Email Marketing RulesEmail Deliverability Quarterly: Gmail Launches BIMI Pilot, DigiCert-Valimail Partnership, and More
Posted on October 6, 2020
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, Daniel Deneweth, Heather Goff, Clea Moore, and Brian Sullivan explain how the following news and events will impact marketers’ email deliverability:
- Gmail Launches BIMI Pilot
- BIMI Gets a Boost with DigiCert-Valimail Partnership
- Final Text of CCPA Approved
- Gmail Launches Postmaster API
- Internet Giant J2 Global Acquires Kickbox
For the full discussion of each of these issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on September 2020
Posted on October 5, 2020
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Developer preview of AMP for email in Outlook.com – no longer supported (Microsoft)
Email Comes in Third in Driving Online Purchases, Study Finds (MediaPost)
Your Face Here: Creating illustration guidelines for a more inclusive visual identity (Airbnb Design)
3 Ways to Get What You Want by Doing Your Homework (Copyblogger)
New Blogging Statistics: Blogging still works, especially for the 10% of bloggers who do things very differently… (Orbit Media Studios)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Even Buzzfeed makes email booboos sometimes 🍁😭 pic.twitter.com/fO7NoSWrTN
— Becs Rivett-Kemm (@becskr) September 3, 2020
Stop. Writing. Email. Copy. That. Says. “Learn more about X here” or “Click here to learn more about X.”
— Morbidda Destiny 🧙🏼♀️ (@EmailSnarketing) September 9, 2020
How to make email more readable:
✉️ Use real HTML live text
↕️ Give your copy space to breathe
💪 Create a strong hierarchy
👉 Use italic/bold for emphasis, but sparingly
🚫 Avoid centered copy— Litmus (@litmusapp) September 15, 2020
Noteworthy subject lines
VS PINK, 9/3 – PINK GIRLS VOTE! Get ready for election day!
Michaels, 9/19 – 🎅 🚂 Next Stop: Lemax Christmas Village! 2020 Collectibles Are Here ->
ModCloth, 9/14 – Witch better have my candy. 🧙♀️
Home Depot, 9/10 – 🎃 Make the Most of Halloween 🎃
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 9/10 – Kickoff football season with Lowe’s.
Bed Bath & Beyond, 9/30 – Same Day Delivery with Shipd—get it TODAY! 📦 🚚 ** Redeem your 20% coupon.
Dollar General, 9/5 – DG Pickup: Order ahead for free and pick up on your schedule.
Banana Republic, 9/24 – Introducting Banana Republic Rewards Program
Sephora Insider, 9/19 – Your points have been building up. See how far you’ve come this year.
GapCash, 9/25 – New face masks are here!
Crate and Barrel, 9/13 – Home bar remix: The Calder collection.
Uncommon Goods, 9/9 – 🎂 🍹 Happy Birthday distance-toasting: let’s make it a thing.
Office Depot, 9/19 – Seating to meet every need
ModCloth, 9/6 – At home, but make it fashion.
Nordstrom, 9/10 – Fall’s top five pieces
DICK’S Sporting Goods, 9/24 – Cool-Weather Essentials 🍁 + Up to 50% Off This Week’s Deals
Target, 9/5 – Cozy season is just around the corner…
Target, 9/14 – Garden-less greens: a fresh look without the fuss 🌿
VS PINK, 9/13 – 🍑 perfect Seamless is always IN!
Gap, 9/19 – Try our Untucked Shirt. Never go back
Gap, 9/10 – Wearing a bra never felt more comfortable
ModCloth, 9/14 – Feminist finds that are one-of-a-kind.
Zales, 9/13 – Saying Thank You Makes The World A Better Place
Home Depot, 9/29 — S•U•P•E•R • S•A•V•I•N•G•S
Omaha Steaks, 9/15 – This $25 E-Reward Card is yours, Chad!
Eddie Bauer, 9/16 – Eddie Bauer x Sub Pop Limited-Edition Flannel
Foot Locker, 9/1 – This is COLLABORAID. Dropping soon.
West Elm, 9/19 – Inside: Our free Design Crew transformed this NYC apartment
Michaels, 9/30 – What will you create for this week’s art prompt?
Petco Foundation, 9/9 – Has your adopted pet changed your life?
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Understanding Email Click Rates
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Seeing Into the Future With Oracle’s Chad S. White
How 5G Wireless Will Impact Marketers
Understanding Email Open Rates
On-Demand Webinar: The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
ZeroBounce: Focus on Managing Subscribers, Not Campaigns
Posted on October 1, 2020
I recently joined Corina Leslie for an interview on the ZeroBounce Blog. We talked about everything from how to learn more about email marketing to the biggest mistakes email marketers make to what to keep in mind this holiday season. For instance, Corina asked…
- How did you get into email marketing?
- How did you learn so much about email? What or who do you credit as your best sources?
- I know you wrote a whole book on the topic, but what’s your no. 1 email marketing rule?
- What are some of the biggest mistakes you see email marketers making?
- What’s the first thing you say to someone who complains about low open rates?
- Please give us one thing anyone can do today to improve their email marketing performance.
- With the holiday season coming up, what are some of the things senders should keep in mind?
- What is something you never get tired of talking about?
For all of answers to those questions and more…
>> Read the interview on the ZeroBounce Blog
Understanding Email Click Rates
Posted on September 30, 2020
Marketing metrics are just numbers. Without the proper understanding and context, you can’t turn these numbers into the valuable insights you need to make better tactical and strategic decisions.
In this series of posts, we’ll look at a variety of marketing metrics, discussing how to measure each one, how to use each one, and how to benchmark your performance. In this post, we’re examining email click rates. We’ll explain:
- How Click Rates Are Measured
- How to Best to Use Click Rates
- What Is a Good Click Rate
For a detailed look at each of those issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Seeing Into the Future With Oracle’s Chad S. White
Posted on September 25, 2020
After a sobering spring, the 2020 holiday season is looking like it may be one of the riskiest and challenging in decades. That’s the focus of episode #28 of the Delivering podcast, where Litmus’s Jason Rodriguez and I talk about:
- The most beneficial lesson to come out of 2020
- The pressures on email programs to be lean and efficient
- The long list of major challenges around this holiday season
- Whether leaning on plain-text designs can help with holiday email production pressures
- How to “par bake” your holiday campaigns to accelerate development
- How the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday holiday weekend is likely to go this year
- The need to stand out in the inbox during the highest volume days
- Two secret weapons to help brands stay relevant during the holidays
- How to make your automated emails more effective during November and December
- What should marketers focus on in a post-COVID world
- Where are email budgets and headcounts headed
- The kinds of email tactics that marketers are largely avoiding currently
- The upcoming release of our fourth quarter Holiday Marketing Quarterly checklist
For a discussion of each of these issues…
>> Listen to the Delivering podcast on the Litmus blog
P.S. This is my second time on the podcast. My first was for Episode #3 of Delivering when our discussion was entered on email analytics and asking the right questions.
How 5G Wireless Will Impact Marketers
Posted on September 22, 2020
When 5G wireless networks and devices start to take hold later this year, they will fundamentally change consumer behavior and open up new marketing opportunities for companies, as well as new pitfalls. It’s a game-changer because 5G wireless is roughly 10 times faster than today’s 4G networks and provides much more accurate location information. Just like the arrival of 4G made it possible for services like Uber and Lyft to launch, 5G will be the catalyst for a new wave of tech giants.
In this post from Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Jonathan McClure, he discusses how 5G wireless will change consumer behavior and then how marketers will need to adapt. He recommends that marketers focus on:
- Adding more video
- Building richer website designs
- Creating richer email designs
- Taking advantage of more precise location-triggered messaging
- Explore the mainstreaming of VR and AR
- Tightening up omnichannel orchestration
- Adapting to increasing privacy concerns and controls
For all the details about how 5G wireless will impact businesses…
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Litmus Live Week: The Factors that Affect Email Deliverability
Posted on September 21, 2020
Inbox placement often feels like it’s out of marketers’ hands. However, the truth is that businesses have a tremendous amount of control as to whether inbox providers view their emails as safe or spam. That was the overarching message of my presentation at Litmus Live Week last week.
To help empower marketers to take full ownership of their deliverability, I discussed the seven factors that affect sender reputations and detailed exactly what is included in each factor. Because email marketing is constantly evolving, I also pointed out how each of the factors has changed over the years and debunked some myths about deliverability.
Litmus has now made the on-demand recordings of 60 Litmus Live Week session available for free viewing, including my own session on email deliverability. Check out my session, which begins at the 5:36 mark, to gain a clear understanding of exactly what actions to take and which to avoid in order to have your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes more consistently.
>> Watch the on-demand recording
Understanding Email Open Rates
Posted on September 15, 2020
Marketing metrics are just numbers. Without the proper understanding and context, you can’t turn these numbers into the valuable insights you need to make better tactical and strategic decisions.
In this series of posts, we’ll look at a variety of marketing metrics, discussing how to measure each one, how to use each one, and how to benchmark your performance. In this post, we’re examining email open rates, which are easily the most misunderstood email marketing metric—by a long shot. We’ll explain:
- How Open Rates Are Measured
- How to Best to Use Open Rates
- What Is a Good Open Rate
For a detailed look at each of those issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on August 2020
Posted on September 9, 2020
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Email Superstar: Channel Seen As A Top Engagement Tool, Post COVID-19 (MediaPost)
Email Marketing Performance Has Skyrocketed. How Should Strategies Evolve in a Pandemic? (AdWeek)
Most Consumers Will Not Shop In Stores This Black Friday (MediaPost)
10 Incredible Women of Email (that you may not have heard about yet) (Knak)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
SMTP will be 40 years old in 2022! It’s time to start planning a big world party, right? #emailgeeks
— Jonathan Loriaux (@jloriaux) August 27, 2020
Tik Tok
YouTube
Podcast
Events
Webinars
Direct Mail… but I’d trade them all for an email list.
— davegerhardt (@davegerhardt) August 2, 2020
Spun up a bunch of new spamtraps over the weekend and I’m getting a 10% increase in trap traffic benefit. In just a single day (so far). Amazed.
— Al Iverson’s Spam Resource (@spamresource) August 10, 2020
False scarcity is lame. pic.twitter.com/x6xeHi9k98
— Kurt Elster 🛒 (@kurtinc) August 6, 2020
Noteworthy subject lines
Big Lots, 8/6 – Your Halloween Headquarters!
Office Depot, 8/8 – Back to school: Changing the way that we learn
Michaels, 8/6 – Get what you need for school—no matter where you learn.
Michaels, 8/2 – Aced it: Deals and DIYs to get you ready for any teaching environment
Target, 8/6 – Deals on school supplies 🖍️
Uncommon Goods, 8/16 – Grill it. Shake it. Chill it. Make it the best Labor Day ever.
Neiman Marcus, 8/31 – Match your mask to your dress
MoMA Design Store, 8/18 – New! Masks & Face Coverings
Petco, 8/29 – Easy ways to thank your ‘quaran-team’ buddy 🐶
Crate and Barrel, 8/22 – BYOB: Be your own barista.
Express, 8/29 – Staycation inspiration + FREE shipping and 50% off 3+ items
Banana Republic, 8/6 – RSVP: Backyard Bash
Williams Sonoma, 8/2 – How to set your summer table
Zales, 8/18 — 🚗 Second Stop on Our Summer Virtual Road Trip: Charleston!
Michael, 8/18 – Looking for a new DIY? 👀 Join the resin obsession!
The Home Depot, 8/14 – Design Your Garage Door with Clopay®
DICK’S Sporting Goods, 8/14 – Deals to Help You Stay Active 🎣 👟 ⛳
Bass Pro Shops, 8/14 – We’ve got everything you need for a great hunting season!
Eddie Bauer, 8/8 — 🏕️ Tonight’s The Night! Let’s Sleep Under The Stars
ModCloth, 8/26 – Did someone say FREE dresses!?
Everlane, 8/26 – “Comfort level = 100.”
Bonobos, 8/20 – New(!) & On Sale(!!): 30% Off New Fall Arrivals(!!!)
Victoria’s Secret, 8/6 – Own your confidence in our #1 bra collection
Crate and Barrel, 8/8 — $1000 for your thoughts.
Quiksilver, 8/16 – Plastic bottles look good on you
Moosejaw, 8/26 – Check out who inspires us: The Blackalachian
Eddie Bauer, 8/22 – ENDS TOMORROW! Get 40% Off When You Sign Up For Rewards Via Text
Trailer Life Magazine, 8/22 – Vote Now! 2020 Readers’ Choice Awards
West Elm, 8/30 – End tomorrow! Win a 6-month HBO Max subscription *AND* $500 from us
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
On-Demand Webinar: The Email Subscriber Lifecycle
On-Demand Webinar: The Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs
EmailTalk Podcast: The Impact of Coronavirus on Email Marketing with Chad White
On-Demand Webinar: The Questions to Ask Instead about Email Marketing ROI
On-Demand Webinar: Keep Optimizing Email Marketing Webinar
On-Demand Webinar: Choosing the Best Days to Send Email Campaigns This Holiday Season
On-Demand Webinar: The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
Posted on September 8, 2020
The most critical email deliverability questions are YOUR QUESTIONS, especially during this time when so many companies and email programs have been disrupted and are under so much pressure. To help you get the answers you need, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Email Deliverability Services team got together to answer pre-submitted and live questions about a range of issues that fall under the umbrella of email deliverability.
During this attendee-driven 57-minute webinar, we answer questions about:
- The biggest deliverability challenges of 2020 so far
- The value of BIMI and how to take advantage of it
- How to get into Gmail’s Primary tab—and whether that’s a good idea
- How to safely send full-file transactional emails
- The ISPs that have been the most challengingly lately in terms of deliverability
- The pros and cons of double opt-in
- The value of Sender Scores
- Win-back campaign best practices
- And more
By the end of the webinar, you’ll have a better understanding of all of those issues, plus advice that’s grounded in the challenging times we’re experiencing right now.
>> Watch the on-demand webinar on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
