Transparent Digital | Retention Marketing Agency

In a sea of dirty data and bot clicks it's always good to see hard(ish) data on improvements, especially in deliverability! Seeing the same reflections in GPM and revenue on these 2 accounts.

There's been a lot of chatter around one word in email marketing: Deliverability. (Read for free $20 below ????) Many know it, but few truly UNDERSTAND it. To some degree, it's a bit of a black box, that starts to be understood with experience and execution. After working with brands ranging from $5,000,000 per month down to $30,000/month, and auditing brands with with lists from 1.7M contacts down to just 1,500 contacts, I'm going to call my shot and hope someone saves this to hold me accountable. I have some guesses on where email marketing will go, and it's somewhat against the "best practices" of today. We've overcomplicated email marketing and in some cases, for good reason, but my assumption is in the next 2-3 years email marketing success will be focusing on the basics, but doing them exceptionally well. In the words of John W. Gardner, "Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." Here are some of the things I think will come back and why: 1. Double opt-in back on I have an assumption this will come back with deliverability and list health at the forefront while Klaviyo and other ESPs deal with spam traffic/sign-ups. 2. Smart sending: We have added some systems to tag profiles if they're in flows to prevent over-sending, we're not doing that anymore. We're utilizing Smart Sending again and exclusion segments from campaigns to prevent over-sending. 3. More analytics expertise: Email marketers of 2024 and beyond NEED to be able to understand what the problem is, the cause of it, and how to fix it. This starts with understanding WHERE to look and what to look FOR 4. Better campaign exclusions: With opens being inflated and now clicks being inflated by bots and machine opens/clicks, even clicks aren't safe. Understanding the account and how to determine what is "engaged" and how to exclude the rest. (Keeping an overall healthy list is implied here.) 5. More importance of preferences: Collecting and actioning zero-party data in the form of preferences in your preferences pages will become increasingly important. People want to choose how often they get your content. This is not a "ya in or ya out" kind of relationship. Give them the choice to determine WHEN and WHAT content they ought to receive. 6. Testing image-only vs 60/40 split: There's been talk over the last few years about image only vs emails that have some text blocks performing better or worse. In our tests over the last 2 years, we haven't found a difference in any metrics across the board (I would love for someone to drop some data if they have it). BUT. Over the next year, with all the changes to mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo, as well as the nuances of accounts and their lists (i.e., if for some reason their list is largely Hotmail, etc), this is something that should be tested. What do you think? Anything you would add to this list? Comment below and I'll send the comment with the most likes $20 on Monday 8/12

"We're going to go with our ad agency who also does email" This post is NOT to say there are not great ad agencies with killer retention teams, but they're hard to find. We're auditing an account and this is what their backend looks like... No SPF, no DKIM, no BIMI. These are table stakes at this point. If these are not installed install them TONIGHT.

This might sound INSANE... but most brands should start thinking about Black Friday now. - Product development (New products, v2's, etc) - Demand planning (Sales forecasting, SKU analysis) - Marketing strategy (Discounts considering unit economics, channel-specific offers, etc) Start planning now to have your BIGGEST month ever this Black Friday. Both brands below had started planning for BFCM in Q1 and Q2. Don't sleep ????