6. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
7. Make Sure Emails Get Delivered
• Boring but important
• Lots of boxes to check
• MailChimp: good for one-off emails, doesn’t solve delivery
• SendGrid: good, quick, expensive, no delivery guarantee
• Return Path: painful (price, bureaucracy), help delivery
8. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
11. A Focused Email: Subject and Header
Generic subject
Interesting subject
tied to content
12. A Focused Email: Body
What the user should read
first, and a clear click
action
13. A Focused Email: Everything Else
Digest-y content present
but deprioritized
14. A Focused Email: Who’s Sending It?
A/B Test-optimized
“From” name
15. A Focused Email: Content Not Company
A smaller company logo
was more effective
16. A Focused Email: No Superfluous Pleasantries
Most moms don’t have
time to read this stuff
17. Timing Matters, But Not That Much
• 20-30% differences
• Late evening (7-10 PM) best time to send
• Middle of the night worst time to send
• We settled on sending ~7 AM-11 PM
• Sunday night, early in the week better than late week
18. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
19. Finding High Quality Content?
• Sending random community posts wasn’t cutting it
23. Yes, With a Team Effort…
• Someone who understands moms’ needs
• People who can write
• Someone who can adjust to data and internalize which
content drives clicks (aka a growth hacker?)
24. … and Some Fairly Tight Process
• Team was soon writing 20+ articles each week
• Midweek, go through results and see what’s working
• Constantly refine content
• Discipline: only write for large audiences
• Discipline: not bloggers’ personal (but unrelatable) stories
28. Don’t Be Too General
To: Moms
Subject: Gift Guides for Everyone on Your List
Clickthrough Rate: 0.4%
Reaction: “Guide for everyone” doesn’t incite curiosity in
the way “gifts for a 7-year-old boy” might
29. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
30. We Optimized Emails by A/B Testing
• A separate A/B testing system just for email subjects
• Optimizing on clicks
• System automatically removes poor subjects
• Team regularly trying new subject lines
31. Get to the Point Quickly!
The Most Popular Baby Name Initials of 2011
0.7% CTR
Popular Letters to Start Baby Names With in 2011
0.4% CTR
Do You Know Which Initials Are Most Popular for Baby
Names
0.2% CTR
32. X Ways to Do Y
3 Tips for Ending Back Talk
1.1% CTR
How to Stop the Back Talk
1% CTR
Find Out How to Stop Your Kids from Back-Talking
0.5% CTR
33. Tell, Don’t Ask
Why a Stepmom’s Name Matters
0.7% CTR
When Kids Call Their Parents By First Names
0.4%
How to Navigate the Stepparent Name Game
0.1%
34. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
35. Figuring Out What’s Good, Step 1
• Store sends, clicks, opens per article to gauge success
• Most of the 20 articles/week aren’t effective
• Send each to a small batch of users
• “Personalization” = don’t send breastfeeding emails to
moms of 6-year-olds
• Keep the good, discard the bad
36. Figuring Out What’s Good, Step 2
• Is this user outside the test group?
• Great. Just send them the best possible email.
• Deep personalization: build a predictive model to figure
out which email that specific user is most likely to like
37. An Example Week
• Does Parental Nudity Harm Kids? (2.3%)
• 3 Times You Should "Kick the Kids Out" of Your Bed (1.3%)
• Why You Need Separate Bank Accounts (1.1%)
• 4 Indoor Toddler Activities That Won't Make a Mess (1.1%)
…
• How to Get Kids To Sleep Faster (0.8%)
• 4 Tips For Creating Chore Charts (0.7%)
• Why Do We Call Ourselves "Mommy" Instead of "I"? (0.6%)
• One Way to Simplify Using Cloth Diapers (0.5%)
• 3 Reasons All Kids Should Write Thank You Notes (0.5%)
39. Lots of Steps to Email Success
1) Inbox Delivery
2) One Item Focus
3) Quality
4) Subject Optimization
5) Winners and Losers
6) Frequency
40. How Much Email Should You Send?
• Depends a lot on your content
• You need to test different options holistically
• We tested 1 digest/week vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, 3 vs. 4, 4 vs. 5
• High quality email can facilitate higher
frequency, e.g., LinkedIn