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The Essential Email Marketing Glossary-Know the game before you play it
Games of chance are very exciting. The dangers and the associated mystery with it make it extremely appealing. One of the biggest games we play today is with our own businesses. We have left far too much to chance and it has its repercussions. Knowing the rule book and playing within its scope is what makes for success. Email marketing can be highly technical sometimes and this can offset any industrious email marketer.
Knowing one's way around email marketing is the key to understanding campaign parameters. When we set up these parameters, we need to know if they are aligned with our goals and do they have the flexibility to change with respect to the need of the hour. For a campaign to do its best, the sender should know exactly what they are getting into. Procuredata has been in database marketing for well over a decade and this experience has taught us one thing, technical terms are not difficult to comprehend, and once you decipher them, its smooth sailing from there.
We have put together some of the top terms that are often used in this industry. You may know some, and some may come as a surprise, but if you know all of them, there is no element of surprise left, and that makes for a very successful email marketing campaign.
The list has been put up randomly and not according to its importance in the process
- Bounce rate: this is the rate at which mails are undelivered. A good bounce rate hovers below 5%, if it is higher; it is time to rethink strategies. There are 2 kinds, soft and hard bounce.
- Email filter: Software, tool, bot, and any code designed to filter emails according to various parameters such as content, graphics, subject lines, spam etc.
- False positive: when a genuine permission based email gets blocked, filtered or spammed for various reasons.
- Black List: A set of ISP�s that are used for spamming
- Click through rate: The percentage of readers who clicked on a URL you attached to the email.
- Sender Score: a reputation score, usually from 1-100. Email servers access your sender score before deciding on letting you through.
- SPF - Sender Policy Framework- a DNS (technical file) that shows the receiving server, on whose behalf the mail has been sent.
- Opt-in - Agreement to allow email marketers to send messages pertaining to a particular subject only.
- Opt-out - The email subscriber who has clicked on the unsubscribe button, which means they have opted out of the list and do not wish to receive any further mails.
- CAN-SPAM - Does not mean you can SPAM, it is the acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. It is a global standard which marks your text as spam.
- Double Opt-in - After the opt-in process, authenticate process by sending confirmation mail and action to be taken detailed within.
- List segmentation - Selected group of individuals/organizations who are deemed fit to receive your email marketing messages. Data providers prepackage these lists for faster delivery.
- Open rate - percentage of emails opened to the mails sent.
The list can go on, but the point of the matter is that these are some of the most commonly heard terms and some of them are surprisingly mistaken or have lost their meaning. Email marketing can be a very exciting affair, if these parameters, scores and issues are carefully dealt with. Learn these up and make a serious effort to spot them while running your next campaign.
