Email Testing Best Practices

Email testing is the catalyst between email marketing goals and the tactics needed to reach them. As a result, there are many options for testing on each email metric.

To help marketers sort through all of these options, eROI, a Portland, Ore.-based interactive and email marketing agency, recently published a report titled Effective Tests for Every Metric of an Email Campaign. The guide includes 32 tests designed to improve each aspect of email marketing campaigns. Here are some test suggestions from the report:

Delivery rate

• Whitelist. Ask recipients to whitelist your email address. Include ‘‘how-to’’ instructions that make it easy for recipients to add you to their safe sender lists.
• List scrub. Perform careful list hygiene, including list scrubbing.
• Complaints. Follow up on all spam complaints. Listening to subscriber concerns can reveal valuable insights to improve deliverability.

Open rate

• Sender recognition. Test the use of company name versus personal name in the “from” line.
• Subject line, long versus short. Try a subject line that has less than 60 characters versus one that has more than 60 characters.
• Subject line, offer. Lead with your main offer to pique interest.
• Subject line, calls to action. By including the call to action in the subject line, you can be up-front about what you want the recipient to do.

Clickthrough rate

• Copy, content. Test keeping your content simple, direct and targeted.
• Offer, percent versus dollars. Depending on the offer, presenting it as a percentage off versus a dollar amount off can make an impact on its effectiveness.
• Calls to action, type. What works best? A button? A linked image? Try a variety to see what works best with different segments and campaigns.
• Segment. Analyze different segments’ past behaviors, such as purchase histories, email click histories, site visits, etc. Then tailor different offers and messaging to each group.

Unsubscribe rate

• Relevant content. Try sending segment-specific content.
• Frequency. Test frequency to learn what recipients prefer, or let recipients choose their own frequencies.
• Trust issue. Be up-front and have a winning privacy policy.
• Remind them. Many people forget they opted in. To keep subscribers from leaving, try using a double opt-in or messaging that reminds them why they're receiving your emails.

Conversion rate

• Prepopulation. Try prepopulating forms with name, shipping address and other known information pulled right from your email database.

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