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Email Marketers Missing Opportunities

Email marketers are missing some great opportunities to increase their email deliverability, not to mention opens, clicks and conversions, according to a study on email practices by eROI.

For example, about three of four email marketers say they are paying closer attention to subject lines than in the past, and 50% are trying to keep them more concise, but only 28% say they are actually testing them.

The survey, “The Elements of Email,” examines various elements of email marketing - including the use of accreditation, authentication, subject-line content, site navigation, and preheaders and footers.

It finds that marketers are making adjustments to their email practices to increase user-friendliness and combat image blocking, problems with accreditation, and difficulty with site navigation.

Key survey findings:

• Email headers: Half of marketers say they use their company name in email headers, but less than 20% say they use an individual name and about 31% say it depends on the campaign:

• Authentication: About 55% of marketers do not know how they authenticate email. Of those who do, Sender ID is used by the majority:

• Accreditation: About 25% of marketers use accreditation services (companies such as Goodmail, Habeas, and Sender Score Certified) to help them avoid blacklists. This number is growing, according to eROI.
• Preheaders: Two-thirds of marketers put “view as a web page” at the top of their email because of image blocking and rendering issues, among other reasons. One-quarter do not use a preheader, and 80% do not use whitelist instructions. Snippet text is used by about 13% of marketers, an increase from a few months ago.
• Subject lines: 75% of marketers say they try to ensure subject-line relevance to the content of the email and 50% focus on keeping it short. Only 25% of marketers are testing subject lines on a regular basis.
• Site navigation: Nearly 30% of marketers duplicate their site navigation in email. Of those, 15% find it more effective than the main content in driving clicks, while 11% of marketers find their navigation converts better than the main content of their email.
• Email footers: 75% of marketers have links for profile and subscription management, yet fewer than 10% have created a mobile version of their email.