Here are the top 50 email marketing terms you need to know (explained in plain English). This is a great starting point if you want to learn email marketing the right way!

A

Acceptable Spam Report Rate – The rate at which you can be reported as SPAM without harming your sender reputation. Anything over 0.1% (1 report per 1000 emails) will get a warning.

Acceptance Rate – The percentage of email messages that are accepted by the mail server. Just because an email is accepted by the mail server does not mean it will get to an inbox.

Autoresponder – Triggered emails, personalization, dynamic content, and other tools that send emails or add content to emails on a one-to-one or one-to-some basis without manual intervention according to rules established by a brand.

B

Blacklist – A list that denotes IP addresses as spammer IPs, impeding email deliverability.

Behavior-Based Email – A message sent to an individual subscriber in response to an action taken by that person (e.g., cart abandoned) or because of the arrival of an event indicated by the subscriber (e.g., their birthday); also known as trigger-based emails.

Bounce Rate – The rate at which your emails are not delivered. There are two types of bounces, hard and soft, both of which are defined later in this glossary. An acceptable bounce rate is less than 5%.

Bulk Mail – Large scale email marketing sends in which the same content goes to a large group of people.

C

CAN-SPAM – Short for ‘Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003,’ it’s a law that outlines rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, provides email recipients with the right to make you stop emailing them, and lays out consequences for violations of the Act. You can read more about compliance in our post about marketing laws.

Clicks Per Delivered – A percentage measure of the number of clicks divided by the number of emails delivered to the intended inbox.

Clicks Per Open – A percentage measure of the number of clicks divided by the number of opens.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand) – In email marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on a given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges $.25 per email address. We’ll get into buying lists later in this post.

CTR (Click-Through Rate) – The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email.

Conversion Rate – The percentage of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in an email marketing campaign or promotion. This is one measure of your email campaign’s success.

D

Dedicated IP – In email marketing, it refers to an IP address from which only you send email.

Digest Email – An email that is automatically generated by an electronic mailing list and which combines all exchanged emails during a time period (e.g. day, week, month, etc.) or when a volume limit is reached (e.g. every 10 or 100 messages) into one single message.

Double Opt-In – The recommended method of building an email list, it requires subscribers to confirm their opt in by clicking a link in a confirmation email or responding to the confirmation email in some other way.

E

Email Campaign – An email or series of lead nurturing emails designed to accomplish an overall marketing goal.

Email Click Through Rate – A way of measuring the success of an email campaign by the number of users that clicked on a specific link.

Email Filter – A technique used to block email based on the sender, subject line, or content of an email.

Email Marketing – Directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.

Email Marketing ROI – A metric used to measure the overall effectiveness of a marketing campaign to help marketers make better decisions about allocating future investments.

Email Marketing Open Rate – Percentage of subscribers who opened an email.

Email Sponsorships – Buying ad space in an email newsletter or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles. Advertisers pay to have their ad inserted into the body of the email.

F

False positive – A false positive occurs when a legitimate permission-based email is incorrectly filtered or blocked as spam.

H

Hard Bounce – A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason like a non-existent, invalid, or blocked email address.

Honey Pot – A planted email address by organizations trying to combat spam that, when a spammer harvests and emails, identifies that sender as a spammer.

House List (or Retention List) – One of your most valuable marketing assets, it’s a permission-based list that you built yourself with opt-in subscribers.

HTML Email – Sending HTML email makes it possible to get creative with the design of your emails.

I

IP Warmup – Sending a progressively increasing number of emails out of an IP address in order to build the IP’s reputation.

L

Landing Page – A lead-capture page on your website that is linked to from an email to provide additional information directly related to products or services promoted in the email’s call-to-action.

Levels of Authentication – A way of establishing a sender’s identity, and ensure the sender is allowed to send from a given domain.

List Segmentation – Selecting a target audience or group of individuals for whom your email message is relevant. A segmented list means a more targeted and relevant email campaign, thus a higher response rate and less unsubscribes and spam reports.

O

Open Rate – The percentage of emails opened in an email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.

Opt-In (or Subscribe) – To opt-in or subscribe to an email list is to choose to receive email communications by supplying your email address to a particular company, website or individual thereby giving them permission to email you. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. mountain biking) and/or indicate what types of emails they wish to receive from the sender (e.g. newsletters).

Opt-Out (or Unsubscribe) – When a subscribers chooses not to receive email communications from the sender anymore, and requests removal from your email list. It is legally required that you provide a clear way to opt out in every email you send.

P

Personalization – Adding elements to your email that are personalized based on information you already know about them. It could refer to addressing the recipient by name, referencing past purchases, or other content unique to each recipient.

Physical Address – The physical, street address of the company sending the email, usually found in the footer of an email. Its inclusion is a legal requirement for all email marketing.

Plain Text Email – An email sent without HTML. You should always give your recipients the option to read emails in either HTML or plain text for better readability.

Privacy Policy – A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data.

R

Read or Open Length – A measure of the length of time a person opens the email until they close it.

Rental List (or Acquisition List) – Not a recommended email marketing technique, it is a list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opted in to receive information about certain subjects, usually targeted by something like interest, profession, or demographic information.

S

Sender Score – A free service of Return Path, it’s a reputation rating from 0-100 for every outgoing mail server IP address. Mail servers will check your Sender Score before deciding what to do with your emails. A score of over 90 is good.

Shared IP – A less costly option than a dedicated IP address, it is an IP address from which many people send emails.

Signature File – A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email message that identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name, physical address, and contact information.

Single Opt-In – A single opt-in list is created when users sign up for email communications, but don’t confirm the action. This means they can be signed up for a list by someone else, and as such is not a recommended way to build a healthy email marketing list.

Soft Bounce – A soft bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a temporary issue, like a full mailbox or an unavailable server.

Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) – Email sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to email to the sender. Over 90% of email sent is classified as spam.

Spam Cop – A paid spam service that plants their own emails and monitors who harvests the address and spams it.

Spam Trap – An email address that was once valid, but no longer is. If you email this address, you’ll receive a hard bounce notice. When the mail server sees consistent traffic going to the dead email, however, they can turn the email into a spam trap. It will stop returning a hard bounce for the known bad address, and instead accept the message and report the sender as a spammer.

SPF – Short for ‘Sender Policy Framework’, it’s a DNS record that says on whose behalf an IP or domain sends email.

T

Transactional Email – A message sent to an individual subscriber in response to that person making a transaction, such as a purchase (e.g., order confirmation emails, shipping notification emails, etc.) or an administrative request (e.g., password reset email, email address change confirmation email, etc.)

W

Welcome Email – A message automatically sent to a new subscriber just after they’ve opted in that welcomes them to your email program and seeks further engagement.

Whitelist – Instead of listing IP addresses to block, a whitelist includes IP addresses that have been approved to deliver email to a recipient.

Win-Back Email – A message sent to an individual subscriber in response to that person having not engaged with your emails or made a purchase in a long time in an effort to get them to engage and make a purchase again.

Email marketing is getting more popular. And it’s getting harder and harder to stand out in the inbox.

Besides writing engaging, interesting, on-topic emails, here’s a few quick tricks you can use to make your customers and subscribers take notice.

Increase Email Marketing CTR & Open Rates with Surprises

Scratch-It is basically a lottery-scratch off for emails.

You can take any image, add another on top of it, and let people “scratch it” to reveal a surprise underneath.

You can use it share coupons in an interesting way, company news, and anything else you can imagine.

Scratch-It is more than a pretty face. Some Scratch-It users have seen 169% increase in click to open rates AND a 200% increase in conversions.

It’s beautiful, engaging, and a conversion booster. Nice!

Also, if you’re texting your customers (and you should be) this would be something interesting to text your customers. I’ll be testing it out in the email, texts, and push notifications we send to our users soon, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Boost Email Marketing Engagement with Questions

Click Insights is a dead-simple way to ask your users, subscribers, and customers questions by email.

You simply create the survey. Copy and paste the embed HTML code into your email. Then send out your email and watch all the amazing feedback come pouring in. The entire process probably takes about 3 minutes.

We’ve use it here at Autosend. It’s helped us re-engage trial users that I’m sure forgot about us and get super valuable feedback to optimize Autosend’s website and app. Most importantly, it helped start more conversations with our users.

It’s pretty freakin’ insightful.

Boost Email Marketing Sales with Animated GIFs

Animated GIFs are nothing new. In fact, their quite old. But for some reason, a good ‘ole animated GIF just makes an email so much more engaging.

There are two ways to go about using animated GIFs in your emails.

You can make your own using tools like:

1. Gifbrewery – Mac
2. Giffer – iOS
3. Cinemagram – iOS and Android
4. Photoshop – Mac and PC
5. Recordit.co – Mac and PC

Or you can find some awesome animated GIFs on sites like:

1. GIPHY
2. Mr-gif
3. gifgifgifgifgif

Again, adding interactivity to your emails with GIFs isn’t just about fun. One study showed that adding an animated GIF to an email resulted in 12% more sales.

We write posts like this all the time. Why not subscribe?

Boost Email Marketing Engagement with Video

Sharing Video with Email

Video is everywhere, but a lot of marketers aren’t adding them to email.

Spice things up, get people in engaged, and pop one in your email.

A study by Experian showed that adding video to emails boosted email open rates by 13% and improved conversions by 21%.

These kind of numbers are big wins for marketers, but they don’t come without their problems. Some email clients don’t play nice with video, so you have to test to see what works with a tool like Litmus or Email on Acid.

Wisita also has a helpful write up on using video in your email marketing campaigns. Make sure to check it out.

There are clearly more ways to make your emails more engaging. These are just some quick wins that will help you make your emails stand out and help boost your email marketing conversions.

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A trigger-based email is an email that’s automatically sent to someone based on what they do in your web or mobile app.

I’ll give a few examples.

When Jill signs up for a free trial on your site, you can automatically send a welcome email 10 minutes after she joins.

If Jill visits your FAQ page, you can send an email to help her before she asks.

When Jill has 2 days left in her trial, you can remind her to upgrade, automatically.

Here’s how to set one up:

First, choose the event you want to trigger an email, like someone joining your site.

Now schedule a time to send the email, like 5 minutes after they join.

Then write your message.

Now, each time someone joins your site, they’ll get a welcome email, automatically.

Here are three trigger-based emails you can set up in just a few minutes to start sending to your web and mobile app users:

Welcome Email

Welcome emails are the foundation of trigger-based emails. They are pretty much the must-have email for every web and mobile app business.

Why?

64% of people expect a welcome email. In fact, the average person expects a welcome email within 15 minutes.

If you don’t have one, you could already be ruining the relationship between you and your users. You don’t want that.

Here’s an example of a welcome email: (feel free to copy and paste 😉

Hey {{Customer FirstName}},

Thanks for using Notes App. We can’t wait to see how easy it is for you to take notes on the go.

The first thing you’ll want to do is sync your Dropbox folder so we can add the notes you already have.

I’ve included a link to a video on how to do this. There’s also detailed directions available there if you need them.

Let me know if you need help. And thanks again for trying Notes App.

This welcome email is simple and to the point. It welcomes your user, thanks them for using the app, and tells them the first thing they’ll need to do to use your app.

Inactive Users Email

Did you know if a user doesn’t actively use your app for at least  3 days, they’re less likely to convert?

So it’s your job to make sure they remain active during your trial.

To do this automatically with email, try this:

Hey {{Customer FirstName}},

Just reaching out to see if you need anything. I see you used Notes App {{data lastUsedDays}} days ago and you haven’t used it since.

Is there something I can help with? Is there something we can improve?

Please let me know, so I can help. Just hit reply and I’ll help with anything.

Thanks.

Even if you don’t get this user back in your app, the feedback they’ll offer could prove invaluable.

Just set this email up and watch your user activation and feedback go through the roof!

Upgrade Trial Email

Unfortunately, most of your users won’t just sign up, buy your app, and start using it without questions.

They’ll need a bit of follow-up to even get them out of your trial.

To do this, you can set up a trigger-based email to go out a few days into their trial to remind them upgrade.

Here’s an example you can use:

Hey There {{Customer FirstName}},

I see you’ve been using the Notes App for {{data daysUsed}} days now. It’s exciting to see how much you’ve been able to get out of it.

I’m checking in to see if you have any questions. You haven’t upgraded to get all the features yet, and I’m just trying to find out if it’s because you need help with something.

If you don’t need help, do you mind if I send you a promo code to get 10% off your first month? This would give you immediate access to the features you aren’t using yet.

Let me know and I’ll send it right over. And if you need help just press reply, I’m here to help.

This email does a few things.

1. You are reminding your users how much value they’re getting from your app.
2. You’re asking if they need help. Remember, only 4% of your users will actually reach out and voice a complaint or ask for help. You can’t count on them to submit a support ticket to let you know they need help.
3. You’re also asking for the sale and offering a discount, personally. This could help you move users out of trial much quicker.

That’s just three ways you can use trigger-based emails. Clearly, there are a lot more clever things you can with them.

The point is, you can use trigger-based emails to automate and personalize your conversations with your users, which will help grow your web and mobile app business.

Send your first trigger-based email for FREE right now

Maybe you’ve heard about “trigger based messages”, or maybe you haven’t.

Either way, don’t worry. I’ll explain what they are and how to use them to grow your business.

A trigger-based message is a message that’s automatically sent to a user based on what they do in your web or mobile app.

The message can be an email, text message, or push notification, it doesn’t matter.

Here’s a deck to help explain, but there’s more to learn after…so keep reading!

A trigger-based message is simply any message that’s sent based on something a user did in your app.

I’ll give you an example.

Let’s say a new user starts a free trial.

You can automatically send a personalized email or SMS welcome message a few minutes after they join.

The purpose of a triggered message is to engage and retain your users.

But, this only works if your messages are relevant and timely.

I’ll have another post that shows you how to craft the perfect triggered message. But for now, remember trigger-based messages are targeted and more personal. They aren’t generic like your typical newsletter blasts.

Alight, I get what a trigger message is, but how can I send my own?

Glad you asked 😉

Here’s three trigger-based messages you can copy and send to your users right now. I’ll even walk you through the process of send each one.

Send A Trigger-Based Email to Explain a New Feature

If you notice a user in your web or mobile app starts using a new feature in your app, send an email to show them how to use it. An email with easy to follow directions and a few examples can really make a difference.

Your email could be something like this:

Hey {{Customer Name}}, I noticed you started using our save feature and wanted to show you some tricks to help you work faster.

Send a Trigger-Based SMS Message to Get Users to Move to a Higher Plan

If your users typically cancel their plan after 4 months, schedule a text message 3 months after their purchase and offer a discount if they switch to an annual plan.

You could send a text message like this:

Hey {{Customer Name}}, Just wanted to thank you for being a loyal user. I looked at your plan and noticed you’d save $98/month if you switched to an annual plan. Here’s link to switch to an annual plan. Text me if you need help.

Send a Trigger-Based Push Notification to Remind Users To Integrate Your App

It’s really hard to get users to sign up AND integrate your app.  If your app requires someone to copy code like most analytics tools do, it’s important to remind them get it done.

One easy way to remind your users to integrate is with a trigger-based push notification.

You can send a push notification like this:

Don’t forget to copy and paste the code into your app, here’s a video to show you how.

Send your first trigger-based messages for FREE right now

If you like this post, also check out How to Onboard Your Users with Email, Text Messages and Push Notifications.

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Ok, so you know customers want text messages from you. But what now?

I mean, how exactly do you send text messages that are useful to your customers, help you meet business goals, and don’t get you on a spam list?

There are plenty of ways you can use text messages in your business. If you remember to keep it useful and timely, you shouldn’t have any problems.

Here are two ideas to help you get started.

How to Text Message Your Website Customers

1. Text when they hit your FAQ

When people use your website they sometimes have questions. And the first place they often look is your FAQ page. Be proactive and reach out. Send a text before they even have a chance to leave and try your competitor 😉 Here’s how.

1. Setup a rule that detects when a user visits your website and looks at your FAQ page.
2. Make sure to find out which FAQ question they’re looking at, you’re going to need it.
3. Now send a text message to personally reach out and help them with that particular FAQ question.

Here’s an example:

Hey {{Customer Name}}, Do you need help {{data FAQviewed}}? Here’s a link to a video to walk you through it {{data FAQViewedURL}}. Also, just text me if you need more help. – Ashli

Remember, this can go out to each and every customer automatically. You can proactively reach out to everyone who needs help without doing a thing. Think about all the customer love you’re going to get 😉

How to Text Message Your Mobile App Users

1. Text if they’ve been inactive for a while

Unfortunately, it’s common for users to forget about you after they downloaded your app. But there’s a way to remind them you still exist with a smart text message.

Here’s how to do it:

Hey {{Customer Name}}, Where have you been? You haven’t used our app in a while and you’re missing all our new updates. Here’s a free in-app purchase on me. Come back, we miss you!

These are just a couple of ideas you can use to get started right now. Just set up one of the above examples right now (it’s free anyway), start sending them to your customers, and see what happens.

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We have good news! You can finally start texting your customers (with their permission of course) without feeling like a spammer.

It’s true!

We recently did a study to learn how people really feel about receiving text messages from businesses and the results shocked us.

Let’s break down each part of the survey and get some insight before you start your next SMS marketing campaign.

FOR THE TL;DR Here’s you go….but you’re missing out on the goods below 😉

We kept things simple at first, by asking if the person even accepts text messages. The thing that surprised us is that at least 1% were unsure.

Here we wanted to know if people even liked getting text messages in general. Nothing necessarily surprising here since it would depend on the message, who sent it, and how much they annoy text you

Now things are starting to get interesting.

We asked people in the survey who do they receive text messages from most…and 52.51% said they receive text messages from friends the most.

This could be an interesting way to use texting as a part of your referral program. Maybe you can get customers to send a discount to their friend after a purchase?

You could even prompt them to invite friends to download your mobile app, sign up for your website, or attend a webinar.

There’s a lot of creative stuff you could do here.

This one surprised me. When asked if they’ve ever received a text message from a business, most people (74.90%) said Yes! That means there are some smart businesses out there texting their customers right now.

But it’s even more interesting when you see the next question.

People in the survey were asked if they would like to receive text messages from a business and there were a lot of mixed emotions here.

• 34.75% surveyed said MAYBE
• 32.82% said NO
• 30.12% said YES

This just means you have to follow the golden rule of text message marketing…ask your users and customers FIRST before you send a text.

Ok so we know that some people actually want your text messages, but how often should you send them? In the survey we asked how often would you like a business to text you weekly and over 67% said at least 1-5 times per week!!! 

And 20.85% of those people said they’d like a text message from a business as often as they are helpful.

Really?! How many times are you texting your customers? Here are some ideas to help you start sending helpful texts to users and customers.

We all know that customer service is key. But should you start offering customer service by text?

According to our survey, try it! When asked would you like customer support by text, 39.77% said Yes and 27.80% said Maybe.

The trick here is to ask first and A/B test. If your customers expect text messages from you and ask you for them, it shouldn’t be a problem.

You could easily set up a text message to go out to people who visit your FAQ page and reach out BEFORE they ask you for help. You could even schedule a personal follow up with prospective customers when they run into an issue on your website (here’s how to do it).

Your job is to offer the option and see how many of your customers want it.

Moving on.

We asked each person if they had a problem on a website, would they like someone to send a text message help and only about 20% gave a definite NO.

Over 51% of those surveyed said they’d like to get help when they run into problems with a text message.

28.19% said they’d like a text each time they run into a problem (you could set up a transactional text message for these people).

23.17% said they’d want a text message just the first time they run into a problem on a website (you could set up a behavioral text message for these people).

But what do your mobile app users think? Do they want to get text messages when they run into trouble in your mobile app?

According to the survey, mobile app users want a text message when they run into trouble in your app MORE than your website users! Over 52% said YES to text messages when they have trouble with your mobile app. 32.42% just want you to text once. And 17.76% don’t mind if you text every time they have an issue.

This makes sense. They’re already on their phone, they might as well text you to get help with a bug they found or ask questions about how to use your mobile app.

Ok, so what have we learned here.

That customers actually don’t mind text messages from you. In fact, some want them quite often.

And the good news is, it’s easy to send targeted, personalized text messages to engage your customers and users automatically with a trigger-based SMS marketing tool like Autosend.

Want some ideas on what to text your customers? Here’s 8 interesting examples.

Want more?

• Download the Business Texting Customer Survey PDF

or watch this video

Notes about our The 2014 Businesses Texting Customer Survey:

We asked 291 American Internet users from 16-45+ years of age eleven questions about text message habits and their opinions on text messages from businesses. The 2014 Businesses Texting Customer Survey was completed from May 28, 2014 – June 28, 2014.

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