What is the Real Value of Email Hygiene
Email is not dead, in fact it continues to grow in importance every year. Marketers are utilizing and relying on the speed, personalization, customization and targeting that email affords them more and more everyday. But sending successful and effective email campaigns requires time to plan, create, and manage. No matter the size or your company, those resources- that investment- demands a solid return. And that is a lot of pressure on email marketing.
With 2018 coming to an end, companies, departments and agencies are already starting to plan their budgets for 2019. As email marketers you are hopefully already utilizing an email verification and/or email hygiene solution for your email data. If you aren't then you should really consider adding such a service to your 2019 marketing budgets. For those of you who are curious about learning more about your email data, lets move on to the BIG question that email marketers ask all the time...
What is the REAL tangible value (ROI) on spending money to clean up their email data?
Some stakeholders might think, "If it ain't broke why fix it"? But most savvy marketing professionals who understand the effort it takes to run a successful email campaign are thinking, " I can't afford to wait to have it break and then fix it, so I need to be proactive- but where do I start? Who do I go with"? Whatever camp you happen to belong to, this article is written for you. Together we will learn why applying both Email Hygiene and Email Verification early will not only help grow your revenues- but help you avoid problems that can turn your investments - into a nightmare.
Verification is Simply Not Enough
First of all, it's important to understand that a lot of verification's ability to detect bounces is being hampered due to Verification's Oath decision to turn off verification for Yahoo, Verizon, AOL and other email services that they own. Due to this change a lot of verification providers are now using the term, "validation" to try and confuse potential customers. (Read more about the Verizon's Oath changes in a recent Editorial series from Vince Cersosimo, CEO of Webbula Part 1, Part 2). But don't be fooled, verification or validation or whatever it is beng called today- is still not enough to tackle the enormity of potential email threats you are facing.
Great, you're probably thinking, that was a lot of marketing talk. Let's say I believe all of that, but why do I ever need to do this to my own list anyway? What is the harm if I don't? Is it even worth the additional investment? Let's try to minimize the marketing language and talk straight about the nuts and bolts? And then back it up with some extremely recent third-party research. How's that sound?
Q: What is the Return on Investment with Multi-Method Email Hygiene and Verification?
A. Email Marketers utilizing multi-method email hygiene and verification outperformed those email marketers that did not utilize these tactics. Those who harnessed the power of multi-method email hygiene and verification enjoyed a higher delivery, open, click, and conversion rate as well as an email Average Order Value (AOV) that was 3.9 percent higher.
The Relevancy Group (TRG) said that. Not us. They reported that quote along with an entire paper to back it all up in a recent research paper entitled, "The Power of Email Verification and Multi-Method Email Hygiene". You can download a FREE copy of their report by clicking on this link. Read it for yourself, it is rather eye opening.
The Problem
When marketers were asked if they were using verification and hygiene methods in the TRG Report, they found that most were not doing enough, with some not even planning for it in their marketing budgets. The report clearly shows how much of a problem this can be due to overall deliverability rates trending downward over the past three years, dropping in the second half of 2018 to 87 percent.
The reason for such a low deliverability rate is because of the consumer and corporate inbox providers having their hands full defending the amount of fake emails that flood their servers on a daily basis. And while a lot of these providers have their own ways of identifying malicious attacks, the filters they use to protect recipients often result in false positives. Good messages ended up being blocked, sent to the bulk folder, or quarantined in such a way as to render them virtually inaccessible to end users, who expect and rely upon getting their emails.
The Solution
In order to help improve your deliverability rates the answer is obviously to combine verification and hygiene. The results speak for themselves. Verification is a necessary tactic to ensure that your email addresses are valid, but it is an incomplete defense.
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The Results
After conducting their research in June 2018, The Relevancy Group concluded that those using both verification and hygiene simply outperformed those who did not. Marketers doing so have a 38 percent higher email marketing monthly revenue than those who chose not to use this tactic. This equated to approximately $2 million additional dollars in monthly revenue in the study group. It turns out that email hygiene isn't a cost center at all- but rather a profit center.
As already mentioned above, marketers will benefit with a higher delivery, click, and conversion rates, as well as an email Average Order Value (AOV) that was 3.9 percent higher.
As of June 2018 Marketers using this tactic:
- Are getting more out of the larger send: Those who are taking advantage of this tactic had larger monthly send sizes. Both verification and hygiene deliver a higher quality audience and end with a positive delivery and engagement can mail at a higher frequency.
- Improved Delivery: Those who choose this route had a deliverability rate that was 1.27 percent higher than those that did not utilize this tactic.
- Increased Engagement: Open and click through rates for senders with a data quality mind were on average about one and a quarter to one and three quarters above those operating without hygiene.
- The AOV Increased: The mean AOV overall was $137.21 or 3,9 percent higher for those who embraced data quality.
Be sure to also check out and download the helpful infographic provided below which shows you how to measure ROI.
