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      Want to stay up-to-date on all of the latest news and research from Return Path's email deliverability experts? We'll send 'em as we post 'em. Usually 2-4 posts a week.


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      Response Posts

      Apr
      13

      Emailcenter UK Subscriber Study: Say Something Worthwhile

      Stephanie Miller, email marketing expert
      By Stephanie Miller
      VP, Global Market Development

      Our partner Emailcenter, an email service provider in the UK, recently polled British consumers about their inbox habits and preferences. It's a good study (free registration required) and the report is full of wonderful ideas to improve email marketing response and deliverability.

      The main findings are straightforward:
      1. Consumers get a lot of email.
      2. Relevancy matters.
      3. Many marketers take a short term, aggressive approach to email.

      It's not surprising the study finds that most email marketing is pretty terrible - it's irrelevant, untargeted and poorly timed. What the study really points out is that consumers notice. ...

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      Categories: Response

      Apr
      09

      Cool Email Idea: Your Order has Arrived Email

      What: You order has arrived email

      Who: Adagio Teas

      Why we love it: Most e-tailers send a series of post-purchase emails that often include an order confirmation and a shipping notice. But very few send a message to tell you your order has been delivered. This quick note from Adagio Teas lets you know...

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      Categories: Response

      Apr
      06

      Predictions of Email's Death -- Again?

      Stephanie Miller
      By Stephanie Miller
      VP, Global Market Development

      In a meeting today, a UK-based CEO said to me, "Isn't email dead already?" I guess if you equate "alive" with "the coolest new thing to hit the airwaves this month," then yes, I suppose email remains in the opposite camp: the respectable position of being a proven, trusted and incredibly powerful direct marketing channel.

      Our friend Dela Quist, founder and CEO of AlchemyWorx in Britain seems to have the same kinds of visceral reaction that I do when hearing over and over again that email is dead. He discusses it here on the DMA-UK blog and the comments from others are quite interesting as well.

      For years now pundits have been predicting the death of email - first because of spam, then because of RSS, then ...

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      Categories: Response

      Mar
      31

      Death of Email Meme: Do the Kids Get Email?

      George Bilbrey
      By George Bilbrey
      President

      The death of email hypothesis goes something like this:

      • Younger generations use other methods to communicate than email.  They text to communicate. They IM to communicate. They use social networks to communicate.  The only time they use email is to talk to old folks.
      • When the younger generations make it into the workforce, email will be supplanted by other media.

      I love the data that the Pew Center for Internet research produces (good AND free).  Recently they released their "Generations Online in 2009" study about how different age groups use the internet.  So what can we glean from the study?

      Major findings:

      1. Teens and Generation Y find entertainment and social networks online
      2. Older generations use the internet as a tool for research, shopping and banking


      So that's not too surprising, right?  When you're young you have more of a social life ...Tell me more

      Categories: Response

      Mar
      26

      Lesson from the Ecommerce Study: Getting The Second Date

      Margaret Farmakis
      By Margaret Farmakis
      Senior Director, Response Consulting

      The relationships that email marketers strive to build with their customers and prospects follow many of the same practices that exist for nurturing and growing personal relationships. When those practices are ignored or taken for granted, the relationships rarely flourish and often fizzle out quickly.

      For example, when it comes to finding a mate, no one expects to get married without having a first date. When it comes to email marketing, welcome messages are just like a first date. They set expectations about what's to come, give the subscriber a chance to evaluate the email program's potential benefits, and provide the subscriber with enough information and incentive to take the desired next step (in the case of email that's open, click or purchase).

      A successful first date will always lead to a second date, and an optimized welcome message will increase the likelihood that a subscriber will interact with future messaging and prime the subscriber to become active and engaged over the long-term.

      And yet, many marketers still don't give the welcome message the respect it deserves. This was evident in a recent study we conducted of the email experiences created by online retailers: "Increasing Revenues by Optimizing Emailing Practices with Online Buyers." You can download it now.

      We bought merchandise from 45 retailers to see ...

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      Categories: Response

      Mar
      18

      Desperate Times Don't Call for Desperate Measures

      Bonnie Malone
      By Bonnie Malone
      Director, Strategic Services

      Industry news provider, Marketing Vox, recently published an article featuring the results of the newly released "View From the Inbox 2009" study conducted by Merkle. A number of interesting engagement factors were highlighted and the report serves as an important reminder for the marketer to maintain their diligence during these difficult revenue-generating times.

      In the current economic environment, many companies are focusing their marketing efforts more heavily in online avenues due to the agility and low cost of the channel. Email, being one of the highest ROI generators, is often an easy communication medium for companies to leverage. And for executives looking to cut costs and drive more revenue, the temptation is high to send more email, in bulk, more frequently.

      According to the Merkle report ...

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      Categories: Response

      Mar
      11

      New Study: The Email Experience for Online Buyers

      Margaret Farmakis
      By Margaret Farmakis
      Senior Director, Response Consulting

      I'm proud to announce the launch of a new study on email experience: Increasing Revenues by Optimizing Emailing Practices with Online Buyers. You can download it now and also sign up for our March 19 webinar.

      For this study the Professional Services Group bought merchandise from 45 retailers to see what type of promotional email they would send to us as buyers. Then we also signed up for the same retailer email programs using a different email address and not making a purchase. This allowed us to compare the first promotional message sent to a buyer with the first promotional message sent to a prospect - would it be different? Would the retailer use purchase and demographic data to target the buyer promotion and make it more relevant, or would buyers and non-buyer be treated the same?

      In most cases we found that the email wasn't different and wasn't targeted based on that initial purchase. The study also reveals interesting findings about ...

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      Categories: Response

      Mar
      05

      Cool Email Idea: Prominent Email Sign-Up

      What: Prominent email sign-up

      Who: BabyCenter

      Why we love it: The BabyCenter homepage is designed to convert new visitors to email subscribers. Besides being amazingly prominent, the process is super-easy: it only requires...

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      Categories: Response

      The Render Rate: The Industry Debate

      Earlier this year the Email Experience Council submitted a request to the email marketing community to review their proposal to replace the term "open rate" with "render rate" and to begin using a new metric called the Unique Email Action Rate. The EEC proposes that render rate more accurately reflects what is actually taking place in a subscriber's email client: an email is considered rendered when a tracking pixel is downloaded in an email, either in a fully opened email or in the preview pane. The Unique Email Action Rate takes opens and clicks into account to measure the overall success of the message in its ability to engage readers. The formula is as follows ...

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      Categories: Response

      A Rose By Any Other Name: Distracting Us From Our Real Problem

      Bonnie Malone
      By Bonnie Malone
      Director, Strategic Services

      I disagree with the EEC's efforts to redefine the methods marketers - and the industry as a whole - use to track email marketing behaviors. While changing the terminology from "open rate" to "render rate" may be a more accurate reflection of the measurement, a new name is simply a distraction from the real issue: accurate measurement of the impact of the email channel.

      There are a number of challenges email marketers face every day to compile any sort of reporting on the performance of their program, including:


      • Appending data from multiple, various sources (such as delivery reports, click tracking, web analytics, internal purchase/conversion data)
      • Abuse of email-only coupons through deal sites that skew response data
      • Tracking subscriber response in offline channels
      • Technical errors that under-report link-tracking data

      These challenges not only make it difficult ...

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      Categories: Response

       
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