1. STRATEGY AND ANALYTICS / TARGETING / CREATIVE / TECHNOLOGY / DIGITAL
THE RISE OF EMAIL
RETARGETING
June 2011
epsilon.com
2. STRATEGY AND ANALYTICS / TARGETING / CREATIVE / TECHNOLOGY / DIGITAL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
What is Email Retargeting? 4
How Email Retargeting Works 5
Use Case 6
Attributes of Email Retargeting 7
Reinforce the Message 7
Drive Lift in Conversion 7
Acquire New Customers 8
The Future of Email Retargeting 8
Best Practices 8
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3. STRATEGY AND ANALYTICS / TARGETING / CREATIVE / TECHNOLOGY / DIGITAL
INTRODUCTION
In the age of instant communication, marketers understand the importance of email
marketing. Email plays an increasingly important role in the online media mix. However
email does not have to exist within a silo. It can be a critical link that bridges the gap
between offline and online communications. That “bridge” helps reinforce triggers from
other channels and lets consumers become more deeply engaged in a brand’s message.
Email Retargeting - Key Part of Evolution of Marketing Process
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Increased Knowledge
ing campaign results to find New Segment online display and email
new prospects and increase and Add Scale retargeting to see what
acquisitions. works best for you.
As inboxes grow more cluttered than ever before, businesses are searching for relevant
ways to reach customers beyond traditional email messages. And now, marketers have a
new opportunity to deeply engage with email openers to synchronize the customer
experience and data across multiple channels via Email Retargeting.
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WHAT IS EMAIL RETARGETING?
Epsilon’s Email Retargeting tool connects email with targeted display ads to consumers who
opened an email message, but did not respond. Using Epsilon’s email management platform
and a leading-edge digital predictive optimization platform from partner X+1, marketers can
leverage customer data and lists from current email campaigns to deliver targeted display
media in real-time.
With Email Retargeting, marketers can expand their post email campaign capabilities
by targeting customers that are minimally engaged and reinforcing the message behind
the campaign.
“Email retargeting and other forms of targeting let marketers reach specific audiences,
and only those audiences, with a uniquely relevant message, eliminating waste and driving
performance,” said Eric Stein, Executive Vice President, Online Solutions, Epsilon.
“Well-timed and coordinated emails have always been an effective way to reinforce
messages to customers when they have performed the marketer’s desired action,”
Stephano Kim, President and Chief Operating Officer, X+1, an online targeting platform
company, said. “An example would be the thank you email sent to a customer after they have
made a purchase or signed up for a service. Email Retargeting enhances both the number and
breadth of actions that can be tracked and used as triggers for email follow up. Also, display
advertising served as part of Email Remarketing can also provide valuable additional touches
to a customer who has engaged with the brand through email.”
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5. STRATEGY AND ANALYTICS / TARGETING / CREATIVE / TECHNOLOGY / DIGITAL
HOW EMAIL RETARGETING WORKS
Email Retargeting involves implementing a tag or code into a client’s outbound email before
the email is delivered to the recipient. When the subscriber opens the email a cookie is
dropped on the browser enabling the marketer to target that person with a display ad.
By placing a cookie on the browser, marketers can identify and reach users with display
advertising on the Web. The ads they deliver can either relate to the content of the email,
or can be personalized based on the data in the email file.
Marketers can replicate images from emails they send to subscribers through email
retargeting like in the example email newsletter shown above.
“Marketers using Email Retargeting can easily reinforce the email message in the
display channel by repurposing the creative, creating recognition from one channel
to the other,” Mike Lund, Vice President Online Product Sales Specialist, Epsilon, said.
Marketers can repurpose their email Or marketers can create a similar
creative by dropping a similar banner banner ad based on the consumer’s
ad on a webpage to reinforce the preferences, purchase behavior and
messaging like in the example email locality.
newsletter shown above.
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The Email Retargeting Process
1 2 3
Epsilon Inserts Tag Epsilon places your ad When a member of your target audience
Into Email to your target audience visits a website, we identify them
on ad exchange with DSP and display your ad
Email openers have a
cookie placed that enables
display campaign
Your Ad Here
USE CASE
XYZ Airlines, a new airline committed to bringing comfort and style to its
passengers, builds its brand and markets through two major channels —
direct mail and the Internet—approached Epsilon to help drive lift in its
online conversion rates.
Epsilon helped XYZ Airlines implement an Email Retargeting program. When a
member of XYZ’s email subscriber audience received an email and opened it but
took no further action, a cookie was dropped on the subscriber’s web browser. This
enabled XYZ to find their customers online while they were browsing the Web and
serve them relevant display ads that reinforced the message of the email.
As a result, the Email Retargeting effort created awareness, kept the brand top
of mind with email subscribers, and ultimately led to increased conversions.
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ATTRIBUTES OF EMAIL RETARGETING
Email Retargeting offers marketers a number of benefits. In addition to extending the reach
of a campaign, the strategy helps businesses increase customer lifetime value to boost ROI
for email and display.
Reinforce the Message
Email Retargeting strengthens relationships with customers after an email is opened and
drives transactional revenue. For example, a women’s apparel retailer may devised a two-
week-long campaign around spring shoes. That retailer could use existing creative from the
email and incorporate it into a display ad and later change the creative with a different image
to freshen up the message.
“With core customers, email retargeting helps deepen relationships by reinforcing specific
brand messages,” Stein said. “For example, a known consumer may visit a site and perform
some behavior that triggers an email. If the consumer opens that email, further demonstrat-
ing engagement, the marketer can continue to engage that consumer with a consistent mes-
sage though display advertising tied to the message of that email.”
Email Retargeting also helps companies maintain awareness with their core customer base.
“By using email to build a cookie pool over time, a marketer will have a scalable universe of
core customers to engage with any message that may be relevant to individual segments of
that base or the entire population,” Stein said.
Drive Lift in Conversion
While marketers struggle to entice email recipients to open a message and spur a sale,
standard emails can only go so far to drive conversions. Yet the combination of a
well-crafted email and display ads can do wonders to drive lift.
“Email Retargeting gets results,” Lund said. “It’s all about reinforcing your email messages
to existing customers and it’s transforming the industry.”
“For example, clients reported an average of a 20% to 40% lift in conversion when using
Email Retargeting over email alone,” Lund said. “That’s not all. A financial services company
said a typical weekly email-only campaign resulted in a 3% conversion rate. But when layered
with Email Retargeting, the email program conversion rate increased to 5% over the same
one-week period between email deployments.”
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8. STRATEGY AND ANALYTICS / TARGETING / CREATIVE / TECHNOLOGY / DIGITAL
Acquire New Customers
Marketers that use Email Retargeting can use their knowledge of existing customer segments
to develop look-a-like models to acquire new prospects. Using its exclusive partnership with
X+1, Epsilon can help marketers increase the scale of an engaged audience by targeting new
customers based on pre-existing web profile data.
“Time and again we’ve seen marketers struggling to get more qualified customers in the top
of the funnel. Their email efforts are effective so they start Email Retargeting and then they
ask, ‘What next?’ Look-a-like modeling is the answer,” Kim said. “With modeling you uncover
the characteristics of your best customers and can use that insight to cast a wider net in
display media to acquire new, qualified prospects.”
THE FUTURE OF EMAIL RETARGETING
While Email Retargeting is in its infancy, Epsilon experts see a bright future ahead. One of the
few barriers that remain to its full-scale adoption is determining which department—email
or display—should have oversight over its implementation and budget expenses. For now,
Lund said the expense is a shared entity.
“Over the next year, Email Retargeting is going to be widely adopted as part of a standard
email marketing best practice,” Lund said. “Email Retargeting is transforming the industry.
It is a whole new acquisition channel that is relatively untapped at this point.”
BEST PRACTICES
Marketers considering Email Retargeting should review the following best practice tips to
ensure successful campaigns:
• Be strategic about your email segmentation and your intended audience.
• Maximize the number of emails you have. If you only have a postal address
for customers, append email addresses to expand customer relationships to
multiple channels.
• Deliver consistent messaging and content to reinforce the email communication
across the display channel and leverage that message across the email, display, and
site channels to create a cohesive multichannel approach.
• Get started and build your universe of targetable customers.
• Avoid duplicative, siloed efforts in the display and email channels and get the
teams working together on an initial coordinated campaign
For more on Email Retargeting, visit Epsilon’s website.
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