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Home > Blogs > Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey
November 12, 2009
Tagged.com Reaches Email Marketing Settlements with New York, Texas
Social networking site Tagged.com has agreed to pay $750,000 in penalties and costs to settle lawsuits alleging it engaged in deceptive email marketing practices. As part of the settlements, reached with New York and Texas, the San Francisco-based company also agreed to adopt reforms around its use of invitation emails. You can read more in this MediaPost Online Media Daily article.
The two states sued Tagged earlier this year for allegedly duping new members into providing their email addresses and passwords. Tagged then sent emails to members' contact lists that appeared to have been sent directly from the members themselves.
In addition to paying the fines, the agreement calls for Tagged to provide clear and conspicuous notice to users before accessing their email inboxes and to obtain users' explicit consent before sending email invitations to their contacts. On its blog, Tagged says it has overhauled its registration and invite-your-friends processes, and will soon be adding more new features to increase member privacy.
This is an interesting case on its merits, but what struck me is the potential implications for forward-to-a-friend and viral emails. While it's not the same thing, many marketers elect to have their viral emails appear to come from the friend who signed the person up rather than from the marketer. In this case, the friend had more knowledge about the resulting email(s), but I have to wonder if some future court will take this ruling and seek to apply it to the age-old forward-to-a-friend technique.
October 12, 2009
Has Twitter Reached its Peak?
I figured I'd open with a provocative title. No, I'm not really serious that Twitter might start losing its amazing popularity. But, a recent article in TechCrunch brought to light a defining moment in the world of Twitter.
Apparently, Miley Cyrus, the teen idol also known for her TV show, Hannah Montana, just released a video on YouTube that I'm sure the folks at Twitter are squirming over. Having reached 2 million followers, Miley is now quitting Twitter. She's had it. The video takes the form of a rap song, and it was fairly painful for me to watch so I’m not going to share a link to it. (You’ll have to search for it yourself if you really, really want to watch it.) <Grin>.
Of course, Twitter will probably be fine without Ms. Cyrus—a recent Nielsen study showed that Twitter has far fewer tweener viewers than you'd think. Nonetheless, they may have just lost a few hundred thousand Miley devotees.
September 29, 2009
One of the Most Flattering Recognitions We’ve Received at Silverpop
Many people think of Silverpop as a self-service marketing tools provider. And while most of our customers are self-service, we have a large number of high profile full-service clients as well. And, when we do work with clients on a full-service basis, we do it as well or better than anyone in the world.
I had the distinct honor last week of meeting the CEO of American Honda Motor Co., Tetsuo Iwamura, as he presented me and my colleagues at Silverpop with Honda's esteemed Premier Partner Award. From more than 1,000 eligible vendors, ranging from parts suppliers to firms that transport cars to dealers, Silverpop was recognized as one of the top partners for Honda here in the United States. And, it wasn’t until I attended the ceremony itself and saw a string of high-level execs, including the CEO himself, praise the work of Silverpop and a select set of other vendors, that I finally realized that their teams value Silverpop as much as our teams value Honda.
The heart of a truly great partnership is not measured solely by yesterday's deliverable or tomorrow's project plans, but also by the character and passion each party brings toward making the partnership successful. The marketing team at Honda has been tremendous to work with, and their support has been critical as we've worked together to evolve and grow the Honda email marketing programs over the years. Additionally, my deep gratitude goes to my colleagues at Silverpop who work with Honda, and to those who make the tools and services behind the scenes—you guys should take a short breather and pat each other on the back for a job well done.
September 25, 2009
Back to the Future
I bet you never thought you'd hear Twitter being compared unfavorably to voice mail … Think again.
SayNow, a free phone service that connects celebrities and their fans through voice mail, offers its customers something they say they don't get from Twitter—an experience that feels intimate and authentic.
You can read more in this New York Times article by reporter Brooks Barnes. In short, the service works by giving stars a personal phone number that they can publicize on their Web site, for example. SayNow's customers—mostly teenagers—can then call and listen to recorded messages of stars directly motivating or urging them to take an action. Callers can also leave voice messages of their own, which may be shared on the SayNow Web site. According to SayNow, the service is averaging about 10 million fan calls a month—double the number over this time last year.
Voice mail may seem old-fashioned compared to newer online social media. But once again, the key to great marketing is not the medium; it's the message.
September 1, 2009
That Whole "Maine" Thing
If you’ve heard rumblings emanating from Maine and been caught by surprise, you're not alone. Nobody noticed when a new privacy law intended to protect teens from predatory marketers sailed through that state's legislature amidst a flurry of bills earlier this year. But now various groups and trade associations say the privacy law goes too far, and are working frantically to stop the measure before it goes into effect on September 12.
In a nutshell, the law, titled "An Act to Prevent Predatory Marketing Practices against Minors," states that teenagers can't give their personal or health information to marketers if they're under 18 without their parents' consent. It also bars marketers from selling or transferring the information if it individually identifies the minors, or will be used to market to them.
At first, it sounds like a great idea. We should definitely be protecting our children online. But this has created a huge uproar for a lot of reasons. First, the federal government has already enacted a law called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which addresses many of these concerns. But it only applies to children under age 13. The Maine legislation seeks to impose restrictions on the collection of personal information from teens up to age 18.
The new law also requires marketers to obtain verifiable parental consent before they can gather information from minors. But how do you stop a determined teen from faking parental approval? Nevertheless, marketers can be held liable for damages in the courts by both the state and by private individuals.
The law is being challenged in court by several groups on First Amendment, interstate commerce and other grounds. The measure is unconstitutional, the plaintiffs say, because it violates teens' rights to free speech and prevents them from registering and receiving information about beneficial health care products and services. A coalition of Internet companies including AOL and Yahoo are also challenging the measure. They contend that the restrictions are so onerous that teens may not even be allowed to register at their Web sites.
So, very interesting stuff. From my reading, it appears the law has implications and consequences far beyond its original intention of protecting teens. Even the Maine attorney general said last Friday that the law is so poorly designed that her office will not enforce it.
I think the bottom line is, as we move forward trying to protect ourselves and our children from the Wild, Wild West of the Internet, it's going to be a whole lot harder than any of us want to believe.
You can read more about this issue in this Portland Press Herald article, and at MediaPost here, and here.
August 27, 2009
Email Visitor Conversion Rates Tower over PPC and SEO
A recent MediaPost blog posting by Jack Loechner caught my eye. It highlights a new study by search engine marketing firm Engine Ready that sought to uncover which advertising tactic generated higher returns: pay-per-click or search engine optimization. By studying all the different ways visitors arrive at Web sites, the analysis wound up yielding some very interesting results regarding email.
The study, which looked at 20.8 million visits to 26 e-commerce sites from July 2008 through June 2009, shows that paid search visitors are nearly twice as likely to buy as those who arrive from organic search. For those who arrived at an e-commerce site from a PPC ad, the conversion rate was 2.03 percent. The conversion rate for SEO visitors was 1.26 percent.
But, as it turns out, email visitors blew both out of the water. For visitors who came to an e-commerce site by clicking a link in an email, the conversion rate was 6.58 percent—more than three times that of PPC and five times that of SEO. Not only is email a relatively inexpensive channel by comparison, but its conversion rate and ROI is clearly unmatched.
August 17, 2009
The Tech Behind Domain-based Authentication
A colleague read my recent post and asked me how marketers could prevent spammers from spoofing their domains. In other words, it's pretty hard to fake an IP address, but isn't it easy to fake a "from" field and domain? (For example, Outlook Express easily allows me to put "bnussey@whitehouse.gov" in the from field.)
The solution lies in some recent technology advancements that come with easy-to-remember names like DKIM and Sender ID. These solutions provide a way for receiving email servers to validate that an incoming message is REALLY from the domain it claims to be. They are pretty foolproof and ensure that only the REAL whitehouse.gov can validate messages that purport to be from that domain. As long as the receiving email server goes through the trouble to check, it can always be sure that the sender is legitimate.
For those of you curious how this would work, read on. (For everyone else, thanks for checking in <grin>.)…
The authentication techniques work on top of one of the fundamental building blocks of the Internet—the domain name system (better known as DNS). You see, when Internet-connected computers talk to each other, they only do so using IP addresses—things like URLs are a convenience for we human beings. While it's invisible to users, every time you enter a Web URL or send an email to, say, whitehouse.gov, your browser quickly goes out and checks a DNS server to get the underlying IP address. DNS information is tightly controlled and is generally only updatable by the company that owns the domain. Email authentication solutions add an additional piece of information on the DNS record that can only be updated by the domain owner. When an email domain is being validated, the receiving email server simply checks out the DNS records for that domain and confirms that the authentication "key" matches the one in the email. That's it.
August 14, 2009
How Will the Shift to Domain-based Reputation Affect Your Email Deliverability?
I recently had a chance to pick the brain of my esteemed industry colleague, Deirdre Baird. Deirdre is the CEO of Pivotal Veracity, Silverpop’s email deliverability partner, and one of the most knowledgeable people in the industry when it comes to getting your email successfully delivered to the inbox.
Specifically, I wanted to get her thoughts about an important and impending shift by ISPs away from IP-based to domain-based email reputation filtering.
Under the current IP-based reputation monitoring scheme, ISPs deliver or block your email based on the reputation of each individual IP address from which you send email. Under domain-based reputation monitoring, ISPs would assign the same reputation to all authenticated email from your company or domain, regardless of IP. (You can read more about it in this recent Direct magazine article.)
Can you describe that change and tell us when it will be in place?
"Currently, ISPs and spam filtering entities "attach” reputation to a particular email campaign—as is the case with "signature type filtering"—and/or a particular IP address. If, for example, a particular email creative is associated with high spam-complaint rates or a particular IP address is the source of high unknown-user rates, the ISP will then filter all mail like that particular creative or originating from that particular IP address.
"While both these methods are useful and will continue to be used, their efficacy is declining somewhat as spammers have learned to dramatically change the content and mail from thousands of hijacked IPs. The major ISPs are now moving toward a more holistic method of holding a mailer accountable for their actions. Specifically, ISPs are now moving to authenticated, domain-based reputation, whereby core filtering metrics such as spam-complaint rates, unknown user rates, and spam-trap rates will be computed at the domain level.
"This change is being tested now at AOL and Yahoo with DKIM-authenticated domains. It exists in some degree at Hotmail with Sender ID-authenticated domains, and is being considered by a number of other ISPs.
"While domain-based reputation will initially be used in addition to IP-based reputation at ISPs such as Yahoo, it will take a front-seat at AOL and, we suspect over time will become one of the most important methods ISPs will use to identify good mailers."
What will it mean to Silverpop’s customers and other email marketers?
"The impact for mailers can be summed up this way: You will be held accountable—good or bad—for everything you do under your brand, that is, your domain.
"This is great news for legitimate companies who have consistently followed good mailing practices across their enterprise and developed meaningful relationships with their customers. It is not so great news for folks who have relied on a change in IP to escape the fall-out of an email append program that went south, or a purchased list, or a leap in spam complaints due to over-mailing."
What percentage of an average B2C email marketer’s list will be impacted by this, and how will that change through the rest of 2009 and 2010?
"Yahoo is usually the first or second largest ISP on both B2C and B2B mailers' lists. AOL typically ranks in the top 5 or 10 for B2B. Their combined market share on a typical commercial mailer’s list ranges from a low of 30 percent to a high of 70 percent.
"Mailers will begin to see the impact of domain-based reputation at AOL as early as this fall, and at Yahoo in late 2009 into early 2010. Additionally, Hotmail already considers domain-based reputation, although historically they’ve placed more weight on IP-based reputation. Comcast and Road Runner are actively researching how to execute a domain-based reputation system, but are not likely to have anything in place until late 2010 at the earliest."
From a B2B perspective, do you foresee any of the popular corporate spam filters using this new approach?
"Absolutely. The large enterprise filters such as Brightmail, Cloudmark and Postini already attach a reputation of sorts to a piece of content. It is certainly plausible that the domain will play a role in their algorithms. However, as it is now, it will be a lot more difficult to isolate the impact of a domain’s mailing history from the impact of other factors—for example, content characteristics—used by the spam filters, whereas the ISPs tend to be more transparent in what caused a filtering issue. For instance, that the mailer has high spam complaint rates."
My thanks to Deirdre for sharing her thoughts and expertise with readers of this blog. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them below.
August 4, 2009
Marketers Flocking to Social Media
The use of social media as a marketing tactic has shot up dramatically in the last two years, according to an online survey of B2C and B2B marketers. Moreover, marketers have shifted from using social media channels primarily for brand building and now use them as a tool for driving awareness and interest in their products and services.
This despite the fact that marketers also cite as a top concern an inability to prove ROI and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media. And, interestingly, although roughly half said they are planning to spend less on marketing this year, a majority said they are actually planning to spend more on new media platforms.
The survey, which included 172 marketers and was conducted in June, is an update a survey conducted two years ago by BtoB magazine and the Association of National Advertisers. In the updated survey, 66 percent of the marketers said they were using social media, compared to 20 percent of respondents in 2007. Among B2B marketers, the number is 57 percent, up from just 15 percent in 2007.
Two years ago 65 percent of respondents said their main objective in using social media was to build brand. Today that percentage has dropped to 51 percent, while using social media to generate demand has increased from 10 percent to 30 percent overall. Among B2B marketers, the percentage is even higher at 47 percent.
So why are marketers flocking to new social media despite an uncertain economy, admitted concern over how to allocate and measure, and why is the use of social channels evolving so drastically?
I’m sure we could have some great discussions around it. But in a nutshell, smart marketers have realized that the ultimate goal of marketing is to drive someone toward measurable lifetime customer value. To do that, marketers must create relationships that benefit both the customers and the company. The rise of online social networking means that it's the buyers, not the marketers, who define their brands today. And social channels invite them to define the kinds of marketing they will receive. Successful marketers are evolving with their customers, going where they are, and providing them with opportunities to participate in dialogues and interact with their brands.
August 3, 2009
Twitter Eclipses Facebook as No. 1 Brand-Linked Social Network Site
For a while now, I've been a vocal proponent of marketers participating in social marketing, and clearly many others see the potential as well. In his July 30 ClickZ column, Bill McCloskey shares some great data that illustrate the enthusiasm with which marketers have embraced social networking.
Since 2007, Bill's firm, Email Data Source, has been tracking how often brands embed a link within their email marketing messages back to their social networking site. The data point to two interesting facts: 1) the number of email marketing campaigns that contain links to the two top sites, Facebook and Twitter, have dramatically increased, and 2) in 2009, No. 2 Twitter began closing in on No. 1 Facebook, and in April surpassed its rival as the top social networking site for email marketers.
In 2007, Email Data Source tracked 215 emails with Twitter links and 729 with Facebook links. By June of 2009, the number of campaigns with a link to a sender's Twitter account soared to 41,399 and 41,052 for Facebook. You can view the stats here.
I do find it interesting that Twitter has surpassed Facebook. While Facebook's user base towers over Twitter's, Twitter is clearly the king of micro-blogging (at least today). A lot of the content that gets shared socially is the kind that lends itself to the quick shares that Twitter has made famous, but I have to believe that some of this traffic spike is due to Twitter still being in its “novelty” phase.
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