We have been running GlobalSign.in EventsByte to share best practices for events marketing since November last year and have pretty much adopted almost the same Email template (with minor refinements over the recent issues) since the start. One of the reasons for not undergoing major refinement is the collection of meaningful aggregated analytics to make sense of user behavior. So where do readers like you really click and what have we learned from it? We thought that we will evaluate and critique our own Email template, in terms of what works and what will go away in future issues as part of using Analytics to drive best practices ourselves.

1. Read more – Is it really needed?

In the past 2 issues, we included read more links to link to the actual blog post on our site. To our surprise (using the latest issue), more than 74% of the click-throughs came from Read more links. In the previous issue, it was 43%. So it seems users go with the flow and click the link at the end of the blog description. Need we say more?

Email links where do users click

2. Banners – Do they really work?

 Yes and No. What we have been guilty of is using the same banner for the past 7 issues. Refreshing banner content is as important as refreshing article content. The result of using the same banner over time is a declining click-through rate over time.

3. Social Sharing Buttons – Do people really share?

 There are 3 parts into looking at this:

  • Placement of social sharing buttons on email
  • Type of social sharing buttons (Global versus specific platforms)
  • Social sharing buttons on landing pages

We have experienced a higher % of social sharing on our website than on emails. This could also be partially attributed to the location of our social sharing buttons, which we will refine over the next few issues. We will also target social sharing sites which we monitor, instead of using a common global social sharing button, where social conversations are not monitored. Ultimately, creating meaningful social conversations matters more than one-way social sharing.

4. Footer links – Is it needed?

 The original plan was to have ease of accessibility to specific sections of our website for new subscribers but over time, the need for this actually dilutes, as the significant percentage of subscribers who know our brand means that they easily know where to find us. So unless you are targeting new newsletter subscribers, footer links would not be really needed.

 Email marketing is really a journey where using sufficient analytical data, we can make informed decisions on what and where to refine. So look out for our new email templates where visually, it would be a lot different from what you have been used to in the past.