN SENDGRID TECHNOLOGY
#26 RYAN SENDGRID TECHNOLOGY
#27 JILLIAN So, how has SendGrid scaled? 200B + emails Representing 2% of the world’s non-spam email What does 200 Billion look like? 100 Billion = Number of hamburgers sold by McDonalds form 1940 to 1994—non0spam emails 200 Billion = 2 (!) emails for every person that has lived on this Earth in the last 50k years Through sending over 200 billion emails and traveling to 15+ cities on this tour in the last year, we have a lot of tips to share. So, today, we’re going to share how you can get to the inbox quickly and how SendGrid can help.
#28 JILLIAN So, how has SendGrid scaled? 200B + emails Representing 2% of the world’s non-spam email They send as many emails per minute as there are Tweets on Twitter What does 200 Billion look like? 100 Billion = Number of hamburgers sold by McDonalds form 1940 to 1994—non0spam emails 200 Billion = 2 (!) emails for every person that has lived on this Earth in the last 50k years Through sending over 200 billion emails and traveling to 15+ cities on this tour in the last year, we have a lot of tips to share. So, today, we’re going to share how you can get to the inbox quickly and how SendGrid can help.
#29 So let’s take a look at what we’ll be covering today…
#31 JILLIAN Here’s who you’ll be hearing from today. Leverage us, we’re here to help. So, let’ get started. Ali and Ryan are going to teach you how to master your email deliverability now. Over to you Ryan and Ali.
#33 Ali – you’ve met Ryan, i’m ….. How to Be Awesome when Sending Email
#34 Ryan talking today about best practices to make you an email bad ass http://justincaseyouwerewondering.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dont-suck.png
#35 Ali - not much talk - If you don’t understand why your emails are not performing as planned, we are here to help http://jbarrineau.com/2013/06/12/think-before-you-hit-send-how-not-to-suck-at-email/
#36 Ali - our Mantra here at SENGRID Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers before diving in, there are some pre-reqs
#37 Before we get into RM RT TF jkfdjkls...Let’s go over some pre reqs http://www.theprospect.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/one-does-not-simply-skip-a-step.jpg
#38 ryan Single, Double, Confirmed Opt In Don’t assume opt in, Facebook and purchasing goods and auto-adding emails Disgruntled employee and single opt in Don’t assume opt in Facebook example with client hitting spam traps
#39 Ali is DA BOMB! -engaged users are one of the most important metrics in email today -you want to look for people that are opening and/or clicking your email -If they are NOT opening and clicking the email, you need to take them off your list. You can remove them completely, or send a re-engagement campaign. If they don’t respond to the re-engagement campaign...remove them...FOREVER. -How is it painful to not do this -Aaron has a graph to show sweet spot of engagement -Encourage people replying to email
#40 Ali Using different IP’s is one thing, but who separates by sub-domains or root domains - Gmail announced that these should be as separate as possible good better best
#41 Ryan Don’t just brand your marketing emails but brand your transactional emails as well. People overlook this and send lame transactional messages. Companies like send with us help optimize your transactional traffic
#42 Ryan No-reply showing up as the sender in Gmail Don’t want your clients to talk to a wall
#43 Ali
#44 Ali - have a visible unsubscribe link.
#45 ryan
#47 ryan HAve you ever experienced this…. http://www.psdgraphics.com/file/hand-pointer-icon.jpg
#49 http://tigerlilytoph.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/table-flip.png Preference page, to unsub from marketing and not from transactional message 10 days is the legal requirement a real email sending removes someone in seconds Careful not to unsub from transactional
#50 Ryan Have u ever been to a small town? Where everyone knows your business? The Anti-Abuse community is just like that Elaborate on Insider lists, entire abuse community fits in one hotel in San Fran (MAAWG). IP Domain Ali - Email service providers do the same - we had difficulty influencing the client. they abandoned us, we have great relationships with them, we reached out to them, here is what we advised, here are the struggles, ESP very thankful and it set them up for a better talk.
#51 Ryan Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers
#52 Ali - our Mantra here at SENGRID Concentrate on the Right Message – to the Right Person – at the Right Time - with the Right Frequency and you will stay on the good side of the ISPs and have little trouble getting to the inbox of your customers before diving in, there are some pre-reqs
#53 Ali - its easy as a marketer to assume all communications are relevant, but it’s important to to understand the needs of your recipients and what they are really interested in. http://mattgivenstudios.com/images/uploads/main/relevance14.jpg
#54 Ryan Profile your user New Jersey deals to someone in Colorado
#55 ryan - Get beyond [fname]. This format is expected and your challenge as a business is to add more personalization for your recipients
#56 Ali - Spam Traps - Facebook addresses beware -Dive into a story - had a client they got all their addresses through facebook, this was a disaster because FB doesn’t reconfirm this is affecting deliveraiblity , confrimed opt in - spam traps disappeared
#57 Ali - another gross slide Daily deal’s on the day Knowing the time that your users engage (should we reference Embarke) - consumes your data, tells you the exact time a recipient opens an email. Either from 8 - noon, or at 8:30 specifically. Reputation, if you have to send a message that day, don’t want surprises - think about this with your warmup. warm up. Don’t position your company where you have to send a bizzalion messages tomorrow!
#58 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#59 You know who else is awesome!? Guest speaker is AWESOME!
#61 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#63 Ryan Are you sending 80 messages in a day to one user? Preference page, let your users decide how much email to receive. Don’t force ppl to log into a preference page Temptation: Batch and blast - Fatigued users become unengaged -Unsubs going up? Opens and clicks going up or down? - Ask aaron about visual on email fatigue
#121 Today I’m going to talk about Email and Your Product
#122 My name is Linley Faulkner, and I work on the product marketing team at sendwithus I’m here today with sendwithus co-founder and CEO, Matt Harris AND Wesley Yu, our Extraordinary marketing coordinator **wave** A little [slide]
#123 A little bit about us, We have been around since Jan 2013, Our headquarter is in SF and out engineering team is based in Victoria, British Columbia Canada where the company was originally founded. Pictured here is some of our engineering team. We are committed to helping our customers control and optimize transactional email. We are graduates of Y Combinator’s recent winter batch. … But who are we?
#124 For Marketers, we are Easy template management and analytics without a developer. Our dashboard lets marketers and product teams run things like drip campaigns and segmentation.
#125 For developers, we are an API for templated emails, drip campaigns, segmentation and analytics for your SendGrid Account. Today [slide]
#126 I’m going to talk about Transactional Email. First, I’m going to talk a bit about what it is, and why it’s hard. I’m also going to share a reasons why transactional email is important for your product Then, I’ll share some of our tips and tools on how to improve your existing transactional email. And Finally, I’m going to share a quick case study.
#127 So what is Transactional email? SendGrid has a great definition. Transactional emails happen after a user has taken an action with your company. They can take the form of welcome emails, payment receipts, subscription renewals, password deliveries, product/account updates, alerts, and social notifications. Basically, transactional emails are sent when a user is engaged with your product or service.
#128 We also describe it as one-to-one messaging that closely ties to user engagement and actions. For example, you may get a facebook notification email saying “Linley has sent you a message” Or a Linked-in notification that says “Linley wants to connect with you” These email contains information that the customer needs right away. Most Importantly, transactional email is the email your customer actually likes. They have asked for this information. But just because the user has asked for this information, it doesn’t mean that’s it’s a pleasant experience every time.
#129 Worst Case Scenario… How often do you get emails like this: This plain text email has no call to action, wayyy to much text in the body and zero branding. This is an example of a “dead end email” Definition: dead-end email “An email that does not contain a clear call to action or next step for your user.” You’ve likely seen this in your own email inbox. If you are a marketer, it is likely that you want to improve this email, but don’t prioritize it because it’s trapped in source code. If you are developer, you probably hate coding HTML emails, so you are probably ignoring this email as well. At sendwithus, we find that [slide]
#130 Sometimes there is a bit of a tension. Over here, we have two examples of customer experience. On the left, we have a landing page – owned by the marketing or product focused team. Optimized for engagement Customer-centric On the right, we have a non-branded, plain text transactional email. This email is owned by a developer, bc the trigger is baked application behaviour or user behaviour As a result, the Focus is information – not necessarily consistent user experience. We’ve found that sometimes there is no easy way to get a developer to prioritize updating a transactional email. ... On the other hand, Because it’s typically trapped in source-code, marketing or product focused teams lack control over what happens to their transactional email. … This is a pain we solve, and we encourage teams to give transactional email to those who care about consistent customer experience. Let’s look at at couple examples
#131 This is an example of a notification email We have Frank and Oak on the left, and Linked in on the right. At first glance, both emails look like nicely branded HTML emails. Digging a bit deeper, Let’s look at the Frank and Oak Email, It is a lot of text. It is too hard to tell what the purpose of the email actually is… There is NO CALL TO ACTION THIS IS A DEAD END EMAIL. Meaning there is nothing the user can do to engage further. On the right, Linked In has a clean notification email You know exactly what to do. The CTA is direct, “Confirm that you know Linley” Our favourite example [slide]
#132 Is the payment receipt! We love the payment receipt, because this is when your customer is most engaged. They have just willingly given you money. On the left, it’s just a bit of a mess. There is no branding. I was looking to see the details of my recent SXSW payment, and it was not easy to spot. This did not make me excited to go to SXSW. Our favourite example is AirBNB There branding is similar to the rest of the customer experience of Airbnb Let me zoom into the top
#133 Clear call to action, I know exactly what I can do next. If anything, this makes me excited to use AirBnB. So those were just a couple of great examples of how large recognizable brands are doing this really well. Now let’s talk a bit about why transactional emails are so important
#134 At sendwithus, we know that it’s important for startups to do things that drive growth. Email is an extremely useful tool no matter the stage of your company.
#135 You’ve probably already heard of Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics Model This is your customer funnel. It represents the major stages of the user lifecycle for nearly every business. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue and Referral What I think is interesting, transactional emails bridges the gap between different stages of the Pirate Metrics model. I’m going to give some examples. These aren’t the only examples that could be included in this funnel, but it’s a start. Also, all of these emails can be tested, which I’ll speak a bit more about later on.
#136 Traditionally, we think of the acquisition channel in relations to other inbound tools. The welcome email falls somewhere in between acquisition and activation. Your first welcome email is critical for completing customer acquisition. They may have given their email through a landing page, but they may not have consented to anything further. Like this example of Vimeo, you can see that in order for a user to fully be acquired, they have to complete the registration. We’ve already talked a bit about why it’s important to have a consistent user experience for your transactional email as your landing page. Jillian will speak more to this, but the welcome email is that first impression. And we all know that first impressions matter.
#137 After your customer is acquired it’s time to activate them. That initial drip campaign letting them know what to do next is an easy way to get your customers started. Quora has three steps to get a new user up and running and loving their product.
#138 Engagement emails are great for user retention. It really depends on what type of engagement is important for your product. It may be further social media engagement, or emails reminding unengaged users that you miss them, or even something more interesting that is important to your own product goals. Here, Rdio is noting that I was listening to Mother Mother, and that I should check out more music. These emails are triggered within the application. I already love the product, and they are giving me another reason to come back.
#139 There are many triggered emails which could be optimized to drive revenue. This one is really exciting to us because this is where our customers get creative. But, emails like abandon cart, trial or subscription expiring, or other drips related to your product can actually drive revenue. I’ll explain how one of our customers optimized this type of email later on. Here, udemy noted that I had some courses saved in my wishlist that are one sale for a few more hours. This one actually worked on me, and I bought a couple $19 courses last night… because I’m a sucker.
#140 You can get creative with the content of your triggered emails. Referrals can be embedded within a notification email, like the classic Dropbox example. Depending on your product’s goals and audience, you can experiment with different content within your transactional emails. You can make an email you already send, a tool for retention or referral.
#141 The most important part about using transactional email in your customer funnel is measurement. You can run multivariate or a/b tests on various email components AND track the results. By making smart, data-driven decisions in your transactional email, you have a better idea of how to grow the right areas of your product. The second reason transactional email is important, is that
#142 As you saw earlier, not every email in your inbox has been well thought out. We described earlier that many emails we see are “Deadends” and have no call to actions. When you think of low cost, high volume and conversation marketing channels, top of mind blogs, SEO/SEM, and landing pages. But, there’s one everyone forgets: Automated emails, or ‘transactional emails
#143 Unlike regular marketing emails, transactional emails are a missed opportunity for optimization These emails are sent to your all customers – Everyone who interacts with your company gets multiple transactional emails while they’re using your product or service, so they’re high volume.
#144 I know I’m repeating myself, but I can’t emphasize testing enough! I’ll speak a bit more to some tools you can use to decide what email components to A/B test The great thing about transactional email and testing, is that it’s automated and easy.
#145 Lastly, are you even tracking your transactional email’s performance? You are likely tracking your landing page’s performance, why not extend that to your transactional email. …
#146 Not only to your customers and users want these emails, they expect them. They’re only sent when people are engaged with your company, so they’re more likely to open and click on them. At sendwithus, we have been diving into our customer data and figuring out various trends. We’ll be releasing a series of blog posts, so stay tuned. But one fact I’d like to share, is that Transactional email is important because people want them and they actually open these emails. In fact, we’ve found that
#147 Welcome emails alone generally experience almost a 50% open rate. That’s pretty exciting to us! This means that our customers on average are seeing extremely high open rates for their welcome emails.
#148 Like we talked this about earlier, welcome emails bridge the gap between acquisition and activation. But what we know, is that transactional email matters because it’s the emails people asked for.. And it’s the emails they want to open.
#149 So just to recap quickly. Transactional email matters. They are critical for growth! They are a missed opportunity for optimization, testing and analytics. And, your customers rely on them. So. Now. I’m going to talk about one case study that we’re excited about.
#150 Usell is a customer that used the sendwithus platform to identify transactional emails that weren’t working. They wanted to make all their customer engagement a delightful experience.
#151 uSell is exciting, bc they take away challenge of reselling old devices We were excited to work with uSell, bc they wanted to do something interesting with their transactional email.
#152 Not only did they want to improve the customer side of the marketplace, but they also wanted to improve a revenue generating conversion They wanted to test new ideas and measure results. After signing up with sendwithus, they were excited to run some a/b or split tests on their customer facing transactional email.
#153 Their goal was to optimize an offline metric they called a send-in rate. uSell customers, looking to sell their devices, received a ready-to-ship package in the mail. All they had to do, was to put their old phone in the package, and send it back The send-in rate, is the percentage of customers that did just that. This was the last step required to successfully convert a customer. The uSell marketing team wanted to increase the number of customers shipping their devices. And they wanted to use transactional email to do that. They decided to run TWO separate tests to see if they could improve customer send in rate.
#154 They first ran a subject line test in hopes to increase open rates. Their team brainstormed subject lines that they thought might work better – as you can see here And they used sendwithus to test them out. We are SUPER excited about their results.
#155 Through split testing, they found AMAZING improvement in open rate – specifically one of the subject lines they tested saw 25% more opens than the original. Also, they saw 7.5% more customers sending in their devices than ever before. This was great, and they wanted to see if they could do even better. So they came up with a second test.
#156 For their second test, they decided to specifically focus on increasing the send-in rate. Remembr when we talked about the Pirate Metrics? This is an example of a mutli varient test that is used to drive REVENUE They brainstormed more subject lines that spoke directly to customers wanting to sell old devices. They also wanted test putting the device name directly in the subject line, as you can see in the first two examples. Let’s look at their results.
#157 They saw 8.6% percent more customers sending in their devices. This is exciting because these emails were driving more revenue – all from a subject line test!
#158 Let’s talk about what they learned. The transactional emails they were sending before, were plain, boring and a missed opportunity. It’s important to brainstorm with you team about what content would perform best with your customers. It is not always what you expect. Most importantly, TEST it. What I love, is that they found a metric that is important to them. It’s critical for your team to decide what goals and metrics are important for your own company’s growth, and optimize that. Now let’s talk a bit about some tools you can use to improve your existing transactional email.
#159 We’ve created a couple tools you can use to better understand your email better.
#160 This is a matrix for analytics at a granular level, let me walk you through it. On one axis we have open rate The other we have click rate If you are experiencing high open and click rates! You are in the yay! Section. You are doing awesome.
#161 And you see a low open rate, and high click rate, your subject line could use better attention.
#162 If you see that your email is experiencing a high open rate, and low click through rate, then you could probably look at your body text, Or check your headings, improve your branding AND MOST importantly, improve the clarity of your CTA Also, be aware of the scroll
#163 If you see a low open and click rate, Then your email could use a make-over. Improving your subject line, body, CTA, branding… would go a long way. But maybe most importantly, you might want to revisit on why are you sending this email at all. We call our next tool “visual identification”
#164 So, Visual Identification This is easy Look at the email as though you were your own customer. And then ask yourself some really simple questions. Is it clear who this email is from? Is it clear what my next step is? Is there an opportunity for me to engage further? Think back to…. Airbnb email reference payment receipt
#165 Another step to visual identification, check out how your email looks in your inbox. Notice things like: Where is this email from? It’s hard to see on this slide, but this email highlighted in red shows it’s from Twitter. Second, in green, you can see the subject line. Third, notice the intro text. This is highlighted in orange. This is the first few characters in your email that shows up in your inbox. By improving these components, you have the opportunity to increase your open rates.
#166 Similarly, look at your email in an inbox. Jillian will speak more to this, but looking at making your branding consistent alongside ensuring your CTA is clear, will make your emails a better experience for your customers.
#167 So, Pro Tip: Test everything Don’t make any assumptions. In this day of age, it’s critical to quickly give your customers the information. Once they open your email, your customer wants to have a consistent experience and know exactly what to do next. Give your emails the same attention as you would your landing page There is so many things you can split test! Start simple, and figure out what you want to measure. You can measure: subject line intro text body style headings call to action and more!
#168 Wrapping Up! Treat Email as an extension of your product. Also, Your customers want a consistent experience Your customer-focused team wants control over email interactions, so let them have it. sendwithus makes that easy. We get your emails out of source code, and let your product and marketing teams take control. Also - Don’t miss an opportunity to further customer engagement by sending out dead end emails. And lastly, When in doubt. TEST EVERYTHING
#170 Sending millions emails / day Cool trends from data
#172 2% - what does that mean in absolute numbers?
#173 1 Billion in 2011 100 Billion in 2013 200 Billion in 2014
#174 Adding in more dimensions – speed, volume Industry delivery rate is 96%, we’re sitting nice at 99%.
#175 Now you know the numbers you’re dealing with Ali / Ryan As a sender – important to segment, so you can target
#178 We all know that it’s important to reach people wherever they are, but here are some concrete numbers from the past year. See this trend continue to increase as younger email readers drive the change of how content is consumed
#179 Gmail is top by long shot – 35% + 13% Important to know how performing at Gmail Just announced FBL – SG first tester Gmail sends aggregate report of worst offenders
#180 Gmail unsubscribe link in header = good Gmail promotions tab new feature – grid view
#181 Upward mobility for Chrome and iPhone browsers. IE declines Young adults disliking IE gaining purchase power
#182 We also saw Firefox fall down a couple slots Testing emails – top browsers to check Chrome, IE, Safari, Firefox, iOS / Android
#183 Covered where they are / technology they’re using. How do they approach email? Engagement data – put into different buckets
#184 Open as soon as it arrives Make actionable and easy to read when on the go.

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