| Hey, We spoke about Sender Reputation last week - which is kind of like a credit score... except it's Gmail looking at you warily, rather than those forgiving banks. You'll remember that some subscriber actions ding your rep, others give it a boost. Read my email from last week for a refresher on which does what, and why. This week, we're talking about you - the things you can do to help or harm your Sender Rep, at least indirectly. Those subscriber actions harming or helping you are heavily influenced by how you build your email list, the way you operate it, and the stuff you send. It might sound like I'm blaming you because I am, LOL. But I'm also empowering you because this is mostly in your control. Parts of this are super obvious and other aspects are less so. Because one of the main metrics we base our decisions on (open rates) is a little, well, squidgy. Some ditch open rates as a metric as a result, and dodge doing things like list culling. If open rates are unreliable, the thinking goes, how can you cut anyone from your list? That could be a reader who wants to buy your books! Like some of your exes, this logic is seductive, compelling, and irredeemably flawed. I'll explain why if you are willing to go on a little journey with me. Wait, that's no fun. Let's call it a quest. rescuing your rep You can't directly impact Sender Rep. But that doesn't mean you can't influence it. The actions your subscribers take are - for the most part, errrr, don't hate me - a result of how you run your list. A reaction to the emails you send. For good or ill. If you are a super spammy sort, you'll get more of them Spam reports. If you write the Best Emails Evah, you'll get more opens and clicks and replies. And kudos, presumably. Most mortals operate between those two poles; let's focus there. Please indulge me while I get basic: (a) You'll get more opens if your subject line is enticing or interesting. Or cool, I guess. (b) You'll get less opens (next time) if the content of that same email doesn't deliver on the subject-line-promise or was otherwise veering into clickbait and/or bait-and-switchery. (c) On the other hand, you might even get more opens on that next newsletter if the content of the last one was good or fun or otherwise fulfills the promise you made with your sexy subject line. As a bonus, each time you do this, your credit with readers will increase, and future missteps will largely be forgiven. Just like real relationships... kinda. Please don't follow me for more relationship advice I generally wing it with mixed results tbh. (d) Captain Obvious jumping on the mic here to say that you will get less clicks if readers don't open your email. Cutting edge stuff, you're welcome. *sounds of a scuffle ensue* (e) He wanted to further add that you'll get more clicks if you put clicky things in your email that people want to click, but I airlocked the sucker. Anyway, the reason for all this obvs info is that things are about to get... slippy. Because we make some pretty big decisions based on open rates, but have a lot of trouble measuring how many people actually open our emails. Yeah. opening problems Here comes the science bit: open rates are generally measured through something called pixel tracking - i.e. where your email service inserts a virtually invisible image in your emails. It's only one pixel squared - it's smol! - and then your provider counts how many times this smallboi is loaded by your recepients. Pretty nifty. Except when it fails. Some people live behind a corporate firewall, the poor sods, which will block all images... and your open tracking. Others have their settings, uh, set to block all HTML. (Which will do likewise.) Other chaotic-neutral cats out there do all their reading in the preview pane, while simultaneously refusing to commit to all the invitations hitting their Inbox. If you are one of those strange and beautiful people, you'll think this describes a broad swathe of the population. Me, I'd guess it's maybe 5-10% of the average list. I've talked with some real-life deliverability experts and while they were smart enough not to put an exact number on it, they didn't think that guess was crazy, FWIW, YMMV. That tracking-gap was reasonably manageable, in my opinion, until Apple came along and brought out a "privacy" feature which blocked open tracking. A mild panic ensued, except the way that it worked was the opposite of what you might assume: each email registered as an open the second Apple processed it, whether the end-user ultimately opened it or not. Meaning that if you sent a newsletter to a subscriber who uses Apple Mail, that would instantly get registered as an open on your dashboard, regardless. Now, I'm less confident about this next guess, but that won't stop me: for my list at least, I'd say that's maybe 5-10% of the total as well. For my list, I most definitely stress here. You could have a way higher humber of Apple Mail people; I'm European and weird. For me, these numbers kinda balance each other out and I sort of feel like maybe my top-level open rate percentages are somewhat accurate, perhaps. And if I could work out how to put more qualifiers in that sentence... I probably would. Even if I am right with that wild stab in the dark, that doesn't mean it's accurate on the subscriber level. So how can I make decisions on who to cut from my list and who to keep? clickers to the rescue The universe occasionally does us a solid and here's one for ya: click tracking works completely differently. When you put a link in your emails, your provider converts that to a redirect, which then passes through their server, for recording, before slingshotting your sub to the destination you intended - hopefully with minimal delay. It doesn't matter if someone is riding the Preview Pane train, or is all-Apple-all-the-time, that click is getting tracked, dammit. Of course, the universe also likes to make us sweat a little, so click tracking isn't flawless like Colman Domingo. If someone is behind the kind of heavy-duty firewall that blocks all HTML, for example, then that click isn't getting recorded no matter how much you want it. But maybe you don't want to be tracking your readers who work for the NSA. Pro tip for ya. Unless you write a newsletter for infosec professionals, this isn't going to be more than a rounding error anyway. (I'm guessing here, I didn't Google any of this; I'm on enough no-fly lists.) clicking your opens I really need to stop with the banging metaphors but, before I do, these two imperfect bodies coming together can result in something beautiful. Your provider should be giving you the tools to track both opens and clicks, and when you are then trying to identify who is truly disengaged on your list, I recommend using both sources of information - and that will get you almost all the way there. If someone hasn't opened or clicked in quite a long time - let's say 6 months - then it's exceedingly likely that they are disengaged. (Soz.) Just don't cast them overboard without checking their pulse. You have a few ways to handle this. If you are super skittish about cutting anyone from your list, you can create a re-engagement automation and put your culling candidates through it, possibly dangling freebies or otherwise sweet talking them back into your boudoir. (Sorry... I think it's the heat.) I prefer being a little more direct. I send a Stay/Go email, and then - maybe - toss a treat to those who stay. Sometimes that's a picture of a puppy. (P.S. Not a joke.) People are wary about cutting anyone from their list - I get that. Maybe part of the reason is the name we put on this process: list culling. I prefer to call it list optimization. I know, I know, I should work in marketing or something. But don't be scared. Open rates are far from perfect. Click rates are a little closer but also not completely reliable. Together... yes, we're still short of 100% accuracy here but that Stay/Go email is your failsafe. Readers may respond saying "OMG keep me, your robots are drunk WTF" and you just tag them in your database so they aren't bothered again. No harm, no foul. Yes, it feels funny to remove subscribers, but it's for the best. Not just because you stop paying for people who don't care about your newsletter. To put it baldly: dead weight costs you much more than money. Disengaged readers can prevent engaged readers receiving your emails. That's right, Sally Superfan might stop getting your New Release announcements just because Joe Idaho stopped opening your emails a few months ago. Sad, but true. There are two obvious conclusions here: - We should trim the Joes from our list to protect the Sallys; and,
- We must aim for more Sallys, and maybe even to repel the Joes.
Or in slightly more technical terms, you need to enable double opt-in, and engage in list optimization periodically. And if all these words haven't convinced you, consider this: that's the advice from every major email provider out there. Maybe I should have opened with that? Oh well. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Angie McMahon with Letting Go. | 
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