Email Marketing Campaign
Guidelines
Marketing campaigns have a wide variety of objectives including brand awareness, database numbers, sales targets and of course timelines and budgets. With Email Marketing in particular, it is important that we select the right type of campaign to meet these objectives.
The world of Email Marketing is relatively new in comparison to traditional methods such as TV, print and radio and as a result can be a minefield for those advertisers new to this form.
The purpose of this document is to assist advertisers and agencies in designing an Email Marketing campaign best suited to their budget and marketing objectives. Topics covered include:
• Campaign Guidelines • Campaign Creative • Creative Specs
CAMPAIGN GUIDELINES
COST PER RECORD (CPM) COST PER CLICK (CPC) COST PER LEAD (CPL)
EMAIL FORMAT HTML or as advertiser request.
HTML & Text. We need to have one approved text email and one approved HTML for publishers to choose at their discretion. Long creatives with little or no "call to action" will not be accepted as a CPC campaign.
HTML & Text. We need to have one approved text email and one approved HTML for publishers to choose at their discretion. Long creatives with little or no "call to action" will not be accepted as a CPC campaign.
SUBJECT LINES
As per advertisers request. Split testing available on request. (Maximum of two splits otherwise additional cost of $300 will be charged per additional split).
As per publisher discretion to
encourage better open rates. As per publisher discretion to encourage better open rates.
SCHEDULING Campaign will be live 24 hours after signed IO and approved creative received.
Campaign will be live 24 hours after signed IO and approved creative received.
Campaign will be live 24 hours after signed IO and approved creative received.
TRACKING
Email Open and Click through stats are taken direct from Email platforms used to deliver emails. Additional tracking such as "Goal Conversions" may be placed at the advertiser request and will be provided via Yango’s tracking system.
YANGO Media's tracking system will track gross clicks and unique clicks. Advertiser will only be charged for unique clicks. Additional tracking may be implemented such as "Goal Conversion" at the advertiser request at no extra charge.
YANGO Media's tracking system will track unique clicks and lead conversions. Advertiser will be charged for all leads tracked in our system. Additional tracking may be implemented such as "Goal Conversion" at the advertiser request at no extra charge.
TIMEFRAMES
1 - 2 Days for delivery. Report
will be delivered within 5 business days after the last send was scheduled to allow for residual traffic.
2 weeks. Reports will be
delivered at campaign completion.
2 - 4 weeks. Reports will
be delivered at campaign completion.
REPORTS
Full Reporting, including:1) Total Number of emails sent 2) Total Number of email opened 3) Total Number of emails clicked on 4) Graphs 5) Suggestions for campaign improvement based on results.
Limited Reporting including:1) Total Clicks 2) Suggestions for campaign improvement based on results
Limited Reporting including: 1) Total Leads 2) Conversion rate 3) Suggestions for campaign improvement based on results.
COMMENTS
Campaigns will be sent to exact specifications from advertiser including creative and subject lines and full reporting will be available.
Client must provide flexibility to allow publishers to get the best results in terms of open and click throughs. Only approved creatives will be sent.
Client must provide flexibility to allow publishers to get the best results in terms of open and click throughs. Publishers have flexibility to modify creative copy including subject lines to improve open and click throughs.
EMAIL CREATIVES
The average professional gets nearly 100 emails every day. To manage this high volume, people are moving through their inboxes quickly, looking only for the information they need and want. In Australia the number of smartphone users currently stands at 9.73 million, around 40% of total mobile users are triaging their inboxes, deleting anything that seems irrelevant.
So, how do email marketers break through the clutter to reach their customers and drive results? The answer is simple: 1. Develop compelling subject lines
2. Personalize your messages
3. Short-burst communications and strong call to action SUBJECT LINES
No more than 50 characters, to ensure your message is effectively received by most email browsers.
Subject lines are required to accurately reflect the content of the body message and must not be misleading in order to comply with either the Australian Spam Act or the US/Canada Spam Act.
TIP: Be creative without being misleading. Creative suspense so the reader is forced to open the message and find out more.
PERSONALISATION
Our network of lists has personalisation so there is no excuse not to use “First Name” within the body of the email. The more personalise the message, the greater chance of response.
EMAIL CREATIVE SIZE AND CONTENT
As with subject lines, short and sweet is best. Remember, in most cases, the purpose of the subject line is to get people to open the email, the purpose of the email is to get people to click through to your website and the purpose of your website is to sell. You should NOT be selling in your email, just deliver the main points of your campaign and make it irresistible for someone to click through on the email. A strong “Call to Action” will help
If your campaign is designed around brand or product awareness, then this is where you would have all of the information on the email and would be delivered on a CPM (Cost Per Record) only.
EMAIL SIZE
Your HTML message should be between 550 and 570 pixels wide. This size will look best in most email browsers, including web-mail such as Hotmail and Yahoo.
Remember, many email readers will first see your message in the preview pane of their email browser. For maximum impact, it is therefore essential the message is formatted to look good in this sized space. We recommend the HTML content should be around 30kb with a maximum of 40kb.
STYLE SHEETS
Avoid the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in email as some of the most common web-mail applications apply their own style sheets, or provide poor implementation of CSS. Wherever possible, use “in line” styling within the body of the email.
LAYERS
Avoid the use of layers in your HTML email, as many commonly used browsers are still unable to read them. Tables remain the best way to position images and text.
PLAIN TEXT VERSIONS
YANGO Media Pty Ltd broadcasts in a format called multi-part. This format allows a plain text alternative message to be broadcast along with the HTML message.
Those email browsers that are unable to view HTML should have the plain text version load automatically. IMAGES AND LINKS
All graphics will be stored on a YANGO server prior to sending the email. You must supply images in email format or the URL of where the image if currently located. A combination of images and text should be used as spam filters use this equation to evaluate the legitimacy of the email.
You should also ensure that the alt tags are completed. This is to ensure that readers do not see a “blank” screen prior to displaying images on their email browser.
SSL COMPLIANCE
Many publishers and exchanges are moving to supporting only HTTPS creatives. HTTPS creatives gain access to inventory in secure environments as well as everything else, YANGO therefore recommends using HTTPS (SSL Compliant) creatives and/or HTTPS 3rd party ad-serving impression and click tracking tags.
SERVER LOAD
Before you do a large HTML mailing, be certain your server can handle a lot of hits simultaneously. As per Terms and Conditions you will be charged average conversion rates for server downtime.
ATTACHMENTS
Given high proliferation of email viruses on the internet and the associated suspicion, YANGO Media does not allow the use of attachments with commercial broadcasts.
EXAMPLE CREATIVES
It is imperative that the type of campaign (CPL, CPC or CPM) has been selected around the type of creative.
Branded campaigns with little or no call to action are terrific for increasing brand awareness however would not be accepted on a performance basis. Bare in mind, that there is a cost associated with every email that is sent, so working on a performance basis, it is equally important that both the email list AND the email creative perform.
Below are a few examples of email creatives which have worked well in the past. INCENTIVES:
Insurance is a difficult product to get people excited about, but as you can see below, by adding some really nice
incentives encouraging subscribers to click through on emails and obtain a quote in this instance massively helps increase not only the click through and response to the email campaign, but also the on page conversion. Fantastic way to get the best ROI on your marketing budget.
TEXT TO HTML RATIO:
ISP’s (Yahoo, Gmail etc) like to see a large portion of the email text based. As you can see by the creative below, it has a good branding message, lot’s of information in text version and also a nice strong call to action.
INCENTIVE VALUE:
TEXT ONLY CAMPAIGNS
If the advertiser doesn’t have creative, OR, if the creative is not conducive to a performance based campaign, YANGO Media will run text copy within their own header and footer templates. These campaigns consistently get higher open and click through rates so work well on CPC and CPL campaign. A combination of the two creative’s is recommended.
LANDING PAGES
It is one thing getting the traffic to your site from email, the next hurdle, is to get that traffic to convert. This is where a dedicated landing page, with NO other navigation distracting the subscriber exists. It should solely focus on the promotion and nothing else.
Here are a few examples of high converting landing pages. You will notice the nice clear easy sign up forms and incentives to join. Also, the only option for the subscribers, is to sign up, or to leave the page – ie they can’t navigate away without entering in their details.
