3 hacks to boost email open rates

3 Hacks to Boost Email Open Rates

Mike MaddenSr. Demand Generation Program Manager Marketo

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Housekeeping

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Agenda• Why focus on open rate optimization?• What opt-in method produces the best long term results?• Segmentation strategies to reactivate unengaged subscribers • How to write subject lines that beg to be opened

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Why Focus on Open Rate Optimization?If no one opens your email, all other email metrics will suffer…

Say goodbye to high:• Open rates• Click to open rates• Click through rates

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Does This Look Familiar?

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1 BOUNCE MANAGEMENT

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Single Opt-In vs. Double Opt-In

Single opt-in: A new name fills out a web form and is automatically added to your subscription list

Double opt-in: A new name fills out a web form and then a confirmation email is triggered with a link to

confirm the email addressVs

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Head to Head Match Up

Pros Cons

Bigger list Fake emails

Bigger list looks better to senior management

Incorrect emails

Instantly gratify the subscriber

Higher bounce rates

Lower sender reputation

Less email engagement

Less qualified names

Pros Cons

Healthier email list Smaller List

Lower bounce rates Small list looks worse to senior management

Great sender reputation Users may forget to confirm subscription

Start a welcome email Miss out on customers

Increased email engagementMore qualified names

Single opt-in Double opt-in

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Soft Bounce Management CampaignsWe had emails that would repeatedly soft bounce in our database. We needed better bounce management to help manage business risk and increase open rates.

We created two campaigns:

• Batch Clean Up: For any email that has soft bounced a minimum number of 10 times in the past 90 days, mark it as invalid.

• Trigger Clean Up: For any email that soft bounces a minimum number of 6 times in the past 30 days, mark it as invalid.

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Bounce Type Audit

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Bounce Category Management CampaignsWe built campaigns to clean up specific soft bounce categories that could be detrimental to our sender reputation in the future.

We built two campaigns:

• Batch clean up to scrub all existing emails that have poor soft bounce categories (3,4 and 9)

• Trigger clean up campaign to catch them as we go

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Deliverability & Open Rates Before Bounce Management

2015 January

2015 February

2015 Marc

h

2015 April

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2015 July

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2015 Septem

ber90%

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100%

10%

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% Delivered % Opened

Deliverability Rate

Open Rate

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Deliverability & Open Rates After Bounce Management

2015 January

2015 February

2015 March

2015 April

2015 May

2015 June

2015 July

2015 August

2015 September

2015 October

2015 November

2015 December

2016 January

2016 February

2016 March

2016 April

2016 May

2016 June

90%

91%

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94%

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100%

10%

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% Delivered % Opened

Introduced Bounce Management

Deliverability Rate

Open Rate

© Marketo, Inc. 05/02/2023

Sender Reputation

Sender Reputation

Unique Clicks

Open Rate

Positive Engagements

Spam Complaints

& Spam Trap Hits

Hard Bounces

Blacklists

Negative Engagements

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2 SEGMENT AND REACTIVATE

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You Are Sending Emails to Sleepers

Regardless of your subscriber list size, one thing is for certain…

A population of your list has not engaged in a very, very, very long time!

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The #1 Thing Internet Service Providers Love?

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Wake Up Sleepers with Reactivation Campaigns

A reactivation campaign is an email campaign or multiple campaigns specifically targeted towards “sleeping subscribers”, or subscribers that haven’t engaged with your emails in a long period of time.

Why Use Reactivation Campaigns?

1. Determine who wants to hear from you

2. Determine who doesn’t want to hear from you

3. Clean out your email lists

4. If the cost of acquiring a new customer is more than keeping an existing one, you should do everything you can to re-engage inactive customers or subscribers

© Marketo, Inc. 05/02/2023

The Winner Was The Reactivation Email!The Results:• 70% higher open rate• 325% higher click to open rate• 621% higher click through rate

This email reactivated 238% more subscribers than our control!

© Marketo, Inc. 05/02/2023

Rhymes, Alliteration, and Puns

• “Social Music Marketing: Bands, Brands and Fans”

• “An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant”

Thank You!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmadden824

3 hacks to boost email open rates

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