Archive for April, 2008
AOL Clarifies Its Requirements and Recommendations
Marc Kline - April 29th, 2008It really does make sense for ISPs to want to help email senders to get messages through to users who want them.
But “who wants them” is more complex than “anyone who filled out my sign up form” in an age where message relevancy, bounces, complaints, and authentication increasingly way in.
Just today, AOL announced two new or revised documents they’ve published that should give a firm understanding of both what they suggest strongly as well as what they require.
Your ESP should help you take care of most of the requirements they list, since most are technical or procedural in nature. A quick read of the suggestions validates recommendations you’ll find being expressed in the permission only email community over and over again.
It’s also nice to see where we’re on the same page with those who decide what happens with our email. This type of transparency helps everyone but those who don’t adhere to the standards.
Posted in : Email Deliverability | 9 Comments »Even Experienced Marketers Make Email Mistakes
Marc Kline - April 29th, 2008[Insert clever first paragraph here.]
OK, so that one was on purpose, but we all make mistakes at one point or another, like leaving some text only we were supposed to see. Even Seth Godin does.
No matter how experienced we are with something (or sometimes because we are so experienced with it), mistakes happen.
A mistake here and there is not a big deal! But one repeated over and over is. It’s how we learn from them, and what we do to prevent them from happening that separates the careful, successful newsletter publishers from the error-prone who see inconsistent results.
Posted in : Articles & Tips | 14 Comments »Vendor Recommendations for Small Businesses
Marc Kline - April 25th, 2008
We know frequently asked questions should be addressed, and one of ours has had to do with who we’d recommend for any number of services besides email marketing.
We’ve been hesitant to make all but a few recommendations because, frankly, there are a lot of options out there for services like web hosts, payment processors, and so on.
Well, after nearly a decade of trying and using several vendors ourselves and hearing plenty of reviews from our users and other email marketers, we’re ready to pull the trigger and share some carefully selected recommendations.
Posted in : Articles & Tips | 1 Comment »System Maintenance Friday at Midnight
Marc Kline - April 23rd, 2008
This Friday, April 25th beginning at Midnight ET, our internet service provider will be conducting maintenance work.
The website will not be available during a period of up to 1.5 hours. It has been indicated to us that it will likely take less time than this, but any work or activity in or from an account set for this time should be rescheduled.
In our history, this is the first time we’ve received notice of such necessary downtime, so future downtime for this reason seems very unlikely.
Thanks for your patience, and for choosing AWeber!
Posted in : Uncategorized | Comments OffComcast Added to Feedback Loop System
Marc Kline - April 23rd, 2008
Since our messages’ relevance to subscribers is crucial to the deliverability of our messages, knowing how they respond to them is important.
Opens and clicks tell us some things, like the rate at which our subscribers positively respond to messages. But at best, that’s only half of the story.
That’s why we’re glad to be a part of Comcast’s new feedback loop system.
Posted in : Email Deliverability | 2 Comments »Want Subscribers to Confirm? Get Creative!
Justin Premick - April 17th, 2008Would you spend money on pay-per-click ads (i.e. Google Adwords) and not bother to optimize your landing page content?
What about the price of your product, or incentives you use to build urgency — they affect your conversion rate, so you probably test them, right?
Now… what about your confirm rate? If you could do something to influence the percentage of people who confirm their signups to your email campaign, you would… wouldn’t you?
I recently came across an AWeber user who was frustrated with his confirm rate. As I talked with him, I realized that a lot of you may be missing the same opportunities to get more of your website visitors to confirm.
Posted in : Email Marketing | 54 Comments »Improve Your HTML Email for Gmail Subscribers
Marc Kline - April 16th, 2008This has been bugging me for a while.
Before sending, I test our blog newsletters to Gmail, along with other popular clients (generally a smart thing to do).
By and large, the messages tend to look fine, outside of one detail that might seem minor to some but meaningful others who spend some time thinking about optimizing emails for best results.
Take a look at a few of the recent tests in my inbox and see if you notice what I’m seeing:
Posted in : Articles & Tips | 19 Comments »Done Your Taxes? Audit Your Email Marketing.
Marc Kline - April 11th, 2008April 15th, the tax deadline is sneaking up on millions of Americans. Many of us are paying meticulous attention to detail to avoid the dreaded tax audit.
While we have our brains working these analytical gears, why not review our email campaigns for ways we can improve them in measurable ways? Here are 10 things to review once you’ve caught your breath:
Posted in : Articles & Tips | 3 Comments »Video: Build Your List Faster With a Lightbox Web Form
Justin Premick - April 8th, 2008As attendees to our web form webinar know, getting website visitors to notice your form is a critical part of building your list.
Many people supplement their inline web forms with various types of popup and popover/hover-style forms.
Today, we’re happy to announce a new type of popover form that AWeber users can use to grab visitors’ attention and present them with an opportunity to subscribe.
Read on for more details and a short video.
Posted in : New Features | 46 Comments »Are Your Signup Forms Usable?
Justin Premick - April 4th, 2008One of the things we like to stress around here when it comes to building a subscriber list is that “simple signup forms are good, and that you shouldn’t make signing up hard because then people… don’t sign up.
But sometimes it helps to hear what others outside the email marketing world have to say.
Our Director of Technology, Andy, passed me a blog post a while back that talks about usable registration forms.
The name of the post — “User Registration Pages Suck.” — might sound harsh, but it’s a helpful view into what your visitors may be thinking when they’re asked to sign up for something.
Posted in : Email Marketing | 18 Comments »« Previous Entries
