Email Deliverability Best Practices: Can We Say Enough About Testing? No!

Testing is a topic that has come up a lot lately at our email marketing vendor offices. We encourage constant testing all the time. Not to say you should test every single factor every single time. But always be testing by choosing something to test every time you do an email. It could be anything from your From name to the color of your call-to-action button.

Constant testing falls into the category of email deliverability best practices for several reasons. One, anything you can do to improve your email deliverability rate even a fraction is a good thing (more emails delivered, more possible sales!). And once you’ve gotten into the inbox, anything you can do to improve interaction with your recipient is going to improve your email marketing ROI.

Given that we’re focused on testing as an email deliverability best practice right now, MarketingSherpa’s article on email testing mistakes to avoid is quite timely! If you’re setting out to do more testing, good for you! And definitely read the article before you start. It will help you avoid mistakes and learn more (to improve more!) from the tests you run.

Among the mistakes covered are:

Mistake #1. Not having the right analytics behind your tests—As the article says, sometimes you’re not yet ready to start testing! Get your analytics lined up first.

Mistake #2. Not segmenting email lists for tests—“Without segmented lists you don’t get good test results.”

Mistake #3. Stopping tests after one big win—This dovetails perfectly with the message we at ClickMail are focused on right now: You must always be testing! It doesn’t matter if you have a win. What matters is you keep testing.

Mistake #4. Testing too often—OK, you must keep testing, but keep it in check too…something you’ll figure out as you get into it.

Mistake #5. Overlooking email copy tests—Don’t get all caught up in your colors and photos and what’s above the fold or below. The message itself is a crucial component of your email marketing. Test it too.

Mistake #6. Always testing additions, rather than subtractions—What would happen if you took elements away from your email instead of adding? Test and find out!

This is just the briefest of summaries of this informative article. So make it one of your email deliverability best practices to read the full article…right now.