12th April, Tuesday | 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM (IST) Recent Changes In Gmail’s Algorithm: What’s Your Strategy? 12th April, Tuesday | 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM (IST)

Tanishq Juneja Business Head - Email Marketing @ netCORE ABOUT THE PRESENTER Tanishq Juneja  Business Head - Email Marketing @ netCORE Tanishq is responsible for overall operations and product direction of netCORE’s Email Marketing Solutions. His expertise in understanding the nuances of email marketing makes him ideally suited to lead the Email Marketing team effectively to continued growth

THINGS TO REMEMBER #GmailDelivery Tweet Question Slides & Recording Use below hashtags and handle to tweet during the webinar @netcoresolution #GmailDelivery Please use the chat window to ask questions during the webinar You will get an email with slides and recording post webinar

For Google, customer engagement has been a key determinant in filtering emails to the inbox Visual Promotion Tab Quick action buttons Feedback loops NEW Gmail Priority Inbox Personalized filtering Gmail Image caching Unsubscribe button

How Customers and Marketers react to Gmail’s Algorithm changes

Customers’ reactions

Happy Don’t like it Emotional

Marketers’ reactions

Nightmarish Confused Advise mode

I almost hit a sticky wicket, but it’s all in the game

Changes observed in email deliverability to the Gmail Inbox ! Delays in acceptance of emails Lower inbox placement rates by Gmail servers than usual

DON’T BE STUMPED! 5 Tips to improve your Gmail inbox deliverability

1: Data Hygiene Policies

1: Data Hygiene Policies Review your data sources and how they enter your email marketing programs Regular list maintenance (Clean active segment who regularly open and click emails in 12 months) Handle unsubscribe requests immediately. If using multiple vendors, unsubscribe from both the lists Best practice to acquire subscribers through double opt-in Remove duplicates and process incorrect ids Provide clear unsubscribe instructions and option to edit their email preferences

2: Control Email Frequency

2: Control Email Frequency ONE SIZE FITS ALL Segmentation drives Personalized relevant content to the right target group

2: Control Email Frequency Basis email activity 2 emails / month 3 emails / month Active 1 time opener Active 2-3 time opener Remove email ids of users who haven’t responded to these re-engagement emails after 4 months 4 emails / month 4 emails / month 2 emails / month Active In-Active Actively posting on website Active 4 time opener In-Active Never opened Earlier buckets of segmentation Proposed buckets of segmentation Bucketing rules to be revised every 4 months

2: Control Email Frequency Basis user attributes and interests Dynamic content based on user’s location and product preference

3: Create Customer Profiles

3: Create Customer Profiles Basis engagement with your brand Best Friends Regularly open and click your emails Friends Very actively engage with your brand – open, click, transact, interact Acquaintances Hardly opens / clicks Strangers Inactive subscribers who may or may not have transacted in the past

To create the right customer profile, you need to get a 360° view of your customer

Are they just a face in the crowd?

Or do you have their digital identity? Do you know their next purchase? their Last Name? their last 10 purchases? what they are tweeting right now? what they like? on what device they interact?

Most marketers do not have complete customer profile Name: Pranay Email: pranay@gmail.com Mobile: - Gender: Male Birthday: 27 Sep 1982 Name: - Email: kev@yahoo.com Mobile: 963-418-6291 Gender: Male Birthday: - Name: Ameya Email: - Mobile: Gender: Female Birthday: - Name: Girish Email: - Mobile: 983-617-0534 Gender: - Birthday: 21 Jun 1965 Name: Ria Email: - Mobile: 993-708-0639 Gender: Female Birthday: 14 Feb 1970 Name: R Email: rupal@gmail.com Mobile: 993-224-1245 Gender: Male Birthday: 2 Aug 1990

Time to start Personalize conversation via cross channel marketing automation tool like netCORE Smartech

4: Manage The In-actives And Innovatively Engage The Super Actives

4: Manage The In-actives Confirmation email to subscribers inactive > 1 year

4: Manage The In-actives Plan unique campaigns to passive users - transacted inactive users Subject line: Do you remember what you did on 12 July 2015?

4: Manage The In-actives Plan unique campaigns to passive users - non-transacted inactive users EMAIL 1 EMAIL 2 EMAIL 3 Subject line: Are you angry with us? Subject line: [NAME], Something’s amiss Subject line: It all started from [JOIN DATE]

4: Manage The In-actives Think less about reactivating your in-actives and focus on reaching out and engaging the audience in other ways

4: Innovatively Engage The Super Actives Customer engagement and branding might not show immediate results to business and seem time consuming. But efforts are not wasted. These type of campaigns improve life time value of subscriber, help inbox emails and position your brand better

4: Innovatively Engage The Super Actives Plan highly engaging interactive email campaigns such as reply based Subject line: Batman Vs. Superman: Who’s side are you on?

5: Refrain From Quick Fix Email Marketing

5: Refrain From Quick Fix Email Marketing i. Sending multiple emails (worse still with same subject line!) as the recipient hasn’t opened the earlier email @

5: Refrain From Quick Fix Email Marketing ii. If you recently started email marketing, have a proper warm up plan in place Step 3 Warm up by sending campaign in small chunks starting with active base and then slowly reaching to whole base Step 1 Plan campaign to the most active base (user who opened emails at least once in last 6 months) Step 2 Test campaign before sending Perform hygiene check mainly to Gmail before executing all campaigns Avoid content/domains that might influence spam triggers 10K 1st Chunk 20K 2nd Chunk Most active base 3rd Chunk 30K

5: Refrain From Quick Fix Email Marketing iii. Preferable to have dedicated set up of sender domain, IP and envelope instead of shared

5: Refrain From Quick Fix Email Marketing iv. Perform DKIM on sender domain/ envelope domain Why its important? Email authentication secures your brand name and protects from damaging your domain reputation DKIM signed senders have higher chances of being in good books of gmail

Key Takeaways

Key Takeaways Keep the basics in place – double opt-in registration + block abuse & unsubscribes in real time Control frequency to inactive subscribers (not more than 2 emails a month) Make use of your customer data effectively to send highly targeted and relevant emails Ensure emails are SPF & DKIM authenticated Bottom line to Gmail inbox delivery is the level of engagement/ interaction by the subscribers with your brand

& Q A

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