Running a campaign

1. 1

   Segment before you write

   What you can say to forty sellers in one postal code is different from what you can say to four hundred contacts in general. The narrower segment almost always outperforms.

   Campaigns→
2. 2

   Write the subject line last

   It is the only part most recipients read. Say what is inside rather than teasing it — "3 Elm sold for $912,000" beats "You won’t believe what just sold".

   New campaign→
3. 3

   Send yourself the test and read it on a phone

   More than half of email is opened on a phone. Check the subject is not truncated mid-word, the first line makes sense as a preview, and the call to action is reachable with a thumb.

   Templates→
4. 4

   Watch the first hundred, then decide

   Opens tell you about the subject line; clicks tell you about the content; unsubscribes tell you about the segment. A high unsubscribe rate on a small send is a warning worth stopping for.

   Email→

What decides whether it arrives at all

• Authentication on your sending domain. Without SPF, DKIM and DMARC, bulk mail is filtered before anybody sees a subject line.
• A spam-complaint rate under 0.10%. Above that, the major providers begin throttling everything you send, not just the campaign that caused it.
• A real plain-text alternative. A message with an empty or placeholder text part reads as bulk to filters.
• A one-click unsubscribe in the headers, not only a link in the footer. Bulk senders are expected to support it.
• Consistency. A dormant domain that suddenly sends four thousand messages looks exactly like a compromised one.