1. Engaging Email Newsletters
By Angus Robinson
April 12, 2017

2. About Me Angus Robinson
Current: Director of Analytics & Data Strategy at Metroland Media
Next week: Director of Performance Media at 360i/DentsuBos
Let’s connect!

3. Email – what’s the big deal?
Your magazine
Stay top of mind
Traffic growth
Revenue
Audience insights

4. Subscriber Acquisition
Newsletter Planning
Research
Audience Insights
Web analytics
Social media
Surveys
comScore
Competitors
Test
Start with multi-category digests
Try topical newsletters
Use themes
Curate
Measure
What content is most engaging?
Ask for feedback
Are we moving the needle?
Iterate
Eliminate what doesn’t work
Double down on what does
Never be satisfied
Subscriber Acquisition
Advertise newsletter everywhere (print, web, fb)
Clear value proposition
Use house ad inventory across your network
PPC advertising
Contests/giveaways
Partnerships
Adhere to CASL

5. Driving email engagement
Appeal to your audience using the tried and tested methods you’ve already perfected.
Clickable content:
Popular
Relevant
Timely
Trusted
Visual
Simple
Preventative
“What’s in it for me”
FOMO
But… avoid click bait tactics!!

6. Newsletter Frequency Frequency depends on: Segmentation
Q: How many newsletters should I send per month?
A: As many as possible until the unsubscribe rate reaches an unacceptable limit
Frequency depends on:
Volume of new content published/week
Volume of existing evergreen content
Expectations of subscribers
Time sensitivity of content
Topic segmentation
Segmentation
Most engaged subscribers
Least engaged subscribers
Mon: Parenting
Wed: Recipes
Fri: Health
Sat: Weekly Digest
Sat: Weekly Digest

7. Not-so-obvious metrics
Newsletter Analytics
Obvious metrics
Open rate
Click-to-open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Net change in subscriber volume/week
Not-so-obvious metrics
Post-click page views per visit
Post-click bounce rate
Click distribution by content category
Subscriber lifetime value (LTV)
Subscriber LTV formula 1
post-click
page views
per visit
monetized
display ads
per page
display ad
average CPM
LTV = ×
open
rate ×
click-to-open
rate × × ×
unsubscribe
rate
1000
Total clicks over subscriber’s lifetime
Display revenue generated per click

8. Is email personalization right for you?
What you need:
Scale of subscribers (>100,000)
Scale of content
platform with dynamic content
Ability to link post-click page views to a specific subscriber
Best practices:
Don’t over-personalize
Incorporate popularity, seasonality, and variety
Analyze costs vs financial opportunity
A/B test every new iteration
Start by:
Targeting topical newsletters
Personalizing section of existing newsletter
Setting up an preference centre

9. Questions? Thank you! Let’s connect!