{"id":6601,"date":"2024-02-23T16:32:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T16:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tup.kxe.temporary.site\/if-youre-marketing-on-email-island-dont-get-yourself-voted-off\/"},"modified":"2024-02-23T16:32:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T16:32:08","slug":"if-youre-marketing-on-email-island-dont-get-yourself-voted-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/okdesign.ca\/fr\/if-youre-marketing-on-email-island-dont-get-yourself-voted-off\/","title":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re marketing on ‘Email Island,’ don\u2019t get yourself voted off"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I\u2019m not a fan of the television show \u201cSurvivor,\u201d but let\u2019s just say it gets viewed in our home and leave it at that. Like a significant portion of television programming, \u201cSurvivor\u201d highlights the dark side of human existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contestants on the show make alliances, but as the number of contestants dwindles, allies are forced to turn against one another. Contestants watch each other\u2019s every move, trying to identify a weakness they can exploit. Eventually, the people you relied on will end up voting you off the island, then it\u2019s game over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you think \u201cSurvivor\u201d is somehow an allegory for life itself, it\u2019s time to make some new friends.<\/p>\n

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But what does this have to do with email marketing?<\/p>\n

Google and Yahoo established new restrictions for bulk email senders effective Feb. 1, 2024. We\u2019ve covered them extensively on MarTech<\/a> and worked with our expert contributors to shed light on the impact these restrictions will have on marketers.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re an email marketer, you\u2019re essentially on an island with other contestants just like the contestants on \u201cSurvivor.\u201d Here\u2019s the cast of characters for season one of \u201cEmail Island\u201d:<\/p>\n

Email marketers<\/h2>\n

As email marketing turns 25(ish), it remains an important channel for reaching customers and prospects. It\u2019s regularly used to communicate special offers, sale pricing and important information like holiday hours for physical retail locations. The best email marketers understand critical concepts like deliverability, their audience and the tools that bring it all together.<\/p>\n

The new restrictions from Google and Yahoo should not be a critical issue for experienced email marketers. Authentication and one-click unsubscribe options are not terribly difficult to implement if they weren\u2019t already routine.<\/p>\n

Strategies like segmentation and establishing preference centers help email marketers keep their messages targeted and help marketers deliver relevant messages to an engaged audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The email audience<\/h2>\n

They likely don\u2019t realize it, but the email-reading public doesn\u2019t often have a problem with email marketers like the ones I just described. They will usually tolerate messages that are the right message at the wrong time. They won\u2019t tolerate a flood of irrelevant or low-quality emails.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The email audience has a lot of power on Email Island. Reported spam rates (i.e., the number of times readers report your emails as spam) is one of the factors put forth by Google and Yahoo. Spam, in this case, is in the eye of the beholder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: Google annotations: The secret weapon email marketers should use in 2024<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Email providers<\/h2>\n

Email marketers are reliant on email providers to get messages to inboxes (or the Promotions tab). But when inboxes fill up with unrequested and irrelevant messages, the alliance between email marketers and email providers starts to break down.<\/p>\n

Eyeballs on the inbox are a revenue generator for email providers because email apps represent data collectors and advertising inventory. If the audience starts to ignore the inbox in favor of text messages<\/a> or in-app messaging, it hits companies like Google and Yahoo where it hurts most \u2014 right in the revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sales team<\/h2>\n

Because the restrictions from Google and Yahoo apply at the domain level, email marketers can play by all of the established rules and still get voted off the island by their own colleagues in sales. Talk about an inside job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was leading a demand gen team in early 2023 when the combination of sales engagement tools (think Salesloft and Outreach) combined with generative AI, which was newly available to the masses, to instantly create a 6x increase in the cold outreach I received from vendors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly the type of behavior that led to the bulk email restrictions in the first place. On the bright side, perhaps this email stuff will finally make sales-marketing alignment a reality. They need each other to play by the rules.<\/p>\n

How to win on Email Island<\/h2>\n

To win at \u201cSurvivor,\u201d contestants need to pacify some people, ally themselves with others and tolerate the rest. (OK, maybe it\u2019s more like life than I initially considered.)<\/p>\n

Pacify the email providers<\/h3>\n

The restrictions are table stakes for experienced email marketers, and it\u2019s clear what needs to be done with regard to authentication and one-click unsubscribe. Remember, this is all about money to the email providers, so pacifying them now doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re done. There\u2019s a very good chance there will be a season two and you\u2019ll have to deal with them again.<\/p>\n

Ally yourself with your audience<\/h3>\n

The Email Statistics Report for 2024<\/a> from ZeroBounce sheds some light on what the audience wants and doesn\u2019t want from email marketing. Among its findings:<\/p>\n