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QuoteHey John,
So for the last couple weeks I haven't been running ads, just took some time to tweak a couple things. In that time, though, I sent out an email driving views to a new Youtube video, and somehow I managed to get my first complaint.
Now, I should still be in the acceptable range of complaints according to Aweber. However, upon running traffic to a brand-new campaign, I'm seeing something I'm starting to get a little panicked about. My free download email only has a 20% open rate. Admittedly that's out of like 15 people so far, but I'm used to seeing a solid 70% from my previous campaign.
Do I just need to give people more time to get around to the email, worrying about nothing? Or did that single complaint kill my deliverability and people aren't even getting the email? If it's the latter, is there anything I can do to fix this? Or am I just screwed at this point?
I could really use some advice 
12:35 pm
June 7, 2011
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The complaint should not have had a huge impact. But that open rate is way too low obviously. I have been seeing some really low open rates lately on campaigns where confirmed opt in was turned off. In every case I turn confirmed opt in on and it fixes things and they sky rocket back up.
I suspect the small amount of people is also a factor. Possibly combined with a new target audience?
I would try turning confirmed opt in on. Just remember that you also need to create a new "confirmation" page to send people to that tells them a confirmation email is on it's way. You then need to change the settings on your list as well as your web forms to route everyone to the right place. Then reset your emails by creating new, duplicate emails, and deleting the old ones.
Long story short, I definitely would not panic. You are not screwed. Complaints are very normal. It's a shocker this is your first one as they go with the territory.
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Target audience is the same it usually is, I'm just trying some tweaks to the funnel, so that shouldn't matter.
Trying out confirmed opt-in now, I'll get back when I have some more data to work with. Any idea what would have changed to make it so we suddenly need confirmed opt-in? Seems weird that it would be a recent development like that.
Thanks, I really appreciate the help.
1:40 pm
June 7, 2011
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Is everything 100% the same except for the new email series?
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Yep, and the email series is largely the same except for the second blog post and some changes to the headlines.
1:58 pm
June 7, 2011
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That is surprising, but I'm going to chalk it up to not enough subscribers, plus the fact that you have confirmed opt in off. My guess is that this number will definitely go up if left as is, but that your other campaign would come down if left as is. It's like roulette. Sometimes you see 20 reds in row, but over the long run it only comes up 50% of the time. I'm guessing you just stepped into this campaign with some bad footing. I really don't think the spam compliant is the issue. And if it is by some chance related, turning on the confirmed opt in will help with that as well.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Can I ask how it would be tied to not having enough subscribers? Does the total number of subscribers on my list affect open rates in some way? Also, how does confirmed opt-in increase deliverability? Is it because they're pre-emptively interacting with the confirmation email and that somehow signals the ISP that they want these emails? Sorry, just really curious about the finer points of how this works, so I can be aware of how to best proceed.
3:12 pm
June 7, 2011
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The total number of subscribers doesn't effect anything other than the odds, hence the roulette description. When it's a small sample size you can have statistical anomalies. I'm suggesting that you would eventually have something like a 45% open rate on that first email if you left it running for long enough. Which of course is still too low. You want it well over 70%.
The confirmed opt in can help in two ways... For starters, it creates an audit trail. If there are any issues with the various email service providers it will help on that front. One of the nicest things about Aweber is that they actually do their own white listing (reputation management). Most autoresponder companies just outsource it. So when you call in asking what the problem is, if they need to, they can actually communicate with gmail, yahoo, etc. (at least that is my understanding of how it all works).
The biggest way it helps is that with confirmed opt in off you open yourself up to tire kickers. People who are curious about your ad, and then enter an email they don't use, or just a made up one (that may happen to be a real person's email), just so they can see what is on the other side. This happens a lot in some genres (or so it has seemed to me). When that happens, you essentially train Facebook to look for these tire kickers, send you an increasingly lower and lower quality lead. But when you have confirmed opt in on, you train FB to only target people that actually confirm.
It used to be that turning confirmed opt in off did much better for me. That appears to be changing, and it's a very recent revelation. I just had a client who had an open rate of just 50% on the download email . I turned confirmed opt in on and now it's at 84% and that is over hundreds of subscribers.
I saw this a lot with MMM as well, and it sort of happened all of the sudden earlier this year. My open rate plummeted and worse, my sales dried up. But I started seeing the same type of person popping up over and over again in my comments with really stupid comments, and I realized that something was up. I figured out that I was training FB to go after these low quality leads because I had confirmed opt in off. I turned it back on and sales resumed immediately. And oddly, in every case where I have turned confirmed opt in back on, my squeeze page conversion rate has actually gone up. It's weird.
That all make sense?
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It makes PERFECT sense - thank you so much! That's absolutely fascinating, and it actually answers a ton of other peripheral questions I've been wondering about. I think I was actually starting to get that same issue of lower-quality leads - I've noticed over the last month or so that my engagement, replies, and yeah, quality of comments, had dropped significantly out of nowhere with no identifiable cause.
3:58 pm
June 7, 2011
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Awesome. Hopefully that is the case and things turn around once you change things up. Just remember that you will need to add a confirmation page to take people to after they sign up, which tells them to check their inbox. And then update your settings both in the list, and on the web form. Report back and let us know how it goes.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
So I'm definitely seeing noticeable progress after turning the double opt-in on, and still bringing in $0.50 subs, which I'm absolutely thrilled to see, I was kinda worried it would increase my cost per conversion, but I guess not!
That being said, are there some general metrics you can offer on what a "good" open and click rate is on each email in the funnel? Just so I know at what point I can leave it alone and not worry about further optimization, y'know? My download email is now up to 77% open, but only 63% clicks. Still getting data on the rest of the campaign, but some acceptable metrics would really help me know what I'm aiming for.
7:38 pm
June 7, 2011
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That's awesome. I like to see the open rate on the first email up around 80% or more. You are a tad under but just barely, and it may still go up. So that seems about right. The lower CTR doesn't bother me either. I'd focus more on the squeeze page, but keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get worse.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
It's now sitting at 82%, with 73% clicks, which is considerably higher than it's ever been. But my blog post 1 email is now all the way down to 37% with 11% clicks, when my previous campaign was 47% with 24% clicks. I'm thinking some of this might be because I had set send times for this new campaign (around 8 AM), and the previous campaign was just sending out at the same time they signed up. Maybe for my audience it's better to leave send times alone? Gonna try switching that off and see if the open and clicks go up. What's an ideal open and click rate on that first blog post email, in your experience?
Sorry, not to pile on, but something else occurred to me. I've had a few people email me back on the blog post 1 email now saying "I never got your music yesterday," and it got me thinking why that would be. So - quick Aweber technical question.
I have this campaign set to trigger on tag applied. I noticed that the signup form has the wording "apply tag when this form is submitted." In other words, is it kicking off the campaign BEFORE they confirm their opt-in, and therefore for some people (perhaps those who take a little longer to get around to confirming), it's not actually going through?
If so, should I change it to "on subscribe," or is there another setting somewhere I can change within Aweber? It's nice being able to use different signup forms to launch different campaigns on the same list, but I don't mind running multiple lists if there's no way around this.
9:52 am
June 7, 2011
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That's great that the open rate has gone up. It's odd that the first email open rate has gone down a bit. Hopefully that climbs back up as more subs come in. I have no idea what might cause something like that, aside from just statistical insignificance.
I don't think the way the tag is being applied is the issue. If you change it to apply tag upon subscribing that will cause problems when customers and other types of sign ups subscribe. So I wouldn't do that. If yo are concerned, I would call Aweber. They are really helpful and have great phone support, with more insight than I could really guess at.
Let us know if anything changes or you learn something new from Aweber.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Hi John, Karen here.
I'm turning confirmed opt in back on. I think I've done everything right as I tried signing up myself and it took me through all the right steps, ending on getting email number 1. It would be great to know why you suggest below that we need to create duplicate emails?
Thanks,
Karen
John Oszajca said
I would try turning confirmed opt in on. Just remember that you also need to create a new "confirmation" page to send people to that tells them a confirmation email is on it's way. You then need to change the settings on your list as well as your web forms to route everyone to the right place. Then reset your emails by creating new, duplicate emails, and deleting the old ones.
9:25 am
June 7, 2011
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Because you wanted to monitor changes to your stats.
You can't just hit a reset button so instead you need to create a new email to replace the old one, resetting the stats. Otherwise it takes a very long time to see the statistical changes.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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