Opening: Systematic testing helps you understand your audience and optimize your email campaigns effectively.

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It's all about analyzing the data that you're getting back and setting up meaningful tests that can tell you something about your consumer base and how they behave in the email channel... It's really looking at the data and then talking about what conclusions we can draw from that.

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Takeaway:

• Implement A/B testing to refine subject lines, content, and design.
• Use testing to gain insights into customer preferences and behaviors.
• Regular testing leads to data-driven improvements and better campaign performance.

Opening: Catchy subject lines can drive opens, but they may not always translate into increased revenue.

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...The best subject line I ever had an email client send was just oops and the pancakes emoji, and it got a ridiculous open rate. It was like a newsletter and they got a ridiculous open rate cause oops is like just about the best subject line you can send, but does it entice your core buyers? Does it just drive interest? And if it drives interest, does that interest translate to things that affect your bottom line?

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Takeaway:

• High open rates don't always correlate with higher sales.
• Focus on subject lines that attract your target audience and prompt action.
• Analyze the impact of subject lines on revenue, not just engagement metrics.

Opening: A successful email marketing team needs diverse skills to handle the complexities of the channel.

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I think you need cross-disciplinary teams and honestly I'll say this, I think it's largely a matter of, you know, staffing resources and brain space and time to think about these things, cause I've personally never met an email marketer that didn't have at least like 50 things screaming for their attention...

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Takeaway:

• Build teams with varied expertise, including data analysts, designers, and strategists.
• Cross-disciplinary collaboration leads to more effective email campaigns.
• Adequate staffing allows for better focus on critical tasks and innovation.

Opening: Industry benchmarks are helpful, but your own historical data is the most valuable metric for improvement.

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The big thing I would say is always compare yourself to yourself. People are always asking me and other deliverability professionals... What's a good open rate? What's a good click rate?... The best thing comparing yourself against yourself... always be striving for incremental growth and data will tell you, you know, how to prioritize that and where you can find it.

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Takeaway:

• Use your own performance metrics to set goals and measure progress.
• Focus on continuous improvement based on your historical data.
• Personalized benchmarks provide more actionable insights than generic industry averages.

Opening: When deliverability problems arise, effective communication with postmasters can aid in resolving the issues.

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...Write them a little bit of a novel. Tell them, you know, what the issue was, and then tell them, you know, how you're owning it and what you're doing to fix it, or what you have done to fix it, and, and how you're going to prevent it from occurring in the future...

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Takeaway:

• Provide detailed explanations of the issue and steps taken to resolve it.
• Approach postmasters with contrition rather than anger.
• Transparency and responsibility can help restore your sender reputation.

Opening: A security incident can severely impact your email deliverability, but proper steps can help you recover.

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In both cases, it really hurt their Gmail reputation, cause the way that the email ecosystem really works is... If you develop a reputation for poor security, I would say mailbox providers feel it is incumbent upon senders to provide the secure for the security of their web infrastructure... they may start blocking your traffic for security reasons...

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Takeaway:

• Address security breaches promptly and communicate with mailbox providers about the resolution.
• Implement two-factor authentication and other security measures to prevent future incidents.
• Show contrition and detailed corrective actions when reaching out to postmasters for remediation.

Opening: Unsecured email intake forms can expose you to security threats like list bombing, affecting your deliverability.

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If you don't have your email intake infrastructure secured, that can impair your deliverability cause they're just web crawlers out there constantly looking for vulnerable forms. If you, you know, gosh, here's my rants of the day, you know, at least put recapture on your site. I think version 3 is the current one...

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Takeaway:

• Implement CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA on your email signup forms to prevent bots and malicious attacks.
• Securing your forms protects you from list bombing and other exploits.
• A secure intake process improves deliverability and maintains sender reputation.

Opening: Leveraging data science can help you make better decisions and optimize your email marketing strategy.

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We're ultimately what we're working our way towards, yeah, is incorporating a more scientific approach to email marketing and leveraging the data that clients have to help them make better decisions that are backed by, you know, statistical evidence...

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Takeaway:

• Utilize data analysis to identify correlations between email activities and revenue.
• Implement data science techniques to optimize subject lines, send times, and content.
• Data-driven strategies can improve engagement and increase conversions.

Opening: Many marketers wonder if increasing email frequency leads to higher revenue, but the answer isn't always straightforward.

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We actually tested this in a lot of cases, sending more email correlates to higher revenue, um, and that whether that's, you know, what you have to kind of figure out inside of that we're still working on is, OK, just sending more email to the same people. Make you, you know, sending multiple email, more email per period of time, per week, per month, whatever, to the same segment, or, you know, cohort. Uh, does that make you more email, or just hitting a wider cohort, you know, expanding your engagement criteria, those are the things you work your way into through testing.

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Takeaway:

• Increasing email frequency can lead to higher revenue, but it's important to test and analyze the impact.
• Evaluate whether sending more emails to the same audience or expanding your audience yields better results.
• Use data-driven testing to find the optimal email frequency for your campaigns.

Opening: Email marketing generates a massive amount of data, but many teams lack the resources to analyze it effectively.

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Here's my argument, every email team should have a data analyst, or at least, you know, every email program of a sufficient size. If you're cranking like a billion emails a month and email is one of your primary revenue drivers... you've got to invest in that testing and that data analytics to know what direction you need to keep going.

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Takeaway:

• Having a dedicated data analyst helps you make informed decisions based on statistical evidence.
• Investing in data analytics allows you to find actionable insights and improve your email strategy.
• Data-driven decisions can lead to better performance and increased revenue from email campaigns.