The standard email marketing rule is that shorter subject lines are usually better than longer ones. But like all rules, this one has its caveats and exceptions.
A new white paper from marketing services firm Epsilon analyzed subject lines from more than 568 million client emails to determine the influence of length, word order and content on open rates and clicks. The major takeaway:
2008 has come and gone and I have a folder loaded with a year’s worth of Sherpa articles I’ve written. Here are a few of my favorites, from which I’ve pulled out nuggets of wisdom to share.
Some search marketers have been complaining for a while that Google’s expanded broad-match program is sometimes *too* broad. They’re seeing ads matched to irrelevant terms, which drives up costs without boosting conversions.
But if you’re currently running special holiday-themed PPC ad groups, it’s particularly important to see whether broad-match miscues might be affecting your traffic. Read more…
The team at HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab recently released a study that analyzes Digg and YouTube submissions to determine the best time of day to post a link to Digg’s social bookmarking site to maximize exposure and popularity.
The complete report contains lots of formulas and charts for analytics experts to chew on. But we saw a quick takeaway for any publisher looking to use the two sites to promote their content, drive traffic or boost search engine visibility:
This tip came from Franke James, editor and founder of Office-Politics.com. When holding a meeting with your team, try using the “six thinking hats” model. It’s meant to build consensus and get people thinking in the same direction.
It also allows for optimistic ideas to grow, while letting negative ideas be aired, she says. It can control the naysayers in a group. Read more…
I am a huge fan of the AMC television series Mad Men — a drama about the ad men and women of Madison Avenue in the 1960s. That’s why a blog post about the shutdown of Mad Men Twitter feeds caught my eye.
Apparently, fans were posing as Mad Men characters, creating Twitter profiles for them, and posting regular Twitter updates. AMC asked Twitter to shut down the feeds, which angered fans. Read more…
Granted this is just one consumer’s complaint, but it’s something to think about. A consumer named “Rob” recently was quoted in a Consumerist post about how Amazon ruined his wife’s surprise Christmas gift this year by sending email recommendations about the present after he purchased it.
His wife actually saw a subject line referring to the surprise gift (a TomTom GPS) on the couple’s shared Google homepage enabled with an iGoogle email widget showing recent emails.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dennis Hernreich, EVP/COO/CFO, Casual Male Retail Group last week. We mostly discussed how the U.S.-based big and tall male apparel retailer is expanding into Europe, England in particular, and the lessons Hernreich has gained from the experience.
I love hearing about Google’s early days and its meteoric rise. When National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” segment ran an interview with New York Times columnist Randall Stross, author of Planet Google, I was all ears.
Much of the interview was old news for search marketers, but I heard some good tidbits:
Is this marketing genius? Pontiflex, the self-dubbed first open and transparent cost-per-lead (CPL) market, yesterday announced the revealing of a free Online Advertising ROI Calculator.
It allows online advertisers and marketers (Pontiflex’s target audience) to compare the costs of online advertising campaigns based on CPM, CPC, and CPL pricing models.
