Effective Email Advertising

[Access the PDF version of this post, which includes the 2012 rate card, here.]


One of the most frequently asked questions about email advertising received by Pharma Marketing Network is similar to this one:

"You do a lot of conference blasts so I'm wondering if you could provide advice on how to get better open rates (what subject lines seem to work), and how did my click through compare to other conference producers?"

What makes an email ad effective depends on several factors. The subject line is just one. Other factors include the day of the week and the time of day the blast is sent, which is the subject of this report. See the end of the report for further suggestions on how to improve open rates for email ad blasts.

In order to determine which day of the week and time of day are optimal for sending out email ad “blasts” to Pharma Marketing News (PMnews) subscribers, we performed an analysis of our 2011 email advertising metrics. Specifically, we looked at the Open rates and Click-throughs to discover trends. The two questions we attempted to answer are:

·       What’s the best day of the week to send an email blast?

·       What’s the best time of the day to send an email blast?

Overview of Subscribers and Email Ads

Paid-advertising email blasts are sent to all PMnews subscribers who opted in to receive the ads as part of their free subscription service. The number of opt-in PMnews subscribers at the start of 2011 was 7,400; the number at the end of 2011 was 7,900. A total of 138 email blasts were made in 2011. Of these, 32 or 23% were “repeat” blasts, which are blasts sent to subscribers who did not open the first blast (see “Email Ad Options”; page E-1). This analysis excludes repeat blasts.

Definition of Terms

Email Deliveries. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), this metric attempts to answer the question, "How many valid Email addresses actually accepted my complete message?" It describes how many emails sent out were completely transferred to the intended recipient’s mailbox without generating a “bounce” or other delivery error. The average number of Pharma Marketing News advertising email deliveries per blast in 2011—excluding repeats—was 7,555. The average bounce rate was 1.9%.

Unique Email Opens (UO). According to the IAB, this metric attempts to answer the question, "How many unique individuals viewed this Email campaign?" In our analysis, we calculate a UO rate, which is the ratio of unique opens to deliveries (i.e., UO/Deliveries) expressed as a percent (UO%).

Unique Email Click-Through (UC). According to the IAB, this metric attempts to answer the question, "How many unique people clicked on a link or multiple links within this Email?" To illustrate, if one person clicked on two links, this would only count as one unique click-through. If one person clicked on the same link twice, this would only count as one unique click-through.

Click-to-Open Rate. This metric attempts to answer the question, “Of the Unique Email Opens, how many individuals took an action?” In our analysis, we express this as UC%.

What’s the Best Day of the Week to Send an Email Blast?

How do UO% and UC% vary by day of week? As shown in Figure 1 (below), UO % stayed virtually constant over the course of the week. The UC rate, however, declines significantly after peaking on Tuesday with Friday having the lowest UC%.

Figure 1. Open and Click-Through Rates for All Ads by Day of Week. The numbers above the bars indicate the number of blasts sent on that day of the week during 2011 (includes repeat email blasts). The actual UO% and UC% values are not shown (each horizontal line represents an increment of one percent). Clients receive these data as part of the service we provide.

 The UC rate was greatest on Tuesday and declined about 28% relative to the peak on Wednesday, another 15% on Thursday relative to Wednesday, and 26% on Friday relative to Thursday. Perhaps subscribers become less interested in clicking on links as they get busier during the week and as the weekend looms.

Based on this analysis, all other variables being equal (and they rarely are), advertisers may wish to schedule email blasts to PMnews subscribers at the beginning of the week rather than on Thursdays or Fridays.

What’s the Best Time of the Day to Send an Email Blast?

We looked at UO% and UC% for email blasts sent at different times of the day. We divided the day into discrete time periods as shown in Figure 2 (below).

Figure 2. Open and Click-Through Rates for All Ads by Time of Day. The numbers above the bars indicate the number of blasts sent on that day of the week during 2011. The actual UO% and UC% values are not shown (each horizontal line represents an increment of one percent). Clients receive these data as part of the service we provide.

According to our analysis, the open and click-through rates do not vary greatly by time of day. Based on the limited data we have, we conclude that sending out blasts early in the day (Eastern US time) or just prior to lunch hour is optimal. However, this rule applies only to blasts intended for U.S. subscribers. We send out email ads before 7:00 am (Eastern US time) if the target audience is European.

How to Improve Email Ad Effectiveness

Although the analysis summarized above collaborates much that has been said about B2B email advertising from other sources, you should not depend solely upon these data to increase the chances that your email ad is opened and that links therein are clicked.

The best advice we can give to increase your open rates—other than choosing the right day of the week or time of day to send an email blast—is to make your email message specific to Pharma Marketing News subscribers. To help ensure success, we only send out ads that we believe will be of interest to our subscribers. Advertisers can also improve the success of their email ad blasts by offering our subscribers something special they haven't seen before such as special offers or discounts.

Often, advertisers give us the identical ad copy and subject line they have used for ads they have sent to other lists. Since some PMnews subscribers are probably subscribed to several lists, they may get the same exact message twice on the same day! That's not good for our subscribers or for our advertisers. We also suffer because once in a while a subscriber who receives duplicate messages will generate a spam report via Constant Contact, the email service we use to send out email blasts.

A few other suggestions for advertisers include:

1.   Compose a message that is UNIQUE for PMnews subscribers.

2.   Try mentioning "Pharma Marketing News subscriber" in your message or addressing the message to "Dear Pharma Marketing News subscriber.”

3.   If you can't change the message, at least use a UNIQUE subject line.

 Keep It Simple and Personal

It's expensive to create formatted, graphical versions of email messages with all the clickable buttons, graphics, and other "bells and whistles" that advertisers believe will increase open rates. We have a little secret for you: a simple Word-formatted document with perhaps your logo on the top for branding purposes signed by a real person may be more effective than stylish graphical messages.

Of course, the message still should be uniquely addressed to PMnews subscribers. We can help you do that. The point is, it is NOT expensive to rewrite your message in Word format. You don't have to pay any designer, graphic artist, or HTML programmer fees! Send us the Word document and we will create the HTML from it. It's still going to look like a simple Word document and will include formatting (ie. bold text, italics, etc.) plus links and graphics, but no unnecessary bells and whistles.

Regardless of the format of the message, each email blast includes a personal introduction from John Mack, the Editor and Publisher of Pharma Marketing News. In a Pledge to Subscribers and Advertisers (see http://bit.ly/vAykHA), Mack has said: "Because PMN subscribers are very valuable to me and to my advertisers, I will fight for special discounts for subscribers from advertisers and include a personal thank you and endorsement in the ad when such offers are made. These days, every one needs a break and I pledge to pass along as much savings as I can to my subscribers."

Anything advertisers can do to help us keep this pledge is bound to improve the effectiveness of email ad blasts.


[Access the PDF version of this post, which includes the 2012 rate card, here.]