Blog - Email Marketing Rules

ZeroBounce: Email Marketing Tips to Help You in 2021

Posted on January 28, 2021

I join 9 other email marketing experts in sharing my advice about how to succeed with email in the year ahead in this post on the ZeroBounce blog. My advice centers on how open time behaviors have changed during the pandemic and how adoption of send time optimization has increased significantly in response to those changes.

I start my advice by saying:

“The ‘best time to send’ has forever been a moving target, but no more so than during 2020 when the pandemic caused a spike in unemployment and a shift to work from home that led to significant changes to subscriber behaviors. Some of our clients saw significant boosts in email engagement by changing their email send days to traditionally less popular days, such as Saturday and Sunday. Also, some experienced boosts from changing their send time or, better yet, adopting send time optimization, which sends your emails based on each subscriber’s previous open times.”

To read all of my advice, as well as the advice of the 9 other contributors…

>> Read the entire post on the ZeroBounce Blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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2020 Email Marketing Holiday Season in Review

Posted on January 26, 2021

2020 Holiday Email Marketing Season in Review

The 2020 holiday season was chaotic and irregular because of the pandemic, a contentious election, and consumers’ financial challenges. Email marketers struggled with those issues, which led to mixed performance results, although email marketing still delivered a high return on investment.

Overall, email volume was up 9% year-over-year during the fourth quarter holiday period, according to data from Oracle Marketing Consulting based on a panel of more than 40 major national B2C brands using the Oracle Responsys Campaign Management platform. In fact, email volume was up every week except during election week, when now-proven-false allegations of election fraud and the threat of violence caused retailers to close stores and pull back on their marketing efforts.

Over the holiday period, email open rates trended nearly identical to last year, finishing up 0.8%. On the other hand, email click rates over the holiday season finished 6.3% below last year’s level, and revenue per email was down 5.8% year-over-year as well.

This blog post goes on to discuss…

How demand was pulled forward earlier in the holiday season
How marque shopping days underperformed
How email churn has remained low
Which sectors under- and over-performed
How trends during the 2020 holiday season might affect this year’s holiday season

For a full discussion of each of those issues…

>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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Holiday Marketing Quarterly: First Quarter 2021 Checklist

Posted on January 20, 2021

First Quarter 2021 Holiday Marketing Quarterly

Oracle’s Holiday Marketing Quarterly gives B2C brands a quarter-by-quarter checklist for how to achieve more during the critical holiday season with their email marketing and other digital marketing channels. Along with guidance on planning, strategy, and prioritization, you’ll get advice and tips from some of Oracle Marketing Consulting’s more than 500 digital marketing experts.

Our first quarter guide contains a 27-point checklist and is focused on seizing opportunities, mitigating risks, learning from the just-passed holiday season, and starting to make the larger structural and programmatic changes necessary to succeed during the next holiday season. It covers six areas:

Holiday Post-Mortems
Seasonal Buyer Reactivations
Email Deliverability Recoveries
Automated Email Optimization & Growth
Creative Refreshes
Upgrades & Expansions of Your Tech Stack

For details on each of those areas…

>> Download the 20-page Q1 2021 Holiday Marketing Quarterly

Posted by Chad S. White

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Best Uses & Best Practices for Animated Gifs

Posted on January 19, 2021

Animated Gifs - Best Uses & Best Practices

Until there’s better support for animated PNGs, CSS animation, and video in email, animated gifs are the safest and easiest way to add motion to your campaigns. And once you’ve created an animated gif for an email, you can reuse it in social media and other digital marketing campaigns. We use them regularly with both our B2C and B2B clients to great success.

Animated gifs are effective for:

Video previews
Highlighting product options, such as different colors, patterns, sizes, or configurations
Displaying an assortment of products
Product demonstrations or service instructions, whether it’s showing how a dress flows or how a backhoe can remove a boulder
Reveals, including before-and-afters and price/discount reveals
Mobile app and software demonstrations or navigation instructions
Conveying urgency (think: countdown clocks)
Drawing attention to calls-to-action
Atmospheric feel (think: fireworks, rain, falling snow)
Humor

However, there are some concerns you should be aware of when using animated gifs. For a full discussion of those…

>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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Coherent Path Podcast: Coherent Thoughts with Chad S. White

Posted on January 15, 2021

I join Coherent Path CEO James Glover on the Coherent Thoughts podcast to talk about:

The biggest misconceptions around email
The value of having universal holdout groups
Focusing on maximizing the value of a subscriber, not the value of a campaign
How lobbying by merchants can distract email marketing from serving subscribers
How AI and machine learning can help marketers focus on their customers
How email marketers can be more efficient and save time
Avoiding graphical text
What marketers need to do differently compared to 12 months ago
Which brands are sending me emails that I look forward to receiving
Whether personalization is ruining America and making us more polarized

For a discussion of each of these issues…

>> Listen to the Coherent Thoughts podcast on the Coherent Path blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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The Best Use Cases for Live Content in Emails

Posted on January 12, 2021

The second you send an email, the content in it starts to age. While some content is evergreen and maintains its relevance until whenever your subscribers open your email, other content has a limited lifespan, after which it’s considerably less useful—or completely useless. However, live content can make sure that your content is fresh no matter when your email is opened.

That’s because live content is populated at the time that an individual subscriber opens your email, not at the time that you send it. This not only ensures that your email content is timely, it also allows marketers to include content in their emails that would be difficult to include otherwise.

While image caching by Gmail and Yahoo Mail can sometimes short circuit live content, it’s still powerful. In fact, because of live content’s unique benefits, Oracle Marketing Consultants consider it to be a low adoption–high impact email marketing trend, which means that using live content offers not only significant benefits but also a competitive advantage.

Live content is most effective when used to display content that changes rapidly. Here is our list of the use cases where we think it delivers the biggest impact:

Live countdown timers
Account dashboards
Real-time inventory
Live poll results
Device targeting
Calendar invites
Live sports scores, medal counts, etc.
Local weather
Local maps
Social media feeds

In this blog post, Oracle Consulting’s Nick Cantu talks about each of those in turn.

>> Read the entire post on on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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Webinar on Jan. 21: Modular Email Architecture

Posted on January 6, 2021

Modular Email Architecture webinar - Jan 21 at 1pm ET

Classic email templates are becoming obsolete. They are difficult to maintain, don’t offer enough flexibility, make personalization cumbersome, and take too much time to turn into a final email campaign that’s ready to send. Because of all of those weaknesses, more companies are migrating to modular email architectures and reaping significant improvements.

In this webinar, we’ll explain:

How modular email architecture differs from traditional email templates
The benefits of having a modular email architecture
The popularity and adoption rate of this way of creating emails
What’s involved in building a modular email architecture
How Oracle CX Marketing Consulting and our clients use modular email architecture

You’ll leave this webinar with a clear understanding of how modular email architecture can speed up your email production, improve your testing, increase your use of personalization, and more.

Modular Email Architecture: The Next-Generation Email Template
Date: Jan. 21, 2021
Time: 1pm ET/10 am PT
Duration: 1 hour

Your presenters:
Jason Witt, Senior Director of Creative Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Nick Cantu, Senior Art Director for Creative Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Chad S. White, Head of Research, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting (moderator)

>> Register for this free webinar

Posted by Chad S. White

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Email Deliverability Quarterly: Gmail’s Spam Rate Recalculation, CPRA Passes, and More

Posted on January 5, 2021

Email deliverability is constantly changing, as inbox providers adjust their filtering algorithms, blacklists tweak their listing criteria, and consumers evolve their definition of spam. That’s why even the best email marketing programs suffer deliverability problems sometimes.

To help you avoid trouble, the Email Deliverability Services team at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting shares the latest news and tips for what to watch out for in our latest Email Deliverability Quarterly.

In this post, Brian Sullivan, Clea Moore, and Shine Lyui explain how the following news and events will impact marketers’ email deliverability:

Gmail recalculates their Spam Rate
California expands CCPA with passage of CPRA
Yahoo Mail supports AMP for Email

For the full discussion of each of these issues…

>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog

Posted by Chad S. White

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The Last Word on December 2020

Posted on January 4, 2021

A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…

Must-read articles, posts & reports

The Future of Email Marketing & Marketing Automation | 2021 edition (EmailMonday)

Why Successful Marketers Always Invest in Email Marketing (Email on Acid)

What’s the optimal width for your email design? (Taxi for Email)

SparkPost Marketing Leader and Email Practitioner Surveys Reveal 72% of People Feel Overworked (MarTech Series)

The BOPIS Way: Consumers Are Shopping Online And Picking Up In-Store This Season (MediaPost)

Insightful & entertaining tweets

Too many email programs are not ready for all https in 2021. Get those SSL certs stat folks.

— 𝔸𝕃𝔼𝕏 (@alexcwilliams) December 17, 2020

Companies be tryna blend their unsubscribe button in with their regular font but imma find that bitch every time pic.twitter.com/EM97ZusXW0

— Cooch Hall (@guinep_paltrow) December 17, 2020

Had to be done #emailgeeks pic.twitter.com/nXjqTU6OIq

— Paris Fisher (@ParissFisher) December 19, 2020

Noteworthy subject lines

Walgreens, 12/10 – Questions about the COVID-19 vaccine? We’ve got answers.
T.J.MAXX, 12/31 – NEW IN: these gym outfits are GOALS
Dollar General, 12/31 – 🥂🎉 Countdown to 2021 at home.
NORDSTROM, 12/19 – Instant Outfit: NYE at home // Earn $50 to spend! Details inside.
Macy’s, 12/26 – After Christmas Sale = the perf time to use that Gift Card
NORDSTROM RACK, 12/26 – The Gift Yourself Event starts now!
Express, 12/26 – Time for self-gifting 🎁 40-60% off EVERYTHING
Zales, 12/26 – Didn’t Get Everything You Wanted For Christmas?
Everlane, 12/26 – The Goodbye 2020 Event Is Now Open
The Home Depot, 12/25 – Merry Christmas to All Our Doers 🎄
Zales, 12/25 – 🎄 Happiest Of Holidays From Zales! Open for Our Gift to You!
Burlington, 12/25 – Wishing you the merriest of Christmases
Saks Fifth Avenue, 12/25 – From all of us at Saks, happy holidays
Bed Bath & Beyond, 12/24 – 20% Off ENTIRE purchase w/Curbside! Shop our 🎁 gift guide + EXTENDED holiday hours! Plus, take these coupons!
Wegmans, 12/24 – Need Holiday Help? We’re Here Until 6pm!
Tractor Supply Company, 12/23 – Order Through Our App and Get Last Minute Gifts Before Christmas
Panera Bread, 12/23 – eGift cards make holiday gifting quick & easy.
Victoria’s Secret, 12/19 – Holiday Hint: eGift Cards guarantee the perfect present.
Patagonia, 12/23 – Let them choose
Applebee’s, 12/10 – 🎁 Buy a $50 Gift Card, Get a $10 Bonus!
Neiman Marcus, 12/20 – Need it by 12/25? Free shipping by Christmas + 60% off
Eddie Bauer, 12/20 – Last Day For Free Guaranteed Delivery By 12/24
Uncommon Goods, 12/15 – It’s not too late (yet) to ship holiday gifts
Bass Pro Shops, 12/11 – Great clothing ideas to finish up your Christmas shopping
Williams Sonoma, 12/17 – Re-create restaurant steaks at home + order now for Christmas delivery
Uncommon Goods, 12/9 – Cool, cute, and clever stocking stuffers for the win 🎄
Foot Locker, 12/15 – 🎁🎄 Gift slippers, shoe cleaner, bags + tons of other A1 stocking stuffers
Sears, 12/10 – GIFTS: Foodie 🥩 Techie 💻 Fitness Guru 🏋️ DIYer 🔧
Saks Fifth Avenue, 12/17 – What comedian Hasan Minhaj is gifting his family this year
Saks Fifth Avenue, 12/3 – Saks Chief Merchant Tracy Margolies shares her holiday picks
Moosejaw.com, 12/2 – 🚨 FINAL HOURS – for 50% Back in Moosejaw Rewards
Express Cyber Sale, 12/1 – BONUS DAY: Cyber Tuesday is here! Big Deals from $15
Crate and Barrel, 12/13 – How to create a cozy outdoor oasis this winter
Staples, 12/8 – Remote worker or learner? This deal’s for you.
Gap, 12/17 – Wear this puffer, save plastic bottles!
GapCash, 12/5 – You’ve got $40 in free GapCash waiting—use it on EVERYTHING!
Moosejaw.com, 12/31 – FREE $10 for doing almost nothing.
VS PINK, 12/31 — $1,000,000 to strengthen the mental health of young adults