It’s important for every email marketer to be an email marketing expert. This means thoroughly understanding email marketing jargon. 

As we here at The Digital Intellect go further on our journey to becoming an email marketing expert, we wanted to share with all you TDI blog readers some important email marketing phrases and terms that every email marketer should know. Hopefully, with this knowledge, you too can find yourself slowly becoming an email marketing expert. 

1. Email Service Provider (ESP)

An email service provider, or ESP, is the software service that individuals use to create and send out email marketing campaigns. Examples of credible ESPs are Mailchimp and HubSpot.

When searching for an email service provider, it’s important that one considers each person’s individual marketing needs. For example, a start-up that’s new to email marketing may want to choose an ESP that caters to smaller businesses, is simple, and beginner-friendly. 

Email service providers such as AWeber, MailerLite, and Constant Contact are all great ESPs that fit these criteria. This is partly due to the fact that they are all easy to navigate. Plus, these email service providers are highly effective when one uses them to send emails to small contact lists. If your goal is to quickly grow your email marketing list, ESPs like Sendinblue would be of great benefit. 

Choosing an email service provider is arguably one of the most important decisions that an email marketer will make. Therefore, it’s important to do your research and pick the one that best suits your needs. Now that you understand what the terms email service provider and ESP mean, it’s time to learn some other email marketing terms. 

2. Segmentation

Segmentation is dividing one’s email contact list into smaller segments based on certain criteria. For example, an individual can separate an email contact list into smaller lists based on age or gender. By segmenting email contact lists, individuals make it easier for them to tailor their emails to the needs and wants of their subscribers. 

3. Email Automation

Email automation is when people automatically send out email marketing campaigns to others in their email marketing lists based on specific triggers. For example, individuals can automate their email marketing campaigns so that emails about certain deals on products are only sent to people that are in the consideration or decision-making stage in the buyer’s journey. 

Individuals can also automate email marketing campaigns so that special product deal emails are only sent to segments of their contact list that have previously spent a certain amount of money. People can even automate email marketing campaigns so that certain email content only gets sent to individuals on their birthdays. 

Essentially, a person can set triggers for email automation based on everything from scheduled times and events to customer behaviors,  and more. Regardless of the method though, automating emails will help individuals trigger a response from their subscribers. This, in turn, will also increase customer engagement. 

4. Open Rate

Open rate is exactly what it sounds like, the percentage of email subscribers that open certain emails. It’s important to track the open rate when sending out emails. This is because doing so will give people an insight into how successful one’s email marketing campaigns are. 

Open rates will also help individuals decide what content to send to certain segmented contacts. Email open-rates can even help individuals decide what tests they need to run on their email marketing campaigns. For example, if you notice that your email open rates are suddenly down after changing the look of your emails, you can perform a test to see which email look your subscribers prefer. 

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Another important email marketing term and metric that all email marketers should know about is CTR, or click-through rate. Click-through rates measure how many people clicked on an email. 

Click-through rates are another metric that individuals can use to determine how successful their email marketing campaigns are. Every email marketer should aim to have a click-through rate of at least 20%-30%. 

There are two main ways to track email click-through rates. One is through unique link clicks and the other is through all link clicks. When tracking unique link click-through rates, you’re tracking one click per subscriber. All link click-through rates, on the other hand, measure the total number of clicks on an email, including repeat clicks from each subscriber. 

6. A/B Testing

A/B testing is an important part of email marketing that every email marketing expert should know about. This form of email testing occurs when a person tests two different versions of a single email and compares the results. 

An example of A/B email testing would be sending out the same email, but with different worded subject lines, to two different randomized segments of one email contact list. The purpose of this A/B test would be to see how the email’s subscribers prefer to have the subject lines of their emails worded. 

When performing A/B email testing, you should only change one, specific aspect of an email marketing campaign. The aspect of an email marketing campaign that a person changes and tests things by is the variable. 

7. Multivariate Testing

When a person tests multiple variables within an email marketing campaign, that person is performing multivariate testing. The number of variables within an email marketing test is the distinction between A/B testing and multivariate testing. Regardless of if a person performs A/B email testing or multivariate email testing though, metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and total revenue all help decide what parts of the emails are successful or not. 

8. Personalization

Personalization occurs when email marketers customize emails based on the personalities and needs of their subscribers. For example, if you send out a welcome email to only new subscribers, that email is personalized. 

A great way to personalize your emails is through segmentation. This is because segmenting contacts into different email marketing lists based on customer behavior, age, gender, etc. allows email marketers to send out emails that are tailored to each subscriber’s wants and needs. 

For example, let’s say that you created a segmented list made out of your email contacts who are under the age of 18. Due to you having this segmented contact list, you can send emails about deals on kid-friendly toys and items just to the contacts on that list. In doing this, you’re personalizing your emails to the ages and interests of your subscribers. Overall, personalization is a great way to increase customer interest and engagement. 

9. Hard Bounces

Hard bounces occur when an email returns to the sender for permanent reasons. Email marketers can receive hard bounces for numerous different reasons. One common reason why an email marketer may receive a hard bounce is that he or she delivered the email to an invalid email address. 

It’s important to figure out why you’re receiving hard bounces and rectify the situation. This is because too many hard bounces can affect a person’s deliverability rates. Deliverability rates are the percentage rates that one’s emails are successfully sent and received by the recipient. 95% is considered a good deliverability rate.

Having too many hard bounce emails can also trigger spam filters. This, in turn, will make emails appear less credible. 

10. Soft Bounces

Soft bounces occur when an email returns to the sender for temporary reasons. Some reasons why email marketers may receive soft bounces include the email’s file being too big or the recipient’s email inbox being too full. 

Email service providers will often try to resend emails after soft bounces. This is because ESPs know that soft bounces are temporary. 

Like hard bounces, soft bounces are also harmful to an email marketer’s deliverability rate. Therefore, if you continuously experience soft bounces, it’s important to figure out why as soon as possible and rectify the situation. 

Continue Learning About Email Marketing With The Digital Intellect

The Digital Intellect (TDI) is a start-up marketing agency that’s based in South Florida. As a start-up marketing agency, we here at The Digital Intellect strive every day to grow as marketing experts. Therefore, each TDI staff member takes it upon him or herself to learn and practice new marketing skills each and every day. 

As time continues on, it’s evident that email marketing isn’t going away. If anything, email marketing is taking the world by storm. This is evident by the fact that there are currently over 3.9 billion email users and that number is only expected to grow to 4.3 billion by 2023. 

Due to the growing email marketing industry, we here at The Digital Intellect are making it a priority to grow as email marketers. We advise that all other marketing professionals do so as well. That’s why we’ve started writing a series of blogs on email marketing. 

If you want to continue to learn more about email marketing and other aspects of the marketing industry, stay tuned to The Digital Intellect blog. To learn more about The Digital Intellect and the work that we do, contact us during regular business hours.