Think email marketing is not for you? Let our top email terms guide you on how and what to measure for unparalleled return of investment.

Highest ROI in marketing for 2017

Econsultancy’s Email Marketing Industry Consensus reports email marketing as the best marketing tool in terms of delivering ROI in 2017. But do you fully grasp the terminology and measurements needed to calculate and quantify your email return? From personalisation, rental lists and email optimisation – we share the top 25 email marketing terms you need to know.

Data rental & targeting:

  1. CPM (Cost per thousand) – CPM refers to the cost per 1000 names on a data rental list. For example, a data rental list priced at R2300 CPM means you’re being charged at R2.30 per email.
  1. Email newsletter ads or sponsorships – Buying advertising space in an email newsletter. Email newsletter ads and sponsorships allow you to reach and target a specific audience to drive them to your website.
  1. Above-the-fold – The part of a web page that is visible without scrolling. It is generally more desirable placement on a Website because of its visibility. If you have a “join our mailing list” tag on your Website, you should place it “above the fold” making it easy for visitors to opt-in.
  1. Permission-based email – This refers to email campaigns sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email communications from a company. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing and all Digital Fire’s data rental lists are opted-in.
  1. Data rental list – A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opted-in to receive information about certain subjects. Using permission-based rental lists, Digital Fire can send email messages to audiences targeted by interest category, profession, demographic information and more. Permission-based lists are rented, not sold. Don’t be fooled by an offer that sounds too good to be true or by someone who tries to mislead you by calling their list “targeted” or “clean” without certifying that it is permission-based. Click here for more information on our opted-in data lists available.
  1. Targeting – Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service. Targeting is very important for an email marketer because targeted and relevant email campaigns yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes.
  1. Viral Marketing – A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a company’s customers. Email has made this type of marketing very prevalent. Tools such as “forward this email to a friend” encourage people to refer or recommend your newsletter or specific offer to others.

Email metrics:

  1. CTR (or Click-Through Rate) – The number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened of recipients that click on a given URL in your email.
  1. Conversion rate – The number or percentage of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in each email marketing campaign or promotion. This is the measure of your email campaign’s success. You may measure conversion in sales, phone calls or quality leads.
  1. Open rate – The percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.
  1. Opt-in (or Subscribe) – To opt-in or subscribe to an email list is to choose to receive email communications by supplying your email address to a company, website or individual -thereby giving them permission to email you. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. mountain biking) and/or indicate what types of emails they wish to receive from the sender (e.g. newsletters).
  1. Opt-out (or Unsubscribe) – To opt-out or unsubscribe from an email list is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by requesting the removal of your email address from their list.

Email ISP:

  1. Email blacklist – It is common for an ISP to a use a blacklist to determine which emails should be blocked (see “email blocking”). Blacklists contain lists of domains or IP addresses of known and suspected spammers. Unfortunately, these blacklists also contain many legitimate email service providers. Just a few spam complaints can land an email service provider or IP address on a blacklist even though the ratio of complaints to volume of email sent is extremely low.
  1. Email blocking – Email blocking typically refers to blocking by ISPs or corporate servers. Email blocking occurs when the receiving email server (e.g. Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail) prevents an inbound email from reaching the inbox of the intended recipient. Most of the time the sender of the email receives a “bounce” message notifying the sender that their email has been blocked. ISPs actively block email coming from suspected spammers.
  1. Email filters – “Filtering” is a technique used to block email based on the content in the “from:” line, “subject:” line, or body copy of an email. Filtering software searches for key words and other indicators that identify the email as potential spam. This type of blocking occurs on a per email basis.
  1. Email whitelist – A whitelist is the opposite of a blacklist. Instead of listing IP addresses to block, a whitelist includes IP addresses that have been approved to deliver email despite blocking measures. When email service providers, like Digital Fire, say we are “whitelisted” it means that our IP addresses are on a specific ISP’s whitelist and are confident that emails sent using our service will be delivered.
  1. False positive – A false positive occurs when a legitimate permission based email is incorrectly filtered or blocked as spam.
  1. Hard bounce/Soft bounce – A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason like a non-existent address. A soft bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a temporary issue, like a full mailbox or an unavailable server.
  1. House list (or Retention list) – A permission-based list that you built yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time. It is one of your most valuable assets because it is 7 times less expensive to market to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Use every opportunity to add to it and use it.
  1. Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) – Email sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to the sender. Characteristically, spam is unwanted, unexpected email from a sender unknown to the recipient.

Email coding and best practice:

  1. HTML email – Sending HTML email makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colours. HTML makes an email more interesting and when used properly can generate response rates up to 35% higher than plain text. Digital Fire can assist with both the design and HTML coding/ testing of email campaigns.
  1. Personalization – Addressing individual recipients by first name, last name or both dynamically in an email. Personalization can also include a reference to previous purchases, or other content unique to each recipient.
  1. Privacy policy – A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data. Your privacy policy builds trust especially among those who opt-in to receive email from you or those who register on your site. If subscribers, prospects and customers know their information is safe with you, they will likely share more information with you – making your relationship that much more valuable.
  1. Signature file (or sigfile for short) – A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email message that identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information.
  1. URL (or Universal Resource Locator) – A website, page or any other document address or location on the Internet that indicates the location of every file on every computer accessible through the Internet.

Resources: