Suzanna Chaplin, Freemax Media, Warrick Lambert, Freemax Media a4uexpo Barcelona 2012

1. A4U EXPO
BARCELONA

2. BACKGROUND
• Send over 11M emails per day
• Run over 120 different advertising campaigns per week
in UK, Spain, Italy and France
• Test up to 40 new campaigns per week
• Generate more than 10,000 clicks per day
• Work with 100 different lists

3. AGENDA
• How to design an email to achieve the most
conversions
• Subject Lines
• Data
• Targeting
• How to code an email
• Landing pages
• Sending strategy
• Ongoing optimisation
• Analysing your sends

4. WHAT IS
GOOD OR
BAD ABOUT
THIS
CREATIVE?

5. DESIGNING A CREATIVE
• Consider your audience & the intention of your email
• Depending on your aims the style, layout & messaging of
your email will vary considerably
• Getting the right look & feel along with a relevant call to
action can have a massive impact on response rates

6. DESIGNING A CREATIVE
PPI AdviceLine
• Complicated product so
using a text heavy design
to convey the message
• Use of bullet points to
emphasise key points
• Call to action positioned
directly below
• Customer testimonials
can be used to add
legitimacy to a product

7. DESIGNING A CREATIVE
Landrover
• Brand focused and
aspiration messaging is
highlighted by a strong
headline image
• Despite that their is still a
clear call to action
• Personalized emails see
a much stronger
response rate

8. DESIGNING A CREATIVE
Debenhams
• Due to their wide product
range, retail campaigns
can struggle
• Debenhams use clear call
to action to dominate the
page
• Multiple links to the
channels within the site to
broaden the appeal of the
creative

9. DESIGNING A CREATIVE
THE IMPORTANCE OF A CALL TO ACTION
ECPM WITH CALL TO ACTION: ECPM WITH CALL TO ACTION:
£0.75 £3.67

10. 600px Wide
Roundels
can be a
great way of
Try to highlighting
maintain a offers
50/50 ratio
between
images &
HTML text Main headline
Call to Action
above 400px fold

11. Add more
information
about the
product/servic
e/ Explain how
it works and
the benefits to
the customer
Reinforce the
USPs for the
product. You
can also use
additional
information
testimonials/re Secondary
lated products call to
etc. action

12. SUBJECT LINES
 Subject lines are arguably the most important element of
an email campaign
 If your intended customer doesn‟t like the subject line
they won‟t open the email
 So getting your subject line right is vital
 Getting a good open rate is important but you need
make sure the subject line is relevant to the subject
matter
 If a customer opens an email and the content is not
relevant they will delete and potentially complain

13. SUBJECT LINES
 Test everything!
 Always split test multiple subject lines to find the
optimal text
 Use a control group and ensure your sample size is
large enough to get a clear reading
 Don‟t just look at open rates – consider clicks &
conversion too
 Some examples

14. SUBJECT LINES
• Personalisation
SUBJECT LINE OPEN ECPM DIFFERENCE
RATE IN ECPM
20 percent off everything but only for limited a £
number of days 16.15% 1.49 0.00%
£
20 percent off Coast, Biba, Ted Baker and more 14.56% 1.43 -4.32%
Final call: 20 percent off Jackets, Bags, Shoes £
and more 15.05% 0.49 -67.32%
Dear Suzanna, get 20 percent off House of £
Fraser 16.46% 3.28 119.69%

15. SUBJECT LINE
• Brand
SUBJECT LINE OPEN ECPM DIFFERENCE
RATE IN ECPM
DKNY, Dolce and Gabbana, Clinique - great
savings, join BrandAlley today 11.54% £ 1.69 0.00%
Elle Macpherson, French Connection, Ted
Baker, Diesel- up to 70 percent off 11.71% £ 2.27 33.95%
Diesel, Dolce and Gabbana, Firetrap, Ted
Baker, Ed Hardy. Up to 70 percent off- Join
today 11.20% £ 2.26 33.47%
70 percent off- Elle Macpherson, French
Connection, Ted Baker. Join today 10.61% £ 1.41 -16.82%

16. SUBJECT LINE
• Time
SUBJECT LINE OPEN ECPM DIFFERENCE
RATE IN ECPM
The British Airway's sale is now on! 8.61% £ - 0%
The British airway sale ends midnight 20th £
Sept – Don’t miss out 8.28% 5.00 500%
You should really really look at British
Airways’ very big sale 9.04% £ - 0%
Hurry, British airway’s sale ends midnight £
20th September 8.52% 6.84 684%

17. SUBJECT LINES
It’s not just obvious words & phrases that you should avoid
using in your subject lines
• As Seen On… • Click Here
• Multi level Marketing • Call now!
• You're a Winner! • Free!
• Reverses Aging • 50% off!
• Online pharmacy • Compare
• Viagra • Act Now!
• Casino • Save up to
• Double your income • Discount!
• Unsecured debt or credit • Buy Direct
• Don't Delete • Amazing

18. SUBJECT LINES
DO DON’T
• Keep you subject lines
• Overuse exclamation
short
marks!
• Use the company or
– I really mean it!!!
brand name that‟s
relevant to your email • USE CAPITALS FOR
EVERY WORD
• Use features & benefits of
the product you‟re • Try and trick the customer
promoting into opening an email –
make sure the subject
• Don‟t forget to give the
line is relevant to the
customer a sense of
email content
urgency where
appropriate

19. DATA
• Without a strong email list your campaigns will struggle
to generate a good return for you
• If you‟re using 3rd party data make sure you have the
following as a minimum:
– Have 3rd party opt-in date
– The URL they signed up to
– Ideally data no older than 6 months
• If the data you‟re sending to is over 6 months old it‟s
recommended you send it through a different IP range
than you core data to protect main mailing programme

20. DATA
• To protect your data and build confidence in your
database there are several steps your can take:
– State source of email within the header or footer so that the user
will be able to connect why they are receiving this message
– Provide links to new cookie law and links to unsubscribe.
– Never hide the unsubscribe or make it difficult for people to
unsubscribe as they will just mark the email as Spam in the ESP.
• Manage any unsubscribes you receive closely:
– If someone unsubscribes ensure that they are removed from all
future sends - do not send to these people again under any
circumstances
– Ensure that all ESP and 3rd party spam filter complaints are
removed from any mailings

21. TARGETING
• Once you have your data you need to decide which
segments to send to
• Within each list you‟re likely to have a mix of customers
who will each react differently to the campaigns you
send them
• Broadly speaking there are two ways to target your
sends:
– Demographic
– Behavioural

22. TARGETING
• Demographic targeting
– Taking information you know about the data to identify
the users most likely to convert
– Age/Sex/Location etc
• Behavioural targeting
– Looking at the past activity of a record and sending
them similar/related offers in the future
– For instance sending pet insurance offers to users
who responded to a cat food campaign

23. TARGETING
• Campaign targeting people interested in gardening.
Using Demographics – people who had ticked an interest in
gardening:
Opens: 1.94%
Net CTR: 0.12%
Conversions: 3
Using Behaviour – people we thought would be interested
in gardening:
Opens: 13.75%
Net CTR: 0.70%
Conversion: 8

24. CODING AN EMAIL
• When coding an email you need to consider 2 areas:
1. How it will display across all email clients
2. Ensuring it will be delivered into the inbox
• Getting the display right will help with delivery and the
key to both is to keep things as simple as possible
• 23% of delivery problems are a result of how the email
is coded so you need to make sure you‟re applying best
practise to all of your creatives

25. CODING AN EMAIL
• Email design is not like building for the web with the
sheer number of email client‟s making it more
challenging
• To avoid running into some of the more common
problems you should try to adhere to the following:
– Do not use javascript – most email clients will not
accept it
– All html tags should be closed up and each email
should include html, head, title and body
tags. (<html>, <head>, <title>, <body>)
– Avoid PNG‟s – try to stick to GIF & JPG files

26. CODING AN EMAIL
• Provide fallback colours for background images & alt text
for images – protects the format if images are blocked
• An increasing number of emails are being read on
smartphones (27% of our emails were opened on a
mobile device – Nov „11) so width should be less than
600 px
• Ensure you have an even text-to-image ratio. If an email
is 100% image, email clients will think the sender is
trying to hide something within the image as it is not able
to read the content and will therefore block it. An email
should have at least 3 images in it.

27. CODING AN EMAIL
• In addition to following these guidelines there are several
tools you can use to help improve your delivery of
emails:
– Cloudmark
– Spam Assassin
– Email on Acid
– Litmus
– Return Path

28. LANDING PAGES
• As with all online marketing conversion is key so you
need to consider the customer journey after they click
out of the creative
• Simple landing page checklist:
Is the product/offer your promoted in your email on
the landing page?
Are you linking them as close the basket as possible
Have you removed as many points of leakage as
possible – phone numbers etc.
• Your email should have included as much information as
possible so the customer has less need to click off to find
more on the site

29. LANDING PAGES
Debenhams
• The message and
style from the
Debenhams email
we discussed
earlier is carried
through to the
landing page
• Sales message is
reinforced along
with additional
incentives to buy
“Free delivery”

30. LANDING PAGES
Landrover
• Clicking straight
from the creative
into the lead form
ensures there‟s less
wastage and a
higher conversion
rate
• Linking directly to
the form results in
34% higher
conversion rates on
average

31. SENDING STRATEGY
• Once you have your email and data in place you need to
consider the frequency & timing of your sending
• Your first consideration should be if there are any time
constraints around the offer you are looking to run
– Short term promotions (need to sent within a set
window)
– Time sensitive offers (for example sending a
campaign for pizza over lunch time & after 5)

32. SENDING STRATEGY
• For longer running campaigns you still need to consider
how your sending strategy can affect the performance of
you offer
• Our experience has shown that scheduling campaigns to
reach the customer‟s inbox in the morning yields 20%
better results than the same campaign sent later in the
day
– Doing so gives your campaign a better chance of
converting as it hits both the morning and evening
traffic spikes

33. SENDING STRATEGY –
FREQUENCY
• While there are variations depending on product & sector
it‟s advisable to schedule your campaign to be sent to
the same data up to 3 times to ensure you maximize
conversions
• By sending your customer‟s a series of emails with
tailored subject lines and creative you‟re able to reinforce
the product‟s strengths and influence their buying
decision
• Bear in mind that while this approach works it‟s important
to constantly monitor your eCPM to identify when a
campaign start to decline

34. SENDING STRATEGY -
FREQUENCY
• As you can see from the Campaign Performance Over
graphs campaigns tend to April ‘12
spike in performance 12,000,000 £0.90
initially before levelling 10,000,000
£0.80
out and the gradually 8,000,000
£0.70
£0.60
declining as the other
Volume
£0.50
becomes tired 6,000,000
£0.40
• Typically by the 4th send 4,000,000 £0.30
those customer‟s that are 2,000,000
£0.20
going to convert have £0.10
done so and it‟s time to
0 £-
April ’12 May ‘12
either change the offer or
look for new data to
target

35. FREQUENCY
Large Mixed Source List
9,000,000 £0.90
8,000,000 £0.80
7,000,000 £0.70
6,000,000 £0.60
Mixed Activity List
Volume
5,000,000 £0.50
450,000 £2.50
4,000,000 £0.40
400,000
3,000,000 £0.30 £2.00
350,000
2,000,000 £0.20
Volume
300,000
1,000,000 £0.10 £1.50
250,000
0 £- 200,000
£1.00
150,000
100,000 £0.50
50,000
Targeted Active only List 0 £-
700,000 £0.45
600,000 £0.40
£0.35
500,000
£0.30
Volume
400,000 £0.25
300,000 £0.20
£0.15
200,000
£0.10
100,000 £0.05
0 £-

36. ONGOING OPTIMISATION & CAMPAIGN
ANALYSIS
• Once you‟ve got the results from your campaign, analyse
results & to inform your future activity
• Profitability wise between 10-20% of you base will
actively interact with your mailings on a regular basis
• These are your key responders, treat them as such since
this is where 80% of your profit will be sourced from
• The temptation will be to mail this pot and the exclusion
of the others but you need to maintain a balance
between profit and sustaining the data as over-mailing
will increase your unsubs and reduce your long term
profit from your list

37. ONGOING OPTIMISATION &
CAMPAIGN ANALYSIS
• Create behavioural groups based on what users have
opened and clicked on – basing future campaigns on
these learnings can increase responses by up to 70%
• After your initial send you can follow up non openers with
a different subject line to try to get a higher open rate
• For opens but non clicks - target them with a different
incentive or new creative to try to generate higher traffic
• Follow up successful conversions with cross/up-sell
messages such as mobile phone insurance, bluetooth
devices etc
• For repeated inactive customers look to send
reactivation emails to non active data to generate
interaction / conversions – special incentives etc

38. Q&A