Email Campaigns
(discover the importance of email campaigns for your online marketing strategy)

Email Campaigns
Email campaigns are one of the most powerful tools we have for generating sales and profits (together they can generate up to 30 per cent of the total billing and during Black Friday this figure can even double).
Moreover, just like automated flows (pre-sales, abandoned cart, up-selling and cross-selling), they are a completely free tool.

Its profitability clearly depends on several parameters that we have discussed in the section on email marketing and will now repeat in more detail. These are the objective values to which we must aspire when preparing these email campaigns.
Warning!!! 
I used the word "prepare" because campaigns that generate sales are prepared in advance and are not the result of copy written 10 minutes before sending out the email en masse to all lists. On the contrary, each campaign needs to be measured, to choose the perfect list, the appropriate copy and other series of things that vary according to the type of campaign and which we will see in detail in this document (this is why we always recommend the use of a planning calendar already established at the beginning of each year, to help us know when we will have more work and when we can prepare each event or campaign).

As for objective values (which are also the parameters that allow us to correctly analyse the success or otherwise of any campaign and tell us where to act and what to change), these are
- Open rate: on average it should be at least 20%, but if we exceed 25% it means we are doing very well). Values lower than 15-20% instead should worry us and can mean several things
- that our email has no authority and that as a consequence, mail providers such as google or hotmail move it directly to SPAM (where it is very difficult for a customer to end up reading it) → in this case we have two possibilities: 1) try to send the emails to lists of acquaintances, so that they open them and in this way little by little regain authority, sending the campaigns for a certain period only to a specially created list and where we will put all the people who have read at least one of the last two emails sent); 2) if we see that everything is very slow and we need results soon, we can use a new email and to increase the chances of success, even first send about 20 emails to people we know to open it.
- that the subject line of our email does not attract attention and therefore the person decides not to open it → This problem is easier to solve because it involves testing (if we use Klaviyo as an email platform, it gives you the possibility to do A/B tests by changing the subject line, which at first can be very useful to know how your audience responds), but at the same time it is where we need to work harder. The goal is to convey an emotion that makes you curious, whether negative or positive, such as something urgent, something that is running out, something on sale, or something unique. Later in this paper we will write down some email items that have worked very well for us during this 2023. And remember that it is not always necessary to write a subject line related to the content of the email: clearly if it is an effective subject line and it is related it is much better, because this will also increase the click rate, but sometimes you just have to open it and if we are good at writing copy, we will also have a high click rate.

To give you an idea of the results we achieved with some of our clients, here are the open rate statistics for a whole month of campaigns (and we are not talking about high-yield seasonal campaigns, such as sales or black friday campaigns, but normal weekly campaigns with promotions). As you can see, the average was over 55%, with a contact list of almost 2,500 people in the engagement phase (think what you could do if half of your list read your emails).

 

- Click rate: on average it should be between 1% and 4% (it varies a little, for example, between Spain and Italy in favour of the former), although it depends a lot on the type of email (5-6% is very good - but we can confirm that in some emails we have reached over 15%, although it always depends a lot on how receptive the list you are sending to is). Here you have to start worrying if the click rate is below 1%, because it can mean
- that the content of the email is not interesting, although it is true that it is very difficult for this to happen because if you plan your marketing calendar correctly, you will have a constant sending that should not tire your list and you must also consider that if they have subscribed it is because they want to receive your email, so there will always be interest.

- that the copy is badly written or unclear, which can hurt our pride but is the most likely and, above all, the easiest to solve. There are millions of videos on the internet with tips for all kinds of copy and, apart from that, it's something you learn with practice, which is probably why we write better and better, even without realising it (in our course we have a document on VARIOUS TIPS dedicated exclusively to copy in all its extensions). You have to think positive, so it's better this than thinking that the person doesn't like our product and that's why they don't press the button (if that were the case, we would obviously have to rethink the whole thing, but let's think positive... ).
- that action buttons (CTAs) are not displayed or do not work properly: it may sound silly, but it can happen that we forget to associate a button with a landing page, or even that we forget about the button itself; and when does this happen? When we do things in a hurry and not in a planned way. So now you know. Regarding the issue of CTA buttons, it is very important to put them in specific positions, e.g. always after an image within the email and always after the last text message. You can also add links to the landing page, also creating anchor text and pasting the link into the same images. The objective is that the reader, in one way or another, ends up reaching our target landing page which - VERY IMPORTANTLY - must always be the same, i.e. all landing pages of the same email must be the same (in any case, the ideal would be to stay between 1 and 2 CTA buttons per email, to avoid confusing the reader).
In any case, apart from the 3 tips we have just told you to increase click rates (and avoid falling into the opposite behaviour), it is also important to ensure that your email has a very intuitive structure, which allows the reader to understand from the first few seconds whether your email is worth reading. Consider that it normally takes a reader 3 to 5 seconds to decide whether to read your email in its entirety, so the ideal would be to start with the important topics to immediately capture their attention, and later, add less relevant information.
Another fundamental element that directly affects CTR is personalisation: personalised emails (e.g. with the recipient's name) have a CTR that is almost 40 per cent higher.

- Paid order rate: the most relevant value because in the end what we want with our email campaigns is to sell. The higher that value, the better, and here there is no average rate: it depends on the type of campaign, the type of season, the lists, our history. We have to be clear that the goal is to earn 20-30% of our billing from these emails, but many times emails are also an advertising medium that keeps the customer interested until they actually want to buy (even if it doesn't exactly match the email sent). And now there is the golden rule we must brand ourselves in our heads: potentially all emails can help you sell. It is clear that sometimes an extra email makes us lose a person because they unsubscribe from the newsletter, but we should not care, because it means that it was a person who had no intention of buying. The rule is very simple but true: if a person is interested in your product and intends to buy it, they always want to receive offers and are always more inclined to buy during the offer periods that are communicated to them. Moreover, this same email is sure to represent for someone else the opportunity or promotion they were looking for and will end up buying. And we are much more interested in a customer who buys now than a customer who might be able to buy in the future, because:

- 1) the customer who buys now gives us money that we can invest in bringing new traffic to our website
- 2) the customer who buys now, can try our product and service and find that he likes it so much that he wants to buy again and again.
- 3) The customer who buys now, advertises us now, because he leaves us positive feedback and will now recommend us to his friends.

EXTRA TRUCK: as promised, we give you a list of the email items that worked best throughout 2023 (with an open rate of always over 40% and sometimes even 60%) (usually try to avoid writing in all caps, using lots of exclamation marks and strange symbols; also, if you don't already do so, add the sender's information, e.g. From: "Matthew from Consulting Ad Hoc" or From: "Consulting Ad Hoc", which will give your email more credibility):

- You won't believe it, + name
- limited edition only for you + name
- last hours to receive your gift
- oblige us
- name + we have a gift for you
- finally the warmth/coolness rewards you
- are you missing + product/category?
- this year you will surprise her
- I've never told anyone
- for you, that you always do things at the last
- urgent: tonight they disappear forever
- freshly baked
- You won't believe it
- You surely didn't know it, + name
- the couple you've been waiting for
- last few hours to take advantage
- we don't want you to be left out...
- Don't miss it
- It's now or never
- It's your lucky day, + name
- there's a gift waiting for you
- It's the best way to get (something related to your brand)
- 50% OFF. 50% OFF. 50% OFF. 50% OFF
- We dedicated this photo to you
- Order confirmed

EXTRA TRICK 2: Don't miss the opportunity to use A/B Testing in your email campaigns. As you probably already know, these are tests in which you only change one variable within a campaign or advertisements and gain valuable information that you can use in the future. For example, with regard to email subject lines (again with Klaviyo, but also with other platforms) you can create an A/B test where the only variable you control is the subject line: in email A you can put the name of the email recipient and in email B, you can omit it; or even in email A you write a more direct message anticipating the content, and in email B you use a more generic but catchy phrase; In this way you will have direct evidence of which strategies give you a better open rate in your campaigns and you can gradually refine your issues and other factors to have a clear and proven idea of what works best with your target audience. So don't hesitate to use these A/B tests because the difference can be enormous, and not only in the open rate (although this alone should be enough to convince you to use them, as we are talking about potential sales that may be lost or generated).

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EXTRA TRICK 3: As far as possible, and if your email allows it, try to get your users to reply to the same email, because this will increase the authority of your email and, consequently, its open rate. It is clear that if we have 10,000 people on our list, it would not be smart to ask each person a question to answer, because then we would have 10,000 emails to read and answer. But we can add some information in each email that may prompt our reader to reply. 
- An example: you could send out a normal email with a new product, and end it with an affiliate offer or some particular promotion, and tell them that if they want more information, all they have to do is reply to the same email with "I want more information". That way only a few will reply to you, and you will have got, on the one hand, responses to your email, and on the other hand, a number of people who are really interested in your offer, and you can send another more personalised email, without having to waste a whole day;- Another relatively simple way, although only recommended in the first phase when we still have a few customers (again, to avoid adding too many things to do) is to add a message to our order tracking emails (we will surely have them, because they are provided on every ecommerce platform); in these emails just add a sentence like "please reply to this email to let us know that you have received it and that you have your tracking code, so we will be reassured that everything is OK, thank you". That way surely a small percentage will reply to you and you just have to delete their email and that's it.
- The last easy way is to ask them in your first welcome email (the one from the pre-sale flow) to add you to their favourite email contacts.

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EXTRA TIP 4: if your emails need images to attract attention, remember to compress them (and avoid gifs or videos or elements that would take a long time to load), because if you don't, your email may open slower (and the person may get tired and leave the email without reading it) or even look bad, which would damage your image; so keep it simple, with text and a few compressed images to help reading and nothing more. Also, remember to always leave the Unsubscribe link (which shows up well at the end of the email, but doesn't even attract attention), because that way if someone doesn't want to read your emails, they will simply unsubscribe from your list, instead of hitting SPAM or BLOCK EMAIL (which would hurt you much more).
And don't forget to use an application that allows you to create emails that fit perfectly on your mobile screen, as more than half of your readers will open the email from their mobile phone.
Finally, clean up your contact list from time to time to avoid sending e-mails to people who will never open them (if you have Klaviyo, we explain how to do this in our VARIOUS TIPS document).

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EXTRA TRUCK 5: One of the elements that negatively affects the authoritativeness of your email and, consequently, its deliverability (which directly affects the Open Rate) is the bounced email ratio. Bounced emails are all emails that for one reason or another do not even reach the recipient and are divided into two types:
- hard bounced: these are emails that do not reach their destination because the email is incorrect or inactive
- soft bounced: these are emails that do not reach their destination because they are temporarily disabled, e.g. because the recipient's mailbox is completely full.
Clearly, a high percentage of bounced emails indicates to the servers that the sender (us) is not doing a good job of cleaning their lists and therefore damages the authority of your email.
So apart from the normal cleaning we have to do to keep our lists full of people interested in receiving and reading our emails, we also have to do this kind of cleaning, but luckily with Klaviyo it is easy, because it automatically cleans and removes the hard bounce emails, and for the soft bounces we simply create a segment that allows us to detect and remove them from time to time.

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Before we get started with email marketing campaigns, I want to tell you something that will help you in the future: when creating each campaign, even if it is a seemingly pointless campaign (there is always a reason and it is to sell...), remember to name your campaign.
It may seem trivial, but it will help you a lot in the long run, because you can always filter your campaigns by name and most of the time all you have to do is copy the same campaigns (instead of creating them from scratch) and modify them a little. You can even reuse the same thing if you see that it worked well. So being able to search by name for a successful campaign will help you achieve the same results (or even better ones because you will know how to improve them) in your future campaigns.

One of the most important common elements of emails is the copy. If the person has read the subject line and decided to open the email, it means they want to know what you have to say. What we have to look for here is to create a strong connection with the person reading us; this connection can be both emotional (conveying shared values) and practical (an offer that cannot be missed). To do this, we must guide them through the copy to a CTA (call to action) button that transfers it to our landing page.

Every email must have unique elements so that the reader is always interested in reading it, but there are also some points that are repeated in successful emails
- a catchy opening sentence or greeting, always accompanied by the name - if we use Klaviyo the formula for adding the name is as follows: {{ first_name|default:'' }}
- the language should be recognisable and appropriate for your target group (if you sell luxury products it will be important to speak in a LEI; if you are a game shop a fresher, more modern style is better)
- a purpose of the email: you have to explain immediately why you are writing to them and why they should continue reading until the end
An example of these first 3 points for an email aimed at young people would be:
'Finally we have the perfect offer for you, Giovanni.
You had to wait but it was worth it, because now you can buy our shoes, with a 10% discount....
Amazing isn't it?"

Clearly we can try to follow a common emotional thread with the previous emails, and continue so that our connection with the reader is even deeper. But this is not always necessary and especially not always possible. So when it comes time to explain the offer in detail, remember to follow these guidelines:
- the offer must be worth it (a discount, a gift, free shipping...)
- we must explain how it works or the conditions if it does (minimum order or if they have to indicate something in the order notes...)
- we must convey urgency: whatever the offer is, it must have a limited duration, otherwise it loses its effectiveness (a discount valid 365 days a year is not a discount, it is a lower price and that's it)

Following the previous example, we could continue:
"All you have to do is use the code DISCOUNT10, to save 10% on your purchase. Just enter it in the checkout and you're done. There are no order limits.
Remember: this super offer is only valid for 48 hours. So hurry up."

With regard to the last point (urgency), if we have to send it in a weekend or longer campaign (as in the case of Black Friday or Epiphany), it can be very useful to include at least in the last email (if you send 2-3 total emails) or in the last emails (if the total campaign consists of more than 5-6 emails) an automatic timer that gives the potential customer a very clear idea of the time remaining until the end of the offer.
For this we recommend a free application, where you can register with Google or Facebook and nothing else is necessary: countdownmail.com
Setting it up is very simple:
Click Create Timer in the top right-hand corner and then start:
- select Standard Timer, what is the final expiry date of the offer, add the time zone you are interested in and the language. 
 
In the Design menu, you only need to configure whether you also want days to appear in the timer or directly the total hours (our advice is that if there are more than 24 hours left, always put days as well).
 

In the Colours part, select Background Transparent, so that only the values without background appear in your email.
 
Finally, you have to click on the blue Get Embed Code button and a screen like this one below will open, where you can select the position of the timer in your email (usually the middle one) and the size (you have to put Responsive to fit all screens and mobiles). Once you've done this, you can copy the code and press Save timer (this is very important because if you don't save it, it won't show up in your email).
REMEMBER: that every time you prepare an email with a timer, you have to create a new timer, because if you change one that you have already saved, it will automatically change the settings of the previously prepared emails where you copied that Embed Code.

 
Now let's see where to paste the code into your email programme (Klaviyo). It is very simple:
- Once inside your e-mail, you have to select the Text box in the Blocks and drag it to the position in the e-mail where you want the countdown to appear.
 
- select the text as if you were going to edit it and delete all of its content and then click on the Fuente HTML button.
 
- now paste the code you copied into the application as is and click Save.

- you are done: now the countdown appears in your email.

Finally, remember that throughout the email you have to add enough buttons and CTA links and that they all have to match and take you to the same landing page. Otherwise, the person reading the email will feel confused and lose interest in the offer you are making.
This is quite obvious, because if I read an email and I am interested in its copy, the last thing I need to do is get to the page indicated by the copy itself. And if when I press the button it doesn't take me anywhere, then it won't make sense, because the idea I will have is that the email is misconfigured and that I won't be able to reach the website to take advantage of the promotion described in the email copy.
In addition, it is important not only the number of CTA buttons (at least 2 or 3 per email), but also their position within the email: the best thing would be to have one as soon as you start with the explanation of the promotion, then another after a few images, and finally, always one at the end of the email, before the p.s (which should be a maximum of one line, e.g.: "P.S. remember that this promotion only lasts until tomorrow") or even lower than an emotional p.s, such as: "P.S. remember that if you give up our product you also give up:
- our 30-day no-questions-asked return policy
- our FREE shipping
- our future extra discounts
- be happy with our product"

To give you a quick demonstration of what we have just described, we will leave you an email: as you can see, we have a title and a short text with an embedded link in the important part; then a CTA button, some images with an embedded link, another CTA button, a text and a last CTA button before a short postscript (p.s.).
 
For specific examples of campaigns, write to us and we will send you the texts that have worked best with our customers. These are the following types:

Weekend campaigns
New product campaigns
Broadcast campaigns