Big Gains From Small Edits

In the world of Email marketing, there is always room for improvement.  Sometimes, the biggest improvement can come from the smallest of edits.

The most minor adjustments to your email template have the potential to cause click-through (the % of people who actually click on a link) and open rates (the % of people who open and view an email instead of just ignoring or deleting it) to suddenly skyrocket, and in turn, drive large amounts of sales, traffic, sign ups, or conversions. However, the only way to truly learn from your template adjustments is to implement them one at a time utilizing classic scientific procedure. By isolating your adjustments, you can learn which varying factors improve your campaigns and which hurt them.

A/B Split Testing for Email

The best approach for this experimental improvement is commonly referred to as A/B Split Testing: a function available within most email marketing services.

The actual process for Newsletter A/B Split Testing  involves splitting a small, randomally selected subset of your mailing list subscribers into two groups. Then, each groups receivs an email that is nearly identical, save a small tweak that you are testing. For example, you might test different subject lines to see how that affects open rate. Once the results are measured, you then send out the “winning” variation to the all the users who didn’t receive  one of the original test emails.

To reiterate, the only difference between the two emails going to the two small test groups should be the single factor that you are testing.

An Example

Acme, Inc. would like find out which color link attracts the most clicks. In the current version of their newsletter, link is displayed in a big red font with no special decoration.

In order to find out if this is the optimal presentation for clicks, they up an A/B test that includes two identical newsletters except for this big red link. Email #1 would include the standard big red link link with no special decoration while Email #2 would include a blue link with no special decoration.  While it may tempting to experiment with decorating the link or creating a special button, that should be saved for the next test in order to keep the currently tested color variable completely isolated.  The reason for only testing one tweak at a time is so that there is no doubt about what caused the increase.  To continue testing ways to improve click-through rates, further A/B tests could be done.

But links are not the only thing that can be tested in newsletters.  Other potential variables include:

• Subject-Line: Test subject lines to increase open rates.
• From-Line: Test which “from” address results in the highest open rate.
• Landing Page: Find out which landing page to link to by seeing which one results in a higher conversion rate
• Time of Delivery: The time of day that email is sent could have a significant impact on open rates and recipient activity across all metrics.
• Presentation of Calls to Action: Not getting enough clicks? Try testing the color of and style of buttons.
• Just About Every Aspect of A Newsletter: Almost anything in a newsletters can be tested for improvement.

Remember: scientific testing is the only true path to improvement in your campaigns.  While there are many preachers of best practices out there, what works for most may not work for your list. The only way to be sure is to test test test.

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While Searching for this post I found two other posts on similar topic

Download 6 free eBooks to make money online

10 Free eBooks on Earning Money Online and Blogging

What is Email Marketing?

If you have an email address, you’ve seen plenty of examples of email marketing. A clothing store might tell you about some new styles, a car dealership might let you know about a special financing deal, a local restaurant might let you know about new menu items.

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which allows anyone to send messages directly to a pre-determined list of users. These messages can be anything from simple, plain text to rich, graphic-laden pages (similar to normal websites). Email marketing messages are delivered right to the recipient’s inbox, just like normal email.

Email marketing differs from other online marketing in that it is inexpensive, easy to send, highly measureable, and goes straight to a target’s inbox. It’s another tool in your online marketing toolbox.

Now, let’s take a look at what makes email marketing so useful.

The Advantages of Email Marketing

1. Low Cost

Email-based marketing costs can be as low as $0.005 per email. This compares favorably to other online marketing methods like pay-per-click or cost-per-impression advertising. Compared to the expense of traditional mail marketing, the savings are even greater (think about all the printing and postage costs!).

2. Measurable Results

Using innovative tracking systems, email marketing allows you to know exactly how many people receive your message, how many open it, and how many actually click on the links and calls to action contained within your message. Armed with this knowledge, you can make adjustments and improvements to subsequent emails.

3. Precision Targeting

Send emails exactly where you want them to go. You can easily create segmented lists and direct different messages to designated customer groups. You can collect email addresses from a number of sources, including your existing customer database. Adding a “mailing list” box to your website is a great way to build a list of users who are interesting in to hearing from you.

4. Interactive

Email newsletters don’t limit you to simple, static content. You can include video, music, polls and more. These tools provide multiple ways to engage your customers.

5. Strong Calls to Action

Clicking on a link or button is very easy, which means that recipients have to take very little effort to follow through on a call to action. Compare this with traditional newsletters where recipients have to dial a phone number or type a website address into their computer.

6. Highly Personalized

Use your database to easily greet recipients by name. Make them feel that they aren’t receiving a generic mass email.

7. Time and Venue Shifting

Recipients can read your message on their own time and on the device of their choosing, whether that means in a traditional email inbox or on an iPhone. This freedom increases open rates and engagement rates.

8. Opt-In & Unsubscribe Options

Because email lists are easy to opt-in and opt-out of, you don’t have to worry about customers receiving unsolicited and unwanted advertising.

9. Instant Response

Most recipients will read your message within minutes or hours. You can know the success of your campaign the same day you send it instead of weeks down the line.

10. Simple

No need to coordinate design, printing, and mailing as is necessary with physical mail-shots. And unlike other forms of online marketing, you don’t have vague targets and results. Email marketing is straightforward: send a message to a targeted list of recipients. Write the message and press send.

11. Easy To Get Started

Getting started with your mailing list is simple. You probably even have a huge database of email addresses already. Think about all the email addresses you have in your current email system, Rolodex, Blackberry, or other device. And surely you have at least a handful of company news, special offers, or other piece of information you want to share with your contacts.

For some marketers, especially B2B companies, the holidays may be a time of year when things slow down, which can be the perfect opportunity to thoroughly cleanse your PPC account and get it to deliver more bang for your buck. On the heels of my blog post on landing page optimization, here are 10 ways to make your PPC campaign more profitable.

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1. Make changes that matter.


Don’t just look for what is not performing well in your campaign, look for areas that would have a big impact on your ROI if it were working better. See what campaigns and ad groups within each campaign represent the greatest share of your overall paid search budget.

Once you’ve identified the most critical areas of your campaign to optimize, start by taking a look at your Quality Score. Improving it will help you reduce your cost-per-click in relation to the position of your ads. This involves looking at each keyword’s CTR, associated ads and taking some of the following steps:

2. Create better targeted ad groups.


Look through your ad groups to find keywords with low Quality Score or low CTR and see what ads are showing up for them. Consider placing these keywords in another ad group with ads that are more relevant. In the case of broad match keywords, use the “See Search Terms” report to find some common queries you are getting clicks for. If some of the keywords that often get clicks are relevant to you, consider using them as a phrase or exact match in the same or new ad group.

Besides using the “See Search Terms” report to better target relevant keywords, use it also add to list of keywords that you do not want to target.

3. Curate your negative keyword lists.


Add negative keywords to your list so that your ads show for more relevant searches. You can find these in the “See Search Terms” report.

4. Use broad match modifiers.

If you have not done so already, add the new broad match modifier to your ad groups. This type of matching is more flexible than phrase and exact match while doing a better job of targeting than broad match. Bid on this match type higher than you would on broad match, and lower than phrase and exact match.

Your CTR does not only rely on your keywords, so it’s important that your ads get users to click.

5. Test your ads.


Look for ways to make your ads stand-out against your competition and test different ideas. Let ads compete against each other and gather sufficient data before eliminating one or more ads. When you come across a test result in one ad group, consider applying what you learned to other ad groups.

Everything I’ve listed so far is primarily meant to increase your CTR. But what about making sure that each click is the best click you can get?

6. Filter out unwanted clicks.


Provide information in your ad copy that will deter your most common unwanted customers. For example, if your services start at $5,000, consider using that in your ad copy. This may go against our strategy of increasing our CTR, but its benefits may outweigh the loss by increasing the value of each click.

7. Use match types to control bids.

Look at broad match keywords that are consuming a lot of your budget, without delivering the goods in the form of conversions. Consider reducing your bids on some of those broader keywords and increase bids on phrase and exact match keywords that are delivering good results.

8. Show ads at the right time.


After doing some preliminary testing by showing ads throughout the day and days of the week, configure your bidding schedule to get your ads more attention when it counts.

I’ve covered most things leading up to the click. Now let’s look at what to do about what visitors see after they click on your ad.

9. Improve device targeting.

Make sure that if you are targeting mobile devices that you are sending traffic to a mobile-friendly page and that this mobile traffic is in a separate campaign from your desktop computer targeting.

10. Conduct landing page optimization.

Work on continually improving the conversion rate of your landing pages. At the end of the day, no matter how cheaply you can generate traffic to your website by improving Quality Score or how well you can filter out unwanted clicks, if your pages are not focused on turning each visitor into a client, then you will always be spinning your tires in the mud. If you need a few tips to get you started, check out 84 Tips For A Killer Landing Page Design.

Below is a demonstration of the effects of conversion optimization on ROI: