Sixty eight percent of North American respondents to a recent study by Epsilon said the “from” line is the most important factor in determining whether or not they’ll open an e-mail, the marketing services provider reported.
This is an increase from 65% in 2005 and 60% in 2002, according to Epsilon.
This means that not only is the ‘from’ line the most important factor recipients take into consideration when deciding to open a message, it’s gaining in importance.
Put another way, it means that before people open an e-mail, they are increasingly considering whether they know and trust the sender, and whether they have had good experiences with that sender in the past.
As a result, a poorly performing e-mail campaign may have less to do with the specific campaign than with the sender’s program overall.
“As consumers are getting savvier about what e-mails they open and they’re trying to manage the increasing volumes in their inboxes, they are opening most those that they recognize are from a legitimate sender, a sender they have given permission to, or a brand that they have a relationship with,” said Kevin Mabley, senior vice president of strategic services for Epsilon.
He added: “The ‘from’ line is a good representation of your brand, and given the amount of money most companies spend building brand equity, they should leverage that in their ‘from’ lines. And, vice versa, they should deliver an experience that’s going to be up to par with what they [customers] expect in the offline world. Failing on that brand promise is a big letdown for consumers and, for better or worse, they can let you know very quickly by unsubscribing and reporting spam.”
In another Epsilon finding bolstering the importance of the “from” line, 76% of North American respondents defined spam as “e-mails from senders who are unknown to me.”
Moreover, the majority of North American respondents said that in their efforts to limit the amount of spam they receive, they unsubscribe (77%) use their junk e-mail folders (73%), hit the “report spam” button (66%) and use “block sender” functions (61%).
As a result, marketers who do not send “welcome” or “thank you” e-mails immediately to new registrants risk them having forgotten they signed up and taking one of the actions mentioned above—unsubscribing at best, lodging a spam complaint at worst.
Complaints are the No. 1 factor e-mail inbox providers use to determine whether or not to treat incoming e-mail as spam. According to conventional industry wisdom, a spam complaint rate of 0.5% or higher at an ISP will result in e-mail deliverability troubles.
“If the recipient doesn’t recall or recognize the sender, then the message is going to be treated as irrelevant, and irrelevance is certainly one of the things consumers consider when they think of spam,” said Mabley. “And usually the action someone takes is what we call ‘the lazy man’s unsubscribe,’ where they either drop you into a bulk folder and go dormant on your file or they hit that ‘report spam’ button because they think it’s the easiest way to unsubscribe. Recognizing and remembering the sender is a very important part of making sure someone considers your e-mail legitimate.”
In other findings, 67% of North Americans in the study said they opt-out of e-mail programs because the content is irrelevant, making it the No. 1 reason people unsubscribe, according to Epsilon.
Also, 64% said they opt out of e-mail marketing programs because they receive too many messages, making it the No. 2 reason people unsubscribe.
