Email Marketing Terminology Explained: Easy Guide in Plain English
Email marketing is a fundamental ingredient in the recipe of any effective inbound marketing strategy. Even so, it can be a harrowing undertaking if you are a novice, or not adequately equipped to handle whatever jargon is thrown at you. Even for veteran email marketers, continuous learning is indispensable to keeping up with the ever-changing terms and laws that significantly affect how the job is done. The problem is, delving into the world of email marketing can be as intimidating and disheartening as trying to learn a new language. I mean, the deeper you explore, the thicker it becomes, diminishing your chances of coming out of the quagmire that is competition victorious. For this reason, we have assembled a conclusive and comprehensive glossary of email marketing terms so that you can always refer back whenever you wonder what the heck is your ESP or bounce rate report talking about.
A
Acceptable spam report rate
The rate at which your email sending server can be reported as spam by recipients without negatively impacting your sender reputation. A rate beyond 0.1 percent or 1 report for every 1000 emails will receive a warning and could eventually harm your reputation.
Acceptance rate
The proportion of emails accepted by the recipient’s email service provider. An email being accepted by the receiver’s server does not automatically infer that it will reach the intended recipient’s inbox.
B
Blacklist
A list of sender IPs that have been identified and marked as spam by spam detection systems. If an IP is listed in a blacklist, emails originating from it cannot be delivered to the intended recipient.
Bounce rate
The proportion at which emails fail to be delivered to intended recipients. It is calculated as the number of undelivered emails divided by the total number of emails sent in the entire marketing campaign. Bounce rate is categorized into two classes; hard and soft bounce. These two will be explained later in this glossary. A bounce rate below 5 percent is acceptable.
Bulk mail
An email marketing technique whereby emails with similar content are sent to several people at the same time.
C
CAN-SPAM
These initials denote “Controlling the Assault of Non- Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003”. It is an act of law that regulates commercial emails by establishing requirements and standards for commercial messages. The act gives recipients the right and autonomy to opt out of your emails and also lays out the penalties for disregarding it.
Clicks Per Delivered
This is the percentage of emails that receive clicks once delivered to recipients. It is calculated as the number of clicked emails divided by the total sum of delivered emails – emails that reach into the recipient’s inbox. Take for instance that you sent 1000 emails in your marketing campaign and 800 of them got clicks. The clicks per delivered percentage will be calculated by dividing 800 by 1000 and multiplying it by 100. This implies that 80 percent of your subscribers clicked the email.
Clicks per Open
The percentage of emails that become opened/viewed after getting a click. It is calculated by dividing the number of opened emails by the total number of clicked emails. If 700 subscribers who clicked the email opened and viewed it, clicks per open will be calculated as 700 divided by 800 then multiplying by 100. This implies that 86 percent of the clicked emails were opened.
Cost per Thousand (CPT)
CPM refers to the cost an email marketer incurs for every 1000 email addresses on a rental list. If a rental list is priced at $200, it means that you will have to pay for $.20 for every email address on the list.
Conversion Rate
The proportion of recipients or subscribers who respond to your promotion or call. This metric mainly measures the success and productivity of your email marketing campaign. The higher the conversion rate, the more products and services you are able to sell.
D
Dedicated IP
In email marketing, a dedicated IP is the precise IP address from which your marketing campaign sends emails to subscribers or potential clients.
Double Opt-In
This is the most ideal way of building a subscribers list. It enables you to collect emails by asking interested parties to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link sent to their email or responding to it in any other way. By so doing, you only collect emails from people who are interested in the subject, subsequently lowering the probability of a high bounce rate.
E
Email Campaign
An email or a sequence of lead nurturing messages designed to realize the goal of the entire marketing campaign. The whole idea or email marketing is anchored on building trust with subscribers – who are already potential customers by providing valuable and beneficial information, then eventually converting them into customers.
Email Filter
A way of blocking emails based on the subject line, sender or content.
Email Sponsorships
A marketing technique which involves purchasing advertising space in a newsletter or sponsoring a particular article or a series of articles to promote your service or product. Interested advertisers pay for their ads to be included in the body of the article or email.
F
False positive
A situation whereby a legitimate permission-based email is erroneously filtered or marked as spam.
H
Hard Bounce
The permanent failure of an email to be delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox. The reason could be an invalid, blocked or nonexistent address. A high hard bounce rate not only harms the reputation of your server, but also adversely affects your mail deliverability. In such a situation, several things can happen. Your server can be marked as spam or entirely blocked all the same. However, this can be avoided by legitimately building your subscriber’s list or validating your list before sending out emails.
Honey Pot
A bait email address conspicuously planted by organizations that fight spammers. Whenever a spammer harvests and sends a message to the email, it is identified, and the sender is marked as a spammer.
Retention List/Home List
This is one of the most valued assets of an email marketer. It comprises of opt-in subscribers who joined the list willingly because they are interested in the subject of the matter, your product or service. This is one of the easiest ways for an email marketer to generate conversions.
HTML Email
Using HTML emails gives you the autonomy to design custom and creative emails. You can play around with the design as much as you want. Optimized emails get a better reception when compared to generic ones.
I
IP Warm-up
The technique of gradually increasing the number of emails sent from a single IP so as to build and maintain an excellent reputation for that particular email sending IP.
L
Landing Page
A page on your website that is dedicated to capturing leads from a linked email. Its role is to provide more information about your product and services. The link is conspicuously integrated into the email as a call to action.
Levels of Authentication
The process of establishing whether a sender’s identity is legitimate to make sure that the sender has permission to send emails from a specific domain.
List Segmentation
The procedure of handpicking subscribers that are most relevant to send your campaign emails. A segmented list is highly objected and relevant, making it easy to obtain a big number of responses and a low bounce rate. Fewer people from this list are also going to unsubscribe from your list because the product or service fits them.
O
Open Rate
The number of emails opened by recipients targeted in a campaign divided by the total number of emails sent during the entire email marketing campaign.
Opt-In/Subscribe
Choosing to receive email communication from a website, company or individual by voluntarily giving out your email. In this situation, the subscriber is given the freedom to choose his/her line of interest. For instance, a subscriber can choose to receive news on technology or marketing. In most cases, people interested in subscribing have to verify their subscription by clicking on a link sent to them or responding to an email sent by the sender.
Opt-Out/Unsubscribe
This is a legal requirement for all email marketers. The opt-out option allows subscribers to opt out from receiving emails from a sender anytime they want. When a subscriber opts outs, his/her email address is completely removed from your mailing list.
P
Personalization
Customizing your email so that it contains information that is already known or relatable with the intended receiver. This can include addressing the recipient by name, mentioning their previous purchases or including any other unique information that is of interest to the recipient.
Physical Address
The physical location of the company or organization sending the email. It is typically found at the bottom of the email. Including this information is a legal requirement for everyone involved in email marketing.
Plain Text Email
This is an email sent in the form of plain text, with no HTML. Subscribers should always get the freedom to choose whether to read their messages in HTML or plain text, depending on which is best readable in the device they use.
Privacy Policy
An informative and conclusive description of a company’s or website’s policy on the usage of their data and information obtained by the visitor.
R
Read or Open Length
The period from when an email recipient opens an email to when they close it. A high read or open length indicates that the recipient found the information good enough to spend some time on it. Objective emails receive higher read or open lengths when compared to generic ones.
Rental List / Acquisition List
This is a list of subscribers who have chosen to receive information on specific based on religion, profession, interests or demography. Though a straightforward way of building an emailing list, it is not recommended if you are looking for positive results from your email marketing campaigns.
S
Sender Score
A reputation rating service which rates every sender’s mail server IP address on a scale of 0 to 100. Most mail servers look at the rating on your sender server before deciding how to handle your email. Any score beyond 90 is okay.
Shared IP
A more affordable way of sending emails when compared to a dedicated IP address. A shared IP allows several marketers to send their emails from a similar address.
Signature File
A short block of text or tagline found at the bottom of emails. It contains information such as the sender’s contact information, physical address or the name of the company.
Single Opt-In
Such a list is created in the event where subscribers opt to receive email communication from the sender, but they don’t have to confirm their email addresses. This is not a recommended way to build an emailing list. The problem is, site visitors can use other people’s email addresses. This will eventually result in high bounce rates, consequently hurting your reputation and compromising deliverability. To avoid this, use a double opt-in to collect emails or contact an email validation service to ensure that your contacts are valid email addresses.
Soft Bounce
This is a temporary failure of an email to be delivered to the recipient. This could be as a result of an unavailable server or recipient’s full inbox. Soft bounces are temporary and can be fixed. If you consistently receive a soft bounce from a single address, it will eventually turn into a hard bounce.
Spam or Unsolicited Commercial Email
Email messages sent to people who have not opted in, or permitted the sender to include them in their subscriber’s list. Currently, more than 90 percent of emails sent in marketing campaigns are categorized as spam.
Spam Cop
A paid service that plants bait emails around the internet then identify people who harvest them and mark their addresses as spam.
Spam Trap
This includes an email address that was once-usable but is no longer valid. After sending a message to such an email, you will get a hard bounce report. When messages are consistently sent to the dead email, mail service providers receive a spam alert and convert it into a spam trap. The address will no longer return a hard bounce. Instead, it will accept the message then send it to the email service provider as a spam alert. Your email IP address will then be marked as spam. To avoid such inconveniences, use an email validation service to ensure that the addresses you are sending to are valid.
SPF
These initials stand for Sender policy framework which is a DNS record that identifies on whose behalf a domain or IP sends an email.
W
Whitelist
This is a direct opposite of a blacklist. Instead of providing a list of email IP addresses that should not deliver emails to a specific recipient, the list contains emails that have been approved to send messages to that recipient.
Final words
If you are a serious email marketer, you must be already aware that there is more you need to know. This glossary is just a scratch on the surface of what you need to know. Luckily, our site is literary a portal into the world of email marketing. We have designed our platform to help you take your marketing endeavors to the next level. Therefore, keep coming and leverage on our email validation services and frequently updated content to stay afloat on the market world. Otherwise, you might get knocked overboard by competition.
