Getting The Most Out Of Your Email Campaigns By Getting The Audit Right!

Published on: 15 July 2023 Last Updated on: 29 October 2024

Excerpt: Delivering email campaigns that perform exceedingly well requires effort and email audits help you get closer to better ROIs. Read on!

So half of the year has gone by smoothly (well, almost), your brand’s making money, your workflows are automated, and your email marketing campaigns are doing well. Wait, yes, pause at the last part of the sentence. Are they really performing optimally?

To get a clear understanding of the efficacy of your email marketing campaigns, no matter how great and well-automated they might be in your perspective, you NEED to run audits twice or thrice every twelve months.

If you meet an email marketer over drinks, they will probably have a lot to say about their KPIs and how the click-throughs are not making the cut. So how can one ensure that their email marketing efforts don’t go down the drain? The answer is quite simple indeed: execute email marketing audits to unveil your strengths and weaknesses, areas of improvement, and those that are doing just fine.

In the blog that follows, we will delve into the different kinds of email marketing audits that one can conduct and ways to go about executing them. Let’s get cracking!

The Kinds of Email Marketing Audits That One Can Conduct

In simple terms, an email marketing audit is a deep analysis of the various factors that contribute to the success of an email campaign so that you know what’s working and the areas that need to be tweaked.

The following are some kinds of email audits that you can carry out; each of them focuses on different facets of the email.

1. Email Content & Design Marketing Performance Audit

One of the most common kinds of audits, here you delve into your various KPIs (CTR, CTOR, etc.) to get a holistic understanding of the email campaign’s performance. The aspects that you need to look out for are:

Subject line: Try to keep them personalized, crystal clear, non-sales, and within the range of 40-45 characters, optimized for mobile viewing. Please steer clear of spammy words such as “earn quick money” or basically anything that sounds too good to be true.
Preheader text: It should be related to the subject line, albeit not repetitive.
Header: First impressions are often long-lasting; cliched though that may sound, it does hold some weight. The header text next to your logo should be noticeable, clear, and in alignment with the brand ethos.
Email copy: Grammatical errors and typos are a major turn-off. No wonder brands invest in the best copywriters to churn out good copy, even in the age of AI! Keep it crisp, clean and deliver maximum value in minimum words.
CTA: The Call to Action buttons are the ones that can make or break the ROIs. Keep the design and text in tandem with the brand guidelines, easy to spot and click, devoid of broken links that lead nowhere!
Graphics: When crafting an HTML or interactive email, ensure that the graphics render well across devices and the visual hierarchy is maintained.
Conversions & Engagement rates: This is the litmus test of your email campaign. Are your emails good and engaging enough to keep subscribers interested, or are there more hits than misses? The KPIs should spill the beans on this one.

2. Email accessibility audit

When crafting your emails, if one overlooks the critical aspect of disability, you might fail to foster inclusivity with your campaigns, thereby risking losing the patronage of your subscribers. Keeping email accessibility in mind is absolutely essential, and is something that all email marketers should perpetually strive for.

Ensure that there is no sensory overload for those with visual disabilities by keeping a simple and clean email layout.
For those living with tactile difficulties, make the CTA buttons larger to ensure greater clickability and visibility across a range of devices.
Remember to check for alt text in images to simplify things for users deploying the services of a screen reader.

3. Deliverability Audit

You might have the best of Salesforce email templates (or Hubspot; whatever rocks your boat) and check all the above aspects, but if your email campaigns fail to reach the intended inboxes, all your efforts will end up in vain.

To check for email deliverability issues, one needs to check the following aspects;

Clean email list devoid of incorrect email ids
Email Authentication
HTML code failures
Domain reputation
Blocklisting
Spam traps
IP address

4. Compliance Audit

This would include checking the level of compliance of your email campaigns with the guidelines and requirements of CCPA, GDPR, PECR, etc.

5. Email Code Audit

Here, one would evaluate and carry out a code clean-up, fix bugs (if any), and ensure the incorporation of the best practices in email coding. One would also conduct tests to see how well the email renders across different email clients and devices.

6. Design Audit

In this kind of audit, one would review the emails from the design and aesthetics viewpoint and check how consistent the layout is with the branding guidelines. The different elements one would generally bring under the lens in this kind of audit are checking for the right use of white spaces, design patterns in accordance with the heat map, fonts, logo, layout, graphics, etc.

7. Automation Audit

Here, one would check automated email campaigns to see if everything is in order, such as API triggers, templates, links, rules, customer journey maps, etc.

One can either carry out all these audits or create a bespoke audit plan that includes permutations and combinations of the different kinds of audits mentioned above.

Steps For Conducting The Perfect Email Audit

Now that we are privy to the kinds of email audits that one can carry out, let’s move over to getting started with the process of what’s going well and what’s lacking in your current email campaigns.

Firstly, you need to begin with drafting a clear set of goals. Much like in other areas of life, the lack of well-defined goals in sight can very well be akin to sailing in a rudderless ship, and frankly, no one wants to be aboard such a ship!

You could begin by jotting down the kinds of audits you’d want to run on your existing campaigns and, based on the purpose of the audit, figure out your bespoke learnings and takeaways.

Then, you’d like to create a list of measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you will be evaluating to check the health and effectiveness of your current campaign.

These may include:

Unsubscribe rates
Open rates (albeit not a very effective one as per Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature unveiled in the WWDC conference held on 7 June 2021)
CTR (Click Through Rates)
CTOR (Click To Open Rate)
Spam complaints
Conversions
Email client & device assessment

You can create a spreadsheet to maintain a record of your audit. Here’s what you can document:

Name of the email campaign
Date deployed (not applicable in case of automated emails)
Name of the audience segment
Subject line
Soft bounce rate
Hard bounce rate
CTOR
CTR
Conversion rate
Unsubscribe rate

You can modify the contents of the spreadsheet as per your unique requirements. One can also diversify the main spreadsheet by adding tabs for different kinds of emails, such as promotional, transactional emails, etc.

Once you have your data in place, you can and should proceed with the data analysis. Begin with scanning all the metrics and specifically scrutinize those that fall on the extremities of the curve. The ones that did really well and the ones that missed the mark. Proceed with asking yourself the following questions,

Are the subject lines and preheader texts enticing enough? Will I click on them if I receive them in my inbox?
Is the visual hierarchy of the email in place, or does it look too cluttered?
Does it offer a personalized experience to the subscriber?
Does the email copy offer value to the reader, or does it appear too salesy?
Does it cater to specific buyer personas and age demographic, or does it appear mass-produced with no specific target audience in mind?
Is the cadence too annoying for the subscribers leading to higher unsubscribe requests?
Are the CTAs visible, quirky, and enticing enough to get users to click on them?
Are your emails accessible to users across the entire spectrum?

Wrapping It Up

While there are a number of tools available in the market to help you conduct email audits, and you can always request colleagues for a fresh eye perspective on your campaigns, if you’d rather have experts analyze the game for you, that’s possible too! Email Uplers will not only help you analyze your existing campaigns but also deliver interactive emails from scratch attuned to your specific needs. Do drop by for more information!

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Arnab

Arnab is a professional blogger, having an enormous interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, He carries out sharing sentient blogs.

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Types Of Objections In Sales And How To Overcome Them With An Email Delivery Test?

What Is A Sales Objection Is there a sales objection definition in the first place? We don’t think so. Objections in sales are a common thing. Resistance or questions from the client does not mean that you or your manager are not working well. In contrast, top sellers close the deals after handling 5-6 objections. Dealing with objections occurs at any stage of negotiations. That's how people are. Everyone has a fear of the unknown. Guarantees, price, quality, and the result they will receive at the end are important to any client. The client wants to buy a solution to his problem, for example, an email delivery test or the satisfaction of any other need. Your task as a seller is to become a trusted person. They have to trust you to buy something from you. If you buy any product in a store, the reputation of the brand is important to you, you need trust in them, quality, price, and hundreds of other details. What Is Objection Handling? Let's start with the fact that this is a rather complicated process in which the experience and skills of your seller are very important, even if it is an email correspondence in which a regular email spam test will come in handy. In the case of a problem or unsure customer, it depends on you whether you can sell a certain product. We will give examples of good objection handling in such cases: 1. Turning an objection into a plus. The buyer's complaint may, in essence, be transformed into a question and addressed in a way that is advantageous to you. For instance, "Why is it taking so long for the SendGrid sender authentication? This process was created specifically based on feedback from our customers. Such requirements give you a much better quality of work in the future, and we only want the best result for you, that's why we have to wait.". 2. Mitigation of objection. The ability to concede to the client with little concern is essential. For instance, "Good question! These rumors have been spread before, but they are untrue. In fact, Folderly software is quite high quality and will last you for a very long time." 3. Comparison of similar products. Give the customer the chance to compare this product to others if they start to protest. Give them a chance to do the research or yourself. The only problem is: are you sure your product is the best out there? Why Does The Proper Handling Of Email Spam Test Matter? If the buyer is not sure about the purchase, you cannot leave him to his own devices and let him choose the product by himself. Moreover, this is your job! If you give the buyer too much freedom of choice, it can be considered that you do not care about your customers. If the buyer is unsure about the purchase but asks questions, this is even better than the previous example. With an email spam test, you’ll know what your customer needs and deliver it right to their computer! ! This is the kind of buyer who will ask you a hundred questions but only once. Usually, this type has a very high return rate. This is simply due to the fact that they have already done their research, asked you all the questions they were interested in, and they only have years to use the product, which they already know everything about. Do not scare away your buyer with your annoying email - the email spam test will help you with this, which will check how relevant your email is to your situation. Primary Types Of Objections To Distinguish Between: We researched the sales of the email delivery product Folderly and got the top three of the most popular types of objections: 1. Objections and queries that are not that important For example, "I need a more elegant color than this red." Such inquiries are meant to trap the seller in an argument. It is vital to move the conversation in this situation fluidly in a different direction. The staff is required to answer this question, but only briefly if the customer keeps asking it. After that, customers often stop grumbling and start a productive conversation. You can run a mail test for your workers for them to get the skills of talking to difficult customers via email. 2. Objections are based on the terrible experiences of friends It is crucial for the consumer to verify whether friends who warned them about the downsides of this product were telling the truth. If this is the case, you should learn how to use the disadvantages to your advantage. 3. Hopeless objections are one of the most complicated sales objection definitions For instance, "I recently purchased such goods," or "I don't wish to purchase anything at this time." In this case, we can only briefly discuss the benefits of purchasing things from you rather than another retailer, so that the client would come to you the next time. Budget-Related Objections As The Most Widespread Ones It is known that a client will always value pricing. Undoubtedly, although not always, this is one of the important elements. Dealing with customer objections will be easier if you are one step ahead. Voice the most popular objections yourself and answer them right away. I think you may be confused by the price. It is higher than that of competitors because the product is produced by hand, not by machine, and therefore more expensive. Running an email deliverability check and improving your email will lead the buyer to think that this product is special, unique, and of higher quality than other analogs. And as we all know, everyone likes an individual approach. You see how we turned the price problem into an advantage in the form of product uniqueness. Be one step ahead of them! Tip: sometimes this question can be initially avoided. Asking the customer what is most important to him in the good or service he wants to acquire before discussing the pricing or using an email test online would eliminate the need for any objection handling techniques regarding price. General Brush-Offs Masked As Objections "I'll think about it" is another popular sales objection. This phrase can be used as a denial or a wish to eliminate the sales manager more quickly. It is the seller's responsibility to discover the buyer's genuine motivation. He either respectfully declines or appreciates the product for the future. Simply asking the buyer "Are you pleased with the product/service in general or do you have doubts" or using an email deliverability check can reveal their genuine motivations. If there is, let's determine what it is specifically. You may hear what genuinely frustrates the buyer when they respond "Yes, but..." in the discussion after the “but”. Cost, a bad prior experience, difficult circumstances, etc. Final Words If you have reached such a situation, it means that before that you did not sound too convincing and therefore made a mistake in your email deliverability test or at some of the previous stages. You will eventually develop your own methods for handling sales objections, but for the time being, you may employ tested techniques. Without training, it is hard to handle sales rejections. The hardest place to manage objections is for sales managers in call centers. Because it's simpler to break off communication over the phone, they only get one chance to respond accurately before the potential customer hangs up. Read Also: 4 Simple And Cheap Methods To Attract More Customers 7 Ways Technology Can Help in Customer Management and Sales How U.S.-Based Appointment Reminders Can Help Customers Keep Track of Their Schedule

Getting a Return on Investment From Using a Trade Show Booth

It's easy to find people who will swear that getting a massive ROI from a trade show booth is nearly impossible. That is not the case, by any means. Most likely, those people failed to use some of the tips in this article. Companies that have, however, have experienced massive success with their trade show booth. Here's what they did. 1. Putting Branding First For people who have never heard of your organization before, your booth is their first impression of your brand. If you can make it a positive one, that will result in them being more eager to do business with you. That's why it's crucial to make sure that your booth reflects the unique features of your brand. Incorporating creativity into your branding can help, as it allows you to stand apart from other booths, encouraging more people to take an interest. 2. Having a Friendly Design It's almost certain that there will be other booths around, and attendees might not have enough time to have an in-depth interaction with all of them. That's why having a design that not only showcases your brand but invites people is important. Brands that have worked with ExpoMarketing to create high-performing booths have been presented with unmatched designs. It also helps to have staff surrounding the booth, so that people have someone to talk to and interact with when they decide to explore it. Attendees can also be treated to interactive such as touchscreens, through which they can learn more about your business while having fun. 3. Capitalizing on Word-of-Mouth Marketing A successful trade show booth generates buzz long after the trade show itself. To do this, you need to have something that ensures that people keep talking about your business and the way you presented it. One of the most successful ways to achieve that is to hand out things like stickers and wearables. StickerYou has wide options of premium custom stickers for all your business printing and branding needs. At the end of the event, you can give out prizes to people who wear your merch. It's important to be strategic about the prizes and to make them things that people are likely to display in full view of others. That way, you'll keep generating conversations about your brand and winning over new customers and clients. 4. Networking Meeting attendees before the trade show can have a profound effect on how your booth performs. You'll also be able to gather contact information from people so you can stay in touch and have a chance to convert them later on. When meeting people before a booth, you can On the day of the trade show, people will be more likely to visit your booth because they'll feel a sense of familiarity with it, unlike others that will seem completely alien. When meeting them, however, it's important to focus less on talking about your business and what it does. Rather, you can try to gather as much information about them and what they do. When people do visit your booth, you'll be able to start a conversation based on how you're equipped to help them with the problems they mentioned to you earlier. Combining all these tips will ensure that you have a booth that will have a huge positive ROI, resulting in more clients and customers. The sooner you start thinking about how you're goese tips, the more success you're likely to have with your trade show booth. Read Also: Execute The Perfect Expo With This Trade Show Checklist A Well-Oiled Trade Show Machine: The Ones Running The Show

Boost Online Visibility With THESE 3 Smart Strategies + Bonus!

“Senpai notice me!” Said all online brands to internet users. They want to grab their audiences’ attention, lure them into their sphere, and generate a new lead. This is easier said than done, though, especially with new brands entering the market daily and trying to capitalize on the same audiences. Introducing online visibility. The key to being a successful, prosperous brand is to have a strong online presence. The more users who see your brand online or on social media, the higher your chance of being visible. They will begin to recognize your brand, seeing you as a leader in the space. Boosting a brand’s online visibility isn’t a straight path. However, these three strategies will help no matter your starting point. 3 Strategies To Boost Online Visibility The following list suggests the top 3 strategies that will help you gain more traction, thus boosting your online visibility in no time: Content Marketing Creating high-quality content regularly is a prime way to increase your online presence. The more content you create, the more chances you can reach and engage with your intended audiences. Valuable content is also what will help set you apart from the competition. You’ll be viewed as a reliable, trustworthy leader in the space, one that benefits and serves your audience. In terms of your content marketing strategy, think about creating a diverse content portfolio. For instance, posting articles and hoping they find their way into the top search results isn’t the most thoughtful approach. Alternatively, create blog posts but also short and long-form videos, ebooks, podcasts, and infographics. You may be able to utilize the same type of content but repurpose it for different formats. For instance, a podcast you’re taping could be recorded and posted on your YouTube channel for additional distribution. If you’re feeling a bit lost on what kinds of content to create or what to prioritize, it may be advantageous to recruit some outside help. A performance marketing agency can collaborate with your content team to develop a strategic approach to your content marketing efforts. Since they are experts in the field, they’ll know which keywords you should strive to rank for and which ones aren’t worth your time or effort. They can also help with evergreen website copy and materials to drive home your marketing messages and brand vision. These updates and refreshes can lead to growth for your business and boost your online presence. Social Media Marketing Related to content marketing, social media marketing is becoming more important in the digital space. Consumers today are going to social first to find out about brands and learn about their offerings. They’re also reading comments, looking to see how others are engaging with the brand, and seeing if there are any potential red flags to be aware of. If they’re interested or have a specific question, they may reach out via direct message, hoping the brand will respond promptly. Social media marketing aims to build brand awareness and connect and engage with potential customers and followers. This will assist in driving website traffic and, inevitably, sales. Posting valuable content consistently is just the start of what social media marketing can look like today. It also includes engaging users through interactive chatbots and creating personalized, tailored experiences for followers. Brands know that if they show up regularly and consistently on user’s feeds, viewers are more likely to recall the brand and talk about it later. Another component of social media marketing is influencer collaborations. Influencers know what resonates with their audiences — after all, it’s become their job to engage and promote content. Businesses can leverage an influencer’s audience by partnering with them for a social campaign. If you have a new product launch approaching, working with an influencer can help spread the word. They can share a review of the product or brand and even entice users to follow your page to enter a giveaway or sweepstakes. Paid Advertising There’s only so much you can grow without going the route of paid advertising. This marketing strategy involves displaying banner advertising to targeted audiences. It can include everything from television commercials to podcast spots to internet-based and social ads. Paid advertising isn’t cheap, so you need a tailored strategy that works for your business needs. Choosing the right platform and setting clear goals will allow you to reach your intended audiences. Narrowing who sees your ads and when they see them will help ensure you’re reaching the right people. Some of the main targeted advertising selections include behavioral, demographic, interest, and purchase-based intent. You can get more granular depending on your audience persona and your business goals, whether that’s awareness or sales. With each paid advertising campaign, you’ll want to monitor performance closely. See specific engagement metrics, including impressions, click-through rate, and conversions. Additionally, keep an eye on the cost per click to justify your budget for the campaign. An exceptionally high cost per click, meaning the dollar you’re spending for someone to click on one of your ads, may not be sustainable. Optimize where you can, applying what you have learned from one campaign to future ones. Bonus: THIS will help retain your online visibility Consistency There are two aspects of retaining an audience on your site or business. Consistency and quality. Both are often ignored. Both consistency and quality only benefit you in the long run. If you aim for social media visibility, stay consistent there. Be regular with your posts and engage with your audience frequently. Social media marketing will only work if you consistently keep the audience engaged. The quality of your posts must be quite high. Think of maintaining the standard. If you closely follow your competition, you can observe their and the “industry-best’s” work. This will help you know if your content fares well. No one wants to return to your content if they keep seeing a lack of quality. This also applies to your consistent efforts; consistently use the above-mentioned strategies. Patience and hard work will bring you results soon! Conclusion Your brand’s visibility and recognition are crucial for long-term success. Content marketing, social media marketing, and paid advertising are three channels that will boost your brand’s presence. Tell us about your experience in the comments below! Continue Reading: 5 Proven Customer Acquisition Strategies For B2C Startups How Automation Tools Are Transforming Digital Marketing? Elevate Your Property Presence With Digital Real Estate Signage – A Modern Marketing Approach

Getting The Most Out Of Your Email Campaigns By Getting The Audit Right!

The Kinds of Email Marketing Audits That One Can Conduct