How Much Money Do You Waste When An Email Lands In The Promotion Tab?
Inbox vs Promo…
For eCommerce brands, that’s a big challenge.
If you open your Gmail account, you’ll see that 80% of eCommerce emails landed in your Promo Tab.
That’s not so bueno, amigo.
See, here are two things you need to know when an email lands in the Promo Tab (instead of the Inbox):
Your open rates are going to be 8-10% lower than if you hit the Inbox.
2. Your click-through-rate and sales are lower by default
For example…
Let’s say your average open rate is 25%
Now, let’s suppose you have an email list of 60’000 subscribers…
And for each email, you make an average of $2500.
This is what you make when you hit the Inbox.
Still with me? Good.
Now, let’s suppose you found out your recent email landed in the Promo Tab (instead of the Inbox)
You check the data and BOOM…
The open rate is 17%.
But that’s not the bad news.
In fact, when you check the revenue from that email, you realize that you generated $1900 – (instead of your average $2500)
Which means you wasted $600 just because you hit the Promo tab.
Crazy, right?
Now, let’s suppose you send 3 emails a week…
And all of them start landing the Promo tab:
In one month, you missed over $7200.
And in one year you missed $86400.
That’s basic math.
And this is what happens when you hit the Promo Tab.
Because if you land in the Spam folder, then my friend you have a big problem.
Now…
Why Do Emails Land In The Promotional Tab?
Most e-commerce brands' emails land in the promotional tab because…
They are too salesy (Promotional-Driven)
They don’t have healthy email list practices
They overdo most things like DESIGN, Photos…
Here is another piece of bad news…
When your email continues to land on the promotional tab, you are not only losing money…
But you are damaging your DOMAIN REPUTATION.
And if your domain reputation is too bad, then you’ll be forced to replace it with a new one (and that will cost you a lot of time and missing sales)
That is why you must try as much as possible to get your email to the Primary Inbox.
Ok, enough with the theory.
Let me show you a couple of things you can do to prevent this problem:
Split Test (A/B test):
Test the subject lines…the pictures…the email formats…the CTAs…
In business, it’s all about testing.
And the eCommerce world is not an exception.
Subject Line:
While writing an email you should avoid trigger words and make sure your subject line is between 6 to 10 words or less.
And make sure you avoid full caps in your subject lines.
According to an in-depth study by "Retention Science", 6-10 words is the sweet spot, and going shorter than that is better than going longer.
Next…
Check Your Domain Reputation:
Make sure you are checking your sender score and reputation often.
Well, you can go to www.senderscore.org and find out what your score is.
Anything above 90 is good, above 95 is great and you shouldn't be having deliverability issues.
Avoid Trigger Words:
Some words are considered triggers and if your email contains any…
You might end up on the promotional tap or spam. Email providers do that to save the person who received the email.
Check the link for some trigger words to avoid:
Avoid a Bunch of Links:
One to three links is enough.
More than three can push your email to the Promo Tab.
Segmentation:
Send your email to selected engaging segments and see how they react.
That’s very good for improving your domain reputation.
Never send mass emails (unless you have to share something important about your company)
Lastly...
Personalization:
Always make sure that your email is personalized.
Just like a conversation between you and your friend.
Go ahead now and apply all the strategies and if you need help to fix your email deliverability, feel free to reach out to me at: ugo@corbulostarmedia.com
Ugo Balestrazzi