Is double or single opt-in considered the best practice?
Should my subscription landing pages have prechecked or unchecked boxes?
When, if ever, do I remove inactive email addresses from my database?
The answer to the 3 questions above - as well as pretty much every question related to email marketing best practices (or “common practices” as Morgan Stewart calls them) is:
It Depends
During last week’s Email Evolution Conference, I was joined on stage with several of my email colleagues as we presented our cases for the “industry best practice” for each of the 3 questions above. During “The Great Email Debate,” we each took a stand as we offered evidence (opinion?) for what we believed to be the answer.
After each person pled their case for 5-7 minutes in front of audience members, Email Experience Council founder, and long-time email industry guru, Jeanniey Mullen, asked for a show of hands to vote on which side “won.” On the first round of voting, several people abstained from taking a side. When pressed, they said, “Well…it depends.”
This got me thinking (dangerous, I know). At some point, nearly every single client, colleague, or C-level’er I speak with about email marketing asks questions similar to those above. They are often looking for a definitive answer. However, rarely is a “yes or no” or “do this, but don’t do that” answer acceptable. It depends. It almost always depends.
Bill McClosky created quite a stir with last week’s ClickZ article titled, “Are You Really, Really Sure?” As you read through the comment section, you’ll notice that most of the lambasting of Bill is around just this point. It depends.
Taking a definitive stand on an email marketing best practices will certainly drum up more pageviews, comments, follow up blog posts, etc. However, this controversy can often be short-sighted. This is not a knock on Bill as I tend to agree with much of what his article argues. However, in the email industry, we are all guilty of taking often controversial stances (myself included). Often there is pressure to pick one side or the other…to offer the “best practice.” Heck, my title even includes “Director of Best Practices” in it!
From this point forward, I’d like to challenge everyone in the email industry - this includes those giving as well as receiving advice - to accept the fact that “it depends” is a valid answer. “It depends” followed by concrete examples - specific to the situation, the industry, the segment, the individual - is okay.
Practice saying it now. Go ahead.
It Depends
DJ Waldow
Director of Common (Best) Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
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DJ - Great post!
Best practice doesn’t always mean right for your business or guaranteed to work for YOU.
Every suggestion or idea needs to be considered uniquely depending on the circumstances at hand.
This is what makes my job advising clients so much more challenging and exciting - debating and discussing what makes sense for them and their specific business goals.
I would say, though, that some dangerous practices that people ask about would not be eligible for an “it depends” answer. These would include things like buying email lists, completely deceptive subject lines, etc.
This “It Depends” stance truly highlights the extreme importance of testing - a practice that tends to fall by the wayside for busy marketers.
DJ, you know I adore you, but I have to respectfully disagree. When it comes to COI and pre-checked check boxes, “best practices” is *always* use COI, and don’t use pre-checked check boxes.
Best practices means quite specifically “what does the industry” (or the world) consider “best practices”. Because you may choose to not use them in your business does not change that they are best practices. It’s kind of like jaywalking - you may decide that for *you* it is better to cross in the middle of the street and not be late for an appointment rather than to go to the end of the block and wait for the pedestrian light, but that doesn’t change that it’s still *not* the law, and it’s still jaywalking.
More importantly for email senders, the ISPs and spam filters consider them best practices. Because there *are* generally agreed upon ‘best practices’ - if you are having trouble delivering your email into a particular ISP and you *aren’t* using best practices, you are going to have a very difficult time convincing that ISP to start delivering your mail again. No ISP is going to be impressed with “Well, yeah, that’s best practices, but it doesn’t really work for us, so we aren’t doing it.” And they are going to be even less impressed with your saying “They aren’t really ‘best practices’, they are just ‘common practices’.” They *are* generally-accepted industry best practices, and have been defined so for years. To try and reclassify them is disingenuous and, with apologies to Christians and non-Christians alike, akin to renaming the 10 Commandments to “the 10 Suggestions”. It just ain’t so. COI has been considered a best practice since at least Email Deliverability Summit II, and that was back in September of 2003 (http://isipp.com/news20030917.php).
Our job at ISIPP SuretyMail is to provide our email sending customers with superlative delivery into the inbox, and we do just that. However, if we were to start advising our customers that “you don’t really have to follow industry best practices if they don’t work for your business”, their deliverability would plummet, and they would blame us for steering them wrong (and rightly so). In fact, what we *do* tell our accredited email senders is that they *can* choose to not follow industry best practices, but then they *will* experience a hit on their email deliverabilty, with more and more of their email going into the junk folder, and if they choose to not follow our advice on how to get maximum inbox delivery, then that is *their* choice, for which we cannot be held responsible.
Anne
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq
CEO/President
Institute for Social Internet Public Policy
http://www.ISIPP.com
Member, Cal. Bar Cyberspace Law Committee
Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of SJ
Author, “The Email Deliverability Handbook”
Helping businesses get their email delivered to the inbox since 1998
Email Accreditation: http://www.SuretyMail.com
Email Deliverability Blog: http://www.GettingEmailDelivered.com/
It Depends. It really does. As we try to always drive clients down the DOI path with emailROI we also see that in some cases DOI might not work as well where COI or SOI would. Now would love everyone to use DOI but it all depends on your practices, goals and marketing challenges. I know I am not truly giving you an answer here… as… it depends. But lead with DOI and figure the rest out later.
Of course it depends. It will always depend.
First, the actions of other email marketers influence our own best practices, and always will. If everyone else sends on Monday, your Monday email won’t do as well. It’s a symbiotic system.
Second, we should embrace it depends, not run from it. We are allowed to say “it depends” and mean it because all premises are testable in email marketing. Do you know why TV and radio and print and direct mail and outdoor don’t say “it depends”? Because they have no way of proving the case either way.
To me, “it depends” is a huge strength of email, not a weaknesses. But, I’d rather we say “it’s testable” - speaks more to the heart of the opportunity.
Great post DJ. And excellent job on the panel.
Anne,
I think there is a distinction between permission marketing policies that should be followed (ie jaywalking is illegal and you could get caught) and best practices. Permission marketing policies are based on CAN SPAM regulations and laws, as well as behaviors that are deemed “spammy”, like buying a list. Best practices are more of advice and tips for how to get into inboxes and potentially increase response in your emails, like the use of preheaders and re-engagement campaigns.
To go back to DJ and Kristen’s points, it does depend on the business you’re in whether you choose to utilize a best practice or not; but there are established “common”/permission marketing policies that ESPs (like Bronto) implement to protect reputation. I’m not entirely convinced that COI falls into this category. ISPs have little opportunity to use COI as a determining characteristic of a spammer, they (mostly) base their decision on reputation and content.
Pre-checked boxes is another practice that I think remains a best practice that could work for some businesses and be a really bad idea for others. I believe it all depends on the language around the pre-checked box (are you correctly setting expectations?) and the welcome email you send after (another best practice, but not required). Marketers that have a pre-checked box do not automatically suffer deliverability-wise, which I believe is the distinction you are making between mandatory BPs and suggested BPs.
Finally, just because something is industry accepted today doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow, as appears to be the case with DOI.
-Kelly @ Bronto
Are there “best practices”? Sure, sender authenication is a best practice. Is suppressing spam complaints a best practice? Yep.
Is using DOI a best practice? Sometimes…. And I think that’s the impetus of much of this discussion….
Let me share a little real world experience that I’ve shared a couple of other times on the DOI v. SOI debate:
I worked for a $.75bn dollar company and generated about $30mm/annually through the email channel using SOI while maintaining a bounce rate of less than 1%, a fluctuating complaint rate rarely above the minimum acceptable rate, and with a 89-92% average deliverability quotent. And that’s on a list of between 3.5-4mm records.
If I’d have gone to my V or C-level management and told them that we needed to switch to DOI I’d have been thrown out. If I’d have told my V or C-level management that our ESP insisted on DOI they’d have told me to find another vendor or take the $1mm we spent annually with our vendor and put that money into an in-house system.
My only point is that not all “best practices” always fit all situations.
There is a fine line between suggesting a “Best Practice” and attempting to define the business policies of a company that you don’t own.
While I like Anne’s jaywalking analogy, jaywalking isn’t against the law in every town in every state. Some countries require DOI, the US does not. Therefore, in countries that require DOI, DOI is a best practice simply because it’s the law.
But my big question is, who is going to break the news to retailers and anyone else that they have to scrap their abandoned order programs because the recipient didn’t DOI?
Once again DJ, you’ve outdone yourself with this post.
I’d like to comment on inactives, of which recently there has been some excellent discussion.
I use to think that inactives were a “burden” on a marketers list and may involve hasty decisions by marketers to purge subscribers, segment inactives, or choose to no longer mail due to a diminished ROI.
But then, I realized that markets may want to give theses “snoozers” on the lists much more than just the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I believe we should reward subscribers based on list “tenure,” (basically the length of time they’ve been on a list), even though they are not active.
Subscribers are very intelligent people and if they want off your list, they’ll pull the trigger. However, (recognition) should be awarded not only for longevity on a marketers list but further reward for those subscribers that are active and not necessarily buy. So, in a nutshell, to preserve a list markets may want to recognize, praise, thank and reward those subscribers who have chosen to receive your email,in stealth mode.
As many have already said, there are indeed many “best practices” that should be followed by everyone. And then there are OTHER “best practices.” Some of them are aspirational. Others fit in most cases. Business goals, management, etc. all have to be taken into consideration. “It depends” isn’t always the right answer, but sometimes it is.
DJ It really does depend…
Truthfully that is often times my answer - it’ll work for one mailer and fail miserably for another… why? Because 99% of the time clients will expect different things from mailers. Even companies with multiple lines of business might see success when they utilize a some new mailing practice to one house file and thinking it will work on another list they see it fail…
Why? Because:
* It depends on your list and the content your sending them - different segments and audiences will not react the same
* It depends on your brand and the message - how people view who you are with who they are
* It depends on the timing of the message - This is an old argument (Day/time of week - guess what IT DEPENDS too)
* It depends on your permission and the expectations you set when collecting email and name
* It depends on the alignment of the moon and the stars… ;) j/k
There are so many factors that can be looked at that might cause an issue, or resolve one… in many cases the answer is “It depends”.
Matt
@emailkarma
DJ - the answer is always “it depends” in marketing. But that doesn’t mean there are no best practices. Common or otherwise.
If you want best practices, read a book (heck, I’ll send you ours!) or download a whitepaper. These have real value.
However, what is really valuable is APPLYING that best practice to your business. That’s why it’s hard to say in absolutes that any practices, including pre-checked boxes, is always right or always wrong.
I think buying an email list is always wrong. Pre-checked boxes work well and have very little negative repercussion for many retailers. I think double opt in can be valuable, may even improve your response rates, but is only the right answer for specific types of email marketers (e.g.: third party mailers and anti-spam associations).
Those are my opinions based on lots of real world experience and an operating philosophy centered around the subscriber experience.
Does it make them best practices? Probably not. But it does have value if you are trying to benchmark your program or identify a starting point.
Thanks for the always thoughtful posts!
Cheers,
SAM
@StephanieSAM
DJ,
Great take - I am with you 100%.
And echo Jason B.’s comment that it’s a strength - this stuff is all [relatively] easy to quantify and test. We should keep an open mind, a consumer centric attitude, and ride shotgun while the data drives.
Great seeing you in Scottsdale; looking forward to next time.
n.
Fred,
You write:
“But then, I realized that markets may want to give theses “snoozers” on the lists much more than just the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I believe we should reward subscribers based on list “tenure,” (basically the length of time they’ve been on a list), even though they are not active.”
That is a dangerous practice. More and more ISPs - particularly webmail providers - take open rates and CTR into account in their decision as to whether or not to deliver your email to the inbox, or to the junk folder. Their reasoning is that if their users can’t be bothered to read your email, or click through on it, then they probably don’t really want it, so why should they deliver it to the inbox?
Anne
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq
CEO/President
Institute for Social Internet Public Policy
http://www.ISIPP.com
Member, Cal. Bar Cyberspace Law Committee
Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of SJ
Author, “The Email Deliverability Handbook”
Helping businesses get their email delivered to the inbox since 1998
Email Accreditation: http://www.SuretyMail.com/
Email Deliverability Blog: http://www.GettingEmailDelivered.com/
I like this quote a lot by Jason Baer: “I’d rather we say “it’s testable” - speaks more to the heart of the opportunity.”
One of the beauties of Email Marketing is the plethora of testing variables. It’s a mad scientists dream.
Oh no, we may have to reason, ethics, and judgment. How frightening!
Great post.
Great comments!! After reading, and re-reading everyone’s comments I am convinced that best practice is really an ‘it depends’ base.
Anne Mitchell’s first comment about ‘it depends’ not really applying was very convincing; but based on my day by day experience, and the comments of others it really depends on the strategy and the goals that you want to get. It would be nice to have specific rules, but that would take the fun out of my job, wouldn’t it?
Holy Comments! Thanks everyone who joined in on this wonderful conversation. I usually try and reply back to all that commented, but sometimes…in the words of Chris Brogan…you need to just sit back and listen.
I’m confident that the true value of this discussion is not as much in the content of the actual post…but in the comments of those engaged in the conversation.
Thanks again to all who commented.
dj
–
DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
@djwaldow
I think “It Depends” and “Make it testable” are perfect because it has to depend on your market and the nature of the decision you’re trying to get your population to make.
In my case (a college degree), in the instance of a decision that incurs 4 years of time, money, sacrifice, etc., people tend to take much longer to make the decision that it would take to buy a car, or buy an iPod.
“Best practices” have to start with your intended customers, then go from there.