Fall In Love with Email Marketing. A Comprehensive Guide – Part Two
This is part two of a three-part series about email marketing. In part one , we set the tone by explaining what email marketing is, how it came about and why it should be considered part of a serious marketing strategy.
Specifically, we talked about how email marketing began, its history, and what you need to know about the law and the GDPR. Click here to read part one if you haven’t already done so.
Here’s a quick recap of what’s covered in the three-part series:
7) Recipient lists: Build them or buy them?
One of the crucial decisions you’ll need to make when embarking on email marketing is how to gather your recipient list – the people you intend to send your email newsletters to. And, as the title asks, should you build the list or buy the list?
If you’re in unfamiliar territory and haven’t ventured into email marketing before, either option can be a daunting prospect. However, each has pros and cons, and depending on which route you choose, you’ll either have to be patient or have deep pockets.
There’s no right or wrong way to grow a list of recipients because it depends on who you’re going after, what you intend to say to your audience, and what your end goal is. Nevertheless, the decision to build or buy can significantly impact the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Let’s take a look at each option and the implications of your choice.
Building Recipient Lists
Building a recipient list means gathering email addresses directly from individuals who have shown an interest in your services or products. This is typically achieved through so-called ‘squeeze pages’ (focused landing pages that are designed to extract someone’s email address), website subscription forms, eCommerce checkouts, or visitors at live events such as exhibitions, trade shows, etc.
Building your recipient list is about growing your audience organically. If you’re an established business, you may be able to begin with your list of existing customers. There are conditions to consider, most of which were explained in part one; ‘3) The law and GDPR – six bases for processing data’ under Legitimate Business Interests, repeated below for your convenience:
Legitimate interests and email marketing: The last of the six is an interesting concept. ‘Legitimate interests’ is the most flexible of the six lawful bases. But it requires a balancing act between your interests and the rights and freedoms of the data subjects (an identified or identifiable living individual to whom personal data relates).
You must ensure that your interests (i.e. you want to sell them something) do not override the rights and interests of the recipients (i.e. they don’t want to hear from you or they don’t want to buy from you).
‘Legitimate interests’ is not exactly a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but it potentially allows you some wriggle room. To be clear, the term ‘wriggle room’ is not mentioned anywhere in the GDPR’s 261 pages of legislation.
Advantages of building a recipient list:
Building a recipient list means asking for permission, or consent, to add people to your list. Executed correctly, this tends to result in a more relevant audience. And, as these individuals have opted in, they are more likely to engage with your content, leading to better campaign results.
Data protection compliance: You’re on much safer ground by obtaining direct consent because you’re aligning with the requirements of the GDPR and UK data protection laws, protecting your business from certain legal risks. Fundamentally, if you ask someone if you can add their name and email address to your marketing list because you intend to send them marketing material, and they say yes, you’re home and dry.
Ideally, you should have a mechanism in place that allows you to demonstrate that you asked and they gave their consent. When somebody signs up to receive your email newsletter from a form on your website, ensure your opt-in methods are clear and transparent. The double opt-in option is the correct way to do this. They click ‘yes’ to receive your future emails, and the system sends them a separate email with a clickable link to confirm their choice.
Long-term relationships: Building a list allows for nurturing long-term customer relationships creating loyal brand advocates over time. They’re already better engaged because they gave their permission; therefore, they must be interested in what you have to say.
As long as you don’t disappoint your recipients or abuse their trust, they’re far more likely to stay with you for longer.
Disadvantages of building a recipient list:
Patience is key because building a list is time-consuming. It takes time to grow a sizeable, effective list because it may literally mean obtaining recipients’ email addresses one at a time.
Slower growth: you shouldn’t expect overnight success as it takes longer to build momentum. Not everyone you ask will say yes, and those who do may change their mind and unsubscribe. Building a solid, quality list is a gradual process, so you must be clear on your intentions; is it quality over quantity?
Resource-intensive: Building a list one recipient at a time requires ongoing, consistent effort and resources, from creating engaging opt-in [landing] pages to maintaining the list to keeping up the momentum.
Buying Recipient Lists
Everyone likes a shortcut, and buying a recipient list often seems like the best option, as it's by far the quickest way to get started.
Buying a list involves acquiring a set of email addresses (and usually additional information such as full names and addresses) from a third party or ‘data broker’. The information contained within the lists allows the recipients to be segmented by demographics, geographics, interests, or behaviours, giving you quick access to a more relevant audience for targeted content.
But there's a burning question: is it legal to buy email marketing lists? Well, yes, sort of.
Email marketing is regulated by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), with the UK GDPR also applying to personal data processing. PECR is set to be replaced by the ePrivacy Regulation, though at the time of writing, this has been delayed.
Work email addresses are personal data, whether they belong to a company or a sole trader/partnership, and are covered by the UK GDPR. The key difference under PECR is how consent is managed.
Generally, you need prior consent to send marketing emails. However, in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, you can email employees of corporate entities without prior consent.
For email campaigns, B2B marketing excludes sole traders and partnerships, who must give consent just like consumers. So, when you're buying third-party data, ensure it’s for B2B use to avoid issues.
Summary:
Even if you buy an email list in a country where it is not forbidden by law (such as the UK), you may still be breaking laws if the list you buy includes subscribers based in countries where buying and selling lists is illegal.
Advantages of buying a recipient list Buying recipient lists means, in theory, at least, that you have instant access to a large number of people. Of course, that depends on the size of the list you buy, but business owners generally only do it this way because they want to expand their marketing reach rapidly. The ‘in theory’ comment above relates to the challenges that can crop up with bought lists. More on that later.
Zero to 100 mph in no time: The process is straightforward enough – you pay for a list of recipients, upload the email addresses to your email marketing platform, and you’re ready to start your campaign.
Targeted Demographics: If purchased from a credible supplier, these lists offer access to highly targeted groups that might be harder to reach organically.
Disadvantages of buying a recipient list Buying recipient data is not without its challenges: To begin with, you have no idea how old the data is. In the UK, data protection laws potentially prevent companies from retaining mailboxes from past employees or even forwarding their email addresses to another person, so they are typically deleted. This means older email addresses may just be a black hole.
Low-quality data may result in multiple bounced emails: If these are particularly high in number, your email marketing platform may block your account because they'll think you're spamming. Technically, that's exactly what you're doing.
Legal and Compliance Risks: Purchasing lists can easily put you at odds with UK GDPR and data protection laws.
Lower Engagement Rates: Not all data is 100% GDPR compliant, despite what brokers might say. It, therefore, follows that not all recipients will have actively chosen to hear from you, which, in turn, can result in lower engagement. Remember, if challenged, the onus is on you to prove that the individuals on the list have consented to receive your specific type of communication from you - which is often a tough hurdle to clear.
Reputation Risks: Having multiple emails marked as spam can damage your brand's reputation and email deliverability.
Licensing costs: Purchased data is typically sold under license for which you pay a monthly or annual fee to be able to use the data.
Ownership: You will never own the data, although you can legally retain the email addresses of people who have interacted and become customers. Note that purchased data almost always includes so-called ‘honey trap’ email addresses that secretly belong to the broker, so continuing to use the data without paying the licence fee risks breaching the licence agreement.
Best Practices for Buying and Buiding Lists
Building Lists Best Practices Focus on creating compelling opt-in incentives, being absolutely clear about what subscribers will receive, and ensuring a seamless opt-in process. Regularly clean your lists to maintain their health and effectiveness.
Buying Lists Best Practices Thoroughly vet list providers. Ensure their lists are strictly B2B and do not include recipients who are sole traders or whose business is a partnership. Challenge their methods by asking how they collect emails and ensure they align with GDPR standards. Be extra cautious and consider seeking advice from a GDPR or Data Protection specialist.
Advantages of buying a recipient list:
Buying recipient lists means, in theory, at least, that you have instant access to a large number of people. Of course, that depends on the size of the list you buy, but business owners generally only do it this way because they want to expand their marketing reach rapidly. The ‘in theory’ comment above relates to the challenges that can crop up with bought lists. More on that later.
Disadvantages of buying a recipient list:
Buying recipient data is not without its challenges: To begin with, you have no idea how old the data is. In the UK, data protection laws potentially prevent companies from retaining mailboxes from past employees or even forwarding their email addresses to another person, so they are typically deleted. This means older email addresses may just be a black hole.
Best Practices for Buying and Buiding Lists
Conclusion
In conclusion, while buying a list might seem like a shortcut, the risks and downsides often outweigh the benefits.
Building your own list, though slower, encourages a more engaged and loyal audience, ensuring long-term success and compliance with legal standards.
Quality over quantity – Emails may be cost-efficient but it’s no excuse to not produce quality content to give to a targeted audience ~ Benjamin Murray
8) Stats (analytics/metrics): What to look for and what they mean?
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
It’s a quote that’s famously attributed to Peter Drucker, considered by many to be the father of modern business management.
However, he didn’t say it.
But that’s okay because, as sayings go, it’s pretty good, and it makes perfect sense, regardless of who said it.
In email marketing terms, recognising and understanding engagement is key to measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns. But what exactly should you be measuring?
There are several metrics worth considering, and these are explained below, together with some industry benchmarks to give you some context for what good engagement looks like.
The figures below are based on a 2023 report from MailerLite, taken from the results of 764,000 campaigns across the UK, Canada and the USA.
1. Delivery rate
2. Open rate
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
4. Conversion rate
5. Unsubscribe rate
6. Bounce Rate
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7. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
It’s important to note that these benchmarks can vary based on several factors, including industry sector, audience demographics, and the nature of the content (e.g. promotional vs informational).
You should, ideally, use these benchmarks as a starting point and aim to understand the unique dynamics of your audience in order to set realistic and relevant goals for your email marketing campaigns.
It almost goes without saying that the stats from a list you have painstakingly built will be better than those from a list you have bought.
9) Spam: Implications for your business and how to avoid it
What is spam?
In the same way the word ‘Amazon’ immediately brings to mind the global online retail giant and not the vast Brazilian rainforest, the word ‘spam’ immediately brings to mind the constant onslaught of unwanted emails we receive, rather than the tinned culinary curiosity, optimistically referred to as meat.
Putting spam into perspective
As of 2024, there are around 4.3 billion email users in the world, and between us, we send 343 billion emails every day.
Of that staggering number, more than one-fifth, 21.3%, is spam. That’s 73 billion spam emails every day – and that’s only from the top ten countries.
There are generally two types of spam emails. The first is those we definitely don’t want as they attempt to deceive or cheat us, offer us millions of dollars from a long-lost inheritance, or encourage us to click on a bogus link (known as phishing).
The second is genuine newsletters that we’ve subscribed to and no longer want but continue to receive regularly.
The former is definitely the worst type of spam, while the latter is an unfair indictment of potentially valuable and well-intentioned content. All too often, this type of email is incorrectly misinterpreted as spam by over-enthusiastic email filters. And with the latter, it’s really frustrating for business owners and marketers when a legitimate recipient marks their newsletter as spam rather than simply unsubscribing.
Why is having your emails marked as spam (potentially) so bad?
All the big-name email marketing platforms (e.g. Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Constant Contact, GetResponse, Active Campaign, ConvertKit, and so on) subscribe to global spam databases. When an email is marked as spam, it’s effectively a black mark against the domain name the email was sent from. It happens to everyone from time to time, so the odd one here and there will make no difference and is nothing to worry about.
However, if your emails receive an excessive number of complaints (being marked as spam is referred to as a complaint), as can happen if you buy or use poor quality or old recipient data, it could result in subsequent emails being blocked. The blocking may be carried out by your email marketing platform or even by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), who definitely won’t want people using their broadband connections to be sending spam.
The worst case scenario is that your sending domain is black-listed, and once that happens all sorts of problems can ensue, especially for those using their primary domain name to send email marketing newsletters, too. That really is a definite no-no.
What happens when your domain name is blacklisted?
A company’s domain name is typically central to the functioning of the business as it often has multiple roles.
The domain name is the key part of every email address in the company. It’s part of the brand identity, marketing campaigns, online sales, payment services, security services, social media and other online account profiles. It’s likely to be used for customer or stakeholder portals and often several internal systems such as intranets or employee portals like HR.
Just imagine, for a moment, the devastating impact on your business that having your domain name put on hold for weeks would cause by potentially stopping all online services. That can happen when your domain name is blacklisted.
Blacklisting typically happens when a domain name is identified as the source of repeatedly sending spam – and the start of that is often having a high number of your marketing emails being marked as spam by end users.
Once your domain name is registered on a global blacklist – at the time of writing there are 92 – it can be challenging to get it removed. Typically, there’s no one to contact. For some blacklists, not all, there is a removal request form, although completing the form is unlikely to elicit a response, so you are left to assume it’s been received. And you wait.
You’ll need to sit tight until the domain is no longer ‘seen’ by the system as being the source of spam emails. How long that takes is anyone’s guess, but it’s not unusual for it to be 2-3 weeks.
More importantly, once the domain has been blacklisted, it becomes very difficult for any emails – not only marketing emails – to get through to recipients. The emails are either blocked before being received or are redirected to the recipient’s spam folder. Worse than that, Microsoft has a reputation for permanently blocking emails from domains that were previously blacklisted, making it near impossible to send emails to outlook.com , msn.com , hotmail.com (and their respective country equivalents) or onmicrosoft.com , the temporary domain used whilst migrating email services to Office 365.
Check your domain You can check your own domain name to see if it is listed on any of the blacklist databases here :
Who marks your emails as spam?
In essence, anyone who feels your emails are unsolicited and sent to them without their consent may be likely to mark your emails as spam. Neither has to be true, of course, it’s just what they think or how they feel at the time.
And if they’re a disgruntled customer receiving your regular updates, the chance of them marking your newsletter email as spam rises exponentially.
Whether built or bought, email lists will often include a percentage of personal email addresses such as those from Gmail, Yahoo, GMX, BTconnect, Outlook, Hotmail, Virgin, etc. Some business owners still use email services that are typically meant for non-business users, but the majority will most likely have come from a source, such as exporting LinkedIn contacts, where the account holders often add their personal email address in the contact details section of their profile rather than their work or business email address.
When those people receive your business email newsletter, several things can happen. The recipient’s email platform may recognise your email as having all the hallmarks of an email newsletter and will mark it as such (Google’s Gmail adds a ‘promotions’ label, which hides it from your inbox), so the recipient is more likely to unsubscribe. Or, worse still, mark it as spam. That, in itself, is a pretty good indicator that their personal email address should never have been added to your mailing list because you didn’t ask their permission, and they were, therefore, not given the opportunity to opt in.
Having your emails repeatedly marked as spam is a serious issue. It can have wide-ranging consequences that can literally be disastrous for your business.
However, unless you’re proactively obtaining low-quality, high-volume email lists and blasting your messages out to all and sundry (in which case you deserve it), it’s highly unlikely you’ll fall foul of the blacklists.
Not enough talk about the importance of brand in email. Customers don’t sign up for email – they sign up for your brand ~ Bob Frady
10) Frequently Asked Questions 6-10
6. What is the best time to send marketing emails? There are several factors that can influence how important the time at which you send your newsletters is. For example, if your business is eCommerce/product-based and aimed at mums, you might be right to consider sending your newsletter mid to late morning. And, if your business is a restaurant or bar, perhaps evenings and weekends might be better.
The ‘best’ time will vary depending on your audience, so it’s important to know if your particular audience will most likely be receptive at a particular time or day.
You might want to consider the time difference if you’re in the UK and your audience is in the US.
However, most people are active on their mobile phones from when they wake up to when they go to sleep, so there is an equally strong argument for simply sending your newsletter whenever it’s convenient for you.
7. How do I ensure my emails are opened? The first things people see when your email arrives in their inbox are the sender and the subject line. To increase the chances of your email being clicked on, make sure the sending domain name AND the name of the account itself clearly identify you or your business and that your subject line is concise and compelling.
If they click to read your email, grab their attention by greeting them with their first name, e.g. ‘Dear Michael.’ Under no circumstances should you use their full name, as this immediately looks like spam. If your data is good, there is no reason why you would not have your recipients’ first names.
8. What’s the difference between a soft bounce and a hard bounce in email marketing? When an email isn’t delivered to its destination, it is effectively returned to the sender and bounces [back].
A soft bounce is a temporary delivery issue. It means your email has been rejected and not delivered. The cause of the temporary failure may be that the recipient’s inbox is full, or it could be some other temporary technical issue, such as a problem with the recipient’s server. Typically, the sending’s mail server will automatically retry and will repeat this over several days until the email is successfully delivered or is considered a failure, at which point it becomes a hard bounce.
A hard bounce indicates a permanent delivery issue. Most likely, it’s an invalid email address because the recipient no longer works at the company. It may be because there’s a mistake in the email address. Most email marketing platforms will automatically move hard-bounced email addresses to the suppression list to prevent them from being sent again. Tip: Check the email address for all hard-bounced emails to see if there is a mistake in the email address. If there is, you will need to correct it and manually move it back to the send list.
9. How can I make my emails more engaging? To enhance engagement, there are several key areas for you to consider:
10. What is A/B testing in email marketing? A/B testing, or split testing, involves sending two slightly different versions of an email, one to each of a small group of recipients, to see which performs better. You can test elements like subject lines, email content, or the CTA (Call To Action) buttons. The more successful version is then sent to the remainder of your list.
For example, let’s assume your recipient list is 10,000. You could send version A of your newsletter to 1000 recipients and version B to another 1000 recipients. If version B performs better, measured primarily by open rates and click-throughs, you then send version B to the remaining 8,000 recipients because you’re likely to get a favourable response.
Most professional email marketing platforms can perform this function automatically based on the criteria you set.
but monitoring engagement rates and adjusting accordingly is important. Avoid overwhelming your audience with too many emails as this can easily lead to people unsubscribing or even marking your emails spam.
11) Round-up and Key Takeaways
As the journey through the world of email marketing continues, Part Two delves into the strategic decision-making that shapes effective campaigns. The debate between building versus buying email lists serves as a focal point, highlighting a common crossroad faced by marketers. Building a list organically promotes deeper engagement and aligns with stringent GDPR standards, ensuring a foundation of trust and compliance. In contrast, the allure of buying lists for quick scalability is tempered by risks of low engagement and potential legal pitfalls.
Part two unpacks the metrics – the stats – that gauge the success of email marketing efforts. Delivery rates, open rates, and click-through rates are not merely numbers but reflections of a campaign’s health and its resonance with the audience. There is an emphasis on taking stats seriously but not devoting your life to them.
The section on spam highlights its detrimental impact on marketing because of the risk of genuine emails being flagged as spam, which can lead to severe consequences like blacklisting, tarnishing both reach and reputation.
Through a blend of practical advice and best practices, Part Two guides you towards ethical and effective email marketing strategies that prioritise consent and engagement, ensuring long-term success and compliance with legal standards.
12) Terminology Navigator 11-20 (you will find items 1-10 here)
11. Email Automation: The use of software to send emails automatically based on triggers or schedules. This can include welcome emails for new subscribers, follow-up emails for memberships and purchases, and, with the appropriate consent at the data level, birthday or anniversary emails. It’s a way to send timely, personalised communication to subscribers without manual effort.
12. Responsive Design: Designing email content to ensure it displays optimally across various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This is crucial as a significant number of emails are read on mobile devices. However, using any of the many professional email marketing platforms will make this easy, as they will all use responsive templates.
13. Deliverability: The ability of an email to reach the recipient’s inbox. Factors affecting deliverability include sender reputation, email content, recipient engagement, and compliance with email-sending practices. Several of the above are controlled by the recipient’s firewall/spam protection systems in place. Bigger companies tend to have stricter protocols in place and will test more elements of an email or newsletter.
14. List Hygiene: The practice of keeping an email list clean by regularly removing inactive subscribers and correcting or deleting invalid email addresses.
15. Personalisation: The technique of tailoring emails to individual recipients based on personal data like name, past purchases, browsing behaviour, industry sector, etc. It’s used to create more relevant and engaging email content.
16. Email Analytics: The collection and analysis of data from email campaigns. This includes open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more. Analytics help in understanding the effectiveness of email marketing strategies and in making informed decisions.
17. Whitelisting: The process by which email recipients add an email address to their list of approved senders, ensuring that emails from this address are delivered to their inbox rather than the spam folder.
18. CAN-SPAM Act: A law in the United States that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have emails stopped from being sent to them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
19. Email Header: The part of an email that includes the sender’s name and email address, the recipient’s name and email address, the subject line, and the date and time the email was sent. Typically, this is hidden from the standard user view and is most often required for technical support.
20. Email Footer: The bottom section of an email that typically contains contact information, legal disclaimer, unsubscribe links, and social media icons. It’s an important area for compliance with laws like the CAN-SPAM Act and the GDPR.
If your content isn’t driving conversation, you’re doing it wrong ~ Dan Roth
Coming up in Part Three
By now, you should have a pretty good understanding of the potential pros and cons of email marketing. You should understand the right way to approach it in order to get the best results and the pitfalls to watch out for to help avoid it going horribly wrong.
As with so many things in life, the devil is in the detail, and it’s the detail, or perhaps the lack of attention to it, that catches out so many people who are in a hurry to blast out thousands of emails just because they can. Don’t be that person.
In part three of this series on email marketing, we discuss the right things to do. This includes both best practices for avoiding your newsletter emails being trapped by spam filters and adopting ethical practices in email marketing and your marketing in general.
Finishing off the series will be a list of dos and don’ts. The everyday tips that will keep you out of trouble.
More insight at The Marketing Alliance