Dec 14 2009
Origins Tests the Value of Whitelisting Text
Nowadays, many email marketers fill the pre-header area of their emails with “click to view” and message summary information that occupies the prime viewing areas of their messages. Due to this congestion at the top of messages, some companies have begun omitting whitelisting instructions due to a lack of available real estate within the pre-header area of their emails.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term whitelisting, it refers to the process of adding an email address to a list of contacts that the user deems are acceptable to receive email from. This prevents approved email marketing messages from being delivered to the trash or spam folders. Frequently, whitelisting text is phrased in the following manner: “To ensure delivery to your inbox, please add email@company.com to your address book.”
To determine whether including whitelisting instructions in the pre-header area of emails added value to their email program, Origins Natural Resources recently teamed up with Experian CheetahMail to test the effects of including whitelisting instructions in their email template for new subscribers.
Our most recent case study, “Origins uses testing and deliverability best practices to improve email performance,” is based on testing conducted over a 5 month period. It shows how a group of new subscribers receiving emails featuring whitelisting instructions in the pre-header area were more engaged and more likely to convert than those new subscribers whose emails did not include whitelisting instructions. Notably, the group that continually saw whitelisting instructions had unique click rates that were 3.24% higher and transaction rates that were 4.51% higher than the control group that did not receive whitelisting instructions in their emails.
So remember, it’s never too late to get back to the basics of email marketing – follow established best practices such as including whitelisting instructions in your email template…especially for new subscribers!
Whitelisting requests are vital early on in an email relationship, but after not long it’s best to drop whitelisting requests from your preheaders. If you’ve asked subscribers to whitelist you 10 times and they haven’t yet, you’re most likely wasting your breath continuing to ask them. But, of course, it’s worth testing with your subscribers to see where the cutoff is.
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