DDMA's National E-mail Benchmark 2018 provides insight into the effectiveness of e-mail campaigns and shows what makes a campaign even more effective. Such as the moment of shipment or the use of a specific technique. Various industries are also under scrutiny. In this article I share 5 insights based on the benchmark and I go into e-mail marketing automation in relation to the benchmark.
Note: in this article I quote the terms COR ( confirmed open rate ), CTR ( click through rate ) and CTO ( click to open rate ). The term mobile devices ('mobile') refers to the use of mobile phones and tablets.
Insight 1. The success of your e-mail marketing does not depend on the size of your database
Do not just focus on collecting as many e-mail addresses as possible, but spend (more) time segmenting and personalizing. The benchmark 2018 is based on 4.5 billion e-mails sent in 177,000 campaigns. A campaign size of more than 10,000 has a negative impact on ratios according to the benchmark. The smallest campaign size group, from 500 to 1000, has the largest positive impact on the COR.
More relevant and personal
Campaigns with a smaller size score better. This does not necessarily mean that campaigns with a smaller database always score better. What is more likely is that smaller-sized campaigns are more specific, more relevant and more personal. This makes them better suited to the public.
With regard to the number of campaigns sent: companies that send a maximum of 10 campaigns per year have a higher COR, CTR and CTO. This compared to other organizations. So think carefully about what you want to achieve. In any case, do not stalk your receivers, but rather opt for a number of surprising, segmented and personalized super campaigns.
Insight 2. Enable personalized subject lines and dynamic content
You have already read about the benchmark about the techniques that have been included in the research and its effect in this article . The personalized subject line is one of the techniques. I find it striking that this technique is only applied by 7%, while this has the greatest impact on the conversion ratio.
During the E-mail Summit, last Thursday, June 21st, Dela Quist showed during his presentation that on average 5x more people read the subject line, compared to the e-mail itself. So work on the store as far as your subject line is concerned!
What I also find shocking: dynamic content is not yet applied in more than half of the campaigns. And if it is applied, it does have a positive effect on the ratios.
You can easily personalize a subject line by inserting database fields. Even more fun when you show everyone a personalized subject line. Dynamic content has long since ceased to be future music, but daily reality.
A / B testing as standard procedure
Muscle diseases in the Netherlands, for example, achieves incredibly high open rates (up to 67%) by automatically placing the 10 most relevant articles, which are determined separately for each reader, in their newsletter. The title of the best scoring article is then also placed in the subject line.
Another example: if you are an e-mail marketer at, for example, a stock exchange building, you can easily extend conditional content from your newsletter into the subject line. For example, someone visits the Motor Show and the Vakantiebeurs. In the newsletter about the Vakantiebeurs, the person sees conditional content about motor vacations, because it is likely that this type of holiday attracts the attention of the recipient. You can easily extend the conditional content in the subject line to achieve the highest possible open ratio. "Marco, the most fun motor vacations you will find at the holiday fair."
What is still too little done in our field is A / B testing on the subject line. This is evident from our own statistics, but I also hear this from fellow workers. Mastercard, for example, test more than 50% of the (subject lines of) campaigns with A / B (C / D) tests. The e-mail with the best scoring subject line is then sent. A standard procedure.
So get started with A / B testing of your subject line and make a standard procedure for this. You will see that another subject line can really make the difference in ratios. The use of conditional subject lines is then a very nice step that gives you a lot of profit. And A / B testing, conditional subject lines and conditional content are often available for free at your ESP.
Tip
A nice tip: from an A / B test recently carried out by FrieslandCampina, it turned out that it works better (1.5% higher open ratios) to put the first name first in the subject line. "Jasmine, view these offers", works better than "View these offers, Jasmijn".
Insight 3. Keep with your content mobile first
39% of all campaigns are opened on a mobile device and 61% on a desktop. This is a -1% (!) Difference in opens on mobile, compared to last year's benchmark. For B2B, opens and clicks on the desktop even rise far above and clicks on mobile.
In some sectors (such as Hospitality 60%, Leisure 58%, Recreation 53% and e-commerce 51%), mobile opens have already outpaced the desktop. Although mobile use is stagnated and you should not be stared at it, it is important to keep contentwise mobile first . Too much text damages an e-mail that is opened on mobile.
Do you create from a desktop variant? Small adjustments in the design on the desktop version can make a big difference for your display on mobile. Check for example how your buttons and images are displayed on mobile. Are they always nicely centered? Do you want to display content on mobile under or next to each other? Do the different items have sufficient space around them? Padding is often misused.
However logical it may sound, many nicely formatted e-mails are still not displayed correctly at the receiver. Always check in advance how your e-mail looks on different devices, from desktop to tablet and mobile and see how your e-mail is displayed in combination with various ISPs.
Insight 4. Learn from other sectors and competing colleagues
The benchmark states that B2B has slightly higher open and click ratios than B2C, although there are minor variations. This can be explained by the fact that addresses are often carefully collected and because in many cases there is already a customer relationship. As I mentioned in the previous insight: although B2B companies can no longer stay behind, most of the opens and clicks in this sector are still being realized on desktop. (opens: 76% desktop versus 24% mobile | Clicks: 77% desktop versus 23% mobile).
All sectors (both B2B and B2C) - except the retail - send most e-mails on weekdays. It is striking that 'retail e-commerce' opts for a proportional distribution for Saturday and Sunday (13.6% | 13.8%). While 'retail mixed' has a very clear preference for sending e-mails on Sunday (25.1%) and the Saturday (4.1%) is the day on which they send the least e-mails.
What is special is that there are sectors (for example 'automotive' and 'agriculture and horticulture') that have made significant successes and have increased enormously in the use of techniques and ratios. For example, automotive has the highest increase in COR and 'good causes' is the hardest riser in all ratios.
For example, there are all sorts of interesting things to be derived from the benchmark if you study it properly.
Keep an eye on your neighbors
What can you learn from your own branch or from other industries? Keep an eye on your neighbors and make sure you do not walk behind. Before you know it, other branches and competing colleagues are a number of steps ahead of you. Sign up for a newsletter / campaign from an organization from a totally different branch or just that of a colleague. See what you can do better or take over. Sometimes better well stolen than badly conceived.
email campaign
Insight 5. Automate campaigns
No automated campaigns are included in the benchmark. This is because of the measurability, which is often still difficult. Nevertheless, I find it valuable to mention automation as a fifth insight, because the biggest profit from e-mail marketing is achieved with automation.
The benchmark shows that automated campaigns or automatic e-mails, which are sent 1-on-1, have a lower shipping volume and therefore better results. These e-mails are sent on the basis of actions or the lifecycle of a recipient. They are more relevant than an average newsletter.
The winning DDMA e-mail campaign of the year, FrieslandCampina's lifecycle campaign, is only about automating. The campaign , which we have set up for the Eurosparen platform, is the answer to the question: how can every consumer, after registration on the platform, be guided and seduced as best as possible to become active on the one hand and to remain active during the first 100 days ?
The lifecycle campaign consists of a number of e-mail experiments that are based on insights, available consumer data and hypotheses. The campaign has a welcome campaign and triggermails , processed in various e-mail flows. The welcome campaign (consisting of more than 100 different, automated e-mails) is completely personalized. The triggermails are also personalized and aim to prevent churn . As soon as someone logs in less frequently and threatens to become inactive, timed e-mails are sent containing relevant content. The result? A conversion improvement in cross and upsell of 35%.
Thinking of e-mail flows
Now not everyone can immediately go as high level as in this case, but I still advise you to automate as much as possible. There is a huge amount of profit to be gained. Anyway saving time. Everything stands or falls with the proper thinking of e-mail flows. Think about the desired personal follow-up communication after every action from your reader. As simple as follow-up communication after whether or not to open an e-mail, to the inclusion of click data. This way you know exactly in which phase the lead is located and you can 'tip the ball' when the person is sales ready . Automation therefore increases your conversion guaranteed.
Every great thinker has ever started small. Start with a simple flow, for example an automatic birthday email with a discount. Send a reminder email a few days later. Then build up your flow step by step.
Discuss the benchmark with your team
Finally, I would like to advise you with regard to the benchmark: discuss the benchmark during a team meeting. Who noticed? Who can investigate or pick up what insight?
In any case, let's make sure that this benchmark does not just stay on your desk, so that we can achieve an even higher COR, CTO and CTR next year. For your organization, but also for the e-mail marketing sector in general. We do it together for that!
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