July 24th, 2008

How to use email list rentals and newsletter ads

• The list owner is the company with the right to mail third-party offers to people on that list. And those people have opted in to receive such offers.
• Opt-in data, IP address, date, and time logs should exist and be retrievable on demand. If a list owner pushes your offer and your company serves the graphics and hosts the landing site, your company will be affected by any complaints.
• When the list owner sends the e-mail, it uses/includes its name or brand in the message’s sender field.

So, you do need to exercise caution in renting lists. Gather information about any list you’re thinking of using. Use a spreadsheet or database to keep track of the details about each list.

2. Email Newsletter Ads

The right third-party newsletters – attractive, credible, well-written newsletters, that also provide the right audience – can be very cost-effective marketing tools. Quality e-mail newsletters have become ever more useful in a world of inboxes chocked full of spam.

They provide a way to break through that clutter to reach highly targeted customers and clients.

Numbers? Good e-newsletters are sometimes opened at as high a rate as 60 to 70 percent or more. A compelling offer can pull a moderately high 1% click rate (conversions are mostly up to your landing page), which is much higher than some other website ads. Those with sales offerings can produce results some 50 percent higher than standalone e-mail.

In a past survey of consumer attitudes toward media types, which I’d doubt has changed too much, e-mail newsletters ranked number 3 of 12 (behind print and TV) as most trustworthy and least annoying.

But, to get good results, you should review a recent sample issue of every newsletter you are considering and ask at least the first few of the following questions:

• In what form can you advertise – text, graphics, or a combination? (text is often the better choice depending upon the situation). What are the specifications – number of words/characters, graphic pixel dimensions, etc.?
• Where, within the newsletter, are ad(s) placed? Top, middle, bottom; left or right sides? (The higher and to the left or middle, the better).
• What’s the average issue open rate?
• What’s the average, or range, of click through rates? Conversions?
• Can I see the subscription form(s) that people used to subscribe?
• What offers worked best in this newsletter in the past? Which sponsors have run multiple campaigns, indicating it’s working for them?
• Is a high percent of this list from co-registration or sweeps (which might be lower performing)?
• What steps is the publisher taking to avoid filters?
• Can you also put an offer in the publisher’s new reader welcome letter? (A high-performing add-on worth pursuing.)

Lots more information available on email marketing through our report on the topic available at http://www.srbmarketing.com/pubs_smooth_emailing.html.