Email Design & Delivery

SUMMARY: A test that delivers a marked improvement spurs excitement. But you need to temper that excitement and make sure the results are valid.

Read how an email marketer continued to test send times for their emails after a previous test showed a surprising boost in CTRs for messages sent out overnight. They wanted to verify tests of the unconventional time to make sure the rate held up. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: Every domain you include in an email message has its own reputation, which can in turn impact your email reputation and deliverability.

Read how a recent experience we had with a third-party link getting flagged as spam reminded us of the importance of checking links for potential deliverability issues. We’ve offered four tips on checking the URLs you include in your messages, with a focus on the explosion of URL-shortening services driven by social media. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "Yahoo!, with 21% of U.S. email, has a approximate limit of 47 characters per subject line." "Hotmail, which has 14% of the U.S. email market, uses word wrap to display subject lines on multiple lines, allowing approximately 45 characters per line." "In fact, in 14 of 22 (64%) recent A/B or A/B/C subject line tests, the longer subject line performed better, regardless of subject line content." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: You can use Halloween to market your products – no matter what you’re selling. We sat down with Diana Voigt, Marketing Manager, HalloweenExpress.com, whose advice comes from eight years of specializing in Halloween-themed email marketing.

Voigt shares information about subject lines, design elements, the best Halloween-season send times and pitfalls to avoid. It’s worth a listen no matter what you’re marketing.

Click here to listen: http://podcast.marketingyak.com/media/episode10_diana_voigt.mp3
(Time: 6:59 minutes) read the complete article

By Anne Holland

In my dream world, every single email inbox acts the same. No matter whether your recipients see your email newsletter or campaign in Hotmail, Yahoo!, Outlook or whatever … they would all see the same exact thing.

And, that standardized email box would allow huge creativity for marketers. You would be able to use Flash, animated gifs and background colors and add forms into your email, including prefilled order forms.

Unfortunately, no one has... read the complete blog post