Welcome to the second blog in our ‘Ask the Expert’ interview series, where we bring you industry experts to talk about the parameters that impact the success of email marketing campaigns.
Elizabeth Jacobi is the founder of MochaBear Marketing and has over 20 years of experience in the email marketing industry. She started her career launching the email program for Paramount Digital Entertainment, the digital arm of Paramount Pictures. Elizabeth has successfully steered the email marketing campaigns of several global brands and currently sits on the Email Metrics Project Committee.
In this Q&A blog, Elizabeth talks about email metrics and the effective methods of aligning them with key business objectives like lead generation, engagement, conversion, and revenue.
Tell us about your background and how you got started in email marketing.
My career in the email marketing world happened accidentally. I had been working for Paramount Pictures in the Digital Division then. We were primarily working on websites for television. Our department was tasked with creating emails to fans of the various TV shows. I loved the idea that we could send something out and get a response and that people were excited about it. When I think back, these emails were pretty basic, with one big image and a lot of copy crammed in, but for the time, they worked. After that, I was lucky enough to join an ESP; the rest is history. I’ve been working in email since 2001.
What is your take on the role of email metrics in aligning marketing campaigns with key business objectives, such as lead generation, customer engagement and revenue growth?
Metrics are vital in aligning with your business objectives. For example, if you are a restaurant and your goal is reservations, you need to track clicks from your email that led to reservations. If you are an e-commerce site, revenue per email is probably your best metric. Understanding your primary business objective and tracking the metrics that align best is essential.
What are some common challenges marketers face when tracking and analyzing email marketing metrics? How can we overcome these challenges?
Determining which metrics to track and analyze is often challenging. I still see brands thinking that open rate is valuable, but the truth is the most important metric is revenue and how much revenue your email marketing is generating. A tool, even just a spreadsheet, that helps you analyze your campaign’s most important metrics and how they increase or decrease is critical for long-term email marketing success.
What is the role of A/B testing in improving email marketing metrics? Which metrics are most commonly tested?
One of the most common things I hear from clients is, “I love that email; let’s do that every time,” or “I don’t like the color in that email, so let’s create a different template.” It doesn’t matter what we like or don’t like. It matters what works with your specific audience, and A/B testing will allow us to understand what does. A good solid A/B testing strategy will help improve metrics over time. You could A/B test creative and see which creative had the highest CTR; but keep in mind that sometimes that highest CTR doesn’t equal the highest revenue, so it is essential with the A/B test to go as far down the funnel as possible in terms of metrics to know which test won.
AI is impacting several facets of email marketing including template creation, subject line generation, segmentation and targeting, and deliverability. Is there any scope for AI to help marketers analyze email campaign performance?
AI, which is not entirely new to the email industry as we have had subject line generating tools for years, has taken off, especially over the last few months. Everywhere I read, it is about AI. I don’t think there is a clear scope for AI to help us analyze email campaign performance just yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the email marketing field leads the way in how best to track the effectiveness of AI.
What’s your advice for marketers who are starting their journey in email marketing?
Get all the experience you can in every aspect of email marketing, even in the areas you might not be interested in. Knowing more about the field, in general, will set you apart. Also, join a networking group. It is an industry that is fun and constantly changing, and so many in the space are happy to share their insight and knowledge.
There’s a lot more to know about email metrics, their challenges, and the best ways to overcome them. Want to explore further? Connect with us to understand how you can benefit from our expertise and experience – we send over 20 billion emails a month on behalf of 6500+ businesses across 40 countries.
For the second year in a row, Netcore received the highest overall customer rating as a customers’ choice in the 2022 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ Report. We were also recognized as “Ahead of the curve at applying AI to marketer workflow” as per The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers Report 2022.
