9 minute read
THE HOME LOAN EXPERT
National Lender - Home Loans rebrand, touch points, web, mobile, print & environment
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In-house designer for all brands, LOs, and cobranded elements
Description
The Home Loan Expert required a comprehensive redesign, both in terms of branding and visual assets. This included creating new materials for all of their programs, updating their social media presence, and creating a Brand Book to guide their overall direction. Additionally, email and CRM design elements were also developed. The result was the creation and distribution of thousands of new assets.
2022
How your marketing emails are sent
A cold server and a warm server.
How we handle cold lists and why
Tracking
FAQs and Concerns
This means that especially large lists, such as our TAP lists take some time to send on the cold server.
Helpful tips: How to improve deliverability and response rates. Quality over quantity for your lists. Try different subject and preview headers
Make sure your warm lists are being updated at least quarterly. (unsubs and hard bounces are already taken out. Soft bounces taken out after 5 sends)
Try to engage and nurture the contacts in your list. If the first-time a past client hears from you is from a marketing campaign, they will be less likely to engage with your content.
Talk with Marketing about setting up a dedicated DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) –This gives the receiver proof that the email was sent and authorized by a trusted source.
Have a clear CTA (call to action) the recipient should know exactly what you’re wanting from them. They should be able to see the call to action without scrolling down or searching through your email. Arrange a meeting, click to sign up to your mailing list etc
How are opens tracked?
1. Many email clients have preview that automatically downloads images. This could count as an open without the recipient actually opening the email.
2. Recipients that open an email but have images turned off in their email client probably won’t count toward your open rate.
3. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) feature, launched in September 2021, effectively disables open tracking for users who have opted into the feature.
How are clicks tracked?
When you send out any email you send it from an IP address (internet protocol address).
Helpful tips:
How are opens tracked?
Why not send everything on the warm server?
How to improve deliverability and response rates.
Each IP has a reputation with the ISP’s (internet service providers). A negative reputation means any that you send from that IP is more likely to go to junk or gets blocked. That includes important business emails and marketing emails alike.
Quality over quantity for your lists.
Try different subject and preview headers
Make sure your warm lists are being updated at least quarterly. (unsubs and hard bounces are already taken out. Soft bounces taken out after 5 sends)
Try to engage and nurture the contacts in your list. If the first-time a past client hears from you is from a marketing campaign, they will be less likely to engage with your content.
When each email is sent out, our tracking software includes a hidden image. When that image is downloaded by the recipient, that lets us know the email’s been opened. Some things to consider:
1. Many email clients have a preview that automatically downloads images. This could count as an open without the recipient actually opening the email.
2. Recipients that open an email but have images turned off in their email client probably won’t count toward your open rate.
3. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) feature, launched in September 2021, effectively disables open tracking for users who have opted into the feature.
How are clicks tracked?
4. As list size goes up, the open rate tends to fall.
5. Very few lists of reasonable size get above a 50% open rate. Do not expect an 80% open rate even from your best warm lists.
6. Use open rates as a trend to plan your future campaigns.
If your reputation gets bad enough your IP will get blacklisted. This means all emails incoming and outgoing will be blocked and you won’t get to use your email anymore. If this happens it will affect ALL emails on our server. So, anyone sending from @thehomeloanexpert.com email will not be able to send or receive emails.
Talk with Marketing about setting up a dedicated DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) This gives the receiver proof that the email was sent and authorized by a trusted source.
All links in our emails point back and go through the server we sent it from. When a link is clicked it sends a “signal” back to our server and records it as a click. The link can be clicked multiple times and our software counts it every time.
The warm server connects directly to our domain. If we send out cold/purchased lists from the warm server our entire organization will eventually get blacklisted.
What can expect from a cold list? This depends on the quality and source. A small locally
For large lists (1k contacts +) – Once again it depends on the source, your creative, call to action etc. however an average response rate is around 1 reply for every 100 contacts.
For smaller lists (200-300) that are built by LO’s or Marketing- Tracking and averages are more difficult to pin down but for a cold list response rate is typically 1%-5%. On average the larger your list becomes the open rates and response rates start to decline.
Can we send out a mass email to cold contacts on Shape?
No. Shape emails are tied directly to your email. A few unsubscribes or undeliverable emails won’t hurt us. However, if we make it a common practice or receive to many bad reputation hits, we will eventually get blacklisted.
Low number of opens or clicks didn’t receive any replies. Sending a follow up email, call or text is recommended. Be sure that your call to action was clear. If this is a cold list talk to marketing about different approaches. You can also talk to marketing about sending a test campaign to test the replies.
If this is warm list consider sending a text or after a few days send an small follow up email. Bounces and bad emails are taken out before you receive your report. Calling your warm contacts to make sure you still have their interest/correct contact information is also advisable.
If this is a cold list consider changing your creative and trying again. Your cold lists are constantly being cleaned by the email team, however after 5 sends consider switching your cold emails to a different list or audience and coming back to the list later.
How do know if the contact actually clicked on my link or if it was a spam filter?
To avoid this, we use the cold server for cold contacts and purchased lists. We send on rotating IP’s (we change IP’s when our reputation gets low) that are not connected directly to your email but link the replies back to your email. So, the recipient responds>it hits our rotating IP address> from there it sends the reply.
There is no way to know for certain. However, we can look at the number of times the link was clicked by the contact. If a single contact has over 6+ clicks that usually suggests it went through some kind of filter. That doesn’t mean the contact never saw and clicked on your click, it just means the email went through security.
After every completed campaign we take out the unsubscribes, bad address, bounces etc. The final goal is to switch the cold lists to the warm server after several sends
Have a clear CTA (call to action) the recipient should know exactly what you’re wanting from them. They should be able to see the call to action without scrolling down or searching through your email. Arrange a meeting, click to sign up to your mailing list etc
When each email is sent out, our tracking software includes a hidden image. When that image is downloaded by the recipient, that lets us know the email’s been opened. Some things to consider: contacted a recipient on an email list and they never received the email.
4. As list size goes up, the open rate tends to fall.
5. Very few lists of reasonable size get above a 50% open rate. Do not expect an 80% open rate even from your best warm lists.
6. Use open rates as a trend to plan your future campaigns.
All links in our emails point back and go through the server we sent it from.
When a link is clicked sends a “signal” back to our server and records it as click. The link can be clicked multiple times and our software counts it every time.
How do I know if the contact actually clicked on my link or if it was a spam filter?
There is no way to know for certain. However, we can look at the number of times the link was clicked by the contact. If a single contact has over 6+ clicks that usually suggests it went through some kind of filter. That doesn’t mean the contact never saw and clicked on your click, it just means the email went through security.
Some emails from the open or click log came back as undeliverable: blocked when tried to reach outIf this is from a TAP list or an organization with inbox security, sometimes the initial email can go through (open or click is triggered) and the organization will block the sender. This is rare but sometimes happens. If this is a warm contact, you need to contact them and request to be put on their whitelist.
There are a large number of clicks or opens on a single contactThe email likely reached the inbox and was forwarded/went through security.
Have them check their junk mail folder. If its an organization with extra security the email could also have been quarantined. Have them ask their IT department to check and if possible, whitelist your email so it doesn’t happen again.
FAQs and Concerns
Expectations
Why not send everything on the warm server? The warm server connects directly to our domain. If we send out cold/purchased lists from the warm server our entire organization will eventually get blacklisted.
What can expect from a cold list? This depends on the quality and source. A small locally collected list will perform better than a large purchased list. Purchased lists often produce spam traps, undeliverable emails and none of the recipients have asked to be emailed by you. For TAP lists - Nothing. We have been sending almost monthly to the lists for almost 2 years now. On top of that almost all contacts on these lists are from organizations that have increased security just like our organization.
For large lists (1k contacts +) – Once again it depends on the source, your creative, call to action etc. however an average response rate is around 1 reply for every 100 contacts.
For smaller lists (200-300) that are built by LO’s or Marketing- Tracking and averages are more difficult to pin down but for a cold list response rate is typically 1%-5%. On average the larger your list becomes the open rates and response rates start to decline.
Can we send out a mass email to cold contacts on Shape?
No. Shape emails are tied directly to your email. A few unsubscribes or undeliverable emails won’t hurt us. However, if we make it a common practice or receive to many bad reputation hits, we will eventually get blacklisted.
Low number of opens or clicks didn’t receive any replies.
If this is a warm list consider sending a text or after a few days send an small follow up email. Bounces and bad emails are taken out before you receive your report. Calling your warm contacts to make sure you still have their interest/correct contact information is also advisable.
If this is a cold list consider changing your creative and trying again. Your cold lists are constantly being cleaned by the email team, however after 5 sends consider switching your cold emails to a different list or audience and coming back to the list later.
Sending a follow up email, call or text is recommended. Be sure that your call to action was clear. If this is a cold list talk to marketing about different approaches. You can also talk to marketing about sending a test campaign to test the replies.
Some emails from the open or click log came back as undeliverable: blocked when tried to reach out-
If this is from a TAP list or an organization with inbox security, sometimes the initial email can go through (open or click is triggered) and the organization will block the sender. This is rare but sometimes happens. If this is a warm contact, you need to contact them and request to be put on their whitelist.
There are a large number of clicks or opens on a single contact-
The email likely reached the inbox and was forwarded/went through security. contacted a recipient on an email list and they never received the email.
Have them check their junk mail folder. If its an organization with extra security the email could also have been quarantined.
Have them ask their IT department to check and if possible, whitelist your email so it doesn’t happen again.
