email | Internet Marketing Blog

66% of marketers say email delivers 'excellent' or 'good' ROI

Two-thirds of marketers (66%) state that email delivers an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI, with 8% of businesses achieving more than half of their sales through this channel.

The findings come from the new Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, which shows that despite the ever-increasing toolkits and techniques available to marketers, email still holds its place as a channel that offers a strong ROI.

The 2013 version of this report covers new and changing trends within this key marketing channel, and its integration with other areas of marketing and key business functions.

But in spite of the strong potential for delivering a great return in investment, companies are spending too little time on optimisation of campaigns compared to design and content.

by David Moth 04 April 2013 09:59am 2 comments

Five uncommon ways for ecommerce retailers to segment their email list

It’s “divide and conquer” when it comes to email lists. Your analytics team is charged with putting your customers into their respective buckets.

Then it’s the job of the marketing and creative teams to come up with relevant messaging targeted to each segment.

Marketers are familiar with the traditional types of segmentation, such as gender, age, location and engagement.

These types of segmentation pay (literally), however, it can be even more rewarding to dig a little deeper into your list and find the correct segmentation for the job.

Following are five less-common methods of segmenting your list.

by Michael Linthorst 02 April 2013 10:21am 0 comments

Why you should make it easy for customers to contact you

Customer service online is all important, and businesses should be making it easy for customers to contact them to resolve any issues.

However, some sites seem determined to prevent, or least make it difficult for you to contact them. Whether through missing or hard to find contact details, charging for customer service calls, or taking weeks to reply to emails.

Perhaps these firms think they are saving money or easing pressure on customer service staff by doing this, but I fear they are just annoying the hell out of their customers, which is rarely a good idea.

by Graham Charlton 25 March 2013 12:53pm 31 comments

10 interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week

Here are some of the most interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week.

Stats include mobile strategy, interactive and outdoor advertising, email open rates, and online customer service.

For more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.

by Graham Charlton 22 March 2013 13:02pm 3 comments

This week's top six infographics

Once again we round up six of the best infographics we've seen in the past week.

The topics include social media demographics, creative employment, Google+, and when to post on Facebook...

by Graham Charlton 22 March 2013 10:48am 7 comments

Switching email providers: eight steps for Australian businesses

It's no secret that in the last few years many major email service providers (ESPs) have set up an Australian presence, offering businesses access to a variety of advanced email marketing features, along with local client support.

Additonally, it's also widely acknowledged that email is an important marketing channel for any business - often being the most-utilised digital channel by marketers - but within this, partnering with the right email service provider is crucial to success.

by Ben Liau 13 March 2013 22:00pm 3 comments

Abandoned basket emails: the good, the bad and the ugly

With 73% of shopping carts left to become idle, abandoned basket retargeting is a key part of the digital marketing mix.

It might be that users are price checking, or that they intend to complete their purchase later or on a different device, so in truth, these may not all be genuine abandonments.

Either way, with the help of analytics integrations or third-party suppliers, marketing managers are proactively trying to recover that 'low hanging fruit' through abandoned basket emails, and with different creative treatments, messaging and abandonment times, there is quite a spectrum of tactics being employed to do so.

Unfortunately, as with a lot of campaigns it seems that 'getting it live' is where attention ends, leading to little or no ongoing optimisation.

So I thought I'd take a look at some of the good, the bad and the ugly of what I've seen recently whilst shopping online.

by Rhian Simms 11 March 2013 10:21am 10 comments

How to effectively segment your data

It's a well-known fact that relevance is one of the points to focus on when sending promotional email messages to your customers. Data is relevance!

The data you gather from your customers and store into your central database provides you with tools to create relevant and timely messages.

By segmenting your marketing database into relevant target groups, you are on your way to get the most out of your customer data.

by Michael Linthorst 08 March 2013 10:22am 0 comments

Report: Australian marketing emails missing the mark

20% of emails sent by Australian brands do not reach the intended inbox, with 2% being sent to spam and the other 18% going missing or being blocked.

This problem gets even worse if the intended reader is a Dodo or Optus subscriber, as only 57% of legitimate email were delivered to these inboxes in 2012.

In contrast, 92% of marketing emails reach their target inbox in New Zealand, with only 8% going missing.

by Claire Brinkley 05 March 2013 22:00pm 2 comments