There’s only one month left until the busiest online shopping days of the year - Black Friday and Cyber Monday. To prepare you for ultimate success during this season, we’ve partnered up with deliverability expert Yanna-Torry Aspraki from Email Consul. With over 10 years of industry know-how, Yanna-Torry will share her best strategies and practices for successfully managing volume spikes, and maintaining a clean email list. 

In 2022, Adobe Analytics showed that across Cyber Week, online shoppers spent an impressive $35.3 billion, which is a 4% increase from the previous year. With this growth expected to continue into 2023, these highly anticipated events bring about a surge in email marketing campaigns, aiming to capture the attention of eager shoppers. 

However, managing the increased volume of emails and ensuring list quality become paramount challenges during this period. Implementing best practices to maximize the chance of your emails landing in your recipients' inboxes should always be a top priority for any sender. Here are some tips and tricks to help you enhance your deliverability and maximize the impact of your Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaigns. 

Increase your volumes gradually and segment

First, let's look at how gradually increasing your sending volume and effective segmentation can significantly impact your deliverability. To maintain high deliverability, it is recommended you:

• Gradually increase your sending volume months in advance
• Avoid sudden spikes in volume that can harm sender reputation
• Focus on high-converting subscribers rather than inundating everyone on your list with emails
• Choose a subset of engaged subscribers and slowly add extra emails so that ISPs won't be surprised when content shifts towards Black Friday deals.

Segmentation plays a vital role in email deliverability by allowing you to divide your subscriber list into targeted groups based on specific criteria. Segmentation helps you send tailored and relevant content to each segment, which, in turn, boosts engagement, resulting in higher open and click-through rates. By personalizing emails based on individual interests, you not only reduce the risk of spam complaints but also maintain a positive sender reputation. Understanding your subscribers' preferences helps optimize sending frequency and facilitates successful A/B testing—all essential steps to refine your email marketing strategy for improved deliverability and overall performance.

To make the most of segmentation for your email campaigns, consider implementing the following list segmentation:

Engagement levels: Categorize subscribers based on activity (opens, clicks, conversions) to tailor content accordingly. For highly engaged subscribers, send exclusive offers or leverage their positive engagement for reviews and referrals. For less engaged subscribers, focus on re-engagement campaigns.

Purchase history: Group subscribers based on past purchase behavior to send tailored offers and recommendations. Identify cross-selling or upselling opportunities for maximum impact.

Demographics and preferences: Collect data on subscriber demographics, preferences, and interests. Use this information to craft personalized emails that resonate with specific segments.

List hygiene and data cleansing

Maintaining a healthy and engaged email list, especially during high sending periods, is crucial for optimizing your email marketing strategy, deliverability, and sender reputation. Poor list hygiene is a common issue, and relying solely on open and click rates is a misconception. To ensure honest engagement and optimize email performance, make sure to:

• Identify and remove inactive or unengaged subscribers who are unlikely to engage with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns
• Implement best practices by setting criteria for inactivity, such as a lack of opens or clicks within a specific timeframe
• Segment your list based on engagement levels and target subscribers who haven't engaged in an extended period.

Implementing re-engagement campaigns

It's important to re-engage with inactive subscribers regularly to improve deliverability, encourage higher engagement metrics and boost conversion rates.

While it might be too late for a re-engagement campaign in time for this Black Friday, it's never too early to start planning for the next one (Did anyone say December is just around the corner?). Consider this Black Friday as the perfect opportunity to analyze your list’s success and tailor your future re-engagement strategies accordingly for optimal targeting.

You can craft compelling campaigns by:

• Identifying reasons for disengagement, such as content relevance or infrequent emails
• Tailoring campaigns accordingly, using personalized emails with enticing offers, exclusive content, and requests for feedback
• Providing incentives to encourage re-engagement and highlighting the value of remaining an active subscriber.

Successful re-engagement can improve list health and potentially convert inactive subscribers into loyal customers who actively participate in your email campaigns over time.

It’s time to maximize your email marketing success

By prioritizing the above strategies, you can maximize the impact of your email marketing efforts during these critical periods and carry your success forward to all your future campaigns. They may seem like simple steps to take, but they are key to remaining proactive in maintaining your sender reputation.

Email infrastructure is the backbone of these strategies, underpinning your ability to manage volume, segment effectively, maintain list hygiene, and execute re-engagement campaigns. A flexible and modern email infrastructure will ensure that your messages are sent and received in a way that enhances your deliverability and the overall success of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. To discover Halon Engage - Halon’s leading email solution for large-scale senders, click here. 

About Yanna-Torry Aspraki

Yanna-Torry Aspraki is a deliverability specialist and CRO of EmailConsul and EspecialMail. As an award-winning thought leader and deliverability specialist in the email industry, she uses her expertise to train companies of all sizes to improve their deliverability and sender reputation. She has one mission: simplifying and democratizing deliverability.

YT's strategic thinking and analysis of performance data has led to a track record of successfully increasing email inboxing rates, sender reputation, and maximizing outreach. As a member of EmailConsul's executive team, she drives the company's mission to make deliverability tools more accessible and reliable.

yannatorry.com • emailconsul.com • especialmail.com