Just as a quick coda to this, I've solved the spam mystery......I'd set the sender e-mail in Convertkit as my Gmail account, which of course isn't very professional! When I amended it to my web domain, the e-mail no longer ended up in junk, so that's all good!

Thanks John! I'll be honest, I'd not heard of the DKIM/SPF records. I'm doing a little bit of internet research, but if you know of any good "idiot's guide" type websites that explain the process very clearly, I'd be very grateful for the recommendation! The e-mail domain I'm using is tom@tomocwilson.com, which is tied to a website I created with Bandzoogle. Is it possible that the domain might already be DKIM/SPF verified, or is this definitely something I'd need to register myself? 

Wow, OK, thanks John, looks complex! Yes, Convertkit are probably setting the bar overly high in terms of who it's for. On the other hand, this does seem a very complicated process that I wouldn't want to screw up, so I'd need to spend some proper time getting this right. My first test funnel is pretty much ready to go, but I'm wondering if I should delay it by a week or so - totally doable! - while I get my head round DKIM/SPF. However, it's unlikely I'd get 1000s of new subscribers this time round, so I won't be sending out that many e-mails. Would you still advise getting the DKIM/SPF sorted first? As I mentioned, the test e-mail stopped going to spam after I switched the domain, though I guess there's no guarantee this would always happen. What kinds of issues would you expect non-verified domains to encounter? 

OK, great, thanks John. Yes, that sounds like a good way to go, thank you!

Hiya John, hope you had a nice weekend. Due to the time constraints around my band project (we're launching our debut single in December) I decided to go ahead and launch my back catalogue test funnel to get some experience of using the software and analysing the results. It's only been running a couple of days, so too early to draw definitive conclusions. The most interesting part of the results so far, however, is the age and gender distribution, with an overwhelming number (41%) being men in the 44-55 category. The second highest was women in the 41-55 category, but that only came in at 17%, and all the other age brackets showed a more even gender split but a much lower overall percentage share. 

My plan, once the campaign has finished, is to refine using the method you described in the (very useful!) Dynamic Creative video. Obviously it's too early to say for sure, but if I continue to get similar results, would you advise focusing purely on men aged 41-55? Or do you think some of the lower numbers should be included too? Do you have a percentage threshold you usually look for when deciding the parameters for follow-up campaigns?

For context, the objective was set as Traffic rather than Conversions, as will be the case for my follow-up campaign (due to budget considerations). I'll be working with a bigger budget in December though.

Thank you!

Thanks, John, yes that makes sense! You make some very good points I hadn't considered re certain demographics being more predisposed to click, and clicks not necessarily equating to who is most likely to buy. I'm glad you said this, as, yes, it's probably a good idea not to cut people out at this stage, especially as my organic fanbase has a much wider age range (though of course there are numerous variables that could account for that!). 

Have a great week 🙂

Certainly! Quick followup, actually....a weird quirk of this campaign is that I've had quite a few subscribers who have opened my introductory e-mail, but haven't clicked on the link to get the music. I know the automation is set up fine, because I've had three subscribers click on the link, get tagged, and then progressed to the next e-mails in the sequence, so perhaps something is off with my wording, but I do find it odd that someone would sign up for music, and even open the e-mail with it in, but then not actually click on the link. I've included the wording of the e-mail below, and would be very interested to hear your theory on this (though of course it's impossible to be absolutely certain what's going on - no worries if nothing springs to mind!).

Dear {{ subscriber.first_name }}

Thanks so much for your interest in my music. You can access your free track here. 

Keep an eye out for future e-mails from me, as I'll be writing to keep you posted on gigs, videos, new music, anecdotes...you get the drift!

If you'd like to say hi, I'm at tom@tomocwilson.com. You can also follow my activities at https://www.facebook.com/tomocwilson and https://twitter.com/TWilsonComposer.

Warm wishes,

TOCW

PS - If you like what you hear, and would like to hear more music from the album, you can do so here.