Top 7 Questions About Email Marketing

1-What is considered a decent click-through rate for an email?

This is going to depend on what type of email you're sending. Transactional emails such as order receipts or confirmations have the highest click-through rate, followed by newsletters, with promotional emails having the lowest CTR of all. It makes sense -- think of how much more engaged a brand new customer is with your brand (someone who might receive an order confirmation email), compared to someone who is just periodically staying up to date on your brand (someone who might receive a newsletter), compared to a lead (someone who might receive a promotional email). So a decent CTR for you is going to vary depending on what type of email you're sending, and to which list.

The average email click-through rate of emails it was at 5.5% in Q3 of 2011, up slightly from the previous quarter. The thing is, this is across all industries and email types -- so the data isn't necessarily a proper benchmark for every marketer to measure their emails by. The key is to continue testing variables in your emails that will help improve your click-through rate, Segmenting your email lists is some seriously low-hanging fruit, and has shown to improve email relevance by 34%. 

2- Is the click-through rate of business emails higher on mobile devices than on computers?

 Click-through rates for a company's email marketing increased a dramatic 53% after the company optimized their emails for mobile. While that might be on the dramatic end of the spectrum, the fact of the matter is that when your company optimizes its emails for mobile, your click-through rates will rise. Believe it or not, not every company has optimized their email marketing for mobile. And mobile optimization is a critical component of your email marketing strategy If you want to increase your mobile click-through rate, make sure every email you're sending out is optimized for mobile, because your audience IS there.

3- What is considered a decent unsubscribe rate?

 Under 1%. Aside from being generally trustworthy, you'll be able to achieve this rate by only using opt-in email lists, properly segmenting your lists, only sending relevant content at an appropriate sending frequency, and religiously honoring unsubscribes. 

Unsubscribes aren't all bad! When recipients do unsubscribe, consider it a natural list cleanse 

4- When should I be sending my emails? 

• Time of Day - Dan Zarrella's data showed emails sent at 6 AM had the highest click-through rate. Emails sent from 10 AM-12 PM showed another small spike, and the later the time in the evening, the higher the click-through rate climbed.
• Day of the Week - Experimenting with weekend emails could benefit your business, perhaps due to the lack of other competing emails coming through on Saturday and Sunday. Zarrella's data showed the lowest click-through rate (and highest unsubscribe rate!) occurred on Tuesday, with Wednesday and Friday coming in as the weekdays with the highest click-through rates.
• Number of Days Per Week - Click-through rates decrease the more emails you send in a given campaign, so our best practice here is to "chill" a bit. Space your emails out so your subscribers don't feel bombarded. 

5- If there are multiple links in your email copy, how do you balance the attention you give to each of them?

It's never a bad idea to include multiple links in an email, since each link is a call-to-action that could reconvert your email recipient. That said, you don't want those calls-to-action to compete with one another, which is why it's crucial that you decide exactly what it is you want your email recipient to do upon receiving your email. That way, none of the links are competing with one another for attention 

The first two links called out in orange both lead to the same landing page, but they are accompanied further down the email with a second call-to-action that encourages the recipient to reconvert on more bottom-of-the-funnel offer -- a free trial of our marketing software.

6- What is the difference between a paid and organic email contact? Is one better than the other?

An "organic" email contact is someone who chose to subscribe to emails from your company by clicking on a subscribe button on your website, filling out a form on one of your landing pages, or otherwise indicating their willingness to receive your emails. A paid email contact is someone who didn't indicate they wanted to receive email from you, but whose contact information you purchased.

Organic email contacts are way better than those you pay for. Those who opt in to receive your email communications are more interested in your company than those you pay for, are less likely to mark you as SPAM, will unsubscribe at a far lower rate, and as such, your email deliverability rates and sender reputation won't get totally annihilated.

7- Any tips on how to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act?

Definitely. There are four main points that are important for email marketers to remain compliant with CAN-SPAM:

Don't use misleading, deceptive, or falsified information in your 'From,' 'To,' or 'Reply-to' fields, email subject line, or routing information. Clearly identify who the email is coming from -- be it your company or a specific employee within your organization -- and make sure your subject line accurately describes the contents of the email.

Include your company's physical address in every single email you send out. These are typically placed in an email's footer.

Include an easy to find unsubscribe link in every single email, and make sure to honor unsubscribes promptly and completely. "Promptly" is defined as within ten business days (but try to be speedier than that), and "completely" means that you do not sell or transfer their email address to any other lists after the unsubscribe is complete.

          Make sure the Email Service Provider (ESP) you're using is reputable. If something illegal does go down with your emails, both your ESP and your company can be held responsible.