Greenfield Online Increases Survey Completions
by Improving Delivery Rates 15%

Industry: Market Research

Product: Return Path Platinum

Focusing on Email Deliverability Key to Success Rate

When it comes to the online survey world, success is defined by survey completions. When survey invitations are sent via email, success, then, is dependent on email reaching the Inbox. When Greenfield Online came to Return Path in September 2004, a significant amount of email was not making it to the Inbox of its panel members as intended – hurting survey completion rates. Return Path went to work to isolate the issues leading to Greenfield’s delivery problems, and within two months increased Inbox delivery by 15 percent. Return Path also lessened the amount of mail being diverted to the Bulk folder from a high of 12.5% to only 3.4%.

“We knew we could improve survey response times and completions if we increased delivery success rates,” said Hugh Davis, Executive Vice President, Global Business Optimization for Greenfield Online.“SPAM blocking is an issue for many Internet companies today. Before it became a major issue for our business, we turned to Return Path to help stay ahead of the problem and improve our delivery rates. As an Internet survey solutions company, ensuring that we can deliver email to our panelists’ inbox is important to our success. We are very pleased with the results we have been able to achieve.”

Getting to the Inbox

Greenfield Online is a leading survey solutions provider with a panel of approximately 5 million people who have “opted in” to take online surveys. The majority of the invitations to its surveys are delivered via email. While the company has achieved much success, it was still having trouble in some cases getting to the Inbox of its panelists. Through Return Path’s monitoring tools and expert analytics, Greenfield Online was able to identify the extent of its delivery problems, and that just a few drivers were causing the bulk of the issues. Complaint rates from one database segment and filtering of a handful of Greenfield IP addresses were causing delivery rates at some ISPs to drop – impacting survey completion rates.

Working closely with Greenfield Online, Return Path took the following actions to raise delivery rates:

• Resolved blocks at AOL, Outblaze/Mail.com, Roadrunner and United Online.
• Established Greenfield Online on the AOL whitelist
• Resolved a Verizon configuration problem
• Isolated and solved for complaint rate drivers

One of the biggest reasons for blocking at the ISP level is complaints from customers or prospects receiving emails. By diagnosing complaint rate issues using its Complaint Rate Analyzer, Return Path was able to help Greenfield isolate issues that were leading to complaints – thus helping them remain whitelisted and reaching the Inbox at key ISPs such as AOL.

More Survey Completions, More Quickly

Prior to using Return Path, Greenfield Online’s survey success rate at AOL, in particular, was less than desirable. Within the first couple months, Greenfield Online saw its survey completion rates rise substantially overall – and dramatically at AOL in particular. The increase in email deliverability also shortened project completion times as more people received survey invitations promptly. This enables Greenfield Online to invite fewer panelists to achieve the results needed for each project, helping to keep the panel fresh and responsive.

Customer Feedback

“Return Path’s tools and expertise have greatly improved our email deliverability and hence our survey completion rates,” says Davis. “We are very pleased with the result of their service and the improvements we’ve seen, and we have been impressed with the return on our investment.”