1. EMAIL:
UNGLAMOROUS,
DIFFICULT,
EFFECTIVE.
Growing Circle of Moms’ Email Engagement Nearly 10x
Mike Greenfield
@mike_greenfield / numeratechoir.com
MamaBear / 2013-05-10

2. In November 2010,
Circle of Moms
was in trouble.

3. Defining Trouble
• Bye-bye Facebook channels
• Traffic down 50%
• 6 million registered users, 1 million monthly uniques
• Mediocre weekly digests: 50,000 clicks/week.

4. How could we re-engage 6 million
mostly inactive moms?

5. Email Got Us Out of Trouble

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

9. Email Mediocrity Looked Like This

10. This Was A Good, Focused Email

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

20. We started writing our own blog posts
(and failed for a while).

21. Finally, a Winner!

22. Could We Write Lots of Good Stuff?

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

25. Moms Love Lists
2.3% CTR

26. Some Topics Don’t Work at Scale
To: Moms
Subject: Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Friends with Food
Allergies
Clickthrough Rate: 0.04%
Reaction: Ouch.

27. “Easy” Is Good
2% CTR

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%)

38. This Stuff Really Matters at Scale

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

41. Lots of Little Things => Big Gains

42. THANKS (THE END).
Mike Greenfield
@mike_greenfield / numeratechoir.com