How Often is Too Often?
Paul CrabtreeDirector, Velo//
[email protected] at DMA Annual Conference
4th October 2007
Not why, not who, nor what but when!
Overview
• Relevant Industry Research
• 4 elements to consider
• Watch your recipients• Listen to your business• Watch your competitors• Let them tell you
• Avoiding wear out
What the research tells us
What does the research say? Open Rates
Open Rates
2.00%
7.00%
12.00%
17.00%
22.00%
27.00%
32.00%
37.00%
42.00%
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
US Open (Source: eROI, Q2 06)
UK Open (EmailCentre, 06)
The patterns are different for US and UK
What does the research say? Click Rates
Click Through Rates
2.00%
2.50%
3.00%
3.50%
4.00%
4.50%
5.00%
5.50%
6.00%
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
US Click (Source: eROI, Q2 06)
UK Click (EmailCentre, 06)
The patterns are different for US and UK
What does the research say?
….And it differs by sector
Source: Email Centre UK
The research confuses rather than helps… so going to do our own!
Number of unique campaigns launching by hourLast 2 weeks
0
5 0
1 00
1 5 0
2 00
2 5 0
3 00
3 5 0
4 00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
What governs when to send at the moment….
Timing based on marketer convenience, not the audience
…. It’s what we’ve always done….
Emails every Friday….
Emails on a Thursday….
Timing based on routine
What we’ve always done….
Emails at the start of the month….
Timing based on when content is available
This means we have to work it out for ourselves….
Email Marketing
4 elements to consider:
1. Watch your recipients
2. Listen to your business
3. Watch your competitors
4. Let them tell you
1. Watch your recipients
• Their profile:
• International Audiences
• Sensitive Content (jobs)
1. Watch your recipients
Is there an opportunity between sends?
Timeline of Clicks
0
1 0 0
2 0 0
3 0 0
4 0 0
5 0 0
6 0 0
01-J ul 02-J ul 03-J ul 04-J ul 05-J ul 06-J ul 07-J ul 08-J ul 09-J ul 10-J ul 11-J ul 12-J ul 13-J ul 14-J ul 15-J ul 16-J ul 17-J ul 18-J ul 19-J ul 20-J ul 21-J ul 22-J ul 23-J ul 24-J ul 25-J ul
Clicks (Campaign 1)
Clicks (Campaign 2)
1. Watch your recipients
• Calculate the churn rate of your list:
An email address you cannot contact has limited value
1. Watch your recipients
RECOMMENDATION: Look when people choose to access your website?
2. Look at your organisation
• Call Centre:• Quiet time?• Need staffing?
• Web site:• Handle Load?
RECOMMENDATION: Make sure you can handle the response
3. Watch your competitors
RECOMMENDATION: Sign up to all competitors
3. Get them to tell you
Trigger sends based on recipients
….Reactivations ….Cross Sells
3. Get them to tell you
….Auto Responders ….Abandon Carts
Email 2-Extra incentive
Week 1
Resend (?)
Email sendEmail 3
- Extra incentive Offer ending
Non open
Unsubs
Open, click, subscribe
Open, click, subscribe
Open, click, subscribe
Unsubs
Non open
Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Telesales(?)
DM(?)
Email 5- Survey
Open/Click
Abandonedsubscribe
Open/Click
Abandonedsubscribe
Email 4- Loyalty
Can build into a contact plan
RECOMMENDATION: Set up targeted, automated campaigns
Watch for wear out!
Need to avoid apathy/ unsubs through overmailing
AN APOLOGY
Thompson & Morgan, I am wasting your budget and diluting your results
Stage 1: gather information
• Today’s frequency of contact
• Today’s frequency of campaigns
• Relative importance of campaigns
Stage 1:
Gather info
Stage 2:
Build scenarios
Stage 3:
Test impact
Stage 2: Build scenarios
• Test options:
• Same day?/ Last 3 days?/ last week?
• What is priority?
• Different types of campaign?
• Similar sends?
Stage 1:
Gather info
Stage 2:
Build scenarios
Stage 3:
Test impact
Stage 3: Test impact
• Monitoring unsubscribes /apathy
• Do campaign metrics suffer?
• Does unsubs fall?
• Monitoring opportunity cost of revenue
• Smaller audience = fall in revenue?
• Operations
• Schedule to book slots
Stage 1:
Gather info
Stage 2:
Build scenarios
Stage 3:
Test impact
What we’ve covered
• Relevant Industry Research
• 4 elements to consider
• Watch your recipients• Listen to your business• Watch your competitors• Let them tell you
• Avoiding wear out