Q4 is notoriously the most difficult quarter for association marketers to reach their constituents as there is always more inbox competition. The deliverability experts at HighRoad Solution are on top of association benchmark metrics with strategies on how to sail through Q4 unscathed.

1. Email Extravaganza! Sending
Election & Holiday Emails
Jenny Lassi, Director of Operations

2. Jenny Lassi is the Director of Operations for
HighRoad Solution and is the resident
expert at email marketing deliverability
best practices.
@highroadjenny
@jennylassi
#deliverability #emailchat #emailmarketing
#emailforensics #emailengagement
#authentication #emailpreferences
#assnchat #abtest #emailstrategy

3. Today’s Content
• Q4 Forecast
• Inbox Optimization
• Engagement Optimization
• Resources
“Email is huuuuugggge.”
-Mr. Trump

4. Q4 Forecast

5. Q4 2016
Increasing Internet Security
Protocols like TLS and SSL and
default filter settings requiring TLS
and HTTPS links to consider emails
‘safe’ enough to inbox.

6. Q1 2015
Q2 2015
Q3 2015
Q4 2015

7. Previous Election Year
Quarter Delivery Rate Bounce Rate Invalid Rate Opt Out Rate Click Rate Open Rate
Q1 2012 97.36 2.64 0.45 0.12 19.07 32.13
Q2 2012 97.35 2.57 0.39 0.03 17.82 31.83
Q3 2012 98.19 1.9 0.36 0.05 18.06 27.19
Q4 2012 96.91 2.85 0.46 0.04 18.08 27.26

8. Q4 Delivery Non-Election Year 2015
Q4 Delivery Past Election Year 2012
Delivery Rate Bounce Rate Invalid Rate Opt Out Rate Click Rate Open Rate
96.91 2.85 0.46 0.04 18.08 27.26

9. Did I lose you?

10. Difference
• Delivery Rates Decreased by 0.94% - Not so bad
• Bounce Rates Increased by 0.7% - Not so bad
• Invalid Rates Increased by 0.18% - Not great but not horrible
• Opt Out Rates Stayed the Same - Sweet!
• Click Rates Increased 2.24% - Wow this is actually good
• Open Rates Decreased by 7.64% - Ouch!

11. Why?
• ISPs are flooded with an even higher volume than usual
• ISPs tighten inbox algorithms more in Q4 because of volume
• Increasing security protocols for email server filters factor in if sender
uses authentication with systems sending email on behalf of their
domain

12. What does this mean for you?
• Q4 negatively impacts delivery rates a bit but not too bad
• Q4 primarily impacts engagement rates as email senders compete
with more volume to get the recipient’s attention

13. What has the biggest impact on open rates?

15. Reaching the Inbox

17. What has the biggest impact on reaching an Inbox?

18. Authentication & Email Reputation

19. What is Authentication?

20. It’s a digital signature servers use to
determine if the email sending service has
“permission” to send email on behalf of the
domain.

21. Platform Authentication Configuration
•SPF
•DKIM
•DMARC

22. Authentication Statistics
• Only 26% of associations have DKIM
• Only 41% of associations have a passing SPF record
• Only 50% of the 41% have a passing record that also
includes the email platform sending email on their behalf
• ISP filters look at authentication first - Blacklists second
• Set up all authentication methods

23. Platform Authentication Configuration
What about
DMARC?

24. Platform Authentication Configuration
Co-developed by Return Path and a consortium of
mailbox providers and security vendors, the Domain-
based Message Authentication, Reporting &
Conformance — DMARC — specification aims to put an
end to domain-based consumer email threats.
By leveraging existing email authentication technologies
(SPF and DKIM), DMARC lets email senders work directly
with mailbox providers to quarantine or reject any email
that fails authentication.

25. Authentication Demystified
You can have as many DKIM txt
record on your DNS as you want and
it doesn’t interfere with your office
email in any way shape or form
You should only have 1 SPF record in
total that includes all or as many
platforms that send email on behalf
of your domain.
If your SPF record fails due to too
many DNS Lookups (too many
systems sending email) explore using
a subdomain as your Sender Email

26. Domain vs. a subdomain
ActOn
acton.highroadsolution.com
marketing@acton.highroadsolution.com
Adestra
highroadsolution.com
marketing@highroadsolution.com
BlueHornet
highroadsolution.com
marketing@highroadsolution.com
Hubspot
highroadsolution.com
marketing@highroasolution.com
Marketo
e.highroadsolution.com
marketing@e.highroadsolution.com

28. For Association Marketers: Your best efforts to be
an amazing marketer, get in front of your
constituent, drive revenue, write amazing
content, craft the best subject lines are
ALL FOR NOTHING if you’re sending without
authentication.

29. Email Reputation
• Worldwide, just 79% of commercial emails land in the inbox. This
means that one out of every five emails never reaches the intended
recipient. Instead, it’s either sent to a spam folder or goes missing—
most likely blocked by the mailbox provider.
• Engagement filters look at the ratio of active vs. inactive email
accounts that receive promotional emails. In this case, engagement
is defined as how frequently a user logs into their account, as well as
how active they are when they log in. Mailing to a large number of
addresses that appear to be nearing abandonment is a negative
signal to mailbox providers and factors into their spam filtering
algorithms.
• Create a default exclusion list that suppresses non-opener/clickers
beyond 180-days

30. Email Reputation
• Know your Return Path Sender Score and always try to
improve it.
• Segment versus Batch & Blast.
• Clean lists quarterly.
• Ask for permission, not forgiveness in email or you
WILL BE BLOCKED.

31. “Must blast my membership in Q4”
-Clueless Creepy Email Zombie Guy/Girl

32. “Ahhhh noooooo…..”
-Poor Defenseless Association Member

33. Ok so authentication is set up and our Sender
Score is great…now what?

34. Before you CAN reach an inbox:
• Platform Authentication
Configuration
• Data Security
• Email Reputation
• List Hygiene, Segmentation &
Suppression

35. • List Hygiene, Segmentation & Suppression
• From Name, Subject Line, CTA
• Content Curation
• Template Design & Rendering

36. List Hygiene & Segmentation
• The average invalid rate at point of collection is 6.7
percent.
• Of invalid email address lists analyzed, 50% were true
invalids, 12% were role accounts, 29% were accept all
accounts.
• Running your Invalid email addresses through an
email validation tool

37. List Hygiene & Segmentation
• If you haven’t used a list in a while (>3mo) run it
through an email validation tool before you send an
email to it. It will pay for itself almost immediately.
• Segment your audience for best
engagement/performance but at the very least,
suppress non-engaged. Be restrictive in Q4 but also in
Q3.

38. Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4

39. You did it! You looked fabulous while
making it through the painful part!
Give yourself a round of applause!

41. Sender Name & Sender Email
• Consistency is key
• Don’t use Q4 for experimenting on Sender
Name/Sender Email changes
• Sender Name should be something your subscribers
are familiar with and Sender Email shouldn’t be a
donotreply@yourdomain.com

42. Subject Line
• If inspired to be creative, in Q4, AB test with your
audience to see what performs and learn from it
• Review previously deployed emails to see which have
highest open rates and see what messaging/tone that
subject line had
• Dynamic personalization
• Measure twice, cut once: sticking with what works for
most in Q4

43. But Jenny, how do we stand out if we should
play it safe?

44. Subject Line Safe Bets per Hubspot
• Question about [goal]
• [Mutual connection] recommended I get in touch
• Our next steps
• Do not open this email
• X options to get started
• Hi [name], [question]?
• Know this about [topic of interest]?
• A [benefit] for [prospect's company]
• X tips/ideas for [pain point]
• You are not alone.
• Idea for [topic the prospect cares about]

45. Subject Line Creativity
The only way to ensure that special characters render properly/consistently in a subject line is to encode in
UTF-8.
1. Copy the desired character from a program like Start>Accessories>Character Map
2. Then go to a string conversion tool that will encode a string to Base64/UTF-8 like:
3. http://coderstoolbox.net/string/#!encoding=base64&action=encode&charset=utf_8
4. Then create your subject line using your character from step 1 in the "input" text box.
5. Copy the string of characters the tool gives you in the "Output" box
6. Paste the UTF-8 string into the following where indicated by brackets but paste over the brackets:
=?utf-8?b?[string]?=
Example: =?utf-8?b?VGhpcyBwcm9kdWN0IMKuIGlzIGF3ZXNvbWU=?=
Put the entire string into the subject line when launching an email through the UI. On the receiving end, you will see
your desired subject line. See screenshot examples of the use of the (r) mark as well as one with many different
types of characters.

46. Content Curation
• Curate content that is unlikely to contribute to a
complaint
• Curate content that is relevant to recipient or written
to speak to the persona/demographic/segmentation
of recipient
• Curate content that speaks to the persona directly or
where they are in their journey with your organization

47. Content Curation
• The role of email is to direct the recipient somewhere
to do something.
• Use teaser text and read more links. Don’t giveaway
the kitchen sink in emails or the html file size may
reach a threshold that nets you more bounces.
• Relevancy

48. Template Design & Rendering
• As of September 2016, IOS devices join Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft for
adding their own List Unsubscribe to the top of emails which is the first
thing your subscriber sees, bypassing yours in your footer so add your
Manage Preferences/Unsubscribe links to your email’s pre-header to
minimize subscribers using theirs and not yours.
• Know who you are designing for (demographic, member status, age).
• Know what email clients they are using.
• Always use Responsive HTML.
• Know what performs best with your audience.

50. Template Design & Rendering 2017

51. Template Design & Rendering 2017
Accordion Menus in Email
-With native mobile app support, now more verbose emails can have an accordion menu for mobile so they
don't get arthritis in their finger scrolling through all content to find what they want.
Scratch & Flip
-Provides a cool way to allow email recipients to consume the email on their mobile device and using a scratch
effect, they can scratch off offers/promotions.
Graphs
-Interactive graphs increase engagement and this is a very cool option for lists that are primarily mobile as this
doesn't work well for Outlook and Lotus users.
Rotating Banners
-Don't be limited to 1 header graphic when there are so many ways you can visually grab the attention of email
recipients. Again, native mobile apps work, Outlook probably doesn't.
Animated Gifs
-The tried and true method of using gifs to imitate video in email. Outlook shows only
1 frame of gif but this is pretty universally supported at this point.

52. Template Design & Rendering 2017
Pitfalls to Avoid:
• Harsh Colors: Stay away from colors that are overly bright or fluorescent.
Tone them down so they don’t compete with your words.
• Too many colors: Choose just one or two colors for your emails. The
fewer colors you use, the cleaner your design so the reader won’t be
distracted from your message. Pick colors that your brand uses
elsewhere.
• Light text on a dark ground: The most readable combination is dark text
on a light ground, so stick to that whenever possible.
• Cultural Association: Colors are not universal to all humans in all cultures.
In the United States, black is associated with death; but in other cultures,
colors like white, purple, and gold are used during the mourning period.
• The urge to be dynamic frequently: Once you’ve got the design looking
good, resist the urge to keep changing it. Choose a look and stick to it for
a while so people recognize your mail in a quick glance.
• Color Blindness: Almost 5% of the entire population is color blind - the
most common type being Protanopia (red-green color blindness). Such
people do not see a complete lack of color instead; they have a harder
time distinguishing the two colors from each other as the red color will
look like green.

53. Deliverability
• Monitor bounce logs within 48-hours of the
deployment to address issues.
• Address platform authentication config to make sure
that is not the root of a deliverability issue.

54. Deliverability - Invalids
• Spot check the email address for obvious mistakes
• Use the system’s Invalid syntax report during import
process
• Review the bounce logs routinely to look for ISP
issues that may have invalidated the record

55. Deliverability – Opt Outs
• Include an unsubscribe link in the email pre-header
area too
• Make sure there is an easy to see way to manage
preferences or unsubscibe
• Always honor the unsubscribe when launching emails

56. www.highroadsolution.com

57. www.highroadsolution.com

58. Reporting Metrics
• Poop in, poop out. I said poop and now I have your
attention.
• Metrics are a direct result of the sum of all parts we
have discussed. If you don’t like the outcome, you
must address everything and not point the finger at
one thing.

59. Thank you for participating in the
“Email Extravaganza! Sending Election & Holiday
Emails” Webinar!
Did I Miss Anything
Extravaganza-ey?
Q&A Time! Tweet me @highroadjenny using #emailextrav
#deliverability #emailchat #emailmarketing
#emailforensics #emailengagement
#authentication #emailpreferences
#assnchat #abtest #emailstrategy

60. Thank you!
Other questions for Jenny?
eMail = jenny@highroadsolution.com
Twitter = @highroadjenny
@jennylassi

61. Resources
http://www.leadspend.com/
http://www.emailstatcenter.com/Authentication.html
http://www.idtheftcenter.org/id-theft/data-breaches.html
https://senderscore.org/
http://www.dmarc.org/overview.html
https://www.lucidchart.com/
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33901/The-Ultimate-List-of-2012-Email-Marketing-Stats.aspx#sm.00181haph1bm0e1jz051aea38cfz3
https://litmus.com/blog/9-things-you-need-to-know-about-email-in-ios-10
http://blog.highroadsolution.com/blog/subject-lines-with-special-characters
http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-email-subject-lines-that-get-prospects-to-open-read-and-respond#sm.00181haph1bm0e1jz051aea38cfz3
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/07/pop-color-make-email-design-stand-out.html