Over the last several years email has become one of the most preferred marketing tools and publishing channels today. Email marketing techniques and best practices have evolved and every email marketing program seems to follow a set of email marketing best practices. Some of these include signing up new subscribers and optimization of the email message for the best possible view.

Lyris conducted an audit of 203 commercial email messages and found that few email marketers are using all the possible email marketing best practices in their email marketing programs. This meant that they were not getting the maximum from their email marketing efforts. Only the “unsubscribe link”, was used by 100% of the tested messages although this is just one of the best practices out of 18.

This in itself is a wonderful thing, since CAN SPAM is governed by US law, mandating the unsubscribe link as a requirement for all commercial email. However, there are still several email marketers out there that have not gotten the message about the requirements of CAN-SPAM.

The second best email marketing practice or CAN-SPAM requirement is, posting the company’s physical address in the message of the email. What we found in our audit was that 9% of email marketers left this out. To be completely compliant with the law, you may want to take a moment to check your email templates and ensure that they incorporate at least these two best practices.

During the course of our audit, we divided senders into six market segments: publishers, retailers, travel, financial services, business services and consumer services. We found that some segments had adapted to using email best practice more so than other segments. The highest compliance to email best practices was among Travel marketers. Travel marketers seemed to use sending lines, subject lines, subscription management, and navigation in their email newsletters and company web site.

The ones that could benefit the most from adopting the email marketing best practices most are the financial marketers. The sad part of the audit was that although they have the most to gain, they used the best practices the least.

The Ten Most-Ignored Email Best Practices

There are 10 email marketing best practices that are ignored very frequently. To get a better understanding of how often per instance this occurs, read the following breakdown. We have added percentage rates to illustrate the percentage of senders that do actually use the email best practice when sending email messages.

1. Subscription-administration center in each email message Percentage Rate of users: 17.7 %
Subscription-administration is an important component of your email message that helps to keep you connected to your email newsletter subscriber and ensures that your mails are not flagged as unsolicited email.
Tips: Somewhere in your site, you should provide an email address to unsubscribe followed by an unsubscribe link. You should also furnish a link to your privacy page, along with your reference page. Always include your contact information that states your street address, phone number and email address.

2. Site search function Percentage Rate of users: 17.7 %
Tip: By providing a site search function within your email message, you will allow users to search through your site for anything from products, past article archives, company information, or any useful information that they may be seeking. This helps the subscriber to search without having to go to the main site and follow through with the search.

3. Forward to a friend link Percentage Rate of users: 25.1%
Tip: Providing a link to forward your email messages on to friends of the same interest, is far more efficient than just adding a line somewhere in the body of the email requesting that they forward the email. The best thing about using a link is that it is sent through your server, allowing you to track all those who forward your messages. It will calculate how often your emails are forwarded, and what actions are resulting from the forwarding link. By providing this link, it also eliminates any sending errors that may arise when recipients try to simply forward the mail through their email client.

4. Subscriber Link Percentage Rate of users: 27.1%
Tip: Offering a subscription link in your email newsletter allows all readers who had it forwarded from a friend to sign up. This subscriber link eliminates searching the site for instructions. By saving the email reader time, you may just score one more subscriber if it’s fast and efficient.

5. Add-to-safe-senders-list request Percentage rate of users: 35%
Tip: Making sure you are added to the approved or safe senders list keeps your emails from being blocked or targeted on a black list. Providing a safe senders list request will enable email readers to add you to their white-list, with convenience.

6. Web Version Link Percentage rate of users: 37.4%
Tip: By providing a web version link, it allows email clients to view your email message in their web browser instead of a preview pane. Many have either blocked images or don’t support HTML messages.

7. Telephone contact number provided Percentage rate of users: 40.4%
Tip: If your reader or client wants to directly contact you, a contact number is imperative. Without one, you may just lose a sale, or prospective client. Many times users feel that email is less social than direct contact. By providing all contact information, you are providing that extra step for them, by cutting out the frustration that email often causes. No more hunting your web site in frustration trying to find your contact information, it will be right there at their disposal.

8. Displaying the recipient’s email address Percentage rate of users: 43.8%
Tip: Having credibility is one of the biggest challenges of sending and receiving email messages. To take the fear away that your email is not credible, you should always help the reader that may have duplicate copies sent to them by displaying their email address so that they may determine what email address they wish to unsubscribe from your mailing list. Many times they will have different emails for different uses, and will get your email to each and every email listed.

9. Navigation links within the email directed to the web site Percentage rate of users: 48.3 %
Tip: Providing navigation links at the top of the email newsletters will strengthen your relationship with your readers. Using links in the newsletter with multiple sections or articles help your subscribers navigate more effectively. Having multiple site links let your readers see different portions of your web site that they would normally miss or not see at all. Having these navigation links adds value to your website as well.

10. Email address provided for feedback or contact purposes Percentage rate of users: 53.2%
Tip: Implementing an email contact gives your subscribers a fast and easy way to contact you. Subscribers often have questions they need answered in a timely manner, and having an email contact gives them the security to know that if a problem arises it will be resolved soon. Most email marketers add only an email address rather than a phone number. Every email marketer should implement this email marketing best practice for no other reason than to build character and rapport for a lasting relationship.

Best Email Practices Breakdown

Market Segments

Lyris took 203 email messages and examined them from a diversified angle ranging from marketers to publishers, and put them into six market segments.

• Publishers = 22.66 %
• Retail = 32.51 %
• Business Service = 17.73 %
• Travel = 12.32%
• Consumer Service = 10.34%
• Financial = 4.43%

18 Best Email Practices

Lyris then identified 18 best email marketing practices for communications and determined if each email sender implemented them into their email messages. The following below are the criteria they used for determination:

• Subject line :
  Analyzed each email message to make sure that each subject line used personalisation, while having detailed information. We examined the email messages for the length of the message, and overall bad email practices by using all capital letters.
• Sender Name:
  Identified that correct email addresses were used instead of company or brand names.
• Sender line email address:
  The sender line email address needed to include the company, product or brand name. Generic email addresses as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  should not be used at any time.
• Preview Pane & Blocked Images Accommodation :
  Email messages should have the major content visible even when images are blocked or partial viewable content. Text links should be utilized.
• Navigation Link to the Web Version :
  Links to the web version should always be included closest to the top of the email message.
• Forward-to-link:
  There should be a navigation link to the Website that enables the reader to send a copy of the email message to another party.
• Profile changes:
  Should always provide a link somewhere in the email to allow the reader to change the contact information or preferences.
• Subscribe Link:
  There should always be a link to a subscription sign up form built into the email template.
• Unsubscribe link:
  A working navigation link to an unsubscribe page to allow instant unsubscribing options.
• Subscriber administration center: There should be an area that contains important contact information that includes email address, unsubscribe link, contact information, along with the privacy policy and information that could be used for contact reasons. By using an email template, you could add this information to every email sent.
• Recipient's email address:
  Email messages need to display the subscriber's email address in the email.
• Add sender to safe-senders list request:
  There needs to be a text line added to the top of the each email message.
• Web-site links:
  There need to be two or more navigation links that will automatically direct the reader to departments or destinations on the website.
• Search function:
  Blank form or navigation linked to the site search function in email message.
• Privacy policy Link:
  A direct link within the body of the email message to the privacy policy and/or the detailed privacy statement needs to be provided.
• Contact-us/feedback link:
  A link to the contact information including the email address was clearly visible.
• Mailing address provided:
  Full contact physical address was clearly displayed. (Not a P.O. Box)
• Contact Telephone number:
  Clearly displayed a company and/or specific contact phone number in the email body.

Performance by Market Segment

Publishers
Publishers scored highest on using the best email practices:
1. Messages read easily in preview panes and with blocked images (78.3%)
2. Provides a forward link in the email message (32.6%)
3. Email address (54.55%)
4. Contact link/feedback link (69.7%)

Publishers scored lowest on these email marketing practices:
1. Subject lines (65.0%)
2. Web version of message (19.6%)
3. Links to other departments at Web site (19.57%)

Retailers
Online retailers and e-commerce and online divisions of offline merchants scored the highest at using the web version of the email message. They thoroughly used the navigation links to direct the reader to their web site.

Retailers however, performed low in the most two essential areas for optimized sales; email forwarding and preview pane /accommodation for blocked images.
Retailers scored highest on these best email practices:
1. Providing link to Web version of email (60.6%):
2. Providing at least two navigation links either in the email message or to Web site (69.7%):

Retailer’s lowest score:
1. Preview pane/blocked images (33.3%):
2. Offering forward-to-friends (21.2%):

Travel
Travel marketers scored six top ratings for implementation of the best email marketing practices. The travel market included airlines, hotels and booking agents. Travel had no lowest rating, even though this doesn’t suggest that all are experienced at using the best email practices to optimize their email messages. Even though travel marketers were still higher with their lowest scores than other segments, they still scored under 25% adoption rate for offering a subscribe feature 12%, forward to friend link 16% and using the link to web version 24%.
1. Informative subject lines (100%):
2. Sender name and address: (100%):
3. Providing subscriber administration center (32%)
4. Safe-senders' list (52%):
5. Web-site search (28%):
6. Privacy policy (76%):

Financial Services
The audit has shown that email messages from banks, mortgage brokers and credit card companies seldom perform up to the full standards and failed to promote the quality needed. These companies rely on credible emails being delivered to the inbox.

Financial service companies seemed to hold their own, when it came to including a physical mailing address (100%), optimal sender (89%) and using subject lines (78%). At no point did they over perform any market segment.

Financial scored lowest compared to all segments on these best email practices:
1. Displaying email address (11.1%)
2. Requesting addition to safe-senders list (11.1%)

Business Services
Business-service marketers did not over exceed any other segment on adaptation of best email practices. Although in this segment, it scored highest on sender lines, subject lines, preview-pane-friendly design, unsubscribe link and physical mailing address.
• Sender lines (69.4%),
• Subject lines (61.1%),
• Preview-pane-friendly design (77.7%),
• Unsubscribe link (100%)
• Physical mailing addresses (100%).

Business services segment scored the lowest overall segments on these best practices: 1. Subscriber-admin center (8.3%)
2. Providing navigation links in message and to Web site (25%)

Consumer Services
Consumer service providers scored no outstanding rates against other segments. While on the one hand they did real well with regards to the use of sender line, subject lines and using the profile update link, the lowest for consumer services against all segments was using a company telephone number.
• Sender line (80.9%)
• Subject lines (90.4%)
• Profile update link (71.4%)
• Company telephone number (14%)

Weight management, music, social networks and sports fan email newsletters were included in this audit segment.