4 Reasons Why Email Campaigns Fail

In past posts I’ve covered why email marketing should be a part of a digital strategy and communications plan. The data driven nature and impressive ROI makes it a go-to tactic but it’s easy to do email marketing wrong. Here are a few common pitfalls we’ve seen over the years.

1. The “send to” list isn’t solid

listThe core to email marketing is your list. If this component isn’t solid then the likelihood of having high open rates and decent click through in your campaigns is unlikely. Ideally, lists should be created “naturally” as the user should opt-in to your email communications. I would avoid purchasing lists as sending to those lists could be viewed as spam and in general are poor quality.
  

2. Data isn’t used to its fullest potential

data-iconEmail marketing has one of the highest ROIs compared to other digital marketing tactics. The reason why email ranks so high is that it is data driven. If you aren’t monitoring open rates, click through rates, subject lines, clicks, etc., you’ve pretty much missed the point of email marketing. From the data gathered, strong email marketers will modify, evolve and segment users/lists based around the data and patterns observed.
  

3. Email isn’t mobile friendly

mobile-iconChecking email is the top activity on a smartphone and with mobile devices dominating the digital landscape it’s imperative that communications render properly on these devices. Even though not all devices support media queries for responsive emails, the major players in the device market will support mobile emails. If emails aren’t developed with mobile functionality in mind your email campaign will lead to a poor user experience which could mean no response, no action and potentially no ROI.
  

4. Email actions aren’t tied to Google Analytics

Google-Analytics-iconYou could send out a beautiful email to the perfect list but if you can’t see what this email actually does in Google Analytics or how it contributes to goals and conversions it’s kind of a lost cause. Using tagged URLs in your email campaign will allow you to segment traffic email traffic in Google Analytics as well as track conversions from this tactic. This will not only allow you to attribute sales, goals or conversions to email but also allow you to budget properly from a ROI standpoint as you’d be able to see how much revenue is directly tied to email marketing.

 

 

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