Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is a world-class platform for building and optimizing 1:1 customer journey and leveraging data to guide customized marketing initiatives. With SFMC, your marketing team can deliver personalized content across any channel, including email, to the right audience and at precisely the right time. You can even measure the impact of each campaign to optimize your approach and generate better results.

And every year, Salesforce releases new features to update SFMC. Salesforce email specialists, CRM users, and marketing professionals all over the world enthusiastically track the Salesforce release calendar and look forward to scheduled Salesforce releases.

The latest Salesforce release for SFMC, Summer ’23, will enable you to do all of the above and more. The Salesforce summer release for 2023 includes numerous new innovations that will help you save time, automate faster, and personalize more customer interactions. Read on to discover these innovations and how they can help you make the most of your SFMC investment in 2023 and beyond.

Alerts, reporting, and validation to optimize automation and improve automation health 

SFMC Summer ’23 focuses a lot on automation optimization and health. The goal is to help you save time, publish email campaigns faster (especially with Salesforce HTML email templates), and use your limited resources for higher-value work.

Some of the key automation-focused innovations in SFMC Summer ’23 release are:

Automation alerts through Event Notification Service (ENS)

Through ENS, you can get business-critical alerts about all your SFMC automations. Each notification will include important information so you understand which automation you have set up and where, including:

• Name and type
• Business unit
• File location
• Error details

All you have to do is subscribe to the notifications you need for your business needs. These notifications are available for started, completed, stopped, errored, and skipped automations.

View marketing data usage by downloading your data extension (DE) storage details

As a SFMC user, you want to optimize your DE storage usage and performance. You may also want to comply with one or more data privacy regulations. Now you can do both by viewing your marketing data usage, which you can do by downloading your DE storage details as a CSV file. The file will show how much data you are currently using, how it is performing, and if you need to remove any unneeded data and/or update current data retention policies.

Evaluate automations over time

One of the best ways to improve automation health is to review the success rate of each automation and identify the automations that have high skip or error counts. With SFMC Summer ’23 release, you can download your automation history as a CSV file, which will enable you to evaluate your automations over time.

Merge and transfer data across SFMC DEs

DEs are a key feature of SFMC because they store information about all your contacts. You can use DEs in both Contact Builder and Email Studio to run queries, pull information, and create subscriber subsets for one or more campaigns.

DEs can be sendable, non-sendable, standard, filtered, or random, and can be shared with other business units. And now, with Summer ’23, you can merge or transfer data across DEs as needed by using an import activity. Unlike SQL query activities, import activities don’t have a 30-minute timeout window, so it’s advisable to use this method for DE data merges and transfers.

Furthermore, you can optimize the performance of SQL query activities by validating their syntax. The validator will warn you of select code issues that could cause poor performance and also make suggestions to improve your code quality.

Easily manage and restore deleted content in SFMC Content Builder

In the past, your Salesforce email specialists may have struggled to recover deleted content from SFMC Content Builder. Summer ’23 release eliminates this struggle. Now, Content Builder users can send recoverable content to the Recycle Bin and restore recycled content items without involving the Support team. They can also easily manage and reuse the content for new campaigns.

Summer ’23 also provides CloudPages custom domain upgrades. Users of these domains can create friendly error messages that customers will see when they enter a wrong URL or try to access unpublished or unrendered pages. These messages will guide customers through potential issues while reducing friction and improving their experiences.

You can also specify content at the root URL for CloudPages custom domains and easily manage all your CloudPage assets. Moreover, customers won’t see an annoying 403 error if they try to access root URL pages. Instead, you can deliver superior navigation and search experiences, and thus delight them and earn their trust.

SFMC is already well-known for its advanced content personalization capabilities. Summer ’23 takes personalization a step further with a new AMPscript function. This function will let you parse JSON data and extract nested data to personalize SFMC content for your email campaigns.

Customize subject lines and track send activities with Distributed Marketing

As an email marketing specialist, you know that subject lines are a powerful element of email messages. Per one recent research study, 47% of email recipients open messages based only on the subject line. Plus, personalized subject lines increase open rates by a massive 50%. That’s why it’s important to craft compelling, catchy, and customized subject lines for every email campaign.

SFMC Summer ’23 makes it easy to do this in Distributed Marketing. Distributed Marketing admins can predefine email subject line options so the email marketing team can easily customize subject lines. They can also define their own subject lines.

Distributed Marketing is also useful in many other ways. For example, you can add default customizations in Quick Send messages to streamline the Distributed Marketing experience for SFMC users. You can also track send activities with advanced reporting. These reports will give you greater visibility into activities and view the entire communication history with a contact or lead.

Optimize journeys in SFMC Journey Builder

Effective email marketing starts with customer journey mapping. You need to understand who your customers are and how they interact with your brand throughout their journey over different touchpoints. SFMC’s Journey Builder is an easy tool to create 1:1 journey maps that will guide your email marketing activities and practices.

Now you can further optimize journeys in Journey Builder with the System Optimization Dashboard. This dashboard includes information about journeys and configurations. Use these insights to improve system processing speed and optimize journey performance.

With SFMC’s Summer ’23 release, you can also:

• Simplify journeys with enhanced exit and goal criteria instead of using unnecessary Decision Splits
• View each customer’s journey by Salesforce DE objects
• Simplify journey navigation with expandable and collapsible paths
• Expand or collapse all activities simultaneously in running journeys
• Review configuration builds by collapsing activities (Decision Splits) and zooming in on specific sections of the journey canvas

Your developers can download the Journey Builder history (up to 30 days) to a CSV TSV file via REST API. The history will include data about journeys, activities, status, and errors and can help with troubleshooting, segmentation, and reporting.

Yet another new innovation in SFMC Journey Builder is that you can now use an email activity delivery window without an hourly threshold. Separately specify the delivery window and hourly threshold for an email activity to throttle email sends. Thus, if you want to implement a burst send during a specific time frame, simply define a delivery window; Journey Builder will do the rest. Journey Builder will also allow you to compare dataset attributes and streamline use cases so you can monitor whether a subscriber’s status or lifetime value has changed since entering the journey and leverage this understanding to further simplify journeys.

Conclusion

The Salesforce Summer ‘23 release date is actually three dates: May 6, June 3, and June 10. The release for SFMC will occur between June 3 and June 23. Take advantage of this release to enhance your email marketing program: create better content, automations, subject lines, and reports, and get better results from each email campaign and message.

We hope you found this article useful. For more information about SFMC Summer ’23 release and its world-class innovations, contact Email Uplers. Our Salesforce email specialists, developers, and campaign managers will help you do more with SFMC and its world-class features.

The post Key Highlights of Salesforce Summer ’23 Release for Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

Ask any email developer worth his salt about his Achilles Heel, and they are most likely to point out the elusiveness of crafting an HTML email that renders uniformly across email clients and devices. While we are all familiar with the issues MSO (Microsoft Outlook) poses in crafting that “universal renderable HTML template,” in the text that follows, we will attempt to find a solution to this white whale of every developer. 

The Issue At Hand

Before we get to the solution, let’s understand the complexities of the issue at hand. Since its 2007 version, Outlook started employing the services of the Word processor in order to render its emails, which in turn comes with its own challenges, such as its limits on renderable CSS styles, certain HTML tags, and their parameters. 

Even though Outlook has the provision of deploying VML (Vector Markup Language) in rendering email templates, it works only on Outlook 2007-2013 version; therefore, developers have to use CSS styles or HTML code differently compared to other email clients that may use Webkit, for instance. 

The Solution In Sight 

When the need arises to code separately for MSO and other email clients, conditional code steps in to save the day. Also known as MSO conditional statements or conditional comments, it has the potential to iron out many difficulties that email developers face on a daily basis. Let’s see how that works out.

What is the Meaning of Conditional Code?

Simply said, much like its name, conditional code deploys “if-then” statements to specify actions to be carried out when a particular statement is true. For instance, “If X is true, then execute Y.” In this particular piece of code, X will be executed only when condition Y is met. 

One might say that complex conditional code can only be deployed by programming languages like PHP, Python, JavaScript, C#, etc.; however, markup languages like HTML presented by style sheets like CSS (Cascade Styling Sheets) can handle a limited set of conditional statements. This can help developers to present platform-specific content through a range of different clients and devices. Conditional comments can help you target a plethora of versions of MSO and render emails seamlessly across a range of devices using Conditional CSS via media queries or employ fallback classes within your <style> tags in your email <head>.  You could finally deploy those stellar email newsletter templates that you envisioned for your brand! 

Conditional Comments with MSO

Microsoft developed MSO tags (<!– and →) so that they could be recognized, and their content will be displayed specifically by Outlook. These comments allow developers to add a specific piece of code or a styled element that might have been ignored in their HTML documents. Incidentally, as you might be aware, HTML comments are mostly ignored by email clients and browsers. 

However, T-online is one email client that will render all comments effectively. Therefore if your emails are directed to t-online.de domains, you must hide comments from that client. 

In the above example, only Outlook will be able to process and deploy the table and its contents whilst other email clients won’t be able to read the comments and use the styles. 

Let’s have a look at some of the codes you can use as per your bespoke need:

• Using MSO conditional comments for incorporating CSS styles in the <head> targeting specifically Outlook. 

• If you’d like to target clients outside Outlook, here’s what you can do,

“if !mso” is declaring, “if the client is not Microsoft Outlook”. You’ll also need to append your initial <!–[if !mso]> tag with <!–> and preface your closing <![endif]–> tag with <!– in order for Outlook to acknowledge this code.

• One can even target specific Outlook versions by specifying the version number after “if mso”. For example, 

Use cases of conditional code in developing emails 

If your latest email campaign is curated to be sent to multiple email clients, you will need to incorporate certain elements of conditional code to ensure that your emails render well across platforms and email clients. 

Interestingly, conditional code allows one to create more engaging content for supportive email clients. It allows you to deploy the eyeball-grabbing power of animated gifs, HTML5 videos, and cool web fonts whilst offering backup design and content for clients that are unsupportive of these features in creating responsive email templates. 

Let’s check out some use cases;

1. Deploying different styles and designs depending on the email client or viewport size

Emails can render differently when viewed on different devices. For instance, a <h1> heading at 24px on a mobile email client will look completely fine, but when viewed on a desktop, the title may seem small in comparison with the body copy. The @media rule can be used to set styles according to the viewport’s dimensions or other specifications of the subscriber’s device. 

2. Hide specific email elements

As we are aware, there are certain HTML and CSS components are not supported by all email clients. In order to prevent an awkward display of such elements one can use conditional CSS to hide them. Here are some ways you can use to hide particular email elements;

• Deploy inline CSS:

If you wish to hide an element, you must set the display property to none. For instance,

<div style=”display:none;”>Hidden content</div>

• Make use of the mso-hide property:

In particular versions of Microsoft Outlook, you can use mso-hidden attributes in a style tag to hide an element. For example;

• Employ display:none in a media query in order to hide an element on specific devices by setting the display property to none. Here we hide the image in 600px and less viewport.

Make use of MSO conditional comment to hide an element on the basis of a certain condition. In the following instance, you can choose to hide an element if the Outlook version is older than 2010. 

3. Employ Ghost Tables:

Ghost tables come in handy when you don’t wish Outlook to break things simply because it doesn’t recognize the max-width, min-width, and inline-block properties. There are a couple of ways to create ghost tables, let’s check them out; 

Or,

4. Bulletproof backgrounds and bullets: 

Bulletproof email design elements are HTML/CSS elements that use traditional background images combined with Vector Markup Language (VML) to display properties irrespective of your subscriber’s email client. The following is an example of a bulletproof background.

Across email clients, the shape of a button may be affected, however, their functioning is unaffected. Here is an instance of a bulletproof button,

5. Replace Gifs with static images:

Outlook for Windows still does not support gifs. Across Outlook versions, the handing of gifs varies. To convey your visual message in an effective manner one can use conditional comments to display a static image.

6. Hide & Show Method:

If you want to hide and show elements in mobile and desktop you can use this method. 

7. Stack Tables:

One can stack tables in Outlook mobile using mso conditions. For this, one has to code the main table and, after that code two tables in the main table. You may then code MSO code for the middle of both tables.

For instance,

Summary

In conclusion, one can say that one can deploy different techniques that can be used to achieve consistency across clients, servers, and devices. Are you looking for the perfectly coded, universally rendering email campaigns? Email Uplers is just a couple of clicks away! 

The post Conditional CSS for Email ~ The Developer’s Guide To Crafting Responsive Emails appeared first on Email Uplers.

Gone are the days when people used to access their emails exclusively on their desktop computers. The rapid advancement of technology has ushered in a stunning array of devices, which, while physically being significantly less intimidating than their desktop counterparts, are just as efficient, if not more, at replicating their capabilities. Phones, tablets, and wearable devices are now ubiquitous, making it imperative for email marketers to take them all into account while designing and developing their campaigns. This is where responsive email design comes into the picture. 

Formulated nearly a dozen years ago by web designer Ethan Marcotte, responsive design refers to the practice of designing content such that it remains accessible and engaging across devices of all types and screen sizes. While Ethan had initially envisioned this philosophy for the realm of web design, it gradually started finding immense appeal among the email community, too. Despite its necessity and popularity, however, responsive email design, more often than not, breaks out cold beads of sweat on developers’ foreheads, so complex are its asks. If you are just starting to learn the ropes of this technique, this blog will prove to be a timely read for you. Today, we discuss in detail the many challenges that one may encounter while practicing responsive email design and how you can overcome them. Excited to find out more? Dive in!

The Need For Responsive Email Design

Before we delve deeper into the complexities of responsive email design, it is important for us to first wrap our heads around its gravity. Let us take a look.

• 47%– that’s how many emails are opened on mobile devices. This is a statistic that you can afford to overlook only at your own peril. Given the perpetual rise of mobile users, this number is only destined to go upwards in the years to come. Practicing responsive email design, thus, is absolutely non-negotiable under these circumstances.
• Helps you deliver a better user experience. Subscribers, irrespective of the device with which they are accessing your email, should be able to derive the same experience from it, something that you can only facilitate by delivering responsive email templates. The last thing you’d want for your subscribers is to bounce from your emails simply because they are frustrated with how it appears on their devices. 
• Increases your engagement numbers and decreases your unsubscribe rates. Subscribers find it easier to interact with and navigate through emails crafted with a responsive framework. Naturally, this makes them look forward more and more to your emails. All of this ultimately contributes to boosting your ROI.
• Allows you to steer clear of legal issues. By making your emails responsive, you are automatically taking a significant step towards making your emails accessible. Several international policies and legal frameworks make it binding for businesses to make their communication accessible for people with visual, cognitive, speech, auditory, and physical disabilities. Should you fail to comply with them, you can invite an endless torrent of disputes and an unenviable brand recognition in the process.

Challenges of Responsive Email Design

What are a few roadblocks you might come across while practicing responsive email design? Let’s find out.

Handling Content Density

Representing email copy on a smaller screen is a department that puts email developers in an incredible fix. Broadly, they have two ways to go about it:

1. Shrink the font size to accommodate it all in a limited space.

2. Stick to a legible font size and have the content spread out.

Now, neither of these routes is very user-friendly. While the first way requires users to repeatedly zoom in to their screens to read the content, the second approach calls for them to scroll multiple times to consume the content in its entirety. Out of the both options, the second one is definitely better, but it demands some degree of effort from the reader nonetheless. 

Of course, you can always attempt to keep your email copy as crisp as possible, but given the extremely limited screen real estate mobile devices offer, you are bound to find yourself in a pickle every now and then. 

Besides content arrangement, link placement is also going to cause some headaches for you. If you are showcasing multiple products, including all of their links and CTAs will most certainly be a challenge. If, solely for the sake of visibility, you are thinking of placing them all above the fold, we strongly suggest you to reconsider. Take a step back and visualize how clustered it will make your mobile-version email. That can’t possibly draw in readers, right? Highlighting a couple of your most sought-after offerings above the fold is alright, but if you have several links, you will have to be pretty smart about placing them throughout your email.

Factoring in Latency 

Latency, in the context of mobile devices, refers to the time taken by them to transmit and receive a message. High latency is what we popularly address as lag. At some point or the other, your mobile users will fall prey to bandwidth (volume of data sent) and latency issues. As a result, your emails will suffer, too, even without any fault on your own. If a user attempts to open your email in an area where the connectivity is poor, they wouldn’t be able to engage with any visual component of the email (images, GIFs, CTA button), eventually deriving a poor user experience. Matters get even trickier with tablets because, depending on the model, they may or may not have a cellular data connection of their own. So, someone who’s viewing emails on such a tablet has to rely on an external data source. And if that source isn’t reliable, your emails will fail to make an impact, no matter how mindfully they are curated.

Dealing with Multiple Design Considerations

Various factors defining your email’s design language, such as images, typography, and color contrast, to name a few, will render differently across different devices. Additionally, users’ screen sizes and the brightness levels on them need to be taken into account. All of this can make the entire process of design curation extremely difficult. 

Devoting More Time to Development and Testing

As we already mentioned, tons of factors have to be taken into consideration to ensure your email is responsive. It is no surprise, thus, that the development and testing of responsive emails demand much more time and resources compared to non-responsive ones. Monitoring their performance is also an uphill task because it requires you to glean data from different kinds of devices and analyze conversion and click behavior by category. Only when you have all this data at your disposal can you optimize the performance of your responsive emails. 

Responsive Email Design Best Practices

The challenges presented by the responsive email design process can be pretty overwhelming, but it is important not to succumb to them. Responsive emails drive brilliant results and promote accessibility, so instead of conceding defeat to its various difficulties, we must find a way to work our way around them. Listed below are a few tips and tricks that will certainly help you with that.

• Always look to use single-column layouts. Doing so will allow you to keep issues commonly associated with multi-column layouts at bay, such as overlapping columns, shifting images, and overflowing texts. Moreover, single-column layouts are a great solution to the content density issue. Irrespective of whether your content volume is high or low, it automatically becomes much easier to navigate when presented in a single-column layout.
• Add media queries. This will allow you to create different layouts for different devices. However, while doing so, you first need to check which email clients support them. Android Gmail app IMAP, Outlook 2007-16, AOL Mail, and Windows 10 Mail are some that don’t. If the majority of your subscribers use email clients that don’t support media queries, you are better off not using them.
• Pay attention to the length of your subject lines. Ideally, they should be between 25-30 characters for mobile devices and no more than 60 for desktops. 
• Preview and test your emails before sending them out. Check how your email is appearing across different devices and environments and whether every single element is holding up how it’s supposed to be before you hit on that send button. 
• Adopt a mobile-first philosophy. When you design your emails keeping mobile devices in mind, you are very likely to tick all the boxes required for desktops, too. 
• Convert links to clickable buttons wherever possible. Mobile users may find it difficult to interact with links when presented in a cluster. Hence, doing so will allow you to deliver an improved user experience. 

Wrapping It Up

The journey of mastering the art of responsive email design can be pretty turbulent, but you must embark upon it. Today, the presentation and accessibility of your content are just as important as its quality; practicing responsive email design ensures that your emails get the spotlight they rightfully deserve. 

The post The Challenges of Responsive Email Design- Understanding and Navigating Them appeared first on Email Uplers.

How many movies are you planning to catch in the theatres this month? Whatever the number might be, one thing is for sure: You are only considering purchasing tickets for these movies because you found yourself enraptured by their trailers, right? Now you see, just how trailers play a pivotal role in influencing our opinion of a movie, subject lines do that when it comes to emails.

347.3 billion– that’s how many emails are exchanged every day. Inboxes are overflowing, and email fatigue is very, very real. In this scenario, if you want to have a realistic shot at tempting your audiences into opening your emails, you need to step up your subject line game; there are no two ways about it. 

That subject lines are important is simply not a theoretical claim; it is backed by some pretty solid numbers. Today, our article will delve deeper into some of these email subject line statistics so that you know what all to keep in mind regarding them while shaping your future campaigns (besides developing a sound understanding of their relevance, obviously). Eager to find out what they are? Let’s go!

1. 64% of recipients decide whether to open the email or not based on subject lines (Source: Finances Online)

Yep, subject lines are quite literally the make-or-break elements of your emails. It is the first thing that a subscriber notices about the email. So, logically, if the first impression isn’t appealing enough, why should the reader bother engaging with it? Hence, craft email subject lines for newsletters such that it piques their interest and, at the same time, gives them a clear idea of what they should expect upon opening the email. Get this: 33% of users open an email when they find its subject line catchy. All the more incentive to pour those creative juices into drafting it, isn’t it?

2. 69% of recipients mark emails as spam based on the subject line (Source: Invesp)

Email deliverability tops the priority lists of all email marketers out there. After all, the copious amounts of hard work put into finessing the copy and design, segmenting the list, and setting up the automation workflows, all stand to go in vain if the email fails to land up in the recipient’s mailbox, to begin with. One of the surefire ways of staying on top of email deliverability involves mindfully curating your email newsletter subject lines. Those that sound incredibly salesy or spammy are bound to nudge recipients towards clicking on that “Report spam” button. 

3. Personalized email subject lines can increase open rates by 50% (Source: Marketing Dive)

This statistic shouldn’t come as a surprise. With so many brands clamoring for their attention, audiences will understandably be drawn towards those that strive to appeal to their specific interests and sensibilities. Personalized email subject lines, thus, enjoy considerably more success than their non-personalized counterparts. And remember, your personalization doesn’t have to remain confined to the age-old tactic of addressing a subscriber by their first name. While there’s nothing wrong with that, the modern-day marketer can play around with a lot of possibilities given the plethora of data they have at their disposal. For instance, you can track your subscribers’ preferences, interests, past purchases, and browsing patterns to compose personalized subject lines for them. Imagine receiving an email whose subject line is talking about a product that you absolutely adore. You wouldn’t spare any second thoughts before opening it, would you? 

4. Subject lines evoking urgency have a 22% higher open rate than those that don’t (Source: Zippia)

Want to spur your subscribers into action? Use your subject lines to generate a sense of urgency in their minds; all agencies dabbling in email newsletter design would tell you this.  Bring to their attention a super-tempting deal, and put a timeline against it. Now, the onus is on them to act within the given time frame or risk losing out on this offer. Remember, the best salesperson in your team is always going to be good ol’ FOMO (fear of missing out). Nobody wants to be the person who missed the party, you’d agree? 

5. Subject lines with emojis can increase unique click rate by 28% (Source: Swiftpage)

Emojis are an excellent communication device, helping to convey sentiments that might be hard to represent through words alone. However, one is advised to exercise caution when including emojis in their subject lines. Why? Because they carry an informal tone, and, thus, may not necessarily align with your brand image. Emojis resonate with a very specific demographic, in the first place, and if your target audience doesn’t belong to that, you are better off omitting them.

When the coast is clear on the brand image and demographic front, there are still a few things you might want to keep in mind. Take a look:

• Use no more than one emoji in the subject line. Two is definitely a crowd when it comes to them.
• The emoji should be used as a means of complementing the text, and not substituting it. 
• Different operating systems render emojis in different styles. Therefore, always test your subject lines before sending them out.

6. Subject lines having the word “free” are 10% more likely to be opened (Source: Business 2 Community)

Customers always look to receive something of value from the brands they follow. One of the best ways of standing up to that expectation is by sending them product guides, ebooks, or samples from time to time, either at a discounted rate or free of cost. And as the statistic suggests, whenever you are doing so, don’t feel shy to pop the word “free” in the subject line.

7. 82% of marketers aim to keep their subject line length under 60 characters (Source: Convince & Convert)

Given the number of mobile users is on a perpetual rise, paying attention to the length of your subject line has become more critical than ever. Go above the prescribed limit, and you run the risk of your subject line being clipped by the email client, thereby spoiling your subscriber’s user experience. 

8. A/B testing your email subject lines and content can boost your ROI by 28% (Source: Litmus)

Your audience’s tastes and interests are incredibly dynamic in nature. Hence, it is imperative that you formulate multiple versions of your subject line and subject them to A/B testing to identify what resonates best with them. Doing so will improve your campaign performance by leaps and bounds, and, as the statistic mentions, do a whole world of good for your ROI.

Wrapping It Up

Subject lines might demand a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance, but it is all worth it- the numbers above bear uncompromising testimony to that. Wish to deepen your understanding of subject lines? Pore over the examples produced by the best brands in business; luckily, there’s no dearth of them on the internet!

The post Email Subject Line Statistics That Will Make You Pause, Wonder, and Act! appeared first on Email Uplers.

Change is the only constant. 

I’m sure you have heard or read it in the past. But let me assure you, this won’t be the last time you’ll come across this adage. 

In the current times, when the economy has become so unpredictable, a recession is lingering around the corner, and marketing budgets are taking a toll, you need to be on edge to fulfill your objectives. And for that to happen, change becomes inevitable. 

If you are looking to change your ESP portal, you have to evolve at the same time. Changing ESP email providers involves moving an organization’s email marketing infrastructure to a new provider. The importance of ESP migration grows in today’s “pressure cooker” market, where organizations must adapt quickly to survive. 

Maybe, it’s about time to make your ESP your USP. When you are sure to hit your bottom line in such a volatile economy, you also need to rethink your profitability. The success of an email marketing campaign is highly sensitive to the caliber of the ESP you are using.

Wait, is your current ESP not fulfilling all your requirements or taking a toll on your budget? Maybe it’s time to migrate to one apt for your specific needs. 

However, during the transition, there should be as little impact on customers, operations, and the deliverability of email marketing as possible. Agreed? Let’s dive right in to learn how we can make this migration smooth and swift. 

10 Steps Recommended by Experts to Do ESP Migration Right 

There are ten steps to keep in mind if you wish to successfully migrate to a new ESP in today’s fast-paced industry. Let’s adhere to these guidelines by experts to ensure a seamless ESP migration. 

1. Defining Migration Objectives 

Successful ESP migration requires your business to recognize the challenges that might be currently plaguing your operations and realign migration objectives accordingly. If you are experiencing financial challenges, prioritize your migration plan to save money and increase productivity. List down your marketing objectives. 

Features that help automate procedures and save time should be prioritized if your company has limited resources. The way your company prioritizes features that provide insights into customer behavior and preferences if it is facing market uncertainty tells you a lot about its core strengths. 

You can consult an expert for their ESP migration services. It will open doors for you to prioritize your short-term and long-term objectives. Focusing on what’s most important increases your chances of succeeding in your email marketing efforts.

2. Conducting a Cost-Benefit Analysis 

By analyzing pricing plans and potential cost savings, you can make well-informed decisions consistent with your economic considerations. 

It would be best to consider how more features will affect your ROI. Some capabilities may have an additional fee, but the potential return on investment (ROI) in the form of enhanced email marketing performance and revenue growth is substantial. 

A/B testing, enhanced segmentation, and automation must be a part of your plans if you aim to make your email marketing campaigns more cost-effective. 

3. Prioritize Essential Features 

You need your new ESP to rapidly and effectively meet your needs since time is paramount. Focusing on what matters most to achieve your business goals can be made easier with careful prioritization. 

First, list down all the features that your business requires.

Your email marketing software will help you determine the most crucial elements. Find out what functions meet your needs and fall short. Prioritize the most essential features of the new ESP, such as automation solutions that reduce human labor and increase efficiency. 

4. Streamlining the Migration Process 

Switching over to a new ESP for email marketing needs a lot of patience. That’s because a cluster of processes effectively analyzes and streamlines the data. But eventually, automating data import, template creation, and campaign setup will help you save time and boost productivity. 

In today’s fast-paced market, you must find ways to streamline operations and save time to successfully implement the migration process, keeping it error-free. Getting help from ESP marketing services is a fair thing to do if you are not accustomed to the technicalities of ESP migration. Take the help of an expert. 

Also, you can improve the efficiency of your campaigns by making tweaks to your email designs and segmentation methods. During the transition to the ESP, you should cause as little disruption as possible while getting as much done as possible. To achieve this goal, teaching and supporting users, communicating with stakeholders, and conducting migrations during off-hours are necessary.  

5. Setting Realistic Timelines 

When moving email marketing operations to a new ESP, planning for testing and troubleshooting is essential. The potential for mistakes and downtime that could harm the efficacy of your email marketing would be reduced by establishing such a wireframe.

Downtime can be reduced by planning migration efforts for off-hours, keeping all parties informed, and assisting users with questions or concerns. 

Realistic deadlines can only be set if speed and thoroughness are both considered. While it’s understandable to want to get the migration over with as soon as possible, taking your time and ensuring everything goes smoothly is more important.

6. Effective Stakeholder Communication 

For a successful transfer, you need your marketing teams, IT department, and upper management to work together and communicate clearly. The success of any relocation effort is dictated by clear and consistent communication. 

You must explain to all the relevant stakeholders why you’re migrating and what you want to gain from it. Like, better deliverability, higher engagement, and cost savings. This is crucial so everyone can be on the same page and make preparations. 

Maintaining stakeholder alignment on migration goals and timetables requires meeting regularly to discuss progress, recognizing and addressing concerns swiftly, and so on. 

7. Managing Risks Effectively

The key to successfully managing risks and obstacles during an ESP migration is identifying them before they occur. You need to weigh the potential consequences against the possibility of these threats materializing. 

Each potential risk should have a contingency plan drafted explaining the activities that will be taken to mitigate the risk and keep the migration on track. 

For effective problem-solving throughout an ESP migration, it is also essential to set up channels for escalation. Creating a help desk, building up reliable lines of communication, and identifying who is responsible for fixing what are all absolutely vital. It will help in resolving issues quickly and effectively. 

8. Optimizing Deliverability 

Email marketing strategies must be optimized to succeed in today’s fast-paced industry. To accomplish this, you must ensure your emails reach your intended inboxes. Increase your chances of your prospects receiving your emails by watching your sender’s reputation, avoiding common spam traps, and keeping your subscriber list in good shape. 

Make the most of your new ESP’s powerful deliverability features and tools. Among these features are spam filters, reputation management systems, and email authentication protocols. If you really want to boost your email deliverability and reputation, invest in dedicated IPs.

Improving deliverability requires using authentication mechanisms like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These protocols check the origin of emails to prevent spoofing and impersonation. 

9. Monitoring and Analyzing Performance

To guarantee the success of your email marketing efforts, you must monitor crucial metrics and performance indicators. The number of opens, the number of clicks, the number of conversions, and the amount of money made are all examples of valuable metrics. By keeping tabs on these variables, as marketers, you can better understand your target demographics and craft more effective advertisements that resonate with your target audiences. 

Data analytics solutions can help you evaluate the efficacy of your marketing strategies and pinpoint problem areas. Checking open and click-through rates can help you learn more about your readers and improve your email marketing strategies. It is thus essential to have all these features in your new ESP.

10. Continuous Improvement of Strategies 

Knowledge of current developments in your field can lead to discovering previously unrecognized avenues for advancement. To do this, you can go to conferences, read trade journals, and talk to other experts in the field of email marketing. 

To maximize the efficacy of your email marketing efforts, keeping tabs on the latest tools and features offered by your ESP is essential. 

Key metrics and performance indicators should be analyzed so that you can spot problem areas and make necessary adjustments to your approach. As a part of this process, you must test several variations on your email’s layout, headlines, and body copy to understand what clicks best with your target audience. 

Key Takeaways 

We hope the insights shared above will make your ESP migration process as smooth as possible. Have any more migration tips up your sleeve? Do let us know; we’re all ears!

The post ESP Migration in a High-Pressure Economy: The Why and How Of It appeared first on Email Uplers.

Imagine this scenario – 

You are the captain of a ship sailing through the treacherous waters of the modern buyer’s journey. You have potential customers with you on board, each with their preferences and needs. While some look forward to purchasing your products, many are still testing the waters. 

As you sail through the choppy waters, you realize your buyers’ journey is not linear. Fret not! With a tool like Marketo, you can streamline those waves and make their journey smooth and hindrance free. 

If you are alien to Marketo, read on to unfurl everything you need to know about non-linear journeys and how to make them linear using Marketo. 

Let’s get started! 

What is a non-linear buyer journey?

Suppose you make your way through a shopping mall, and you witness all kinds of distractions. As you make your way through the crowds, you witness all kinds of distractions like visually appealing displays, stores giving free samples, etc. When you enter the store, you get sidetracked by a beautiful store selling vintage bamboo furniture at a fantastic discount. This is a non-linear buyer journey and is often seen during customers’ purchase journey. 

It happens when customers are on their way to finding a solution to their problem but are constantly distracted. It can be due to a blog, social media ad, etc. As a marketer, your moral prerogative should be to create a customer journey marketing strategy and guide them back on track to make purchase decisions. It can be done by placing a retargeting ad or running a fantastic promotion. The key here is not to let the ship sink. 

Marketo is a comprehensive marketing automation software that enables you to streamline and automate your marketing campaigns, manage your leads, and monitor your marketing performance. 

One of the most significant advantages of using Marketo’s email marketing platform is its ability to automate campaigns across different channels, including email, social media, etc. This allows you to create more personalized and targeted campaigns that reach where your customers are most active. 

Another prominent feature of Marketo is its lead management capabilities. The tool provides a platform to manage, nurture and track leads throughout the sales funnel. This ensures you target suitable leads at the right time, increasing the chances of converting them into existing customers. 

Ways to streamline non-linear buyer journey using Marketo 

Let’s explore how you can successfully leverage Marketo to streamline your buyer’s non-linear journey. 

• Understand the non-linear buyer journey 

The first step is to understand the process. In a non-linear buyer journey, your customers do not follow a set path from awareness to conversion. Instead, they move back and forth between the different stages of the journey, researching, considering, and comparing multiple options before making a purchase decision. 

You can leverage Marketo email marketing to streamline the process. However, you must understand the journey and identify the key touchpoints influencing the purchase-making process. This includes figuring out their motivation, preferences, and channels that they use to interact with your brand. 

• Map the buyer journey 

Once you clearly understand the buyer journey, the next step is to map it out. The process involves creating a visual representation of your customer’s journey, comprising their interactions with your brand. 

Mapping the customer experience journey will help you identify the gaps and opportunities and enable you to create a more personalized approach for each stage of the journey. Marketo enables you to create detailed maps showcasing different touchpoints and their connection. 

• Create a customer-centric strategy 

Personalization is critical to streamlining non-linear buyer journeys. Creating targeted and personalized content lets you engage with your customers at every touchpoint and keep them moving through the marketing funnel. 

Marketo’s Content AI feature can help you create personalized content that resonates with each customer’s persona. The feature uses machine learning algorithms to analyze customer data and generate personalized content recommendations based on their behavior and preferences. 

To streamline customer experience, you must create a customer-centric strategy that aligns with your customer’s needs and preferences, and Marketo can help you achieve that. 

For instance – You can leverage your customers’ previous purchases and browsing history to create personalized recommendations, or you can show different images based on a customer’s location, behavior, and industry on your website. This can help you make your content more relevant and engaging and keep your customers interested in surfing and exploring. 

• Include lead nurturing 

Lead nurturing is building a relationship with prospects by providing valuable content at each stage of their buying journey. Using Marketo, you can leverage lead nurturing to automate the process and provide relevant content to the customer. 

Additionally, you can use lead scoring to identify which prospects are likely to convert and use targeted messaging to move them along the buyer journey. 

• Leverage automation to streamline the process 

As mentioned earlier, the critical benefit of Marketo is its ability to automate the marketing process, including lead nurturing and segmentation. Using Marketo, you can set up automated workflows that move customers through the different buyer journey stages based on their engagement. 

For instance – you can set up automated workflows that send targeted emails to customers who have abandoned their shopping carts or provide personalized recommendations based on their browsing behavior. This will help you streamline the process and ensure your customers receive relevant and timely communications at every stage of their buying journey. 

• Measure and analyze results 

Next, you need to measure and analyze the results of your campaigns continuously. This includes tracking customer journey metrics such as engagement, conversion, and customer retention rates and leveraging the data to optimize your marketing efforts. 

Marketo can help you track the performance of your campaigns and measure the impact on your customer’s journey. Doing so will help you identify the most effective campaigns for moving customers through their journey. 

• Refine your strategy 

Once you have measured the results of your campaigns, you can refine your strategy based on the insights you gather from your data analysis. This involves identifying the gaps in your strategy and testing different approaches to see what works best for you. 

Calling It A Wrap! 

Streamlining non-linear buyer journeys with Marketo is like an adventure. 

You can harness the power of Marketo to conquer the hurdles of modern customer experience. 

You can create a seamless and tailored customer experience with Marketo’s automation and personalization. This helps to whisk your customers to the correct destination without them even realizing it. 

However, that’s not it! Marketo doesn’t only help streamline your buyers’ journey, but it also saves you from the clutches of chaos. It’s like a super organized tool that keeps all your marketing efforts in check, ensuring everything runs like a well-oiled machine. 

We hope this blog will help you conquer the non-linear landscape and gain satisfied customers that rave about your brand! 

The post From chaos to clarity – Leverage Marketo to streamline non-linear buyer journeys appeared first on Email Uplers.

You pour in copious amounts of hard work, discipline, tenacity, and perseverance into developing or curating a new offering for your business. And so, you would naturally want your subscribers to be all agog to experience it, to be drowning various spaces on the internet with ceaseless chatter surrounding your brand. But, how do you manufacture this excitement? Well, there are quite a few ways to go about it, but one of the most surefire ways, which is also the scope of this article, is crafting an impeccable pre-launch landing page. 

As you can perhaps already surmise from the name, pre-launch landing pages are set up prior to the launch of a product or service with the intention of generating buzz around it, as well as capturing new leads and amplifying conversions. You know how a good trailer does wonders for an upcoming movie? That’s exactly what a solid pre-launch landing page does for an upcoming product! Need help with creating one that hits all the right notes? We’ve got you covered. Today, we’ll talk at length about a host of pre-launch landing page best practices and share with you some stunning pre-launch landing page templates that will help you foster a dialogue with visitors, and help you drive greater engagement. Curious to find out what they are? Let’s dive in, then!

Focus on Communicating Your Value Proposition

When it comes to picking a solution that tackles their problem statement, customers have no dearth of choices. The only way you can convince them to gravitate toward your offerings is by effectively putting forth your value proposition. No, that doesn’t mean filling up endless pages about the various features that your offering packs. Instead, you must tell them how the features are tailor-made to address their specific pain points. Make it about the audience, always. Give them as much clarity as possible regarding the scope of your product or service. Remember, the more information they have about your offering, the more tempted will they be to put their money against it. Not to mention, that if your value proposition is able to capture your visitor’s imagination, they will take it upon themselves to spread the word of your to-be-released product in their circles. 

Mindfully Design Your Signup Form

Pre-launch landing pages also double up as email capture landing pages. So, it is safe to say that a pre-launch landing page is incomplete without a signup form. Additionally, signup forms also help you identify user intent- if a particular visitor has filled out your pre-launch landing page, you know for sure that they are interested in your offering. As a result, you build an email list that is populated with organic and high-quality leads.

Now, coming to the all-important question: How to create an impactful signup form? 

Let’s take a look.

• Don’t overcomplicate it. With signup forms, function takes priority over form (pun, absolutely unintended) on any given day. The copy should be simple, the design, captivating yet not elaborate, and the length, brief. Try to keep as few entry fields as possible. Did you know as many as 85% of forms contain two fields or less? However, there are cases where businesses prefer keeping multiple fields and obtaining more information from visitors, with the end goal of delivering hyper-personalized experiences to them.
• Hook visitors with your headline. It has to be crisp, and at the same time be able to spur visitors quickly into action.
• Consider offering an incentive. Sending exclusive updates, allowing them to pre-book, offering a discount- it could take any shape, really.
• Set clear expectations. Being honest with your visitors is always a win. Be transparent with them regarding what all they can look forward to upon filling out the form.

This signup form on Freehand’s pre-launch landing page is a brilliant example.

Lastly, make sure you only have one signup form. Unlike pre-launch landing pages, which focus mainly on generating leads and creating hype, other kinds of landing pages might have multiple objectives, and hence, it’s alright for them to have multiple signup forms.

Make Sure Your CTA (call-to-action) Stands Out

Your CTA needs to be catchy and compelling without fail. Should it be inconspicuous or not optimized for mobile (forcing users to squint hard in order to locate it), it will tremendously affect the visitor’s user experience, ultimately hampering your pre-launch landing page’s engagement rates. The best pre-launch landing page templates out there boast of incredibly appealing CTAs.

Listed below are some tips and tricks that will help you nail your CTAs:

• Don’t be vague. Your CTA should inform your visitors what will happen next once they click on it. Take a look at this pre-launch landing page by Rigby, for instance. The CTA here leaves no room for guesswork, does it?

• Prioritize clarity. While there’s no harm in aiming for witty, humorous, or dramatic, often brands tend to compromise coherence in the pursuit of these qualities. Above anything else, your CTA should tell your visitors what will happen next once they click on it; never lose sight of that. 

• Use power words. “Learn”, “Explore”, “Try”, “Find”- these are some examples. The benefit of using such a vocabulary is that it helps you stir an emotional response in your readers’ minds. That, eventually, bodes immensely well for your pre-launch landing page engagement numbers. Another thing that you can do to strike a personal connect with your visitors is to write your CTA in the first person. By directly addressing them, you obviously have a greater shot at grabbing their attention.
• Consider adding an element of interactivity to the CTA button. While this is not necessary by any means, it can go a long way toward enhancing the user experience. And it doesn’t have to be anything complicated, either. Something as simple as the color or the CTA phrase changing upon hovering over it works as well. 
• Make your CTA visually prominent. You do not want your visitors to be left searching for the CTA.

Instill FOMO (fear of missing out)

This might be among the oldest marketing tricks in the book, but it continues to be as relevant as ever, and hence must be incorporated in your pre-launch marketing strategy. Use your pre-launch landing page to tell your visitors about what they risk missing out on should they overlook your soon-to-be-released product. To effectively generate this sentiment, you must shun salesy language in favor of a more storytelling one. I’m sure this is something you resonate with as well. How many times have you found yourself disenchanted with a brand’s offerings just because they are trying too aggressively to sell? Even if the product in question is genuinely good, you don’t think twice before walking away from it. 

As we mentioned above, value proposition is everything. If you want visitors to be invested in your upcoming offering, the email capture landing page must paint a vivid picture of how the said offering will improve their quality of life. At the same time, it must tell them what they stand to miss out on if they DON’T go after it. Execute the FOMO card successfully, and find yourself waking up to a serpentine queue in front of your store (physical or virtual) on the day of the product’s release. 

Make Your Page Shareable

At present, there are multiple platforms through which audiences get exposed to your business. So, if you truly want to create a stir in the market, you need to take steps to make certain that you are equally talked about across all these platforms. How do you facilitate this for your pre-launch landing page? By making it shareable, of course. Add social sharing buttons, so that it becomes incredibly convenient for visitors to share your page on their social handles. Any agency offering landing page design services will ask you to make sure of the same. Offer a reward to those sharing, so that more and more visitors feel encouraged to do the same.

Wrapping It Up 

A pre-launch landing page, above all, ensures that the hard yards put in by several departments of your business in giving shape to a product or service get the due recognition. Hence, we recommend that you start planning your pre-launch landing page the minute your product enters development, rather than waiting to receive the finished output to put some thought into it. It can be quite tricky to master but is far from being an unassailable task. We hope the insights shared above have helped you understand what goes into developing a cracking pre-launch landing page. Have you come across any interesting pre-launch pages of late? Do let us know as well; we’d love to check them out!

The post Building A Stunning Pre-launch Landing Page- Know What Goes Into It! appeared first on Email Uplers.

Fact: customer-centered marketing is the key to happy and engaged customers.

And customer-centered marketing starts with journey mapping.

A customer journey map visually represents how your audience interacts with your brand throughout their journey and over many touchpoints. It reveals useful insights that will enable you to understand customer experiences and identify improvement areas that will ultimately help you to increase customer retention and capture their loyalty.

One easy way to create effective customer journey maps is with Journey Builder in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). With SFMC Journey Builder, you can easily create 1:1 journeys and use them to define personalized marketing campaigns and customer experiences. Journey Builder in Marketing Cloud will help you build holistic, multi-channel journeys that unite your marketing communications. It also enables various departments to share customer data and determine prescriptive actions to boost customer engagement and loyalty.

Unfortunately, many marketing teams fail to capture these benefits of Journey Builder in Marketing Cloud due to some common mistakes. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid these mistakes and get the maximum ROI from Journey Builder in SFMC. Let’s explore these mistakes and preventive strategies in detail.

Mistake #1: Failing to think beyond marketing to relationship marketing

Journey Builder is great for relationship marketing (aka 1:1 marketing), which is essential for garnering long-term customer loyalty, brand “stickiness”, and retention. However, many marketers make the mistake of using Journey Builder for generic, transactional marketing only. Don’t make this mistake.

Instead of focusing only on short-term marketing objectives and wins, look for ways to delight customers for the long haul. And you can do this by leveraging Journey Builder to design personalized experiences. Use the customer data you are already collecting and identify key moments in every customer’s journey. Then use these moments to power your 1:1 marketing campaigns and build long-term customer relationships.

Also, follow these best practices to up your relationship marketing game with Salesforce Marketing Cloud journeys and Journey Builder:

• Collect customer data from multiple sources, including personal attributes, demographics, browsing behaviors, and purchase history.
• Trigger customers on journeys based on real-time events, such as purchases or sign-ups.
• Keep an eye on current behaviors and predict future behaviors to adjust journey paths.
• Align marketing messages to deliver consistent experiences across every marketing touchpoint.
• Make customer data and journeys shareable so everyone is aligned on the strategies that are most likely to enhance brand-customer relationships.

Mistake #2: Not using Path Optimizer to optimize email journeys and campaigns

One of the key features of Journey Builder in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is Path Optimizer. Path Optimizer is a great way to test various paths (a sequence of events) for a journey. Unlike A/B testing, which only allows you to test emails for two variables, Path Optimizer will allow you to configure branches with up to 10 paths. Simply put, you can create journeys that are as simple or as complex as you need.

However, most marketers make the mistake of not adding Path Optimizer to their email journeys. As a result, they fail to identify the best way to reach customers. With Path Optimizer, you can test different paths for a journey and then find the “winning” path, i.e., the path that works best in terms of open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, or other important metrics.

Suppose you want to create a welcome journey in Journey Builder that may look like this:

With Path Optimizer, you can use different welcome emails, each of which is a different path within the same journey. It might look something like this:

You can test all four paths simultaneously to automatically find which one is most likely to help you meet your campaign goals. You can also select the winning path manually. Either way, you won’t have to wait for weeks to gather useful insights and can get new campaigns out very quickly (especially if you use journey and email templates in Salesforce).

Mistake #3: Failing to plan or set goals for each journey

Journey Builder’s “Goal” feature will help you identify the goal of each Marketing Cloud journey and gauge whether it is achieving its marketing objectives. Many teams fail with the latter because they miss the former.

Avoid this mistake by identifying a journey’s goal and purpose. Then choose and add an audience for that journey. Completing this step will allow you to connect with them on any channel of your – and their – choice.

In addition to goal-setting, do research to understand:

• Who your customers are
• What touchpoints and channels they prefer for brand communications
• Which processes or journey elements you aim to improve
• If flow controls like decision splits or engagement splits should be added to the journey

Clarity in all these aspects will make it easier for various parties to collaborate and create journeys that are most likely to benefit the company and its customers.

When planning a journey, also keep these best practices in mind:

• Focus a journey on a single marketing objective.
• Limit the number of activities in a journey to 150-200.
• Use Goals and Exit criteria to measure success and manage contacts.

Mistake #4: Not creating a data strategy

Inaccurate, incomplete, or missing customer data will prevent you from understanding customer behaviors, which will hinder you from creating personalized journeys, crafting effective audience segments, and targeting them with relevant messaging. Ultimately, these issues will result in ineffective or failed marketing campaigns.

To avoid these issues, a proper data strategy is vital. Many Journey Builder users and SFMC email specialists fail to create such a strategy. Don’t join this club. Before creating a Salesforce Marketing Cloud customer journey, always plan your data needs in advance. Identify the data sources that will provide a detailed view of customers, and help you understand customer touchpoints, and create customer personas. Also make sure to comply with all relevant data privacy regulations when collecting customer data.

In Journey Builder, data extensions (DEs) and API events are excellent data sources. You can choose a sendable DE, then admit contacts in that DE into a journey by configuring a filter or schedule. Whenever possible, create a pre-filtered copy of the DE for each journey, especially if the DE has too many rows that may impact journey performance.

You can also admit contacts into a journey using the API event in Journey Builder. When the API – which is connected to the journey canvas – fires an event, the contacts entering the journey are stored in a DE (that you choose). Again, you can control which contacts enter the journey by setting a filter using SFMC data attributes.

Mistake #5: Not understanding entry modes

In Journey Builder, you can choose the settings that will determine when or if a contact will enter a journey. Three such modes are available:

• No-entry: contacts can’t enter the journey again after a previous entry
• Re-entry at any time: contacts can enter the journey multiple times before exiting
• Re-entry only after exiting: contacts must exit the journey before they can re-enter it

Many Journey Builder users don’t understand these settings, so contacts remain in a journey even if they should not. When this happens, subscribers receive irrelevant emails or emails at the wrong time. One example is a user receiving multiple welcome emails even though they should get this email only once. This happens when you don’t select no-entry as the entry mode.

Another example is a post-purchase engagement journey. Here, contacts should be allowed to enter the journey every time they make a purchase. You can then send relevant emails to thank them for their purchase and keep them engaged with the brand. However, if you don’t select re-entry at any time, they won’t be able to enter the journey, so you will miss opportunities to stay connected with them and encourage them to make future purchases.

Yet another example is emails for seasonal promotions where contacts can go through a journey multiple times but not concurrently. But this can only happen when the system doesn’t readmit them into the journey until after they have exited the journey. And this requires selecting the re-entry only after exiting mode for contact entry in Journey Builder.

In sum, make sure to update the entry settings depending on the contact and journey type.

Also follow these best practices:

• Choose the primary email address Journey Builder should use to message a contact entering a journey.
• Configure every journey’s entry source before setting a default email address.
• If the email address can change during a journey, select Use email attribute from Contacts.
• When testing a journey, use re-entry at any time or re-entry only after exiting modes.
• Consider the timing and cadence for putting customers into a journey.

Conclusion

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder is extremely versatile so you can create a wide range of journeys for different customer segments and email marketing campaigns. Just remember not to make the common mistakes highlighted above.

If you need more information about Journey Builder, contact Email Uplers.

The post Common Journey Builder Mistakes And How To Avoid Them appeared first on Email Uplers.

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Decoding the basics of an OOO Email

When to schedule an OOO email?

The essential ingredients of a well-written OOO email

Things to Avoid in an OOO Email

10 Examples of Professional OOO Message Templates

3 Unique Ways To Upsell & Cross-sell Your Products In OOO Emailers

3 Humor-Filled OOO Templates To Let Your Customers Know That You Are “Humerus”ly Inclined

Ways To Set Up Automated OOO Replies

Keeping the bad guys away from your OOO messages

Summary

Introduction

“I am running away from my responsibilities. And it feels good.”

If you are a fan of The Office, you are probably rolling down the aisle with laughter as you remember this quote by Michael Scott (Season 4, Money). So even if you ain’t, well, now you are, if not of the series, at least of the quote! 

We all need a vacation once in a while, or when the witches come out on their brooms signaling Halloween, and you can smell Christmas in the air. But that does not mean you can skip work forever (unless you have hidden access to the Philosopher’s Stone or whatever you touch turns into gold, if that’s the case, I, for one, will NOT be shaking your hand!). 

When you finally book those plane tickets, get a hotel upgrade, and are ready to kiss your office chair goodbye for a “fixed” duration, you need to let people (colleagues, bosses, prospects, leads, customers, etc., your wife too but that’s a personal choice) know that you will not be able to respond to their emails and pander to their requests as quickly as you can when you are in office.

There is a way around this as well, and it has a separate fanbase altogether. Ladies & gentlemen, put your eyeballs together (ok, you are squinting now!) as we present an all-in-one guide for writing awesome out-of-office emails that spare you the hate, get the job done (by someone else), and when you come back you have a whole host of emails expecting action (that’s something we still can’t help you with!). So let’s set the ball rolling!

Decoding the basics of an OOO Email

Whether you are a globetrotting influencer who keeps getting emails for collaborations or a corporate worker who sifts through numerous “urgent” emails in the course of a day, you know the importance of maintaining the workflow.

Even in your absence, the show must go on; this is precisely what vacation out-of-office messages help you accomplish. A simple out-of-office message lets the person trying to get in touch with you know that you won’t be available to address their concerns for a fixed time period and that they may reach out to a colleague who is filling out for you (remember to seek their permission), also not to harbor unrealistic expectations of you answering concerns as soon as you get back on your desk. Yes, we feel you; a holiday hangover is real, and being buried under tons of workload on the first day of return is akin to being thrown into the deep side of the pool without a float. 

When you have an out-of-office automatic reply scheduled before you log off for the vacation, you can actually sit back and relax, knowing that everything on the work front is taken care of and that your brand will not suffer from a lack of instant engagement. We have nailed the work-life balance, eh?!

When to schedule an OOO email?

Gen Z kids might have moved on to Instagram DMs as their preferred mode of communication; however, millennials and Gen Xers still swear by the power of emails. And, it is still considered proper work etiquette to communicate essential details of your work schedule and availability via email to clients and colleagues. 

Thus, whether you plan to skip work for a week during the holiday season or even if you are going to be out for the day to attend a field event or a conference, you need to schedule an “I am currently out of the office” email. 

You might conjecture at this point that you have already announced your leave of absence in the office during lunch break; well, guess what? People tend to forget.

The following are instances of situations when you can consider scheduling a professional out-of-office message,

• Planned vacations
• Unforeseen personal engagements or emergencies
• Maternity or paternity leave
• A mental health raincheck day (yes, it’s important and perfectly reasonable!)
• Professional sabbatical
• Doctor’s appointment
• Attending workshops, conferences, or professional meetings

When people send an email, they usually expect quick replies and super-fast solutions to their concerns. For example, a well-crafted auto-reply out-of-office email message lets them know that you ain’t available at the moment or for a fixed period of time to address their concerns; however, they can expect a reply at a certain point according to your schedule or if they need urgent redressal, they may contact another person (duly mentioned) by email. 

We will help you with this and more in the following sections.

The essential ingredients of a well-written OOO email

Now that we are familiar with the concept and purpose of scheduling out-of-office email messages, let’s have a bird’s eye look at the intricacies of what makes for a good, informative, and best out-of-office message. 

• Renders clear-cut instructions on who to reach out to in case of time–sensitive queries.
• Eliminates unnecessary thoughts on the part of the clients or colleagues regarding you purposefully ignoring their messages (tell them that you care and will revert soon.)
• It sets the record straight on when you will be back at your desk solving queries and concerns like a pro!
• Also, remember to deploy mobile-responsive email templates that are optimized for mobile screens.

The framework is clear. Now let’s delve into the spadework of knitting together the basic ingredients of a killer out-of-office response.

1. An amicable and professional-sounding greeting: Well, this may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s super important, so worth re-iterating. You could try something like, “Hello, thank you for reaching out!”.

2. Exact dates of your unavailability: The whole purpose of writing an out-of-office email is to let the person on the other end know about the specific dates when they will not be getting answers from you via email or phone. Be crystal clear when addressing this aspect of the email.

“From the dusk of 5th of May 2023 till the dawn of 7th of May 2023, I will be away from my office desk. Therefore I will not be able to maintain any correspondence during the stipulated time period.

3. The expected date of response to emails: While you have clearly enlisted your days of unavailability, it is equally courteous to let the mailer know when you will be able to revert to their email. 

“On the 8th of May, 2023, I shall resume my work duties and address all your concerns in the order of their receipt.” 

This seemingly little yet significant step lets the correspondent know when they can expect to hear from you and also takes the pressure off your shoulders to respond to each email immediately as you get back to work. You buy yourself some time that way. So, it’s a pretty win-win situation.

4. The digits and details of an alternate coworker who might be filling in for you: If you are lucky enough to have someone cover your shift when you are out of the office, count your blessings! And then let the recipient know the kind person’s name and contact details. But yes, please be extremely sure that the person you mentioned in the email has actually agreed to cover for you and that you were not dreaming about the whole scenario, pinch yourself twice, we say!

“In case of emergencies or issues that require urgent redressal, please get in touch with my co-worker Ms. XYZ (email id ~…, phone number ~…).”

5. Set out workflows for commonly performed or pre-scheduled tasks: If there are recurrent tasks or deliverables expected from you on a fixed basis, and you know that your colleagues or clients could possibly be requiring the same, then it’s best to direct them to a person who will be equipped to hand them out in your absence. 

“If you are reaching out for this month’s data report on sales, Ms. XYZ will have it ready for you! (Insert contact details)

6. The reason behind your absence: The jury is divided on this one. However, it is entirely your call. If you can access your email in good network areas, let your recipients know they may expect delayed responses since you are on a business trip.
“I will be traveling on red-eye flights across time zones; therefore, I will be able to check my inbox erratically, so please bear with me on the delayed responses. Thank you.”

Things to Avoid in an OOO Email

We know what goes into a well-brewed out-of-office email. Let’s also get digging on all the grub that does not make the cut. So here’s a lowdown on words and phrases to steer clear of while drafting your bespoke out-of-office reply.

1. Stay politely professional and to the point and refrain from divulging unnecessary details: The whole point of the email is to inform your correspondents of your scheduled unavailability and the due course of action in your absence. Anything that does not fit in the needful can be done away with. The occasional sensible, non-inciting humor is acceptable; however, before you hit send, think whether it will sit well with your boss!

2. Saying or hinting that you will start responding to all your emails on your scheduled day of arrival: This could be akin to digging your own grave. Refrain from setting unrealistic expectations. Let them know that you will be handling correspondence on the basis of urgency, priority, or date of receipt. That way, you are gentler on yourself and get tasks done in a manner of priority. 

3. Delegating your scheduled tasks or customers to a fellow coworker without their prior permission or intimation: This could not only make you quite unpopular in the lunch arena but also trigger mistrust in your clients and coworkers alike. In simple terms, if you are deploying your tasks to a colleague in your absence, ensure that you have their consent for the same. 

We are now familiar with the death knells and bloopers of out-of-office templates, so let’s switch gears to out-of-office message examples that get the job done. 

10 Examples of Professional OOO Message Templates

Though humor is the spice of life, it’s best to reel it in if it doesn’t sit well with your company culture. It is not advisable to make your coworkers feel bad about their working in while you party your rump off in Iibiza. You never know when you might become the ‘hot” topic of discussion in water cooler rendezvous! 

1. Simple out-of-office message sans the drama:

In the example that you see attached, the simplicity and crispness of the email get the message across in a no-nonsense approach, minus any frills.

2. Holiday season OOO message template:

When you can smell the snow and the apple pies, you know that the festive cheer and the good times are near. This also means that you will have to let your prospective correspondents know that you will be sitting with your family under the Christmas tree, unwrapping presents instead of swiveling round and round in your office chair. Here’s an example of what a holiday out-of-office email message can look like. 

3. Vacation out-of-office message:

Ask anyone bitten by the wanderlust bug as to what motivates them to go to work, and they would promptly say the cash to pay the travel bills! Let’s face it; everyone likes to let their hair down once in a while (we are all just houseplants with more complicated emotions!) When you finally get those leaves approved, bags packed, and your manager satiated with no work backlogs, you still need to let your team members and clients know about your absence. 

4. An out-of-office message citing maternity/paternity leave:

Having a baby can be a life-altering experience and one that will probably influence all your future personal and professional decisions. This event in the journey of your life will require you to take a break and focus on changing diapers and warming formula bottles; therefore, you will require time off work. An out-of-office email tailored to suit the occasion can let your colleagues and customers know that you will be back at your workstation, albeit after a scheduled period of time.

5. Company event out-of-office message:

Every company that is dedicated to their employees’ growth will conduct events featuring value-adding discourses every now and then. This translates into employees taking time off their work desks, necessitating the need to schedule out-of-office emails to that effect. Here’s an example of a company taking a day off for voting.

6. Sick leave out of office email:

Every now and then, someone tends to catch the flu, and then the virus takes a good round of everyone in the vicinity. So if you are the latest receiver of the not-so-welcome guest, you will probably be staying in, drinking up fluids, and fixing appointments with the doc. But before you call in sick from work, it’s good work etiquette to let your coworkers and clients know that you will be taking a raincheck.

7. Conference out-of-office message:

With great corporate journeys come a repertoire of business conferences. Attending conferences will require attendees to inform their colleagues, team members, and prospective leads about their inability to respond immediately to mail correspondences.

8. Business excursion out-of-office emails:

Business trips culminate in expanding horizons and an enhanced worldview. If you have an upcoming business trip, that’s awesome! However, informing your network about your unavailability for a fixed period of time will help you focus on the tasks and learnings at hand. 

9. Intra/Internal out-of-office response:

In some instances, you might want to draft separate OOO emails for your internal coworkers’ group and a different one for external networks. Some email service providers offer options to draft auto out-of-office email templates for internal office groups and a separate one for external collaborators.

10. Short-term OOO/BRB emails:

With the remote and hybrid work culture catching up globally, stepping out for a short period of time to attend to chores has become a routine occurrence. When you plan to step out for a bit to pay those bills or for a caffeine break maybe, it is recommended to inform your teammates of your scheduled unavailability for that short period.

3 Unique Ways To Upsell & Cross-sell Your Products In OOO Emailers

Who said your OOO emails only have to be about intimation regarding your leave of absence? You can also use them subtly as a means to introduce crazy deals on cool new products or deliver upgrades on existing services. Feel free to get creative!

1. Introduce Black Friday deals that your subscribers can enjoy in your absence:

Once Thanksgiving is done and dusted, Black Friday is in the offing and it is always a great idea to dole out offers and discounts around this occasion. Here’s an example of how you can go about this in your OOO email

2. Offer lead magnets:

When you give value to your customers, you build brand loyalty. Try slipping in quizzes, newsletters, whitepapers, free ebooks, or anything that you feel will add value to your recipients’ life. Incorporating these lead magnets lets your customers know that you genuinely value their presence, even in your absence. 

3. Upsell your products or services:

If you feel your customers might reach out to you regarding a particular product or service, offer more value to them in the form of an upgrade on an existing service. Even in your absence, you will have them scrolling through your website, exploring upgraded packages. 

Sounds awesome? Well, it is!

3 Humor-Filled OOO Templates To Let Your Customers Know That You Are “Humerus”ly Inclined

While the jury stands divided on this one, well-timed and well-worded humor can have the right effect on the right audience. However, it’s always better to stay conscious of how your humor might be received and if it bodes well with your company culture. Just ensure not to rub people up the long way and you might just end up with a brilliant OOO email that does the job and lightens up the environment!

Here are some instances where you can carefully inject humor into your OOO templates;

1. Off to seek nirvana and peace and eat cake:

If you are planning to go on a well-deserved vacation or even workation, here’s what you could try penning down.

Subject line: Plugged out of wifi, connecting with inner peace

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out! As we speak, I will probably be maneuvering my way around the Himalayas, soaking in the beauty.

If I ain’t too drunk on it, and if I find a good network connection, I might be able to answer emails. In case that doesn’t happen, I recommend you kindly contact Susie (insert email id); she should be able to help you with any immediate concerns.

I will be getting back to the “plain” life on the 23rd of April, 2023. Till then,

Ciao!

2. Get a pet to respond (well, not really!):

If you are a cat or a dog parent or even mom/dad to a hamster, feel free to get creative with the “animal” instinct. You could try something that goes like this;

Subject line: Pawpaw OOO taking me to the vet!

Hi,

I am Jeremy, John’s retriever. Under his tight work schedule, he conveniently forgot that I needed to go for my half-yearly doggo checkup.

He is a fantastic pawpaw otherwise! He will be back at his workstation by tomorrow. 

Till then,

Bow wow!

3. Insert meme references from pop culture:

It’s a fact that all of us love memes! Send them on a Monday morning, and we can do away with that anxiety pill. Whether you are a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. or a Game of Thrones fan, set the funny bone tickling with swagger.

Subject line: We were on a BREAK!

Hi!

Before you go all Rachel on me, let me Ross it out. My team and I will be out of the office this coming Wednesday, so please don’t tell me that you didn’t KNOW!

We know you know that we know! 

So see you Thursday! 

Ciao!

We know you enjoyed reading them as much as we liked writing them! You know people will have fun receiving them, so weigh out your options and get cracking on that perfect, light-hearted out-of-office email to sail through all your vacays without worrying about the work front.

Ways To Set Up Automated OOO Replies

We are now quite familiar with the importance of OOO emails and also, fun as well as professional ways to write them. Let’s now move toward how to set up out-of-office automatic replies on Outlook, Gmail, Slack, and MS Teams!

1. DIY tips on setting up OOO autoresponders on Gmail:

Everybody loves Google Workspace, and so do we! So here’s how you can go about setting up out-of-office email messages on Gmail.

• Locate the Settings icon on the top right corner of Gmail, and proceed toward “See all Settings.”
• Fill in the circular button next to “Vacation Responder On.”
• Enter all the details like the first day, last day of vacation, subject line, and a simple yet professional OOO email message.
• Select the audience for your email.
• Click on “Save Changes,” and your autoresponder email is set!

Once you are back to work, you can turn off the Vacation Responder in a similar manner or select “End now” and resume scheduled correspondence. 

2. Setting up out-of-office emailers in Outlook

• Choose the “File” option, then select “Automatic Replies.”

• Check the “Send automatic replies” option
• Fill in the required time range (if applicable)
• Make the choice between “Inside My Organization” and “Outside My Organization.”
• Fill in the emailer content in the text box.
• Select “OK”

3. Enabling OOO messages on Microsoft Teams:

Locate the “Set status message” below the profile picture on top of the Teams window.

• Choose the “Schedule out of office” option in the pop-up menu.

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• In the out-of-office message window, type in your email content and switch on the toggle button near “Turn on automatic replies”
• Set the data range on the time period
• If you choose to send automatic replies to people outside your organization, you can do that as well by selecting ”Send replies outside my organization.”
• Don’t forget to hit “Save” once done!

4. Scheduling out-of-office messages on Slack:

If Slack is your preferred tool for work-based communication, we have got you covered. Here’s how you can schedule OOO messages on Slack replete with emojis (because why not?!)

• Select your profile picture towards the top right of your Slack window.
• Select “Update your status,” fill in your custom message and set your message timing
• You can also get creative with emojis!

5. Enabling OOO messages on Skype:

If Skype’s your thing, we can help you with that as well!

• Click on the status tab next to your profile picture.

Type in your customized message in the box. Hit “Done”

• When you get back to your desk, please remember to mention your availability. 

Keeping the bad guys away from your OOO messages

Cybersecurity is a legitimate threat with social engineering attacks getting more common by the day. An out-of-office email can reveal a whole lot about your current location (if you choose to divulge that), your office designation, and the fact that your home will be an easy target since you are away.

Here’s what you can do to protect social identity thefts and prevent giving away too much information to absolute strangers who have no business whatsoever to be prying into your life.

• Choose to use the safety of the word “unavailable” instead of giving out the exact location of where you may be during your absence from work.
• Try altering the setting in your email platform to send OOO emails only to registered domain users.
• Refrain from sharing your phone numbers or other email ids. Let them know that you will be monitoring your inbox from time to time.

Better security begins with you being more proactive about the information you choose to share online. You could also try professional email campaign management services for having everything looked into. So choose wisely.

Summary 

Phew! On that note, we would like to believe that we have covered major sections of all one may need to know regarding crafting and scheduling the best out-of-office messages. Got any doubts or feedback to share? Or would you like some professional help with scheduling your automated email campaigns? We are all ears and eager to help. Contact us to know more, or maybe just say hi!

The post The Comprehensive Guide To The Art of Writing Spectacular Out Of Office Emails appeared first on Email Uplers.

Hola, Readers! You entered the futuristic realm of automated email automation in 2023. We can’t unsee the surge in AI-induced automation tools, but this is a surprise. They have incorporated AI and taken their platforms to new heights. Will they create a difference in email automation? 

Having experienced my share of inbox nightmares, I can attest that dealing with a constant barrage of emails can be highly stressful. But don’t worry; I’ll show you the most powerful email automation tools to simplify your life. These tools can help you regain control of your emails and communicate more effectively with your audience. 

Whether you’re a busy entrepreneur, a marketer wanting to optimize your email campaigns, or someone who wants to spend less time staring at a screen, these 9 tools have been handpicked basis of their usability, sustainability, and variety. So unwind everything you have learned in the past, and let’s explore the futuristic world of automated email! 

What is Email Automation? 

Email automation sends periodic emails to a specified audience responding to events or actions set up as triggers. These can range from first greetings to follow-ups after a customer purchases. And luckily, we have specific email tools for specific objectives. 

You can save time and money by automating these emails, all while sending out communications more likely to engage with your target audience because of their timeliness and relevance. 

You can increase engagement and click-through rates by dividing your target audience into smaller groups and tailoring their messages to each. For example, email automation allows organizations to improve customer communication while devoting fewer human resources to the process. 

Look at the various types of tools that highlight the course of email automation. 

Types of Email Automation Tools 

Email automation tools come in a wide variety, each with its advantages.

1. Workflow Automation Tools: You can now automate email marketing campaigns using workflow automation solutions in response to user actions or events. 

2. Lead Nurturing Tools: By sending prospective customers customized emails at different points in the sales process, lead nurturing solutions help businesses strengthen existing relationships with consumers and attract new ones. 

3. Personalization Tools: Businesses may boost their engagement and conversion rates by using personalization tools to send out emails tailored to each recipient.

4. Analytics Tools: They offer insightful data on email performance, allowing organizations to fine-tune their email marketing strategy over time. 

You can save time and enhance your engagement with consumers by using these email automation solutions, which streamline email sending and management. However, choose the one that fits your needs and requirements. Don’t simply drool over the popular or cheaper ones. 

But what parameter shall decide how I choose? 

Here is a simple answer to the obvious question. 

How to Choose the Best Email Automation Tool? 

When it comes to streamlining and expediting business communication, email automation tools and platforms can be a game-changer. But there are so many products out there that picking the one that best fits your needs might seem impossible. 

• Consider your business’s needs and email marketing plan as a starting point for making the right choice.
• Think about things like how extensive your email list is, the kinds of emails you want to send, and how much customization you need.
• Look for functions like segmentation, A/B testing, and analytics to enhance your email campaigns and monitor their efficacy.

The best email automation solution for you is one that works well with your existing processes, caters to your company’s requirements, and makes it simple to reach your email marketing objectives. 

Let’s keep things simple, shall we? 

Top 9 Email Marketing Tools That Are Doing Wonders in 2023 

You might not always hear this, but sometimes what we are looking for is right before our eyes. And you might have encountered most of the tools listed below in some way or another. So today, I will help you eliminate your hesitation while choosing the best email automation tool for your business. 

HubSpot 

HubSpot is an integrated suite of marketing solutions, including email automation, customer relationship management, and social media management. Thanks to their email automation features, you may take advantage of automated workflow creation, consumer behavior tracking, and preference-based email personalization. 

HubSpot’s drag-and-drop editor and intuitive interface are the software’s best features. Also, you get to personalize email content based on how your users have interacted with your website in the past. 

Isn’t that amazing? Ah! The best for a reason. 

Mailchimp

MailChimp is a popular email marketing tool with advanced automation capabilities. Mailchimp’s one-month free trial plan is attractive because it allows users to send up to 10,000 emails monthly. 

The dashboard displays key metrics like subscriber growth and engagement rates for you to keep a tab. You can also witness subscriber location and age range. In addition, you will receive regular tips and recommendations on improving your strategy and engaging with your subscribers more readily. 

ActiveCampaign 

ActiveCampaign is an all-encompassing email marketing and automation platform with sophisticated tools like segmentation, lead scoring, and A/B testing. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyze a subscriber’s behavior and determine an optimal time to send emails.  

ActiveCampaign’s site monitoring tool is handy because it allows you to monitor site visitors’ actions and respond with predetermined automated emails. The automation features available include triggered emails and conditional logic. Eventually, it boosts the open rate and click-through rates.  

Sendinblue 

Sendinblue is an all-in-one platform for email and SMS marketing and workflow automation. It allows for managing contact lists, creating custom fields, and tracking interactions in one place. 

This will assist you in segmenting your contacts and personalizing your email campaigns based on users’ buying behaviors and preferences. The unique features, including workflows, triggers, and SMS marketing, put it in the favorites list of top email marketers. 

ConvertKit 

ConvertKit was developed for the needs of bloggers, content creators, and small business owners. Segmentation, lead magnets, and drip campaigns are all examples of automation features available. 

The simplicity and ease of ConvertKit are two strengths. First, you can tag subscribers based on their interests. Then you can create complex email sequences with zero coding knowledge. Thanks to its visual automation builder. 

Drip

Drip is an email marketing and automation software designed specifically for the e-commerce industry, with capabilities including customer behavior tracking, lead scoring, and tailored product suggestions. Its real-time revenue dashboard tells you everything you need to know. Thus, enabling you to make data-driven decisions. 

Drip’s ability to connect with other e-commerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento is a standout feature. It offers advanced segmentation options to help you create highly-targeted emails based on behavior, demographics, and purchase history. 

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is an all-in-one solution for email marketing needs, including features like automated workflows, split testing, and more. Campaign Monitor’s drag-and-drop email builder is a great feature for quickly and easily creating high-quality email newsletters. In addition, it enables sending aesthetically pleasing and customized emails. 

You can do away without any coding knowledge. It allows a wide range of integrations with popular marketing platforms like Salesforce, Shopify, and Eventbrite, leading to a loyal readership and conversions at bay. 

Klaviyo 

If you own an online store, you need Klaviyo, an email marketing and automation tool made just for you. Automation of processes, categorization, and tailor-made product suggestions are only a few of its characteristics.  

For example, Klaviyo can track which products a customer has viewed on your website and can send targeted emails with recommendations based on their browsing history. 

*remembers how I mistakenly tapped on that Barbie gift on Flipkart*

That’s not it. Klaviyo can seamlessly integrate with other leading e-commerce systems like Shopify and Magento. 

Omnisend 

Omnisend is an email marketing and automation tool developed with the needs of online retailers in mind. Automation of processes, categorization, and tailor-made product suggestions are only a few of its characteristics. In addition, Omnisend can work with all the major e-commerce platforms. 

Omnisend tracks and analyzes customer behavior like browsing history, purchase patterns, and cart abandonment. It offers unique features like SMS marketing, push notifications, and Facebook retargeting ads to help your eCommerce business reach customers on multiple platforms. 

To learn more about how these tools function, try using Nykaa, Flipkart, or Myntra and add some products to your cart. You will receive magic emails about how ‘the prices have dropped.’ I am not even kidding. 

Looks like simplicity wasn’t that simple. Let me make it more evident by tabulating the pricing strategies of these tools. It will help you compare easily while choosing. 

Plan/Pricing Comparison of the Best 9 Email Automation Tools 

Key Takeaways 

• Tools that streamline and expedite the sending of emails can help organizations better connect with their customers.
• Workflow automation, lead nurturing, personalization, and analytics are just some of the many uses for email automation tools.
• When deciding on an email automation platform, you must consider your business’s email list size, the content of the emails you want to send, and the degree of personalization you desire.
• It is essential to find an email automation solution that works well with your current procedures, meets your specific needs as a business, and makes it easy to reach your email marketing objectives. 
• The most important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t just go with the most well-liked or least expensive email automation solution on the market.

I hope you had a great time learning some new facets of these top 9 tools that are working wonders in 2023 already. Do not wait any longer. Instead, choose one tool that fits your needs and requirements. Rest assured, good luck with your email marketing campaigns. 

Singing off. See you again. Until next time. 

The post 9 Best Email Automation Tools Working Wonders in 2023 appeared first on Email Uplers.

Looking at a stack of numbers can be pretty monotonous. And so can having to go through huge blocks of text. It takes some clever arrangement and an arresting visual language to bring together both in a manner that makes the eventual outcome highly digestible. In case you are wondering, we are talking about infographics. 

This is the age of data. Businesses churn data to make better decisions. Customers expect to be apprised of their actions through data. With so much weightage assigned to it, making data engaging and accessible is downright imperative. Now, how can that be achieved? By focusing on data visualization and presentation, and infographics are one of the finest use cases in this regard. 

For businesses to captivate and build long-lasting relationships with their audience, they must offer value, which comes with sharing crucial and revelatory data-led insights with them. In doing so, however, they must take care to package this data in a form that is highly appealing to their subscribers. Infographics allow them to do just that. It is no wonder, thus, that they are being increasingly used by brands these days as part of their marketing emails.

Wish to get a proper lay of this land? Well, you are just in the right place. Today, we talk at length about everything you need to keep in mind regarding email infographics. Eager to find out? Let’s go!

Why Should You Use Infographics in Your Emails?

We respond better to visual content than text-only content, it’s no secret. As a matter of fact, content that has relevant images fetches 94% more views over those that don’t. But, this is just one of the most obvious incentives to incorporate infographics in your email marketing campaigns. There’s much more to it once we delve deeper. Shall we?

Hold Your Audience’s Attention

Since the last decade or so, we’ve been waging a losing battle against our attention spans. At present, it stands at a mere 8 seconds (lesser than even a goldfish’s, so there go those idioms). Marketers have their tasks cut out then- make your communication visually engaging or risk getting lost in the sea of other emails that flood their target audience’s inboxes regularly. Here’s where infographic emails come in extremely handy. They keep the reader engaged right from the moment they put their eyes on it, thereby securing surefire engagement for you.

Convey Information Effectively

Email is not a medium where you are supposed to send long, winding paragraphs your subscribers’ way, even if the content in question is extremely interesting and relevant to them. People assign different expectations to different mediums, and that, in turn, shapes how they interact with them. This is something you must take into account while curating content for any platform. So, how do you get your subscribers to engage with a larger volume of content in your email? You probably guessed it; package it in the form of an infographic. Besides making the information that much more palatable, an infographic also ensures that your message gets communicated in a frictionless manner to your audience.

Highlight Important Segments

Not all portions of your infographic will have the same hierarchy, right? And you’d obviously want your readers to take stock of the segments that are more significant than the rest. Well, with an infographic, you can facilitate this with ease. Complex and insightful elements such as statistics can be represented visually in the form of pie charts, bar graphs, and the like to put them under the spotlight. Similarly, other critical segments can be meted out a distinctive visual treatment to ensure that they grab the reader’s eyeballs without fail.

Enhance Your Brand Visibility

In the process of fostering improved interaction and engagement, email infographics encourage your readers to circulate them among their friends and peers, thereby boosting your reach and visibility. This also paves the path for your business to amass new subscribers.

Level Up Your Personalization Game 

In 2023, you can’t possibly deny the existence of email fatigue. But, you can always strive to make a case for your brand, despite it. One of the most popular methods that businesses have adopted to tackle it is utilizing customer data to send personalized messages to them. You might not respond enthusiastically to a run-of-the-mill promotional email, but you will always regard with close interest one that contains recommendations aligning with your geolocation, past purchases, and preferences, won’t you? 

Another popular application of user data involves informing your customers how they are engaging with your offerings. And, email infographics seem to be business’ route of choice when presenting such information. The first example that comes to mind, with respect to this scenario, is Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” campaign, in which they present comprehensive reports to their users, including topics such as the artists they most frequently listened to, the music genres they preferred the most, and the like

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Grammarly is another brand that adopts this approach, too. Take a look.

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In this way, infographic email marketing can help you cut through the noise and help you lay claim on the spotlight.

When Can You Use Infographics?

One of the best things about infographics is that they present numerous possibilities- you can use them for various occasions. Below, we have discussed some.

1. Representing Customer Usage

We already touched upon this in the section above. Giving user data and customer behavior the form of alluring year-in-review and milestone emails is an excellent way to foster a dialogue with your audience and create a buzz around your brand.

2. Educating Your Subscribers

Communicating complex instructions or technical information to your subscribers can be really tricky. Sufficiently elaborating on the topic to promise clarity is manageable, but then you also have to look into making it appealing for your readers.

“So, should we consider making an infographic?”

Yes, of course! (Glad you are catching up so well with the subject now!)

Here are a few examples to get your creative gears running in the right direction.

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3. Drawing Lucid Comparisons

Other than highlighting your product’s USPs, it is equally vital to establish how it is a cut above that of your competitors. At other times, you may also be required to draw comparisons between different tiers of a product or service that you are offering. Whatever be the scenario, nothing like a neat infographic that efficiently tallies the features of two products side-by-side to get your point across.

4. Sharing Report Results

Surveys and reports are exciting endeavors, making you privy to a plethora of data while giving you an accurate idea of the pulse that is defining the domain or industry you are working in. Consumers of these industries (i.e., your audience) also look forward to such findings, to keep themselves abreast of all the latest trends and developments. However, the onus lies on you to present it in a manner that doesn’t discourage them from interacting with it.

This email from Klaviyo perfectly illustrates how you should go about it.

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5. Illustrating How-Tos

How-tos are a great content device, allowing you to break down lengthy processes into byte-sized modules, making the overall information dissemination significantly more efficient. Now, combine that with some eye-catching visuals, and imagine the outcome!

Here are some examples that aptly drive home the point we are trying to make.

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Things To Keep In Mind While Designing Infographics

Now that we understand the significance of infographics and the various situations in which they can be used, it is only fair that we learn about the best practices one should adhere to while designing one. Find them listed below!

• “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”- let this philosophy shape your design language. Often brands end up going overboard in a bid to cast an impression, only to end up overwhelming their readers.
• Choose your font carefully. Remember, your infographic is a content-heavy entity. So, make certain to choose a font that is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to read.
• Strike a balance between text and visuals. Neither should wash out the other. 
• Pay attention to the size. If it’s too large, it will end up increasing your email load time, ultimately ruining your subscribers’ user experience.
• Ensure your infographic design is mobile-responsive. All that hard work will be in vain otherwise. The number of mobile users is rising with every passing day, so sticking to responsive design best practices is absolutely non-negotiable. 
• Test, test, test. Across devices. Across environments. Never forget to test out your infographic before sending it out. 

Wrapping It Up

Wrapping your head around designing an infographic might take some time, but it’s well worth the investment. Including infographics in your emails can reflect positively on your click-through rates and conversions, enabling you to soar comfortably over your competitors. We hope this article was able to answer any and all questions you might have had regarding using infographics in emails. Goes without saying, the examples listed over here aren’t exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, so feel free to pore over the works of the best in the business to fine-tune your infographic-making skills.

The post Engage, Enthrall, and Educate: The Complete Lowdown on Using Infographics in Emails appeared first on Email Uplers.

The merit of your email templates is what dictates the success of your email marketing campaigns; that’s no secret. However, visualizing and developing a visually rapturous and technically sound template is easier said than done. Add to that the need for scaling up email production in response to a continuous influx of new subscribers, and things start to become very, very tricky. 

“Well, is there no way to get on top of this situation?”

Glad you asked! There is, actually- using email template editors. These tools help you build pixel-perfect templates from scratch, without demanding any technical know-how from your end. Possessing feature-rich interfaces, they make it extremely convenient for you to breathe life into your ideas, all without consuming bucketloads of time. 

Today, we will dive deep into one such editor- the Salesforce Lightning email builder. Salesforce, as an entity, needs no introduction. From helping marketers to set up elaborate, hyper-personalized email campaigns, to sharing real-time performance insights with them, Salesforce is well-adored and celebrated in the email community. The Lightning email builder is the latest addition to Salesforce’s long and illustrious line of offerings whose focus has always been empowering their users’ professional endeavors while promising them the most bang for their buck.

How Can You Create Templates In Salesforce Lightning Email Builder?

With Salesforce email template builder, you can develop email templates in two ways:

1. Using HTML code (custom-coded email templates)

2. Using Drag & Drop (building templates with the help of ready-to-use/skeletal modules from Lightning builder)

Let us dive deeper into both methods.

Using HTML Code

In this approach, you can add the HTML source code of an email template directly to your Lightning Experience. However, if you are taking this route, you are required to be familiar with the basics of HTML and coding. 

Many developers prefer creating their templates using HTML and CSS code for it allows them to:

• Update the text, images, and links within the Rich Text editor.
• Update the font, font size, font styles, font color, add bullet points, and define the alignment of the text.

Keep in mind, though, that while updating the font, you are only allowed to choose from the default fonts provided by the ESP. If you wish to use anything beyond that, you will have to update the HTML source code accordingly.

Next, let us take a look at the steps involved in creating an email template using HTML and CSS code in SFMC Lightning Experience.

1. Log in to your SFMC account.

2. Navigate to “App Launcher”.

3. Type “email templates” in the search bar.

4. Select the “email templates” item. A new tab will open.

5. Now, click on “New email template.”

6. Specify the requisite details such as email template name, description, and subject line.

7. Choose a folder. By default, Salesforce Lightning email templates are in Private folder.

8. Upon entering all the details, click on “Save.” The template will be created.

9. To add the HTML source code, click on the Edit button.

10. Enter your code in the “HTML Value” field. Click on Save.

Using Drag & Drop

This method is suitable for those who are not fluent in coding. The Lightning Editor is equipped with an in-built email builder, which contains an array of ready-to-use modules that can be utilized by users. Select the blocks from the inbuilt library, and use a simple drag-and-drop maneuver to build the email template of your choice. 

Remember, to create Salesforce email templates using this builder, you need to secure account access beforehand, as the template will be created directly into the account. 

However, there are a certain set of limitations associated with this approach:

• Not every section of your template might be actualized in the manner you envisioned for it to be.
• There will be a certain degree of discrepancy between your original vision and the eventual outcome.
• Occasionally, you might have to contend with extra padding and misalignments between the two sections of your email.
• You will have to relinquish control over mobile view settings as the ESP automatically sets the Mobile view as per the Desktop view. As a result, any changes you reflect in the Desktop view will reflect in the mobile version and vice versa. 
• Post-delivery, there might be certain uncontrollable and unresolvable rendering errors.
• You can only make use of default fonts present in the SFMC Lightning in-built editor.
• While there’s no restriction on using background images, changing them is a hassle- you can only do so by changing the source code. 
• The 2 column sections will scale automatically as per the design. You can’t configure them as per your requirements.
• Email templates created using this method don’t support dark mode.

Listed below are the steps you need to follow to create an email template using Lightning Editor’s in-built email builder.

1. Log in to your account.

2. Navigate to “App Launcher”.

3. Type “email templates” in the search bar.

4. Select the “email templates” item. A new tab will open.

5. Now, click on “New email template”

6. Specify the requisite details such as email template name, description, and subject line.

7. Choose a folder. 

8. Upon entering all the details, click on “Save”. The template will be created.

9. Next, click on the “Edit in builder” button. This will allow you to add the modules or blocks. 

10. Keep on adding the components you need to finish building your template.

Best Practices To Keep In Mind

Here are some tips and tricks that will help you create impactful Lightning email templates.

• Keep the standard width of the email templates between 600px-800px (average desktop width). This will ensure that they behave as desired within the preview-pane size provided by most of the email clients. 
• For the responsiveness /mobile width, add the media queries starting from 320px, as most of the readers are in this range.
• To ensure readability, keep the title font size at 22px or more. For the body copy, stick to the range of 12-14px- this will be ideal for both desktop and mobile. Keep line spacing around 1.5 times the font size.
• Ideally, the height of your email template should be between the range of 1500px-3000px. This will help you steer clear of clipping issues and adding weightage to your templates.
• Stick to a single-column layout. Apart from making your templates mobile-friendly, this will also help you avoid rendering issues such as overlapping columns, overflowing text, and shifting images. Additionally, avoid using complicated elements as much as possible in your email templates.
• Use fewer images because usually, images take time to load in the email clients. And a high load time can greatly hamper your subscribers’ user experience. Additionally, always write descriptive alt-texts for the images used.
• Make use of simple, cross-platform fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times New Roman. 
• Avoid elements that would require JavaScript for very few email clients support it. If you want to include an animated element in your email, consider using a GIF file.
• Always test the email templates before broadcasting them.
• Make sure your CTA button is prominent. A minimum size of 44×44 pixels is considered to be ideal. As far as the font size for your CTA button is concerned, a good rule of thumb is to use 16 px or more.
• Content placed above the fold (approximately the first 350px length of your email) gets more attention than the content placed below it. Hence, make certain that your above-the-fold content really packs a punch, and can effectively hook in your readers. 
• Leave ample whitespace around elements so that your template doesn’t appear cluttered. Additionally, white space helps you successfully draw attention to the most important parts of your email. 
• Always include links to your social media handles on your template.
• Always add an unsubscribe link.

Wrapping It Up

Getting used to Salesforce’s Lightning Builder’s extensive suite of features might take a while, but once you get the hang of it, nothing can get in the way of you crafting engaging and appealing email campaigns for your brand. We hope the insights shared above will help smoothen your learning curve. 

The post Creating Email Templates in Salesforce Lightning Experience- Everything You Need To Know! appeared first on Email Uplers.

As a customer-focused organization, you might have implemented Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) to power your data-driven marketing program. You likely did a lot of research before selecting SFMC and followed a Salesforce implementation checklist to ensure a problem-free deployment.

But are you monitoring the health of your SFMC account?

It’s important to do this because a messy account can create a lot of problems for your organization. For example, you may struggle to find the right data extension (DE) for audience segmentation. Or the data hygiene and data flows in your account may be questionable, affecting the outcomes of your email campaigns. An unhealthy SFMC account does not operate at peak performance. It may also increase your day-to-day costs, which will impact the ROI of your SFMC-powered email marketing program.

The best way to overcome all these problems is to conduct an SMC account audit. Here’s where our CRM audit checklist will help. Leverage this simple, action-packed checklist to identify issues in your account and act quickly to optimize its performance and output.

#1: Get an overview of account status

Start your SFMC account audit by getting an overview of account status and structure. This requires going to the Setup screen of your account and reviewing all the high-level metrics SFMC is collecting for you. One of the great things about SFMC is that it provides a lot of tangible metrics so you can see exactly what’s happening in your account and how everything is working (or not). Thus, you can see which journeys you have configured for your target audience, and which automations, Salesforce email templates, and DEs you are using. You can also see the content you have created for various email campaigns and the users who (can and do) use the account.

As part of the audit, you should also:

1. Do a deep-dive to proactively identify risks or issues if particular metrics are unexpected or looking unusual

2. Evaluate specific areas in detail to create an action plan and determine next steps

3. Ask pointed questions to inform issue analyses, such as:

• Do we have any outdated journeys?
• Are any DEs outdated? Can they be deleted or archived?
• Are we storing sensitive data in SFMC?
• What kind of content blocks are we using? Salesforce email templates? HTML? Programmatic languages like AMPscript or JavaScript?

After answering these questions, you will have a good overview of your account. You will also be able to see where there are issues, identify which issues need further investigation, and create a list of required changes to optimize your account.

#2: Assess automations

SFMC offers a wide range of automation capabilities to help you get email campaigns out quickly and at scale. You may have set up many automations in your SFMC account. But do you know how many active automations are currently running or the purpose of each automation? Are any automations inactive, paused, or outdated? Are you seeing recurring query failures or other common errors? If yes, are you using error notifications? How about verification activities?

An automation audit is an important part of your SFMC cloud audit checklist because it will show you if there are automation issues that need to be addressed. A proper audit will also help you to identify, plan, and configure new automations, and make the most of SFMC and its possibilities.

When conducting the automations audit, create a systematic process where all relevant information is properly documented, including:

• Automation name and type (being audited)
• Email information
• Error notifications (if any)
• Required action

Documentation will ensure that everyone is on the same page with respect to audit scope, status, and next steps. It will also create a sense of accountability when addressing risks.

#3: Audit Users

Your SFMC account is likely used by many users in your organization, such as Marketing Cloud email specialists, administrators, developers, channel managers, and content editors/publishers. Each user can perform different actions, depending on the permissions they have been granted.

SFMC admins must set these permissions when completing the setup of your SFMC account. They must identify each user and their role and map this information to the relevant business unit. In addition, they must map the anticipated data flows between SFMC and other systems, identify sample data feeds, and list subscriber attributes to organize the audience segmentation and personalization logic.

But what if your admins didn’t perform all these activities during SFMC setup? An audit will reveal if they missed these crucial activities. It will show:

• How many active, inactive, or unrecognizable users are in the account
• If you have set up Alert Manager in SFMC to notify a particular email address about sending errors in email batch sends and triggered sends
• If one or more user accounts should be disabled or deleted
• Which users have API and data access and if they still need this access
• How many sender profiles are set up
• If you have enabled Audit Trail for admins to view SFMC access and activity records

All of this information will help you maintain your account health and usefulness.

#4: Identify red flags

You may be seeing performance issues in your SFMC account, such as slower email sends, sending failures, high bounce rates, more unsubscribes, etc. But here’s the thing – most SFMC issues don’t crop up suddenly but build up over time. Moreover, they are almost always preceded by red flags.

For example, are you seeing slow journey processing for high-volume sends in Journey Builder? This is a red flag that you saw but did not identify. Here, the problem may be that the emails are flowing through triggered send definitions. These definitions are not meant for high-volume sends, causing slowdowns and performance problems.

Similarly, your email code may be too complicated, writing content at send time. Or you may have procedures that interact with external-to-SFMC resources using HTTPGet or HTTPPost. You may also see data inconsistencies, query failures, or recurring errors in automations or sends. All of these are red flags that can affect the performance of your SFMC account and platform.

Document all the red flags you have observed and assign a risk rating to each (high/medium/low). Also note how many times they occur and your risk assessment and mitigation strategy for each.

High-risk red flags should be addressed on priority while low-risk areas can be reviewed and addressed later. Examples of high-risk red flags include:

• Sensitive or personal data stored in DEs
• Outdated emails in automations
• Recurring or multiple automation failures
• SFMC users are still enabled, even though they no longer need access
• Poor email deliverability
• Inconsistent subscriber or contact keys
• Large number of API calls

High subscriber volumes and too many manual sends are examples of medium-risk red flags. For these issues, you can take a call on mitigation strategy and timeline. Low-risk red flags that you can review and address later include lack of personalization in content blocks, no consistent naming conventions, and not using helpful features in your SFMC account, like the Einstein AI engine.

#5: Audit everything related to data

When you audit users in your SFMC account, you should check if you have restricted data access to the right users. You should also create a list of data sources so you understand from where the SFMC platform is getting its data, and can act appropriately to optimize data storage, categorization, integration, and security. Also make sure you list data subjects and categories.

Here are some other data-related audits you should conduct:

• Are you missing any data? If yes, run an automation to retrieve it.
• Are you adding relevant data (amount + type) to your SFMC account or adding irrelevant data that affects its performance?
• Do you have a data retention policy for all DEs?
• Do DEs use the right data types and have limited table sizes?
• What do you do with outdated or test DEs? Do you have a policy for storing or archiving them?
• Are you using subscriber keys to identify subscribers and track their email addresses?
• Do you have a primary key for DEs to identify and manage existing records?
• Do you update or add records to DEs or do you overwrite data?
• Do you have duplicates in your subscriber list that are adding to your send costs? To identify these duplicates, run an automation with appropriate SQL queries.

Again, make sure to document all findings, especially problem areas, so you have a way to create a tangible action plan and roadmap.

Put Your SFMC CRM Audit Checklist to work with an Experienced Team of SFMC Experts

After completing your SFMC account audit, create an action plan with S.M.A.R.T. goals to help you address identified issues and risks and improve the performance and ROI of your SFMC account. Need support executing these goals and roadmaps? Contact Email Uplers to get started.

The post A Comprehensive Guide to SFMC Account Audits appeared first on Email Uplers.

Do your email marketing campaigns lack the knack to turn prospects into customers? And are you still wondering why your emails don’t get enough clicks even though your email copy and design are top-notch? 

They say, “Very little is needed to make a happy life. And that little has the greatest of impacts.” With emails, the little that has the most significant impact is your call to action (or CTA). 

Today, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating the perfect CTAs. Moreover, we will talk about how you can utilize cutting-edge AI-powered technologies and tactics to create impactful CTAs that are visually appealing, data-driven, and practical. Pour in your favorite drink and get ready to learn ways to increase your email click-throughs and sales. 

Why are Email CTAs so Important? 

Email marketing has become increasingly important in today’s fast-paced digital world as a means for organizations to reach out to their target audience. But crafting email campaigns that attract attention and generate sales is no mean feat. Here’s where impactful CTAs come in handy. 

CTAs are the buttons or links that encourage the reader to take action you want them to take, such as purchase, sign up for a service, or join a mailing list. Now, let’s look at the best practices for creating action-oriented CTAs. 

6 Email CTA Best Practices to Swear By 

Are you still wondering if an email’s body copy should be the one creating the whole difference and thinking that giving the CTA so much importance is maybe not worth it? Well, think again. 

A call to action isn’t just about what you aim to achieve. It also offers your user clarity about their actions. It’s also about what they want to do, what exactly would happen, and where they will land when they click on that call-to-action button. 

Here are 6 email CTA best practices that will help you create call-to-actions that work. 

1. Understand Your Audience

You must first know your target demographic to maximize results in email marketing. You must zero in on your ideal customer. You may then create highly personalized email messages with AI algorithms. 

You can use AI-powered personalization methods to provide relevant information that resonates with your audience. This way, you improve your chances of turning them into loyal customers by crafting CTAs that speak directly to their unique pain areas and wants. 

2. Craft Crisp, Effective, Intriguing CTAs

Basic principles of effective CTAs

Successful email marketing campaigns rely heavily on well-written CTAs. While there is no universally applicable method for writing an excellent CTA copy, you must observe specific general guidelines. 

For example, AI can determine the most successful CTA language and design using real-time data like click-through and conversion rates. Also, using A/B testing, you may refine your CTAs such that they are more likely to elicit the desired response. 

Here are the fundamentals aspects to consider when penning a CTA copy:

• Clarity
• Visibility 
• Urgency 
• Relevancy 
• Action-Oriented approach 

Importance of Copy and Design in CTAs 

A direct, to-the-point copy is always engaging and effective. It must be simple to understand, pertinent to the email’s subject matter, and persuasive enough to motivate the reader to take action. In addition, the copy’s tone should be closely-knit with your brand’s tone. 

Moreover, your design choices may affect the CTA’s visibility and efficacy, including color, contrast, shape, and positioning. Making the CTA button stand out with a different color than the rest of the email will help it perform better. 

Take the help of professional email design services to develop top-notch, visually appealing CTA buttons so that your focus can remain solely on the call-to-action copy. 

Let’s now take a look at some essential CTA design elements and how to hit the bull’s eye with them: 

CTA Shapes 

CTA shapes can be classified into several types: rectangular, rounded, circular, etc. While there can be no final order of what CTA shape works best, several studies have shown that horizontal rectangular boxes with rounded corners have improved. That’s why they are the most popular shape. 

However, it is crucial to realize that CTA shapes depend on your overall design; it’s best to test different shapes and see what works best and resonates with your target audience. 

CTA Colors 

Colors are expressions that don’t need words. They hold immense power to directly influence someone’s mood and feelings. The same applies to email call-to-action buttons. 

According to a study by Hubspot, the red color outperformed the green color CTA by 21%. 

When it comes to the color of your CTA, you have to choose the one that is coherent with our overall design and consistent with our branding schemes. 

Here’s a call to action(CTA) email example of Skill Share using colors consistent with their brand

Image source

However, there are a few colors that work best with all designs. Like, 

a) Black and White: Whenever in doubt, go for the black-and-white call to action, depending upon your UI. This will also help you while designing dark-mode emails. 

b) Bright Colors: Red, Green, and Orange usually perform better than most because of their bright contrasts. They are easily distinguishable from the background. 

3. Analyze Best-performing Email CTAs (Examples)

Persuasive language, a sense of urgency, and social proof are all critical factors in the success of CTAs. But what really made that email work for you? 

Since we can’t really learn about others’ rate of success of an email, we can choose an example of our best-performing, visually appealing email and dissect the factors that would have made it a hit. 

Examining the factors that contribute to the success of these CTAs can teach us how to polish our efforts. So, let’s do our research. 

To run a thorough analysis check, this is what you must look for in an email CTA example:

• Where is the CTA placement? 
• What is the language used in CTA? Does it communicate clearly? 
• Are the design elements visually appealing and eye-catching? 
• What is the overall message of the email? Do the CTA and message align? 
• What are the conversion rates? Is it driving significant clicks and conversions?  

These will help you gain insights into what creates a difference regarding CTAs. And you will also continuously improve and optimize your email campaigns for maximum conversions. 

4. Optimize Email CTAs for Mobile Devices

Mobile device optimization in email marketing campaigns is becoming increasingly important in today’s digital ecosystem. According to a report, almost 62% of email opens now occur on mobile devices – (Aedestra, 2019). Therefore it’s crucial to make CTAs that are engaging and simple to use even on such small displays. 

Optimization tools driven by AI can help you determine the optimal call-to-action (CTA) design and placement for mobile devices, considering user behavior and engagement. By tailoring your calls to action (CTAs) for mobile, you can enhance the user experience and boost the possibility that your mobile audience will convert. 

After figuring out how to create call-to-action buttons that resonate perfectly with your brand, it’s time to test which works best. 

5. Test and Measure CTA Performance 

Improving your email marketing strategy relies heavily on testing and measuring the efficacy of your CTAs. With the help of AI-powered A/B testing, you can determine which calls to action generate the most interest and action and optimize your future campaigns accordingly. 

What are Email CTA Best Practices for Testing? 

Test one element at a time – Tools such as Google Analytics provides various elements to track and analyze the performance of your email CTA. 

Use A/B testing – Tools such as Optimizely, VWO, and Unbounce allow you to quickly set up and provide detailed reports. 

Test on a representative sample – You can also consider heatmap tools like Crazy Egg or Hotjar to help you understand how your users interact with your CTAs. 

Measure success with relevant metrics – ESPs have built-in analytics reporting tools that allow you to track the performance of your CTAs and optimize accordingly. 

Run tests over a sufficient period – User testing platforms like UserTesting and Userlytics allow you to receive real-time feedback from real users.

In addition, you can maximize the effectiveness of your calls to action (CTAs) and reach your email marketing goals with the help of AI by analyzing data and making data-driven decisions. 

In addition, you can maximize the effectiveness of your calls to action (CTAs) and reach your email marketing goals with the help of AI by analyzing data and making data-driven decisions. 

6. Link the CTAs to the Right Landing Pages

Every CTA has a target landing page where the visitor is taken to on clicking through. For example, in a welcome message, you may entice subscribers to learn more about your business by clicking on a call to action (CTA) that directs them to your website or an exclusive offer. On the other hand, a promotional email’s call-to-action button could direct recipients to the landing page that describes the product/service in more detail.

Some Special Tips on getting your CTAs Right 

• Determine what you want to achieve with this email campaign and tailor your call to action accordingly.
• Maintain consistency and direct readers’ attention by including just one CTA per email.
• Emails are more likely to be opened and read if the call to action is in a prominent spot, such as near the end of the message or in a contrasting color.
• It would be best to urge the reader to act immediately using urgent, action-oriented language.
• Create a call to action that speaks directly to the interests and requirements of your target audience by using personalization and audience segmentation.
• Consistently testing and analyzing CTA performance will help you fine-tune your approach.
• Use dynamic content and AI-powered recommendations to improve the effectiveness of your calls to action (CTAs) in real time. 

Key Takeaways 

We hope this article has served your purpose for learning about the importance of call-to-action (CTA) in emails. We wish to see you create awesome CTAs that serve your purpose and boost your clickthrough rate. CTA is like an emphasis while stating the obvious. 

See you again with our next article. Happy Learning! 

The post The Ultimate Guide to Creating Killer Email CTAs appeared first on Email Uplers.

Any marketer would swear by the benefits of and the power of email marketing. Marry that with automated triggered email campaigns, and you will be witnessing crazy engagement rates and conversions while you focus on other aspects of your business, with the email campaign doing the work for you and saving you tons of time. In the following text, we will be decoding the basics and benefits of automated emails and tips to set up impressive automatic email marketing campaigns that get the job done and rake in the moolah while you sip on your Tim Hortons.

Let’s get cracking!

Presenting some email automation data so that you don’t need to do the math and get down straight to curating awesome, compelling content for your emails!

• 65% of users employ automation pipelines and workflows for email marketing.
• According to Ascend2 and Research Partners, in 2022, 55% of marketers switched bases to automated email marketing compared to 40% of marketers in 2021. 
• In the Litmus 2021 State of Email report, “59% of marketers have made expanding automation a priority for their email program.”
• Another statistic from the same report shows that 82% of marketers employ automation to devise triggered emails.
• Automated emails perform way better than broadcast ones, with a click-through rate of a staggering 152%!!!

Now those are some drool-worthy numbers. So let’s hit the throttle and delve into the fundamentals of email marketing and tips to ace mail automation.

What is Automated Email, Understanding Its Use Cases, and When To Personalize

As the name suggests, an automated email refers to an email of a transactional or marketing nature that does not require anyone to actually hit the “send” button. Instead, triggered emails can be crafted in a bespoke automated mailing campaign according to the data of the segmented customer base molded to suit your unique goals. 

App integrations work their magic when you desire to automate email marketing campaigns. Integrating your CRM with your email marketing automation app allows you to set up workflows to send behavior-triggered emails to the right person at the right time. This can free up time and space to focus on bettering your services rather than analyzing data and manually sending emails. 

Let’s have a look at some of the email automation use cases.

• Welcome emails: When someone signs up to receive an email from your brand or downloads a free ebook, welcome them aboard with a personalized message and a coupon.
• Abandoned cart emails: A recent study observed that almost three-fourths of prospective shoppers leave the website without making a purchase. Now that’s close to 69.99%. This is a huge potential customer base that has seen value in your deliverables and might make a purchase when reminded or incentivized. This is where sending out well-timed emails can help people return to the cart and complete the purchase.
• Anniversary emails: When a customer completes a year of being associated with your brand as a valuable member, don’t forget to thank them for their contribution and send them virtual flowers and cakes by email.
• Subscription expiration notice emails: If a member’s subscription is due to lapse in a couple of weeks, let them know in advance so they can renew their subscription hassle-free in due time. 
• Re-engagement and unsubscribing inactive users: People get busy or simply lose interest in receiving emails. To encourage re-engagement with emails from your brand, shoot a mail or two to know if you can do something differently or gamify the whole process by sending quizzes and coupons. Before unsubscribing inactive members from your mailing list, let them know it’s been a while since you have heard from them and if they would like a different cadence before you let go of them completely. 
• Automated emails addressing customer complaints: When customers face issues with your product or service, they are likely looking for an instant and genuine resolution to the complaint. However, it is not possible to stay glued to your inbox 24 * 7 and answer each dissatisfied customer as and when they drop you an email. Thus, it makes sense to set up automated complaint acknowledgment emails to appease customers and let them know that their issue has been registered and that an official will contact them soon. 
• Order-related emails: When a customer places an order with your brand, an order confirmation email adds the ribbon to the box and encourages the customer to engage further with the brand. Order confirmation emails have been known to generate higher RPEs than those of a promotional nature. The simple reason is human psychology; you are more likely to order from a brand that has already created a sense of trust in your mind. Similarly, order shipping, delivery, and product review emails engender better customer relations, thereby enhancing ROIs. 

An effective email automation strategy relies heavily on building segmented email lists. This depends on user demographics such as gender, age, occupation, location, user engagement patterns, and their recent activities on your website and a detailed study of this ultimately helps enhance ROI on email marketing. With automation, personalization is possible to a certain extent. However, in certain use cases, such as reverting to a customer with a complaint with an intent to resolve their issue and a personalized follow-up after the automated email is highly recommended. 

3 Best Practices To Nail Your Email Automation Game & Realize Awesome ROIs

Email marketing automation helps you deliver the right content and the perfect solutions to the targeted audience at the right time without worrying about going through the rigmarole of sending emails out manually. The beauty of this is when done correctly; your conversions grow simultaneously, and the return on your investment witnesses spectacular growth. When you employ the services of marketing automation specialists to address your audience with a personal and human touch, you automatically pave the way to better engagement and enhanced returns. Once you have your goals in place, along with segmented mailer lists, you are ready for the next part of the hustle. Let’s go!

1. Marry your goal actions with measurable micro conversions: The issue with most marketers is that in the quest for achieving KPIs, they tend to overlook the fact that the real deal lies in the micro details. It is easy to focus on macro KPIs such as click-through rates (CTRs), email open rates, etc. However, beyond a certain point, they cannot paint an exact picture of how your audiences interact with the email and thereby directly influence your ROIs. Here’s how you can fix that gap. Begin keeping tabs on the following metrics; revenue per recipient (RPR), revenue per email (RPE), and revenue per thousand emails (RPME). This shift in perspective moves the focus from quantity to the quality of the automated email campaign. This would require action on the following rubrics:

• Audience segmentation: If you run an eCommerce store and notice that a customer signs in from the kids’ section of the webshop, chances are high that they will be looking for children’s garments instead of those for other segments of the brand. You can send them spring discounts on new arrivals for children or blog links on how to dress up their young ones for the holiday season, etc. The point is to deliver the right value to the right segment of your audience. Also, according to Campaign Monitor, deploying segmented email campaign automation drives a mind-boggling 760% increase in revenue compared to a generic, one-size-fits-all approach.
• Set the right frequency for each recipient: The last thing you want is customers unsubscribing from your email list. Therefore, it is important to set the optimum frequency or cadence for the emails sent to each customer. This wise step will not only keep your customers engaged with your brand but also prevent your emails from getting spammed. Higher customer satisfaction translates into better ROIs!
• Creatively optimize your campaign: Test, test, and test some more to see what works and what doesn’t. Strategically carried out A/B tests will ultimately enhance the bottom line performance of each email campaign, thereby resulting in improved ROIs.

2. Hit the inboxes at the right time: You might have the best email content that screams value; however, if the timing is wrong, it could affect your ROIs. Time is money, and if you strike the iron when it is hot, you might just witness enhanced returns on investment. We recommend developing a deep understanding of your audiences’ mindset and schedule. The trick is to figure out when your recipients are most likely to read and not just open your emails. For instance, if you run a bar down the corporate street, chances are high that workers will be looking for a chilled beer around five or six on a Friday evening. Sending emails strategically around a fixed window on Friday might just serve them what they are looking for! Detailing is the name of the game here.

Another cool tip is to figure out the days and holidays that hold significance for your audience. For example, if you run a cake shop, start optimizing emails around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Women’s Day, Boss’s Day, etc. Deliver the product or service your audience needs a tad before they actually need it, at a time when they are most likely to read your value-packed emails. This way, you bid adieu to the spam box and say hello to improved ROIs!

3. Personalize your email headers and preheaders for greater impact: Nobody likes to talk to a bot, and emails that serve just the right amount of personalized attention cut through the noise and reach the targetted eyeballs. For example, according to a study conducted by Experian, emails with personalized subject lines witness 29% better open rates than those with generic headers. 

Summary

In summary, email automation is here to stay. If you prefer to have an expert look into it, try handing over the reins to professionals who can get it done for you in the perfect window so that you can focus on other aspects of your business.  

The post Ways To Boost Your ROIs With Practical Email Automation Tips appeared first on Email Uplers.

Today, we are setting foot in the often-misinterpreted realm of responsive banner ads. And if you have been throwing pixels in the digital void and crossing your fingers to get objective-fulfilling results from your ad campaigns, it is time to evolve. 

But let’s be honest here. Banner ads do not always come with the best reputation. They remind me of that uninvited friend who crashes every party and insists on being the center of attention. 

But what if I told you that your responsive banner ads could actually become the center of attraction? 

Well, I am just stating the obvious. Google has evolved over the last decade from text-based ads to image-based ads. In late 2019, Google announced its major shift to responsive ads for its Google Display Network(GDN). 

So, in this article, we have curated tips on what to do and what not to do to increase your banner ad target audience’s hunger for more. 

Let’s get to work! 

What is a Responsive Banner Ad? 

A responsive banner ad is a flexible and adaptable ad that changes its size depending on the device’s screen size. Marketers have found flexible banner advertisements particularly useful as the number of people using mobile devices to access the web continues to rise. Ads that can stretch and reformat themselves to match any screen size provide a better user experience and higher engagement rates. 

Responsive display ads edge dynamic ads in terms of managing assets. In responsive display ads, Google processes and creates combinations of responsive ads basis your inputs of assets.

The assets of these responsive banners in Google ads are: 

1. Images: up to 15 high-quality marketing images 
2. Logos: up to 5 different logos with the aspect ratio of either 1:1 or 4:1 or both(recommended)
3. Descriptions: up to 5 different descriptions of 90 characters each l
4. Headlines: up to 5 different headlines of 30 characters each 
5. Long Headline: a 90-character long headline describing the value proposition of your business 
6. Add a feed for dynamic remarketing: link your campaign to a feed to offer quality product information. Learn more.
7. About performance labels: after serving responsive banner ads for a long tenure to store statistically significant data, each asset will have a performance label indicating which ones have performed best and which haven’t. You can make substantial adjustments to those which haven’t to generate more effective results. 

What are the Benefits of Using Responsive Banner Ads? 

You can optimize your ads: Responsive banner ads let you tailor your adverts to any display size, increasing the chances that your message will be seen and understood by as many people as possible. 

It offers a broader reach: Reach a wide set of audiences with responsive banners. In addition, Google ads allow you to target users across a more comprehensive range of devices and applications of web-based services like chat, email, e-banking, e-shopping, video conferencing, etc. 

You can use them with videos: Videos spark an audience’s interest, maximize your reach, and lead to more conversions.

It will save you time: With adaptable banner advertisements, you only need to make a single ad, which will look great on all devices, saving you time and money. You won’t have to manage ad portfolios within ad groups and campaigns. 

You can use them with feeds: Feeds can incorporate responsive banner ads to ensure they are always up-to-date without requiring a complete redesign. 

Now, let us narrow down the best practices you must follow to get maximum benefits from your responsive banner ads. 

What To Do: Best Practices of Responsive Banner Ads 

Keep it Simple 

Using a clear and concise message emphasizes the benefits of your product or service. Keeping your advertisement straightforward will increase the likelihood that it will be read and remembered favorably by its intended audience. 

Use Responsive Layout/Design 

If you want your ad to look good and perform exceptionally across multiple devices, create responsive banners keeping the design, layout, and image sizes in mind—a responsive design results in a better user experience, higher engagement, and more conversions. 

Create a Mobile-First Design 

Since most people use mobile devices to access the internet, mobile-first design is essential when developing responsive banner ads. Therefore, your ad needs optimization for mobile viewing, including features like touch controls and vertical scrolling.

Use Clear and Compelling Calls-to-Action 

Your call to action (CTA) must be visible, unambiguous, and relevant to your ad’s purpose. Refrain from bombarding the ad with too many of them. Instead, make your call to action (CTA) the focal point of the advertisement by using language that encourages readers to take action. 

Optimize for Loading Speed 

Ads that take more time to load can decrease engagement and cause a negative user experience. That’s why you need responsive html5 banner ads. For example, you can improve your advertisement’s loading time by compressing its code and files, using optimized images and graphics, and reducing the number of complex animations used. 

Test and Refine 

A good, responsive banner ad is often the result of extensive testing and iteration. In addition, Analytics tools will help you monitor ad iterations by testing new headlines, pictures, and calls to action. Make adjustments to your ad based on the feedback you receive. 

Use Subtle Animations 

Subtle animations are a great way to attract the attention of your target audience and give your advertisement a more engaging visual element. While animations can add a nice touch, using them sparingly and subtly is essential to avoid distraction. 

Use High-Quality Images 

Responsive banner ads cannot exist without the use of high-quality images. Ensure the pictures you use align with your text and are fascinating and optimized for desktop and mobile viewing. Use high-quality photos; pixelated or low-resolution ones will only hurt your advertisement’s credibility. 

What Not To Do: Harmful Practices 

You have to be mindful while designing your responsive banner ads. If you lack expertise, don’t be adamant about doing it yourself. You might harm your brand’s reputation or get banned by Google for disdaining its policies. Instead, try using professional email banner design services to get responsive designs that comply with Google’s responsive display ads policies. 

Take a look at the practices that you have to avoid at all costs. 

Overcrowding the Ad 

One common error with responsive banner advertising is packing too much information into the space available. When there is too much content in an advertisement, it might be overwhelming for the user. So keep your ad simple and clean, without too much text, too many graphics, or too many other components. 

Using Small Font Size 

Ads with small font sizes can be challenging to read, especially on mobile devices. As a result, user engagement and experience may suffer. So, choose a font size that works well on desktop computers and mobile devices. For example, 16 pixels is the ideal font size. Anything less than that, and the user will have to pinch and zoom to read. 

Using Too Many CTAs 

If your ad has too many calls to action (CTAs), it may confuse and frustrate your audience. Instead, keep your call to action (CTA) simple and direct to align with your advertisement’s overall purpose.

Inconsistency in Design 

Your banner ad will look unprofessional and confusing if the design is inconsistent. Make your advertisement more visually appealing by sticking to the same color scheme, typeface, and design components throughout. 

Using Low-Quality Images 

Using low-quality photos can make your responsive banner ad appear unprofessional and may even reduce effectiveness. Ensure the images you pick complement your text and are suited for desktop and mobile viewing. 

Sleep on Google’s Responsive Ads Policies

If you want to stay out of trouble, you should read up on Google’s policies regarding responsive ads. For example, if you wish your banner ad to be accepted, you must ensure it complies with Google’s regulations and requirements. If your ad does not follow these guidelines, it will get rejected, and your account might get suspended. 

Let’s discuss this in more detail in the following subheading. 

Related Policies and Reasons for Common Disapprovals 

These policies are the reasons why responsive banner ads may get disapproved. So let’s wrap our heads around them. 

Editorial

All advertisements must comply with the generally accepted standards of legibility, spelling, capitalization, and symbols. For more, please refer to the Editorial Policy. 

Unclear relevance

Everything in the ad must be directly associated with the promoted product. All supplied ad fields, for instance, should pertain to the same advertiser and the advertised commodity. For further details, please see the policy on Unclear Relevance. 

Misleading content

Everything in the ad must be valid and depict the promoted product or service. For further information, please review the policy against Misleading content. 

Image quality

There is a minimum requirement for the quality of all advertising photographs. The image’s arrangement and clarity must be up to snuff for use in Google Ads. For further details, please review the policy on Image Quality.

Trademarks

In response to trademark holder complaints, Google may delete related advertising or assets. However, with their ads, assets, and company details, advertisers must exercise caution while using trademarks. For further information, read the Trademarks Policy. 

Key Takeaways 

• The size of a responsive banner ad automatically adjusts to fit the device’s display size. 
• Responsive banners are advantageous because they improve ad performance, reach a wider audience, work well with videos, save workload, and integrate easily with feeds. 
• The most effective responsive banner advertising follows best practices such as minimalism, mobile-first design, a responsive layout/design, strong calls to action, fast page loads, iterative testing and refinement, discreet animations, and high-resolution pictures. 
• The ad should be easy to understand, built with responsive design, mobile-optimized, have a clear and prominent call to action, feature high-quality imagery, and be subjected to testing and refinement to achieve the best possible outcomes. 
• A better user experience, increased engagement, and more conversions are attainable when businesses adhere to these best practices, which enhance the likelihood that their ad will be viewed and understood by as many people as possible. 

We have covered every aspect and every detail of any doubts that may occur to you. I hope this article has been helpful. If you have any other doubts, drop them in the comments, and we will try to answer them and update that information in the blog. 

The post Tips To Help You Crack The Responsive Banner Ads Code appeared first on Email Uplers.

In many ways, your CTA (Call-to-action) button is the heart of your email. The copy you draft and the design language you adopt is ultimately informed by the desire of leading your readers to that one location in the email where the magic takes place eventually- the CTA button. It is what spurs your subscribers into action, holding the key to your conversions. So, that makes it downright imperative that your CTA buttons be accessible to and viewed by everyone, irrespective of what email client they are using or the viewing preferences they have configured, right? Well, that brings us to the concept of bulletproof buttons, something that we are going to address at length in this blog. Curious to learn more about them? Dive right in!

Understanding “Bulletproof”

When the context doesn’t involve tanks, jackets, and armor, one doesn’t normally come across the term “bulletproof,” you’d agree? Hence, before we delve deeper into the many aspects of bulletproof email buttons, let us start by getting our fundamentals straight.

Bulletproof buttons are those that render successfully across all email clients. Now, this is quite a feat to achieve courtesy of different email clients offering varying levels of support to HTML and CSS (think Outlook rendering issues, for instance, a discourse that everyone working in email is bound to be familiar with). An important clarification: bulletproof buttons need not have the same visual appearance across all email clients; they only need to exhibit the same functionality. 

Since the priority lies with function and not form, bulletproof buttons are created using code and not images. Most email clients block images by default, making crafting image-based CTA buttons a risky affair. Additionally, image-based buttons also stand to lose in situations when subscribers voluntarily turn off images. With bulletproof buttons, you don’t have to worry about these scenarios. What’s more, you can always modify the style of your button in your mobile responsive email templates  by editing the HTML template and indulge your aesthetic sensibilities as well. 

Why Should You Use Bulletproof Email Buttons?

Now that we have touched upon the basics of bulletproof buttons, let us take a look at the several benefits they bring to the table.

• They make your emails accessible: Subscribers using screen readers will never be able to engage with your CTA if it is image-based. If images are turned off, then the screen reader will rely on the alt text to interpret the CTA (if you have provided one, that is). On the other hand, bulletproof buttons can be interpreted by screenreaders with ease.
• They will not go unnoticed: As mentioned earlier, email clients tend to disallow images. In such a scenario, if your CTA is image-based, it will be reduced to an unassuming rectangle with your CTA phrase emblazoned across it. Amidst various other elements that will be present in your email, do you think your CTA, in this form, will be able to attract your reader’s eye? The answer spells itself out. Therefore, if you don’t wish for your CTR and ROI to suffer, take to bulletproof buttons at the earliest.
• They can be easily modified: Bulletproof buttons, as we already discussed, are written in code. So, any changes you want to effect to either its content or its design, you can easily do so by tweaking the HTML template. 

Sometimes marketers, in a bid to dodge the complexities that come with designing a CTA button, bulletproof or otherwise, resort to placing a raw link in their emails. This is something that you should avoid at all costs. You see, by inserting a raw link, you are essentially inviting the ire of spam filters, who will then bring great harm upon your deliverability. Therefore, in email marketing, as in life, always steer clear of shortcuts. Make an effort to design a bulletproof email button (it isn’t a very demanding process, to begin with), and watch the performance of your email campaigns shoot up.

Things to Keep in Mind While Creating Bulletproof Buttons

What goes into creating a bulletproof button that is worthy of its lofty name? Find them listed below.

Size of the Button

Your email is viewed broadly across three kinds of devices- mobiles, tabs, and laptops. This is something you must keep in mind while designing your CTA button. Neither do you want your button to be so large that it is unpleasant, nor to be so small that mobile users have to spend an eternity to locate and click it. The number of subscribers accessing emails via mobiles is not tiny either; they make up 40% of the entire crowd. Hence, overlook their convenience at your own peril. Most experts are of the opinion that the ideal button size for mobile devices lies in the range of 42-72 pixels. This range is optimal for desktops, too. 

Shape of the Button

Usually, all the CTA buttons you come across in your inbox can be classified into the following shapes:

• Square corners
• Rounded corners
• Pill shaped
• Ghost button (button has no solid fill, hence takes on the visual language of the background against which it is placed)
• Shadowed button (buttons that have a shadow added to them; helps to amplify their visual presence)

It’s best to stick to these categories while designing your button, too. This is not to discourage you from summoning your creative juices and fashioning CTA buttons that are triangular, trapezoid, or any of the other myriad shapes the universe has to offer. This is simply to err on the side of caution. You see, over time, subscribers across the globe have grown familiar with the shapes listed above. So, all of a sudden, if you throw something new at them, they might not take well to it. It’s ideal, thus, to stick to them. Anyway, you have plenty of other elements at your disposal to floor your audience with your imagination. Why take a risk with the shape of a component that is extremely critical to your email’s performance?

Button Space

Your button might be incredibly attractive, and your CTA phrase exceedingly catchy, but it still won’t invite readers to engage with it should it not have enough breathing space. Clutter is the antithesis of good design and must be avoided at all costs. You can easily keep your buttons from looking clumsy by adding ample whitespace around them. This is all the more important in cases when you are promoting multiple products and have a separate CTA for each. Imagine your subscriber trying to click on one, only to be redirected to another, simply because there isn’t adequate space between the buttons. In a nutshell, button space plays a huge role in shaping the user experience, so make it a point to pay sufficient attention to it.

Brand Consistency

This might seem like an obvious tip, but you’ll be surprised to discover just how many violate this tenet in their emails. The personality of your CTA button, both with respect to content and design, should align with that of the rest of your email. Not doing so will result in a discrepancy that will ultimately discourage your subscribers from taking action against your CTA.

How Can You Make A Bulletproof Button?

There are four different ways in which one can code a bulletproof button. We discuss the specifics of each below.

1. VML Buttons

Using Vector Markup Language (VML) to make bulletproof buttons is one of the most widely-used methods out there. This is largely attributed to the fact that VML buttons receive support from most of the major email clients in operation. Additionally, buttons crafted in this technique are entirely clickable. That said, VML is a tough language to master, and if you aren’t fluent in its nuances, you might end up creating a subpar output.

2. Padded Buttons

In this approach, buttons are created with the help of an HTML table. You define the structure by making use of padding in the table cell. While this technique is quite straightforward, this approach has one drawback- you can only make the CTA phrase clickable, and not the entire button. 

3. Border-based Buttons

As is the case in padded buttons, in this method, too, one uses HTML and CSS to define the button’s structure and style. However, instead of employing padding in the table cell, you need to add thick borders to the link to create the CTA. Since the styling remains confined to the link tag, the code gets simplified. Additionally, you are not required to feed in specific width and height definitions, making border-based buttons quite scalable. 

4. Combined Padded and Border Buttons

As you can probably figure from the name, this approach combines the techniques of both padded and border-based buttons. As a result, you can style the link with padding and a solid border, too. One of the best things about combined padded and border buttons is that you can update them absolutely hassle-free. 

Wrapping It Up

If you want your campaigns to rub shoulders with the best, coding and implementing bulletproof buttons is completely non-negotiable. We hope the insights shared were able to give you a holistic understanding of them.

The post Designing Bulletproof Email Buttons on Your Mind? Here’s All You Need to Know! appeared first on Email Uplers.

Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that can interact with humans in a conversational manner for a variety of real-world tasks. It is also a useful and powerful marketing tool, especially when combined with Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC).

The ChatGPT chatbot/Salesforce integration can empower organizations to get more bang for their buck from the SFMC platform. This article will show you how. Let’s get started!

What is the ChatGPT API?

If you are looking to build intelligent conversational interfaces and integrate natural language processing (NLP) capabilities into your customer-facing applications, you need the ChatGPT API. This cloud-based API will help you access Open AI’s advanced language models, including GPT-3 and GPT-4 (which is why it is sometimes known as GPT-3 or GPT-4 API).

To get the API, you will need to get an API key for ChatGPT from the OpenAI API website. But first, you need to create an account on OpenAI by following this simple process:

i. Go to https://chat.openai.com/auth/login.

ii. Click on the “Signup” button.

iii. Enter your email address and password or sign up using your Google or Microsoft account.

iv. Fill out the on-screen details.

v. Once you enter all the required details, you will have an OpenAI account and the home screen will look something like this:

After creating your account, you will need to generate API keys to use the API:

i. Go to your OpenAI account here: https://platform.openai.com/

ii. Click on the “View API Keys” button in the top-right corner of the page.

iii. Generate a new API key by clicking on the “Create new secret Key” button.

Use the generated key to integrate ChatGPT and its NLP capabilities into your applications.

How to Use ChatGPT API

The ChatGPT API provides SDKs and client libraries in many programming languages. To use the API, you need to install the SDK library for your preferred language. For example, if you use Python, you can install OpenAI’s Python library from here to connect to GPT-3 via the API. Here’s the command you will need to run:

You can also create a new instance of the API by providing the API key you generated earlier and selecting your required configuration options. After getting an instance and setting up your language-specific client library, you can perform many tasks with SFMC that ChatGPT is trained for, such as:

• Generating text based on a given prompt
• Answering questions in natural language
• Creating personalized email copy for different kinds of campaigns
• Accelerating Salesforce chatbot implementation
• Give your applications a natural language interface

To know more about interacting with the API, using API keys for authentication, running API requests, and creating completions for provided prompts and parameters, access OpenAI’s documentation here.

What Can You Do with ChatGPT Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration?

Here are four amazing uses of ChatGPT chatbot/Salesforce integration.

1  Automatically generate email content

ChatGPT’s generative AI capabilities can help you generate real-time email content.

Suppose you want to send season’s greetings to your customers via email. All you need to do is log into your OpenAI account and give a “prompt” to ChatGPT that may look something like this:

ChatGPT will understand the natural language prompt and respond with human-sounding copy in just a few seconds:

You can regenerate the response as many times as you like. Each time, ChatGPT will provide new copy:

Your Marketing Cloud email specialist can then plug the text into a Season’s Greetings email to create the final email. Add as many bells and whistles as you want to make the messaging – and your brand – stand out in recipients’ inboxes. SFMC and its templates are highly versatile, so your emails can be as simple or as creative as you like:

Image source

Image source

What’s great about ChatGPT for email copy is that it will help you:

• Auto-generate every part of your email, including subject lines, copy, and calls to action
• Save time and resources on creating high-quality content
• Generate personalized messages that resonate with each subscriber^*. You will have to train ChatGPT on customer data (e.g., demographics or purchase history) and use the chat completion API endpoint
• Create more targeted campaigns and messages, including product recommendations and special offers
• Perform A/B testing by generating multiple variations of an email and testing them on smaller audiences to determine which version performs best

^* Avoid using the API endpoint for bulk sends because each Saleforce email template will make a separate API call to ChatGPT, which will cost you more “tokens” (pieces of words, with 1 token = 0.75 words) and increase your API costs.

2. Create validation rules to check if an email field is blank or if it doesn’t contain a valid email address

As a marketer, you want your brand’s email messages to reach the right audience at the right time. But if your records contain blank email fields or don’t contain valid email addresses, you will end up with too many bounces and too few opens and clicks. The result will be a very low ROI for your email marketing program.

To avoid these issues, you can create validation rules for SFMC contacts. Validation rules will allow you to set true/false conditions that will generate a custom error message and help you maintain subscriber data quality per your pre-defined standards. You can create validation rules to verify that a contact record has a valid email address, if name fields (first or last) are blank, if the email address is in a valid format, etc. While you can manually create validation rules, ChatGPT will make the process much easier.

All you have to do is enter a simple prompt like, “write a validation rule for salesforce contacts”:

ChatGPT will respond very quickly with usable examples:

As with email copy generation, you can generate as many validation rules as you like. Click on regeneration response and ChatGPT will provide a new response each time:

Response #2

Response #3

3. Create invocation actions to push subscribers towards a particular action using SFMC Account Engagement

SFMC Account Engagement will help you automate and customize cross-channel journeys and automatically deliver dynamic, relevant email content to the right audience at scale. And with External Actions in Account Engagement, you can do much more with SFMC than simply sending emails – you also send webinar invites, SMS messages, surveys, and lots more.

ChatGPT will help you create these external invocable actions and enhance the usability and extensibility of your SFMC platform. For example, you can send prospects to a webinar using an external action using a simple and clear prompt in ChatGPT:

In response, ChatGPT will generate some external actions you can easily use in Account Engagement:

Example 1

Example 2

4. Create chatbots

ChatGPT Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration is also useful to set up chatbots that will interact with your subscribers or customers, especially via email. For example, you can create a chatbot that can:

• Answer common customer queries in real-time
• Send personalized product recommendations based on customer data
• Process orders and initiate shipping
• Send useful branded content, such as eBooks or white papers
• Capture prospect information and nurture leads towards conversion

ChatGPT Can Give Wings to Your Email Marketing Program

ChatGPT can help your email marketing team uncover new cases with SFMC and unleash more of its potential. Want to know more about the benefits of ChatGPT/SFMC integration? Contact Email Uplers.

The post Everything You Need to Know About ChatGPT for Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

Is your ship ready to set sail in the offshore seas for email development? Well, get your compass out and raise the anchor because we’re about to share some crucial navigation equipment you’ll need to manage your crew to ensure smooth sailing. 

You might be thinking: “When it comes down to an email development team, why do I even require dedicated offshore developers? Why can’t I just have an in-house team instead?” But let me tell you something, leading an in-house email development team is no easy task. It calls for an in-depth familiarity with programming languages, email marketing best practices, and immaculate coding skills. 

On the other hand, there are many benefits attached to hiring an offshore team – the resources are cost-effective, possess a broad skill set updated on the latest trends, tools, and technology, and the list goes on. However, if you plan to hire an offshore team, you’ll have to deal with challenges like different working hours, cultures, and language limitations. 

But trust me when I say this – you can easily manage it. How? We have scoured the internet to find the 11 best tools to help you manage an offshore email development team successfully. We’ve covered everything from project management to collaboration tools.

Let’s set sail. 

1. GitHub: Software Project Collaboration Tool 

GitHub is a platform that promotes remote cooperation between programmers working on the same project. The key advantages of GitHub are its capacity to facilitate easier collaboration, boost productivity, and enhance code quality. 

Key features that help GitHub stand out are its:

• Sophisticated version control system
• Bug tracking system 
• Code review features 

GitHub is an excellent place for remote software development teams to store and collaborate on source code. Its bug tracking and code review features assist in guaranteeing that the code is high quality and fits project objectives. In addition, its version control system lets multiple developers work on a single file simultaneously.

Pricing	Alternatives
Starts at $4/month per user/month	GitLab, Bitbucket

2. Slack: Communication and File Sharing Tool  

Slack is a platform for instant messaging and file sharing that aids remote teamwork. Group chat rooms, private messaging, document storage, and app connections are some of its unique features. 

Slack is a preferable choice for businesses because it:

• Enhances teamwork and communication
• Simplifies processes
• Boosts efficiency 

Slack is an effective tool for facilitating communication and cooperation between members of remote email development teams. But you must hire an email campaign manager to keep the boxes ticking successfully. File sharing and integration capabilities assist in expediting workflows and enhancing efficiency. At the same time, channels allow team members to organize talks and track project progress. 

Pricing	Alternatives
Starts at $7.25/month per user for small teams, enterprise pricing available	Microsoft Teams, Discord

3. Trello: Basic Project Management Tool

Trello is a simple project management solution that provides a visual interface for teams to set priorities and organize their work. Trello proves advantageous because it facilitates better teamwork and communication, boosts productivity, and simplifies processes. 

Key features that make Trello the first choice for businesses with a small team are:

• Boards for project management 
• Cards for task management
• Lists for tracking progress 

Trello is a helpful tool for managing tasks and projects for remote teams working on email development. Its collaboration features make it easy for teams to coordinate their efforts. At the same time, its visual-organizing and progress-tracking features help individuals keep on top of their work and set priorities. 

4. Jira: Software Project Management Tool

Jira is popular because it is a powerful software project management solution. 

Key Features 

• Seamless integration with other popular software development platforms, including GitHub and Bitbucket 
• Extensive reporting and monitoring features 

The flexibility of its workflows makes it simple to tailor project creation and management to the individual requirements of your team. In addition, you can keep tabs on your project development and identify problems as they arise. 

5. Asana: Advanced Project Management Tool 

Asana is a widely used project management tool with many unique features that facilitate efficient teamwork by keeping everyone on the same page. Boards, timelines, and custom fields are just options for prioritizing and delegating work in Asana. 

Key Features 

• Facilitates real-time communication 
• Eases file sharing among team members 

The key advantages of Asana are its user-friendliness, flexibility in workflow design, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. 

Asana provides an all-inclusive system for remote email development teams to organize work, monitor progress, and coordinate efforts. Its flexible workflows let teams adapt the project management process to their requirements. 

So, if you are looking to hire dedicated email developers, Asana would be a great fit. Its reporting functions aid in detecting bottlenecks and developing more efficient processes.

6. Zoom: Communication Tool 

Zoom is a widely used online meeting and communication platform. It’s ideal for conducting business conferences, educational seminars, and online workshops. In addition, it facilitates real-time communication and file-sharing among group members. But what gives Zoom an edge over its competitors? Its simplicity, dependability, and scalability. 

Zoom is a dependable virtual meeting, training, and webinar hosting tool, making it ideal for remote email development teams. With its real-time messaging capabilities, it’s much simpler to coordinate dispersed teams and make sure everyone is on the same page. In addition, because of Zoom’s screen-sharing capabilities, it is a valuable tool for managing remote teams working on email development. 

7. Litmus: Quality Assurance Tool  

Litmus is a campaign-focused and quality-assurance email marketing tool. You may check how your email will look in various email clients and on multiple devices using its email preview, spam testing, and analytics features. The key advantages of using Litmus are its capacity to reduce time, enhance email deliverability, and boost participation rates. 

Litmus is a valuable platform for testing and optimizing email marketing campaigns, especially for offshore email development teams, because it involves multiple real-time participation to save time and boost productivity. Its analytics provide insights into engagement rates and campaign performance. In addition, its email previews and spam testing tools help teams spot and fix issues before sending emails. 

8. Harvest: Productivity Measurement Tool

Harvest is a team time tracking, project management, and productivity analysis tool. Time tracking, project budgeting, and invoicing are some of its other unique features that help you keep tabs on your projects and your clients’ wallets. The key advantages of Harvest are its usability, adaptability, and depth of reporting. 

Harvest is a valuable tool for managing finances and monitoring productivity on remote email development teams. Its reporting features offer insights into productivity and efficiency. At the same time, time tracking and invoicing functions enable teams to bill clients for work done appropriately. Harvest is an excellent solution for organizing remote email development teams due to its low cost and intuitive interface. 

9. Visual Studio Code: Code Editor Tool

The global developer community relies on a robust code editor from Microsoft Studio Code. The editor’s extensibility allows it to adapt to various workflows and programming languages using the marketplace’s many available extensions. The key advantages of Visual Studio Code are its speed, adaptability, and user-friendliness. 

Offshore email development teams can benefit from Microsoft Studio Code’s features for collaborative coding, bug tracking, and quality assurance. Its debugging tools allow teams to detect errors and correct them. For example, Visual Studio Code is essential when organizing remote email development teams and enhancing the code quality of a remote HTML email developer. 

10. Google Drive: Collaboration Tool 

Google Drive is a robust platform for teamwork that accelerates the exchange of data and materials.  

Key Features

• Integration with other productivity tools 
• Sophisticated search capabilities 
• Real-time collaboration 

Google Drive has many advantages, including its usability, adaptability, and capacity for teamwork. 

It is an excellent place for remote email development teams to store and share their projects. Its vast connections with other productivity tools make it simple to integrate with those already being used by the team. In addition, its real-time collaboration tools let teams work together on files. 

11. LastPass: Data Security Tool

LastPass is a password management and data security service that can be used by individuals and groups. Its robust encryption, password generation, and platform independence are just a few of its unique characteristics. The key advantages of using LastPass are its simplicity, increased security, and simplified access to passwords and other private data. 

LastPass is an excellent platform for storing and exchanging passwords and sensitive information for remote email development teams. Its cross-platform compatibility makes it simple for team members to access passwords and other sensitive information from anywhere. In addition, its robust encryption and password-generating capabilities help ensure that team members use secure passwords. 

Key Takeaways 

These 11 tools can be a lifesaver if you manage an offshore development team. Each tool belongs to its own dimension, serving its own purpose. Whether it be project development, coding, communication, collaboration, data security, etc. You name it, and it’s there. 

The crux is that you can either have expertise in programming languages, email marketing best practices, and persuasion writing all at once or get accustomed to these 11 best tools to manage your offshore email development team.

Set your priorities right and let them become necessities in leading an offshore email development team. Although you will face many problems, including different working hours, diverse cultures, and language barriers, communication and collaboration on little to the most significant things will ease managing remote teams. 

The post 11 Tools to Successfully Manage Your Offshore Email Development Team appeared first on Email Uplers.

Do you expect companies to tailor their email campaigns to your needs and requirements instead of sending the duplicate, irrelevant emails they have sent to all their subscribers? If a user is looking for a pair of shoes, and you send them an email promoting your baby products, it just won’t make any sense, will it? Sending relevant, personalized, and targeted emails is what works best today. 

Are you missing out on valuable customer data and insights that can assist you in creating more relevant emails for your subscribers? Then, consider adopting CDP(Customer Data Platform) powered email marketing. 

How are Email Marketing and CDP Related? 

We’re glad you stopped by to read this interesting blog post about the effective marketing strategy of CDP-powered email marketing. Finally, you will have answers to all your doubts.

Today’s businesses must pay attention to CDP marketing to stay competitive and expand their customer base. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are a game-changer for email marketers, thanks to the rise of big data and customer-centric marketing. 

Is CDP-powered email marketing precisely what it sounds like? Simply put, it’s the practice of employing a CDP to craft highly converting, relevant, personalized email campaigns. This article will delve into CDP-powered email marketing and explore its benefits to help businesses take their email marketing to a new high. Let’s unfold the magic. 

Introduction to CDP-Powered Email Marketing 

What is CDP in Marketing? 

It is necessary to become familiar with the concept of a customer data platform (CDP) to grasp the potential of CDP-powered email marketing. The term “Customer Data Platform” refers to a database that brings together information on customers from many channels, both online and off. This data is collected through: 

• Application program interfaces(APIs) 
• Event trackers 
• Server-to-server integrations 
• Manual imports 

from multiple sources like websites, mobile applications, and CRP software. This data gives you a complete picture of your clients’ essential characteristics and habits. This data enables you to tailor email marketing campaigns to customers’ interests and needs. Now that you know ‘what CDP marketing is,’ let’s talk about how to make it work for emails. 

How CDP-Powered Email Marketing Works

After you have imported your customer database into a CDP, you can begin using the database to build specific groups of customers for email marketing campaigns. A clothing store, for instance, could utilize customer purchase information to send out customized email templates promoting similar products to those who have already bought from the store. In addition, emails can be made more relevant and personalized to the recipient using data collected from their surfing habits or by including the recipient’s name in the subject line. Let’s quickly understand the importance of personalizing emails.

Importance of Personalization in Email Marketing 

There’s a solid reason why “personalization” has become such a buzzword in email marketing. Customers nowadays anticipate individualized service in all business areas, including email marketing. With true personalization, email marketing campaigns can provide subscribers with a richer and more exciting experience. In addition, with personalization, you can send communications that are more relevant to the interests of each receiver. 

Benefits of Personalization 

• Recipients are more likely to open and read a message if they feel it has been written specifically for them. Consumers’ inboxes are stuffed daily, so it takes something special to get their attention. 
• Increased participation is a second benefit of customization. Customers are more likely to interact with a brand’s content and purchase when they believe it is tailored specifically to them. 
• Individualization fosters loyalty and trust. Customers are likely to be loyal and spread positive word of mouth about a company if they feel their wants and needs are being heard.

How CDP-Powered Email Marketing can improve personalization 

Different levels of customization are possible with CDP-powered email marketing. For example, companies can get closer to their customers personally by using email campaign management service to develop highly targeted marketing campaigns. 

In this context, “personalization” encompasses everything from addressing the recipient by name to making specific product recommendations based on their previous purchases, browsing history, purchase history, etc. CDP marketing allows you to develop a more efficient and effective personalization approach. 

Let’s discuss the advantages and impact CDP marketing can empower you with. 

Advantages of Using a CDP for Email Marketing 

Increased accuracy in customer segmentation

The use of a CDP is associated with more precise client segmentation. CDPs enable you to develop more nuanced and specific consumer groups by centralizing customer data from multiple sources. This way, your email campaigns can better cater to each individual’s interests and demands. In addition, proper segmentation allows you to concentrate your efforts on developing email campaigns with a higher likelihood of success, maximizing the return on investment.

Improved customer data management 

The sheer volume of client information you can collect nowadays makes effective management challenging. CDPs offer a consolidated database for storing and managing all consumer information. This results in improved data hygiene and guarantees that you base your actions on the most recent and relevant data. 

Enhanced email campaign performance 

CDPs help you send more relevant and tailored emails to your prospects and customers by giving you a more comprehensive view of those customers. As a result, more people will open your emails, visit your site, and buy something from you. As an added bonus, CDPs permit you to monitor the efficacy of your email marketing operations. 

Integrating Email Marketing with Other Channels 

Integration of marketing strategies is more critical than ever in today’s cutthroat business environment. Because of its flexibility and ease of integration with other marketing channels, CDP-powered email marketing is a valuable asset. CDP marketing can complement other marketing strategies, like social media campaigns, targeted advertising, and search engine optimization, to amplify your message and increase your ROI.

Additionally, by combining CDP-powered email marketing with other channels, you may better reach and engage your target audience by taking advantage of each medium’s features.

Benefits of integration 

Tracking and measuring the efficacy of your campaigns is another perk of combining CDP-powered email marketing with other marketing channels. Understanding the efficacy of your efforts in all channels is possible with a consolidated reporting system. Using this method, you may pinpoint problem areas and make necessary adjustments to your approach, ensuring that your marketing initiatives consistently serve your company’s objectives. 

Top CDP Platforms That Benefit Email Marketers 

Now that you have learned how to leverage data to create impactful email marketing campaigns that drive results, it’s time to learn how to choose the best CDP. You need to define specific use cases according to your needs and requirements. 

Like, 

• Comprehending customer journey from being a prospect to becoming a buyer
• Creating personalized customer experience on your website or app 
• Amalgamating online and offline data 

Once you have created your purpose, look for a platform that suits best to your use cases. Here are a few examples of CDP platforms used by top brands.

1. Customer Data Platform on Google Cloud 
2. Real-Time Data by Adobe Experience Platform 
3. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights 
4. Salesforce CDP 

Future of CDP-Powered Email Marketing  

Targeted and tailored email marketing efforts are essential in a world where clients are constantly inundated with useless marketing information. Stronger client relationships, more customer lifetime value, and higher revenue are all possible thanks to CDP-powered email marketing. The deciding factor will soon depend on how personalized an email is to a particular user. And for that, you will need data and a lot of it. Polished to its last fragment. 

Ultimately, in an AI-induced world, the importance of CDP-powered email marketing cannot be stressed enough. Businesses can interact with customers meaningfully and see more significant results from email marketing campaigns when they use customer data platforms to automate, customize, and optimize such campaigns. CDP-powered email marketing is a must-have tactic for any business that wants to boost sales, client retention, or brand awareness. Ready to make the most of this effective marketing strategy? 

Key Takeaways 

• Many companies and well-known brands have started using CDP-powered email marketing to boost their efforts and see more significant results. 
• CDP-powered email marketing’s advantages are numerous and remarkable. 
• Email marketing initiatives that use customer data platforms to improve the relevancy and specificity of their messages have been shown to boost customer engagement, conversions, loyalty, and retention rates. 
• By using CDP-powered email marketing, as a business, you can know your customers’ habits, likes, dislikes, and other interests and preferences better and then cater your email messages to each individual’s tastes and interests. 

The post How to Boost Your Marketing Campaigns With CDP-Powered Email Marketing appeared first on Email Uplers.