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EMAIL MARKETING INNOVATIONS 5 Jan 2015 !Illiès BOUSSAHA The Click Lab SL, Barcelona Work Placement Report !This report has been reviewed by Rémy Mattelin. It may be used by the BSc in International Business evaluation and other internal purposes. !

Supervisor’s signature: !

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY" 1" BACKGROUND INFORMATION" 2"

Role and position in the company 2 Company description 3 Limitations on writing this report 5

ANALYSIS" 6" Introduction 6

Advantages of E-mail Marketing 6 Disadvantages of E-mail marketing 7

Affiliate Marketing 8 Process of implementing an affiliate program 10

Strategies 11 Database management 14

Challenges of email marketing 16 Improving deliverability: low bounces rates 16 How to overcome segmentation challenges ? 17

The need for technical initiatives 19 Lead nurturing 19 Achieving measurable ROI 20

SWOT Analysis 21 Overview 21 Internal analysis 21 External analysis 22

CONCLUSION" 24" RECOMMANDATIONS" 25"

Mobile 25 Cross Channel Marketing 25 E-mail Retargeting 26 RTB E-mailing 27

APPENDIX " 29" Appendix n°1: Who Are The Actors of the E-mailing Industry ?" 29" Appendix n°2: The Sources of Data Acquisition" 30" Appendix n°3: The Click Lab’s Org Chart" 31" Appendix n°4: An example of The Click Lab services" 32"

BIBLIOGRAPHY" 33 �ii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ""Nowadays, the e-mailing industry is facing many challenges: decrease of click and open rates, databases over-solicited, strict legislative regulations… The decline of the industry is regularly announced. And yet, e-mailing still represents a highly demanded channel for direct marketing strategies. Indeed, advertisers will carry on using a channel that empowers them to enrich their prospect databases. Numerous companies use e-mailing to reach high levels of prospect acquisition, customer loyalty and purchases rates. As a matter of fact, e-mail campaign results have been remarkably steady for the past decade. Especially for publishers that have taken cautious steps to avoid ISPs spam-filters. Besides, in the past few years the use of e-mailing as an acquisition tool has become popularly used. E-mail database lists are predicted to be more information-detailed in 2015, which announces a growth for niche targeting methods. ""E-mail marketing is predominately elected as a marketing channel by businesses, but will this industry be weakened by its upcoming challenges? In order to remain relevant, the practice of e-mail marketing is gaining maturity and growing towards innovative methods that are beneficial for all e-mailing actors. Advertisers are progressively becoming aware of the importance of healthy relationships with consumers and brand engagement. Those new trends are highly influenced by various restrictions that push marketers towards techniques that respect consumers’ personal data. Therefore, e-mail marketing is now leaning towards a qualitative approach which combines performance driven campaigns and sensible advertising-pressure. ""The objective of this report is to analyse the e-mailing strategy of The Click Lab, a web marketing company with increasing margins and profitability. Even if such results can be observed, one must try and anticipate future challenges that the industry holds. The commissioned report will analyse processes that the company can improve so as to respond to advertisers’ needs. Moreover, innovative techniques that enable businesses to reach objectives while favouring more inventive acquisition methods will be promoted. Furthermore, strategical as well as technical instructions will be displayed to introduce the reader on how to use e-mailing in a well-reasoned tool that is beneficial for both subscribers and marketers. """"""""""""

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION Role and position in the company "For the past six months I have been working as a traffic manager in the web marketing agency :The Click Lab, S.L. A web marketing company which is located in Barcelona, more precisely in the business district of Urquinaona. This professional experience allowed me to discover a part of the online marketing I was not familiar with, but which proves itself to be extremely useful in every business structures: the emailing industry. ""Throughout my internship in this company, I had the opportunity to work on many aspects of the web marketing industry. Indeed, I could operate with every department of the company and work as a partner with all the staff members of The Click Lab. This was mainly made possible thanks to the small size of the company. Besides, I was lucky to closely observe how each of my colleagues fulfilled their tasks. It allowed me to understand how each department positions itself in accordance with the overall structure of the company. "However, the main tasks I had to fulfil were the management of the internal and external databases, a position mainly known as publishing or traffic management. I was in charge of four databases for the French market, a department where a total of three were operating. "Furthermore, I had the task of generating statistics on a daily basis, this exercise was complementary to the main task of traffic management. Indeed, publishing advertising campaigns without having a tool to analyse performances would seem useless otherwise. ""THE POSITION OF TRAFFIC MANAGER!"In addition, it seems relevant to mention that I worked in a team of people filled with enthusiasm and a positive team spirit. Working in a pleasant atmosphere showed me to what extent it can enhance employee productivity (Appendix n°1). Therefore, communication is well developed and effective within the traffic department and I could easily lean towards my colleagues to ask for advice when needed. Indeed, many responsibilities were given to me in the very first few days of my position, it was not quite easy at first to accomplish all the tasks, but I quickly worked in complete autonomy; mainly thanks to this positive working atmosphere. ""RESPONSIBILITIES!"In order to have a better vision of all the different tasks I achieved during this internship, I will first go through the responsibilities of traffic management. ""While working as a traffic manager, my main mission was the search of advertising campaigns. In fact, the emailing industry offers such a large amount of various advertising campaigns that competences of synthesis and analysis are needed. Thus, on a daily basis, affiliate managers were contacting me - via different medias; email, skype, phone - with the goal of introducing their latest campaign and hoping to close a deal. Since this is a large market filled with individuals who rarely exceed 30 years old, the interactions with affiliate managers are often short and informal. This allows those business oriented communications to be particularly effective. Once the negotiation is

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over and both parties are satisfied with the agreed payout and volume, the scheduling of the emailing campaign can begin. I will then, depending on the target and segmentation required, carefully choose how to launch the emailing campaign on the four databases I was in charge of. "

Company description " " "The online marketing company was created in September 2013 by three entrepreneurs: Remy Mattelin, Leandro Echenique Ferrari and Jean-Briac LeDean. With an activity mainly driven by the emailing department, The Click Lab, S.L offers strategical solutions to businesses that aim at promoting their products or services throughout emailing advertisements.""The Click Lab is a limited liability company that aims at being profitable on the short and long terms. The company attempts to do so by finding advertising campaigns and sends them to its databases filled with internet users in order to create traffic. The company is divided into two main departments, the first and main one focuses on the monetisation of databases, while the other one offers advertising campaigns to external databases’ holders. It is quite unusual for a company to practise the two main aspects of the emailing industry. Conscious of the strength it represents, The Click Lab manages those two departments in a way that allows the company to offer complementary services to its customers. In fact, advertising campaigns that appear within the The Click Lab agency’s portfolio are sent on internal databases, thus reducing intermediaries costs and increasing the return on investment. Indeed, it allows the company to add 30% to its payout rates, which represents margins external agencies use as revenue. In addition to those two main parts, there is the graphic studio department which is responsible for the creation of the company’s adversing medias and diverse emailing campaigns, as well as the building of HTML codes. ""The particularity of the company relies on the diversity of its database monetisation activities: French, Polish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finish, Spanish and Italian markets. Those databases are collected via the purchase of internet users data information. The type of collect will allow the company to later segment its databases and target specific groups of users using collected information: mail, first name, last name, age, gender, marital status, birthdate, and so on. The more detailed the data is, the more expensive it is to purchase. Providing the internet user gives his agreement to receive advertisements by a third party when subscribing to a newsletter, e-commerce site, lottery game, the recruitment of such data will be legal.""INFORMATION ON IMPORTANT COLLATERAL MATTERS !"Concerning the surrounding market where The Click Lab is evolving, the company works as an intermediary between the client/advertiser and the databases. As mentioned previously, as part of the publishing department The Click Lab monetises its internal databases. Complementarily, the affiliation platform department works directly with clients/advertisers to concretise their diffusion needs. It does so by distributing their campaigns on external, and punctually when the advertisement content matches the database segments, on The Click Lab’s internal databases. "The major affiliation platform publishers who are collaborating with the French market are Powerspace, Weedoit, Place des Leads, Reactiv pub, Darwin, and Avent Media. The Click Lab works with more than fifty affiliation platform agencies in France, Spain, Poland, Italy, Australia, and Switzerland. Those agencies operate as actors between the final client/advertiser and the

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databases’ holders. Those kind of consulting channels allow the advertiser to combine its campaigns with appropriate databases, and therefore specific targets. ""The emailing sector represents an extremely young and dynamic market. Since the industry has such a large scale, the number of competitors is always growing, and consequently the challenges are numerous. The city of Barcelona is one of Europe’s major hub for emailing companies. As a matter of fact, the number of new web marketing start-ups and entrepreneurs keep increasing every year. This can serve as a tool to deepen networks, but also represents a drawback regarding on how closely those businesses are and the risk of information leak pertaining to it. Therefore, the major competitors of The Click Lab are RivieraWeb, WebRivage, Predictys, Powerspace, and Media Adgo. ""THE FUTURE OF THE COMPANY!"After collecting and elaborating foreign databases, The Click Lab opened the Australian, Italian and Spanish markets in December 2014. In addition, the company keeps expanding its French and Polish operations, with the acquisition of new databases and the hiring of new traffic and affiliate managers in January 2015. The extension of the staff members is necessary to cope with the tasks of publishing and selling campaigns on those flourishing web marketing markets.""""""""""""""""""""""""""

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Limitations on writing this report "This report presents an analysis of The Click Lab’s position in the e-mailing industry, which was written without including any figures and accounts about The Click Lab’s activity. I was asked to respect the non-disclosure of information due to confidentiality. Such measures were taken by the company’s leadership in order to protect privacy and competition clauses. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

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ANALYSIS "INTRODUCTION "E-Commerce has changed the way organisations operate their businesses. When recognising the importance of e-commerce, it is easy to observe its contributions to a nation’s economic growth. As a part of web marketing, the e-mailing channel is a form of direct marketing used to communicate via electronic mail as a means to monetise an audience. In this report, there is a systematic review of its advantages and limitations. In addition, there are some recommendations on how The Click Lab can face its future challenges. ""Currently, it is generally believed that the world of information is ruled by new technologies, hence the need to keep track of innovations in order to master the management of assets. When achieving such a use of new technologies in the aim of conducting business, this activity has special value. However, this value will be achievable only if the data collected represents a qualitative tool. E-commerce is a concept that covers any form of business activity that uses communication and information technology as part of their processes. One of the subsets of e-commerce is e-mail marketing, which is a form of direct marketing that uses E-mail as a media of communication for commercial purposes. This definition covers the relationship that a merchant enhances with its customers via e-mail messages, or the acquisition of new customers to purchase a product. ""In the past decade, e-mail marketing has become the first form of communication for businesses ; that aims at reducing expenses when connecting buyers to their products, therefore increasing their return on investment. However, since marketing techniques have been dynamically progressing, researchers show that some other alternatives that target the final consumer even more precisely may seem more engaging. ""Advantages of E-mail Marketing "Ease in usage. The creation of marketing campaigns can be as easy as writing an e-mail, but most of time require advanced HTML competences to create a coded kit that will be further used as a communication campaign. ""The atomisation makes it fast and efficient. Having a clear call to action on an e-mail campaign sent with a strategic timing will have tremendous impact on performances. It works as a channel that reaches the customer directly in short periods of time. The use of router softwares to automate the launch of campaigns makes it easer for publishers to scope huge amounts of targeted customers.""

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Low-risk investment and meaningfulness of contents. According to the Direct Marketing Association , this industry represents the highest return on investment method compared to other 1

direct marketing systems. Also, the customisation of messages for different segments will allow the recipient to receive content and promotions that are consistent with its profile. Indeed, customers purchase what they want, and consequently will develop a positive image of the brand from whom the campaign originates. In addition, it provides companies with the possibility to send more relevant e-mails to active customers as well as plan previsions on a long term perspective. ""Measurability. When using E-mail marketing, technological tools allow the tracking and recording of campaigns performances. Statistics related to the number of emails sent, open rate, clic rate, unengaged rate, complaints, etc… serve as means to better achieve future segmentations and also to increase margins. ""Swiftness and efficiency of the e-mailing industry. The fact that this form of direct marketing works in accordance with permission marketing is one of its best advantages. Indeed, it allows customers to decide wether or not they want to be reached via e-mail. By keeping consumers in the decision making process, advertisers lower the risks of excessive unengaged rates and complaints, while they increase probabilities of high open and clic rates. In other words, even if E-mail marketing enables mass customisation, it nonetheless makes every message unique to each subscriber. Therefore, businesses can quickly and easily track the performances of their promotions or advertisements. Such insights about the customer’s actions can be measured and analysed with the aim of targeting extremely specifically and avoid inactive subscribers. "

Disadvantages of E-mail marketing "Subscribers’ activity decay. Keeping subscribers active by sending them the right campaign at the right time is not always easy. Thus, it can be challenging for a company to keep engaging and develop a loyal relationship with a customer on the long-term. ""Undelivered emails. Nowadays, many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) use complex and developed junk-mail filters. In fact, the deliverability of email campaigns can never be completely guaranteed. One of the main disadvantages of this method of direct marketing resides in the risk for an email to reach the spam inbox of the audience’s email provider. Keeping track with movements within the databases’ organisations is therefore necessary, such as a subscriber change of name or a deleted account. If the management of deliverability is not taken care of it can increasingly become a disadvantage for e-mail marketing. ""Display issues. Difficulties can occur in the final stage of a campaign launch, right when the advertisement has reached the subscriber’s inbox, complications in the display of the creative may arise. As a matter of fact, each e-mail reading system has a unique way of displaying creatives, which can translate in recipients reading ‘unsecured items/images” messages replacing the email

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E. Fariborzi and M. Zahedifard. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1

2012 "

content. Those issues can be predicted and handled when a publisher takes the time to analyse the browser’s graphics and links readings systems, otherwise the subscriber will quickly close the window or a few of them will read the all text e-mail. ""Expenses. Even if e-mail marketing surely is not the most expensive form of direct marketing, some resources are needed in order to deliver thoughtful and efficient newsletters. Indeed, with the aim of engaging the subscriber, the allocation of people and technology resources seem necessary. If recipients evaluate the publisher’s newsletters as “spams”, the inexpensive cost of email marketing to deliver advertisements could rapidly end up costing more than the expected revenues. ""Relevancy and e-mail overload. This acts as another challenge of email marketing, traffic managers have to constantly ask themselves how they can keep email campaigns relevant to the database’s subscriber. The risk exists when large amounts of e-mails get through to the recipient’s inbox and therefore makes it difficult for the customer to distinguish the solicited and unsolicited e-mails. In addition to not having the time to read all their e-mails, customers have developed a suspicious behaviour towards email advertisements. Indeed, the transmissions of viruses throughout the media of e-mails have made subscribers doubtful about the legitimacy of a publisher’s newsletter, even when trusted sources are quoted in the content. """AFFILIATE MARKETING "The affiliate marketing business relies on fostering relationships. Those customer relationships can be cultivated by collaborating with the right partners in a program that both matches the parties’ expectations. Pursuing on finding more efficient collaborators is an undeniable effort that proves itself to be worth while on the long run. An affiliate program does not limit itself to creating and bringing traffic to one’s website or business, the main responsibility of such a process lies in its final stage; turning this traffic into conversions. The upgrading of a publisher’s content is necessary to keep the recipients interested . "2

"Also known as performance-based marketing, affiliate marketing consists in building a partnership strategy between a commercial website ,whether brand or advertiser, and an affiliate or publisher website, either database or affiliation platform. The advertiser chooses its partner depending on their traffic namely the number of unique visitors and number of pages viewed. The suitability of the affiliate’s content is also a main factor of decision making for clients, according to the nature of the information displayed. ""The main goal of affiliate marketing is to increase the visibility of the advertiser by collaborating with various affiliation networks. Clients will remunerate affiliates depending on three factors: clicks, qualified leads and the purchase of a product. Therefore, affiliate marketing allows businesses to generate traffic and collect leads to develop its databases. In addition, the increase of sales grants the client with a rise in its turnover. The implementation of an affiliation program almost costs nothing at first. The cost of the program depends on the remuneration of the publishers, this payout is proportional to the success of the program, and therefore to its rentability. "

�8 Public Idées. (2011). “Livre Blanc de l’emailing à la performance.”2 2

"The partnership works in the following way: while displaying advertising links, the affiliate allocates traffic for the advertiser’s campaigns, the client will pay the publisher/affiliate manager proportionally to the revenues. In this context, the affiliation platform is an intermediary between the client/advertiser and the publisher’s databases (appendix n°1). ""A publisher will be attracted to a specific brand or advertiser depending on its popularity and the prestige of the merchant’s site. Those short terms factors make it harder for affiliation platforms to partner with qualified databases’ holders. In fact, since the publisher has the position of buyer, it will often be the seller (affiliate manager) that will be vulnerable during negotiations. On the contrary, the affiliate manager can count on levers such as the adjustment of the remuneration type and the volume. Several types of remuneration exist, those will vary depending on the objectives of the advertiser, the allocated budget and the online resources of the traffic manager:""- Pay Per Click (PPC) model: a visitor browses the publisher’s email and gets redirected to the

merchant website by clicking on an hyperlink. The visitor will then become a potential customer. "- Cost Per Lead (CPL) model: after clicking on the hyperlink, the subscriber will fill a form,

informing the advertiser with his consumer behaviour. The collect of leads improves the commercial communications and defines the customer as a prospect. "

- Cost Per Action (CPA) model: after being redirected on the merchant site, the subscriber will purchase the advertiser’s product. In compensation, the publisher will receive a commission on the sale of the product (percentage on sales, or inclusive price agreed with the client)."

- Cost Per Mille (CPM) model: this metric is calculated by dividing the cost of an advertising campaign by the number of times the email has been sent (expressed in thousands). This type of remuneration is favoured by publishers because they will get paid on the volume sent, and not on the performances of the advertising campaigns. Therefore, the CPM model is the less risky, and always provides traffic managers with positive margins. ""

It is important for publishers to negotiate on a regular basis with affiliation platforms in order to increase their payout prices. Indeed, prestigious traffic managers that hold qualitative databases are aware that they are part of the affiliate’s 20% of publishers that generates 80% of its traffic. Consequently, by implementing loyalty strategies, affiliation platforms keep on motivating and animating their publisher network. ""There are many myths about affiliate marketing that may cause advertisers and businesses to prefer other programs. It is important to understand that e-mail marketing is not a utopian form of direct marketing, but with the right amount of analysis and resources, this new marketing initiative will prove itself to be a revenue avenue. The key of such a success is linked with the way an affiliate will attend to grow revenue. While unattached forms of affiliate marketing are best to be avoided, the affiliate’s program will be most likely to succeed when organised as a related and involved scheme of e-mail marketing. However, unattached affiliate marketing that offers basic pay-per-click marketing campaigns, and implementation simplicity, are often favoured compared to methods that require presence and authority over the niche of the product promoted. Indeed, an involved and related form of affiliate marketing will result in a positive response from the audience. Thus, performances, as well as conversions, will increase. Which will result in higher incomes for the client and growing margins for the publisher."

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PROCESS OF IMPLEMENTING AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM "Marketing managers positioned in the e-mailing industry are facing important challenges that will need innovative responses to be overcome. In fact, ad overload is limiting customer attention, for this reason, advertisers need to differentiate themselves. The retention of subscribers, investments in data acquisition and increasing customers’ lifetime has become priorities. Also conversion rates are still to be improved, mainly due to a lack of content relevancy. However, this report will first provide an extensive analysis about the process of implementing affiliate programs. Indeed, such knowledge is necessary to properly introduce the reader to the subject, which will further show itself to be closely linked with the conclusions of the problematic. ""Individuals who are responsible for traffic management positions must be aware that they practise an active and flowing activity. When collaborating with affiliates, relationships that are developed allow their network to be proactive and energetic, and will result in the creation of new affiliation programs. In order to be an effective member of the affiliate marketing industry, it is necessary to have good skills in communication. Indeed, the publisher always needs to be diplomatic when exchanging with the affiliation platform and client/advertiser. Also, basic knowledge of various computer languages is useful. Basics in HTML seem unavoidable since it allows the publisher to face issues on its own and anticipate technical problems . While animating its network on a daily 3

basis, the affiliate must work in complete autonomy and show entrepreneurial competences. Creativity also is a welcomed skill when working in e-mail marketing. In fact, the development of new programs and modification of existing ones is realised by suggesting ideas to the advertiser, and will often result in higher conversions. ""Once the definition of email-based marketing, its purpose, and what it means to a business organisation, the process of implementing an affiliate program can begin. As part of The Click Lab, this flourishing young company decided to specialise its services at the last stage of the affiliate process; the databases. This privileged and nurtured relationship with final customers makes it a competitive advantage for the company. One of the major steps of such an implementation is the building of customer databases. As a matter of fact, collecting demographic data (age, gender, etc.) may happen to be costly, but will represent a tremendous asset when elaborating detailed segmentations. Futhermore, it is important to provide a privacy policy link that allows subscribers to be sure that their e-mail addresses will not be shared without their acknowledgement. ""Building a marketing strategy to manage the internal process and resources allocation of the organisation is crucial. Without such strategies, e-mailing businesses will miss out on opportunities and will not make profits on the monetisation of their databases, which is the final goal of any traffic manager. Carefully managing the form and content of the newsletter is fundamental to keep the recipient active. Indeed, the first step when communicating with the customer lies in the “from”, “to”, and subject lines. In order to encourage the recipients to open e-mails, it is very important to deeply analyse the wording and typography of those fields. When the campaign has been sent, tracking its results are necessary to analyse statistics and smartly launch future campaigns. ""

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Ascend2. (2012). “Email Marketing Strategy Outlook Report” retrieved from URL <http://ascend2.com/home/wp-content/uploads/3

EmailMarketingStrategyOutlookReport-Ascend2Edition.pdf>

In fact, for each type of publication the selected segment will respond differently depending on which database it is extracted from. Therefore, outlining what represents a success for a specific campaign will help publishers to better understand the significance, on a given timing, of delivery rates, open rates and click rates."

Strategies "Consequently, the performance based on e-mailing uses opt-in subscribers’ addresses that will be handled by a network of publishers. Those traffic managers will be responsible for the display of advertisements in the form of banners, an hyperlink inserted to their newsletter, or by creating e-mails dedicated to specific offers. The performance based remuneration awards the e-mailing industry a high potential of lead conversions; purchases, newsletter subscriptions, downloads, etc. The Click Lab regularly invests so as to acquire new data and upgrades databases with active subscribers. This strategy has proved to be rewarding because it contributes to the process of sales and enhances customer loyalty. ""It is essential to understand the characteristics of each advertising campaign to elaborate the economic model that fits best. Without a deep analysis of the segment targeted and the media content of the newsletter provided by the advertiser to the publisher, the rentability of the campaign will end up unprofitable. But in any case, performance based e-mailing does not represent an isolated process, it inquires an up front development. It is necessary to reflect on the objectives and needs of all the actors of the process: publishers, affiliate managers, advertisers, clients.""DEFINING THE MARKETING REFLECTION!"Performance based marketing is part of the overall strategy of a company and needs to be organised in a way that fits with other marketing actions. For instance, when targeting customers it is inevitable to define the criteria of the target from the very beginning. Thanks to the targeting capacities that traffic managers offer, diffusing emailing campaigns can be aimed at the heart of this target. This kind of segment offers the advantage of a superior performance because of the high reactivity of recipients to open and click on their emails. The approach is not reduced to the desired large volumes by clients. In fact, the network effect brings here all its value to insure the collect of leads on the researched volume. ""The advertiser is the one deciding on the volume objectives, the type of remuneration and amount. However, clients desiring to promote their products must keep in mind that in the e-mailing industry, the lower the costs will be, the harder it will be to find publishers to launch campaigns. Indeed, traffic managers that offer the most qualified databases are also the most appealing, and therefore the ones that receive the more requests. Publishers tend to be demanding when its comes to negotiating the type of remuneration. When a campaign has a fixed price which is too low, the advisers might be deprived of its campaigns of the most performing databases. The nature and the content is a key asset for brands and other businesses to concretise sales. Overall, highlighting the client’s advantages is one of his requirements, the challenge lies in adapting those advantages to the theme of the campaign. Thus, acquisition and loyalty management will be blended with the advertiser’s highlights. ""

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MANAGING THE INTERFERENCES WITH DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION CHANNELS!"Various advertisers desire to apply duplication methods to their acquisition canals, allowing them to measure, arbitrate and track a specific lead of sale. The goal is to avoid the copies and double payouts of the action. However, this kind of technique can monopolise the commissioned actions generated by traffic managers. This phenomenon has a negative impact on the attractiveness, credibility and the profitability of a campaign. Nowadays, affiliation platforms recommend advertisers to clearly mention their rules about duplication of advertising campaigns. Hence, publishers are provided with all the elements that will allow them to decide about the profitability of a campaign. ""INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGNS !"Campaigns launched in several countries must consider local and cultural differences. An identical message is rarely exploitable on every market on a global scale. The advertiser needs to anticipate the fact that declinations of its campaigns will be crucial to their success depending on the targeted countries. Maturation of subscribers, but also the recipients’ profiles, are imperative, they can influence the nature of the content advertised. The advertiser should be able to find support by consulting its publishers that will adapt its campaign. ""PROFITABILITY OF E-MAILING CAMPAIGNS!"In their online marketing strategies, advertisers appreciate the lever that is e-mailing, especially in the performance based mechanism that is undeniable today. Most of the time, the demands coming from clients merge towards volume expectations ; however, attention is increasingly paid to the quality of the given volume . Thus, the results in terms of final lead transformations are 4

tracked. In the context of a global online marketing strategy, different levers are active to serve the same purpose: acquisition, subscription, line quote requests, etc. Those levers are addressed to the customer throughout the different stages of the purchase process. Therefore, the search marketing intervenes in the decision making of customers when they are ready to purchase or when they are in search of a specific product. ""E-mailing marketing works in a more up front manner, this direct marketing method takes the initiative to solicit web users, which gives e-mailing a famous dimension. Those different levers are inter-dependent and organise an overall structure that consists in arbitrating the budgets lever per lever with the aim of increasing the performance and reach common objectives. That kind of decision making is adjustable depending on the profitability of the campaign. Indeed, proceeding the launch of a communication campaign, the tracking and the recording of conversions are activated. In an analytical way, variations of the performances during the launch are observed, and in the view of the final results, the advertiser will see which publishing canal performs best. ""The profitability of an e-mailing campaign will vary depending on three main factors; the content, the transformation and conversion of leads, the publishers’ payout. It is crucial for each campaign to analyse which of these criteria will be emphasised in order to expand performances. In fact, publishers often work as consultants for direct clients or even advertisers and affiliation platforms.

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Jean Baptiste Rudelle. (2014). “Calcul de la rentabilité de la publicité numérique” retrieved from URL <http://4

www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/expert/58672/calcul-de-la-rentabilite-de-la-publicite-numerique---attention--terrain-piege.shtml>

Businesses may not have expertise in the building of a creative campaign. Thus, traffic managers will advise to be image conscious regarding the content and images. Those aspects may seem obvious, but there are crucial for the differentiation of one brand on competitive markets. Also, the landing page, where the subscriber ends up when clicking on a redirection link, needs to be structured in a way that eases the final transformation. For instance, publishers often take the initiative to add pre-filling fields with the subscriber’s information collected in the database: name, first name, age, city, phone number, etc. As a matter of fact, a wrongly managed landing page will affect the performance of e-mailing campaigns. ""An e-mailing program must motivate and encourage publishers to elect it for a launch on their databases. The good reputation, the nature of the offer and the type of remuneration are factors that will influence the decision making of traffic managers. In order to gain visibility in the eyes of publishers as well as assuring their profitability, advertisers need to consciously choose an attractive payout . The remuneration is defined up-front after diverse standards are analysed; 5

market trends, complexity of the form’s fields. Payouts that help traffic managers to reach profitability is advised. For instance, challenges and premium typed remuneration can be built up. However, those type of payout must be conceived at the same time as the other channels remunerations, with the aim of keeping the overall web marketing strategy harmonious. Publishers often provide advice and feedback following the launch of a campaign, it is important that advertisers react in positive way to those comments. Traffic managers provide observations that are often related to the type of remuneration and their volume. Adjusting such elements in accordance with a campaign’s performance will guarantee a program to thrive on a long term perspective.""The advertisers seldom possess their own databases, therefore brands and various businesses that wish to promote their product/service via the media of e-mailing must reach database holders: publishers/traffic managers. In order to seem attractive to potential clients, publishers must keep in mind a few components that will allow them to gain advertisers’ trust. """"""""""""""""

�13 Public Idées. (2012). “Livre Blanc de l’affiliation de nouvelle génération.”5

Database management "An effective database will thrive in the longterm only if it is correctly managed. The Click Lab, as most competitive companies in the industry do, regularly update their databases following unengaged users demands. This allows a regular cleaning of the databases, and consequently keeps it more relevant and active. ""Deep investments in databases management are crucial because it helps avoid “blacklisting” phenomena. In fact, providing its company with a deliverability department, as The Click Lab has been doing for a few months, seems an ingenious investment. In order to avoid seeing a large percentage of its e-mails blacklisted by ISPs, deliverability managers will help promoting a healthy and positive image of the publishing department potential. Indeed, traffic managers will be able to use such arguments when communicating with prospects about the state of their databases. Since the name of the client appears in the “sender” field of the e-mail content, the blacklisting of a newsletter technically represents a direct threat for clients: ISPs may block all the e-mailing advertisements of a specific advertiser. ""The Click Lab publishing department rigorously manages its marketing presence strategy on the databases. As a matter of fact, a thoughtful distribution of the marketing pressure on the subscribers is crucial to preserve high open rates. The analytical ratio eCPM speaks for the profitability of a campaign on a specific database, it is the tool that advertisers use most to measure the effectiveness of a publisher’s services. The metric of eCPM is calculated by dividing the total earnings by the volume sent, then the advertising revenue generated is multiplied by 1,000 impressions. Thanks to an efficient exploitation of their databases, publishers will observe high eCPMs which are proofs of the quality and profitability of their internet domains. ""COLLECTING SUBSCRIBERS’ DATA!"As they are aware of the competitive advantage and the internal strategical asset its represents, most e-mailing companies have invested in the acquisition of data. The Click Lab has been developing its collecting of internet users information since the creation of the company, and its traffic and agency departments have been benefiting from those valuable resources. Collecting data can be done in several manners : one of them is the creation of online contests with e-commerce prizes (fridge, espresso machine, smartphone, etc…) It is crucial to mention that this kind of collection of information is in complete accordance with the legislation and various policy codes that the e-mailing industry commands. The opt-in method of collect is mandatory on the French market; before recording and adding web users’ personal information to a database, subscribers must have consented to receiving future newsletters . This consent needs to be asked 6

for in a transparent way, as a specific box to tick and not pre filled. Thus, the participation to an online contest will not be linked with the obligation to receive future advertisement newsletters via e-mails. The exchange of databases with a third party represents an illegal practice, and if caught by authorities, that is to say, after a recipient’s complaint; the traffic manager will be taken to court and he will not be allowed to use his databases. ""

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Marketing Sherpa. (2006). “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide” retrieved from URL <http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/6

EMBG06_execsumm.pdf>

ADJUSTING THE ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENCE !"Over-solicited, web users become wiser and more demanding when apprehending e-mails in their inbox. It is vital for an e-mailing company to approach consumers carefully. Therefore, mass communication campaigns that privilege volume goals rather than qualitative ones need to be avoided. Distinguishing differences in the databases’ users profiles is extremely important because consumers are looking for individualised relationships with their favourite brands. The performance of an acquisition-based campaign will principally depend on its capacity to target subscribers that are not already customer of the advertiser. If such a basic rule of deliverability is not achieved, it may result in a low open rate and eCPM, as well as a negative impact on the customer relation with the brand. ""Depending on the activity of the advertiser and the size of its own database, a duplication of this subscriber lists with the ones of the publishers might be useful to retain new prospects. The specific targeting will allow the adjustment of the advertising pressure on subscribers. Consequently, The Click Lab manages to reach open rates of 15% to 20%, and transformation rates of 30%. The operation of databases duplication must be repeated during the launch of an e-mail program so that each message gets high response rates. Hence, a prospect that became a customer after the first campaign does not need to be solicited with future launches of this same campaign. This is the kind of live monitoring that guarantees a qualitative relationship with subscribers. It leaves the advertiser’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) take care of the new prospect’s conversion into a final customer. The process of databases duplication goes with the strategy of optimising the publishers’ remuneration. Those practices are advised by the market for companies that desire to reach new clients. ""

Duplication of Databases "

"�15

Mixing advertisers’ databases with publishers’

Deleting duplications and creation of new segments

Segment exclusively filled with new prospects

Launch of the program

CHALLENGES OF EMAIL MARKETING

Improving deliverability: low bounces rates "An average eCPM is often asked by traffic manager when realising the first shoot of campaign. A launch-test help evaluate the reactivity and profitability of the campaign on a specific test segment, if the eCPM is not lower than the publisher’s threshold, a generalisation on the whole database is conceivable. Considering routing costs and the management of the databases, his threshold is calculated by publishing departments in order to reach profitability. However, one of the major challenges of the e-mailing industry is achieving high deliverability rates. ""THE TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT !"Often neglected, the creation of a campaign needs to be thoughtfully conceived. In fact, the visual aspects of a program will contribute to the first impacts it will have on the recipient and its deliverability. The code of the content must be realised in HTML. Indeed, e-mails that incorporate Flash, Iframe and JavaScript are blocked and often not readable by most ISPs. ""Moreover, the dimensions of a newsletter must not exceed 400x600 pixels, it will allow internet software to properly read and display the campaign. In addition, the visual creative must be realised with a limit of 800 pixels, otherwise the recipient will have to browse through the content to entirely become aware of the message promoted. Other code indications include the ban of CSS style sheets instead of classic HTML shaping. Tags that must be privileged for the application of diverse police" are: < tr > < td > < table > and < font / type / size / colour > < b >.""Thus, it is advised to opt for a table in integration rather than in style. It is crucial to respect the balance text/images in the content of the email. The insertion of written sentences in standard polices (e.g. Verdana, Arial, Times New Roman ) to the Gif images is an effective way to avoid blacklisting. One of the most important aspects of the elaboration of an email lies in defining the subject and sender of the message. ""Indeed, the traffic manager must carefully elaborate those sentences since they will be the first ones to be seen by recipients. “Spam words” must be imperatively avoided, such words may be hidden in casual expressions: play, win, contest, free, etc. However, those words can be integrated to the images and other visual aspects of the e-mail. ""E-MAILING HEADERS!"The sender and the subject of a message are the major influence of open rates. They must be short, clear and comprehensible by everyone in order to encourage recipients to open the e-mail. They field of the sender must indicate the name of the advertiser and brand, but it needs to be avoided when the advertiser has no link the a famous brand. In addition, since “via” is understood by anti-spam filters as the word “viagra”, sender structures such as “advertiser via publisher” must be avoided. Thus, precise and short name for the advertiser must be favoured for sender fields. "

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The subject of the e-mail represents the most important sentence of the whole message. It needs to be targeted to each subscriber by mentioning its first and last name. Cautiously elaborated subjects with action verbs will make the message attractive to recipients. ISPs rules are becoming stricter and stricter and differ from one provider to another. Thus, elaborating at least six different subjects for a designed program is essential to the success of the campaign. By doing so, it will allow publishers to regularly switch between subject and will make it harder for ISPs to detect identical newsletters as the same advertising offer spread massively. "

How to overcome segmentation challenges ? "Over the years, marketers have shown that individualised messages improve the performance of almost every direct marketing program. In the e-mailing industry, targeted newsletters begin with segmentation. In order to connect more directly to the subscribers’ interests, advertisers must understand the differences in the audience and avoid batch-and-blast e-mails launches. However, segmenting a database will require resources. Therefore, since the investment might seem profitable on a short term perspective, this represents a major challenge of performance-based marketing.""Marketers often wrongly compare the affordability of e-mailing to the one of direct mail. In fact, it is assumed that direct mail campaigns undeniably require segmentation in order to avoid postage fees, but since e-mailing is considerably cheaper this might not be needed. However, e-mailing has hidden costs when sending irrelevant e-mails, and thus differs from direct mail methods. If a publisher steadily streams generic messages to unsegmented groups of recipients, complaints and unengaged users rates will rise. Such a process will withdraw any qualitative aspect of the entire program. Overelaborated databases that have more than 30 fields of information for each subscriber are not needed, but since segmentation do rely on data, traffic managers need to collect more information than just a list of e-mail addresses. ""As analysed above, the most basic data being the differentiation between subscribers that are already customers and new prospects. CRM (customer relationship management) systems, third-party data append services, ESP’s tracking date (Email Service Provider), and subscriber preferences centre are a few places among which a traffic manager can collect data. The chart showing the popular types of data collected and the percentages of publishers that use them (appendix n°2) show that beliefs of segmenting a database to send targeted messages are the anchored in the e-mailing industry. According to this report, only 40% of traffic managers regularly test e-mail programs. Using a control group to test an advertiser’s messages is a great way to measure the performance of the campaign. ""DELIVERING TARGETED CONTENT!"Segmentation often requires deliverability and traffic managers to create several small segments. Thus, the content of a program may differ from one group to another and one campaign will need to be approached as several individual messages. However, it is important to emphasise of the fact that segmenting and sending targeted content will expand daily routines and the resources of traffic managers. Any publisher should begin with starter segments before scaling up, in order to keep its position comfortable and still achieve successful segments. "

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One absolute segment for a whole market does not exist and is sometimes unfairly promoted by databases’ holders. However, starter segments that separate active and inactive subscribers are a clever way to decrease the number of subscribers that lower response rates. The Click Lab uses those basic information to label as inactive any subscriber that has not clicked an e-mail in the last 30 days. Different frequency options can be elected to measure the amount of recipients emotionally unattached from the list. Also, individuals who have purchased need to isolated from those who have not. ""As mentioned above, the importance of conducting A/B tests will not only help estimate the profitability of a program but will also tailor future launches for each segment. Each group requires a different e-mailing approach and tests will depend on the overall theme of the program and the publisher’s available resources. Protecting the sender reputation is crucially important, sending promotions only to individuals that will perceive them as relevant will avoid over-emailing subscribers and keep the client’s brand image positive. ""Choosing a path forward is essential for every e-mailing strategy that aims to thrive in the long term perspective. Tests’ results must be deeply analysed and gradually established to new segments. Indeed, improvement within a targeted group may not mean that the program will homogeneously perform on other segments. Nevertheless, investigating customer databases and using data to figure out profitable strategies is the best way to outperform competitors. """"""""""""""""""""""""

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THE NEED FOR TECHNICAL INITIATIVES

Lead nurturing "Also known as marketing automation and drip marketing, lead nurturing is a system that allows publishers to launch automated programs at early stages of the overall diffusion in order to improve the qualitative aspect of leads. It usually takes 40 days for a lead to make a purchasing decision. However, by spreading out messages throughout the month, it sustains the advertisement’s attractiveness. ""As a matter of fact, according to Gleanster Research “50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy”. The challenge lies in dividing the leads that are not ready to buy immediately : “warm leads”, from those which represent immediate sales opportunities :“hot leads”. Defining a lead as an immediate purchaser will depend on many factors such as the history of advertisements sent to this group and demographic criteria . Once defined, qualified leads will be incorporated within the 7

process of automation directly linked to the client’s sales team. However, leads that represent sales opportunities, but that still need nurturing, will be held back in the nurturing program:"

Lead Nurturing Process

"UNDERSTANDING THE LEADS NUANCES IN TERMS OF TIMING AND NEEDS !"The elaboration of a lead nurturing program will be achievable once quantitative questions regarding the comprehension of customers are met. Indeed, the amount of subscribers involved in the process of purchasing, and the complaints that rise before making the decision, are crucial questions before nurturing leads . The recipient’s usual purchase process and its reactivity towards 8

existing e-mailing programs will also need to be defined. Once the data has been gathered, the creation of ideal buyers profiles can be launched. Those profiles will help publishers focus on specific targets and help implement strategies in the nurturing program.""Designing lead nurturing programs demands analysis of workflows. Indeed, the publishing department has to decide on the amount of e-mail messages series the program will send over a period of several weeks. The final goal a such a process is to keep the client’s brand front-and-venter during the purchasing decision period of leads until they are ready to commit. "

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Act-On. (2014) “Introduction to Integrated Marketing: Lead Nurturing” retrieved from URL <https://www.act-on.com/whitepaper/7

introduction-to-lead-nurturing/>

Hanna Andrezejewka. (2013). “Boost Your Retargeting with Email Marketing” retrieved from URL <http://blog.adroll.com/boost-8

retargeting-email-marketing>

Achieving measurable ROI "TRACKING PROGRAM CONVERSIONS WITH CLOSED-LOOP MARKETING !"Clear communications between marketing channels seems an undeniable asset. However, another connection within web marketing companies tends to be more challenging: the integration of e-mail marketing with other data systems. It is crucial that marketing channels communicate with one another, otherwise, it is hardly manageable to identify which one affects conversions. Indeed, publishers might record impressive click-through rates (CTR) but have no access with other data systems, thus the traffic management is not able to observe if a campaign contributed to new leads, or even new customers. ""Following a contact from the point of visiting the e-mail throughout its future engagements (clicks, viewing other pages, downloading resources, information filling). Recording the final conversion of subscribers into customers allow e-mailing businesses to practice closed-loop marketing. These techniques empower traffic managers to track a lead from their internal channel to the subscribers first conversions and processes of being customers. Such methods enable publishers to evaluate which channels have more value, and nourish further strategies for powerful systems. Closed-loop marketing allows marketers to measure the ROI of their e-mails, but also of other efforts (e.g. social media marketing, blogging). ""It seems necessary for e-mailing companies to have a holistic marketing approach, which originates from a clever marketing mix. In fact, e-mail marketing’s profitability may increase even more when not used in a vacuum. Just as other marketing initiatives (e.g. search engine optimisation), e-mailing must not be used separately from all the different practices of a marketing department. Binding techniques together will help marketing departments to meet their goals. However this seems like a challenge for marketers. Indeed, most of them are used to sending one-time campaign blasts that are not essentially linked to the behaviours, interests, or needs of subscribers. Such practices do not help push leads down to purchasing decisions, this might even alienate some of the recipients. """""""""""""""

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SWOT ANALYSIS

Overview "Choosing e-mailing as a marketing channel proves itself to be profitable, but most of e-mailing companies seem to have weak strategies. Indeed, research show that the e-mail marketing channel still outperforms other channels in terms of reaching marketing goals. However, only 12% of marketers admit that successes are due to their strategies. ""Undeniably, The Click Lab has a strong strategy and is aware of its coming innovation challenges that will uprise in the near future. The Click Lab already invests in integrated research, content creation, and lead-process delivery tracking, but external factors that the market host might force the company to speed up their innovation projects. "

Internal analysis "STRENGTHS!"The Click Lab operates in one of the largest internet market in the world, this makes opportunities abundant and enables the company to expand its portfolio and activities. In addition, The Click Lab has already a large network. In fact, the three founders of the company have been working in the e-mailing industry for more than a decade and they have managed to elaborate strong relationships with affiliate platforms and advertisers. The existing distribution and affiliate network represent another strength for The Click Lab. ""Besides, the cost strategy of leadership in the company has turned out to be successful since the creation of the agency. The Click Lab differentiates its traffic and affiliate services by providing clients with higher quality traffic and advertising campaigns than the competition. Therefore, the company’s reputation is positive and evokes The Click Lab’s high quality services (appendix n°4). In addition, whereas some e-mailing companies do not have technical expertise and lack of assistance when consulted by clients, The Click Lab has strong IT competences in each department of the company. ""WEAKNESSES !"However, challenges related to the execution of tactics may occur within The Click Lab’s internal structure. Indeed, most resources of the company are oriented towards online commerce, even if diversified, such an activity might represent a weakness on the long run. In addition, investments in data acquisition tend to be heavy depending on the databases’ needs and deliverability rates. Therefore, such expenses might slowdown The Click Lab’s tactics. ""Also, delivering auto responses, drip campaigns, and social media engagement are not always perfectly achieved, those might represent limited strategies for future growth. The Click Lab was created in 2013, hence it is a young e-mailing company and has a growing small business structure. Its organisational size might be a weakness when it comes to stability issues. In fact,

�21

with low workforce comes more responsibilities for each employee and higher risks of turnover if employees does not show deep involvement in the company’s activity. Also, as mentioned in the report, investments in research and development to counter innovation challenges are increasing within The Click Lab structure. If not profitable, those investments may represent a weakness for the company. ""It must be noted that the company has recently moved to larger premises and has hired new traffic and affiliate managers. It may well show the awareness of the necessity to expand in order to grow and face competition.""External analysis "OPPORTUNITIES!"The e-mailing industry is still observing income levels at a constant increase. In fact, recent Lionbridge’s survey shows that more than 70% of marketers use e-mail marketing channels to deliver advertisements and over 45% of them use e-mail to regularly respond to customer inquiries. Proliferation of mobile electronics and global increase of internet connections, e-mail marketing has become the easiest and most efficient way to directly communicate with an audience (customers or prospects). ""Also, investments in data acquisition has been generally increasing in the e-mailing industry. Since The Click Lab has acquired large amount of data in order to specialise their segments and deliver targeted messages. Thus, this new trend is oriented with the already existing methods of The Click Lab. In addition, the growth of e-mail marketing services offer publishers an increasing demand. Besides, growth of the e-mailing market in emergent countries stands as another opportunity for the company. ""THREATS!"Since e-mail marketing is still flourishing, it attracts many new comers that represent competitors for The Click Lab. In fact, advertisers tend to diversify the collaborations they have with publishers, which might result in lower profitability for the largest agencies. Tax changes and struggle to consider subscribers’ culture, context, interests, channel and compatibility with newsletters are serious threats for this industry. Safety of online advertisement is deeply concerning ISPs. ""In fact, many publishers violate anti-spam regulations which results in the blacklisting of e-mail campaigns. In addition, strategic alliance and cartels between agencies tend to occur which may represent a threat for The Click Lab’s future client relations. Legislative measures have been evolving and becoming stricter and stricter. For instance, Canada’s new anti-spam legislation asks for publishers to rectify three main aspects of their activity: consent, business identification, and unsubscribe mechanism. """"

�22

"THE CLICK LAB’S RADAR CHART

" "

: The Click Lab’s organisational performances areas """""""""""""""""""""""""

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Segmentation

Database GrowthAutomation

Analysis"

100%"80%"60%"40%"20%"0%

CONCLUSION "The exploitation of databases is the key for any e-mailing company to achieve long term profitability; targeting, message personalisation, other channels contributions. Performance based e-mailing has been lacking of rationalism practices that the industry asks for. There is no denying that advertisers bring its skills to the table and contribute to the general scheme of a program. Some publishers tend to forget that a win-win approach must always be maintained between them and clients/advertisers. This is the kind of relationship that guarantees the profitability of a campaign for all parties: publishers, affiliate managers, advertisers. Mainly achievable by elaborating fair remuneration payouts and worthwhile practices of duplications between different communication channels. Such methods allow unprecedented levels of transformations. ""Interests of advertisers lie in losing when advices from publishers and affiliation platforms are not taken into consideration. Innovative approaches when analysing results generated by campaigns are of paramount importance to reach optimised results. ""Performance-based e-mailing, when correctly understood and put into practice, enables new opportunities connected to the necessity of rationalising and specialising e-mail marketing. It opens the path towards endured communication canals on which advertisers will be able to use in the long run. Most of B2B marketers spend 30% of their budget on e-mail marketing. When used with annotative approaches, such a channel provides one the high return-on-investment (ROI) perspective. Delivering content-rich, relevant marketing is the first step to correctly launch an online ad. Also, the instant tracking of leads and specific targeting are ingenious methods that will boost brand engagement and further develop the advertiser’s brand image. ""In fact, modern e-mail technology empowers publishers with possibilities of communication automations that allow traffic managers to send welcome pack messages immediately after the first contact with recipients. DMA research shows that welcome messages are extremely effective, in fact, 55% of advertisers agree that such messages provide them with higher profitability. Basic responses to customer needs is the first step to a modern e-mail marketing process that aims to deliver the proper offer a designated audience at the right time. Indeed, increasing personalisation content is the most efficient way to monetise collected data and information about subscribers. Only individualised approached copying 1-to-1 communications will allow e-mailing companies to thrive in the near future. Consequently, customised offers will drive customer loyalty. Innovative initiatives regarding segmentation and customisation now represent essential elements for the e-mailing industry. ""In addition, the use of more than one channel of communication is highly recommended. Developing and sustaining heterogeneous targets asks for a clever balance between marketing channels. Indeed, the integration of re-targeting multichannel campaigns represents another original process for publishes to increase revenues and achieve long term engagements with heterogeneous online audiences. """

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RECOMMANDATIONS "Mobile "An increasing number of affiliate managers are paying close attention to the mobile and tablet markets. In fact, there is a decline of 23% in the shipment of desktop PCs globally and some countries such as South Africa are skipping the desktop entirely and are now preferring mobile devices. ""It is hard to ignore that the e-mailing industry is observing a shift in consumer behaviour. Affiliation platforms will be more exclusive when electing publishers to collaborate with. Indeed, I would advise traffic managers at The Click Lab to offer smart and innovative strategies as well as investments in resources that such innovations ask for. Large volumes of traffic and sales are being driven by mobile . This represents a great addition to a traffic manager competences, and 9

surely will attract advertisers aiming to reach consumers on all forms medias. Many affiliate programs are embracing mobile devices, therefore, publishing departments that can support such advertising campaigns are ahead of the curve.""Collecting data is the key for publishers to differentiate their services form the competition. Holding enviable amounts of data that can be used to both increase relevancy and customer experience. Indeed, the more targeted a content is, the more beneficial the results will be for the advertiser, consumer, and publisher. Driving incremental sales will not only be profitable prospects to clients, but also allow publishers to give insights to their advertisers. Besides, the use of collected data provide traffic managers with the opportunity to reach subscribers with the aim of advertising a product that differentiates from the competitive brands. This can influence the purchaser to have a logical reason to prefer it over other brands. Building such promotional themes around which advertising campaigns will be elaborated is an essential key to incorporate USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to their messages. ""Cross Channel Marketing "Cross-channel marketing represents a new targeting method that enables marketers to use social media platforms to deliver messages and tailor and custom audiences. In fact, by using the e-mail lists they already own, publishers at The Click Lab could use those social media platforms to target advertisements to users that clients already have customer relationships with. ""This innovative technique would allow The Click Lab to cut down investments for excessive demographic segmentations. Nowadays, this cross-channel feature seems to be the most appropriate approach when sending targeted ads to users. For instance, such a launch could cover

�25

Lionbridge. “Lionbridge Survey Reveals New Opportunities for Marketers to Increase the Effectiveness of Global Email Marketing” 9

retrieved from URL <http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge-survey-reveals-new-opportunities-marketers-increase-effectiveness-global-email-marketing/>

a broad segment of all the database users, or a list of specific customers that have purchased a product within the last 72 hours. The key is to use customer data as a mean to identify and define which subscribers use different channels . Since most customers use their personal e-mail 10

address to register for most online activities, this will represent considerable opportunities when publishers and online platforms embrace cross-channel strategies. As a matter of fact, depending on the platform, many variations of those methods are conceivable. I strongly believe that integrating campaigns across multiple networks would produce high profitability and that web marketing companies should endorse such innovative practices. ""Nowadays, successful marketing strategies must reach higher goals than just acquiring customers and rising brand awareness. In fact, every effort needs a sustaining campaign launch that helps build strong relationships with recipients. Such communications increase customer loyalty, product life cycles, and relevancy. ""E-mail marketing still represents the best channel to drive customer loyalty. However, its efficiency will drastically increase when completed with retargeting campaigns and paired with other marketing channels."

E-mail Retargeting "Retargeting asks for a deep analysis of consumer behaviours, in fact, this technique consists in addressing individual recipients with extremely relevant advertising. Such targeting is based on researches and tracking of their previous online behaviours. E-mail retargeting is a three stage process ; first, the publisher inserts a tracking cookie on the newsletter, then matches online 11

behaviours with subscribers, and then sends extremely personalised e-mails."" E-mail Retargeting Process

In order to master such a technological tool, The Click Lab needs to combine other innovative elements to make retargeting campaigns efficient. Indeed, since it neutralises unprofitable customers, duplication of databases has to be systematically achieved. Also, trigger methods will

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Stefan Tornquist. (2013) “Does tech really improve integrated marketing? 1,000+ marketers help us look at the connection" 10

retrieved from URL <https://econsultancy.com/blog/62820-does-tech-really-improve-integrated-marketing-1-000-marketers-help-us-look-at-the-connection>

Thibaut Munier. (2014). “Increasing Conversion with Retargeting by Email” retrieved from URL <http://www.1000mercis.com/11

whitepaper/increasing_conversion_with_retargeting_by_email.pdf>

be put to good use with retargeting strategies. In fact, thanks to tags on the advertiser’s website, triggers will allow publishers to select and send specific categories of product pages with the retargeted message. Finally, timing has to be perfectly realised to maximise the frequency of newsletters, and provide traffic managers with clearer analytical tools, therefore allowing them to gradually optimise clicks and conversions. ""By using e-mail retargeting, The Click Lab would target recipients that are already in the advertiser’s databases. When tracked and separated properly, those prospects’ growing behaviours could be used as proxies for purchases intentions. This will result in high repurchase rates, and enables advertisers with the use of efficient tools and valuable assets. In addition to building customer loyalty, this technique would allow The Click Lab to compete with the few international e-mailing agencies that use such technology. ""Indeed, one of the largest e-mailing companies, Criteo, has been using retargeting e-mails with clients that offers to pay a remuneration of 250 euros CPM (cost per mille sendings). Clients such as PriceMinister has been collaborating with publishers that use e-mail retargeting. Recent results show that this technique allowed PriceMinister to increase by 102% its open and click rates, scoring 4 to 8 times higher than regular acquisition processes. It is undeniable that extremely specific segmentation is highly demanded by advertisers since it provides them to maximise their purchases action rates. "

RTB E-mailing "Real Time Bidding (RTB) is a marketing process that allocates advertising spots sold in real time with biddings organised by advertisers or agencies. The e-mail sector tends to be in need of innovative approaches, in 2013 e-mail marketing represented only 94 million euros in France , 12

which translated a down rise of 1%, whereas other marketing channels are flourishing: video, SEO, RTB, etc. ""In addition, many publishers have been focused on the quantity sent rather the quality of the content. The market, and especially subscribers, are still neglected. Hence, ISPs have become stricter and stricter and resulted in lower deliverability rates for publishers. However, combining real time binding with e-mail marketing would represent an innovative opportunity for The Click Lab. Since 2013, the French group Kwanko has been the first company to combine RTB and e-mail marketing . I strongly believe that developing market shares with RTB type remunerations can 13

enables publishers to reach higher profitability. Nevertheless, its challenge may lie in evaluating the demand for RTB payouts. ""

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Définition Real time bidding. retrieved from URL <http://www.definitions-webmarketing.com/Definition-Real-time-bidding>12

Nicolas Jaimes. (2014). “Kwanko veut relancer l'emailing en se mettant au RTB” retrieved from URL < http://13

www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/crm-marketing/kwanko-emailing-rtb.shtml >

It is undeniable that innovations represent new opportunities for marketers, even if they might bring considerable drawbacks. Indeed, since mass e-mailing is disappearing, investments in resources will soon not be an option for publishers. New trends aim to specific segmentation and high end targeting, completing databases and collecting such data information represent high investment costs for e-mailing companies. In addition, legislative restrictions on the market have been another threat for e-mail marketing. In fact, laws regarding the duplication of databases or even the collect of internet users have been rising. For instance, Germany has become the first european country that asks e-mail marketers to double opt-in their recipients before considering them as subscribers.""The Click Lab operates in a market in constant evolution that offers many innovative alternatives to overcome future challenges. The company founders and managers are vigorously aware of those e-mail marketing new trends and consider opening new departments in order to build innovative techniques and diversify their activity."""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

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APPENDIX "Appendix n°1: Who Are The Actors of the E-mailing Industry ? "

"""""�29

Appendix n°2: The Sources of Data Acquisition ""

""""""""""""""�30

Appendix n°3: The Click Lab’s Org Chart """"

"""""""""""""""""""""�31

Appendix n°4: An example of The Click Lab services

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""""BIBLIOGRAPHY """Ascend2. (2012). “Email Marketing Strategy Outlook Report” retrieved from URL <http://ascend2.com/home/wp-content /up loads /Emai lMarke t ingSt ra tegyOut lookRepor t -Ascend2Edition.pdf>""Jean Baptiste Rudelle. (2014). “Calcul de la rentabilité de la publicité numérique” retrieved from URL <http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/expert/58672/calcul-de-la-rentabilite-de-la-publicite-numerique---attention--terrain-piege.shtml>""Nicolas Jaimes. (2014). “Kwanko veut relancer l'emailing en se mettant au RTB” retrieved from URL < http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/crm-marketing/kwanko-emailing-rtb.shtml >""Public Idées. (2011). “Livre Blanc de l’emailing à la performance.”""Public Idées. (2012). “Livre Blanc de l’affiliation de nouvelle génération.”""Thibaut Munier. (2014). “Increasing Conversion with Retargeting by Email” retrieved from URL <http://www.1000mercis.com/whitepaper/increasing_conversion_with_retargeting_by_email.pdf>""Définition Real time bidding. retrieved from URL <http://www.definitions-webmarketing.com/Definition-Real-time-bidding>""Marketing Sherpa. (2006). “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide” retrieved from URL <http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/EMBG06_execsumm.pdf>""Hanna Andrezejewka. (2013). “Boost Your Retargeting with Email Marketing” retrieved from URL <http://blog.adroll.com/boost-retargeting-email-marketing>""Lionbridge. “Lionbridge Survey Reveals New Opportunities for Marketers to Increase the Effectiveness of Global Email Marketing” retrieved from URL <http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge-survey-reveals-new-opportunities-marketers-increase-effectiveness-global-email-marketing/>""The Click Lab’s website. (2014). Retrieved from URL <http://www.theclicklab-advertising.com>""Stefan Tornquist. (2013) “Does tech really improve integrated marketing? 1,000+ marketers help us look at the connection" retrieved from URL <https://econsultancy.com/blog/62820-does-tech-really-improve-integrated-marketing-1-000-marketers-help-us-look-at-the-connection>""Act-On. (2014) “Introduction to Integrated Marketing:"Lead Nurturing” retrieved from URL <https://www.act-on.com/whitepaper/introduction-to-lead-nurturing/>"""

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