While every one of us who lives with a daily onslaught of hundreds of emails ranging from “That’s the email I was waiting for!”  to “Super – someone hit reply-all again about the office potluck”  is excited about this new feature that might make our digital day-to-day easier, we are left wondering – what does this mean for email marketing? Will it now be even harder for marketers to get to the inbox at Gmail? What can you do to ensure your campaigns hit the priority inbox?

Most of these are exercises in being a better email marketer in general, but here are a few things you can do to give your campaign a shot at making it to the top of the list:

1. Write engaging, compelling content
   ISPs are starting to look at engagement now more than ever, so the first step is sending an email your readers actually want to read! Since priority inbox is based on reading behaviours, if your subscribers consistently open your emails and spend time reading them and clicking links, the likelihood that you’ll hit their priority inbox or be “starred” to read later is much higher.
2. Use a real From address
   See our recent post about why using a noreply@ email address is ridiculous for more details, but the general rule of thumb here is to actually encourage readers to send YOU feedback by responding to YOUR email. Communicating with your customers one on one will add you to their Address book and increase the likelihood that your next campaign will get where it’s supposed to. At the very least, you should encourage readers to add you to their Address book or Contact list by including something in each mailing – whether they are sending you feedback or not.
3. “Star for Later”
   Add a “star this email to read it later” call to action in the pre-header of your email for users reading messages in Gmail.

Engagement and “Contact List” or “Address Book” status are more important now that ever before – and not just for Gmail. Hotmail also gives its users the ability to show only emails from people in your Contact List with the click of a button and it is only a matter of time before other ISPs follow suit. To read more on Hotmail’s new “Sweep” feature, click here.

But what you might now know is that Litmus also has a free tool that lets you preview what your subject lines look like. This easy to use tool lets you check on the one of the key influences of your open rate (can they read it? Is it too long? Does it look completely weird on a blackberry?) without having to hit send and then painstakingly preview it on every device, in every email account you own.

We used it for an upcoming edition of our CakeMail customer newsletter, and it was a huge help to be able to preview what subject lines looked like in everything from basic Outlook to gmail all the way to previews for blackberry and iPhone.

While this tool won’t help you to decide which subject line is most effective (you can try our A/B test feature for that), it does help you to get a sense of whether your readers see some, or all, of that subject line you’ve been agonizing over. Does it all fit? Does it turn ‘Newsletter’ into ‘Newsle’ because there’s not enough room? Though these types of tests focus on small details, the small details can sometimes have a huge impact.

With such a range of characters supported in various email clients (25 characters and up) this is the perfect “let me just check to see if that works” tool to add to your marketing toolkit.

If you’re working on an upcoming campaign, you can try it for yourself!

And of course, if you’re a CakeMail customer and you’re not yet using Litmus as an Add-On to test all of this and more, adding it is easy. Just log in to your account, and you’ll see it under your “Marketplace” tab. There’s an additional monthly fee to add Litmus to your CakeMail account, but it’s definitely worth it.

Access data from CakeMail through the Webhooks in two easy steps:

1. Create a Script on Your Server

The script can be in any language. CakeMail will post a JSON to this script whenever there is an action to your CakeMail list such as a subscription, an unsubscribe request, a spam complaint, an update to the user record, etc.

Here is the format of the posted JSON:

message => array(action, list_id, client_id, record => array(record_id, email, [fields]))

2. Set up Your CakeMail List
   Once you have your script, the only thing left is to setup your CakeMail list so that it starts sending to your script. To do so, you need to call the function

   List.Setinfo with the parameter ‘webhook’ => ‘[URL to your script]‘.

And you’re done! Now your list will be dynamically updated every time something changes. To learn more about this kind of functionality, or about integrating the CakeMail API with your own application, visit the CakeMail Developer Community.

Check out our latest job postings linked below and see if you might be a great fit.

Technical Support Specialist

Junior Software Engineer, Front-end

Senior Software Engineer, Front-end

If you’re a marketer, chances are you probably like data. A lot. Data that tells you what people want, what links they click, what pages they visit, how long they stay and helps you make decisions. Without data, you’re left to follow your gut instinct – which is a fantastic plan, if you are an exact replica of your audience (in which case, your gut is probably right). If you’re *not* your audience, you might want to try this instead: A/B Split Testing!

A/B Split Testing for email marketing lets your test your two favourite options for one element of a campaign – email from name & address, email subject line, or your email’s content – with a real audience, and then takes care of sending the most successful version to the rest of your list.

Since this great new feature is part of the all-new CakeMail 3, we thought we’d give you a little walk through to show how easy it is to set up and run an A/B Split campaign.

Create A New Campaign

To get started, you’ll want to log in to CakeMail and click on the “Campaigns” tab. This is where you’ll create all of your email campaigns, and also where you can access easy reporting.

Click on new campaign, and select the A/B Split option from the list the pops up.

The first thing you’ll be asked to do to set up your campaign is to select the contact list you want to use for your A/B Test campaign. If your contacts have already been uploaded, you can just select it from the list, or click “Create Contact List” to add your contacts to a new one.

Setting Test Parameters and Creating Content

With your contact list selected, you get to dive straight into the best part in Step 2 - selecting what to test on – and deciding what size your sample groups will be (and of course, how to determine which option is the winner!). You can set your test up for two different Sender Names / Sender Emails, two different subject lines, or different email content.

To select the test groups, click on and move the slider until groups A and B are the size you’d like – 20% is typically a good default for each A or B test as it leaves 60% of your list to receive the winning email, but this always depends on the size of your list.

To determine the criteria for the “winner” you can choose between the email that’s opened the most, or the email that has the highest click rate (shown above as Most clicks). Set the length of your test period (or how long you’re willing to wait before the winning email gets selected) to be anywhere from 1 hour to 7 days. As soon as that time period is up, whichever email is in the lead based on the criteria you selected will be sent to the remaining portion of your list.

Now you get to start creating your content. If your test is based on subject lines, or sending names / emails, you’ll add your Version A and Version B text in Step 3 (Campaign Settings). Below is an example of an A/B Split Test we set up to test two different subject lines for a CakeMail newsletter:

Once you’ve set up all of the details & settings for your campaign, it’s content time! This example of Step 4 shows what content entry would look like with just one content version when you’re running a test on subject lines or from information. If you were running your test on content, you’ll have four options – HTML A, HTML B, Plain Text A and Plain Text B.

There are a few ways to build your campaign content – you can use our built in WYSIWYG editor, import a template from your template library, or cut and paste the HTML code from an external file.

Testing & Scheduling

Once your content is created, your settings are all set, it’s time to send some quick tests (Step 5) to make sure that your emails look great, links point to the right places, and there are no obvious issues with spam filters or content that might prevent your email from getting delivered.

Basic testing is available by default and lets you add a test recipient to send a copy of your email to. Choose which campaign (A or B) you want to send from the drop down menu, and select whether you want to send an email with merged HTML & Text or two separate emails. Click “Send Test” and check that inbox!

Extra functionality like Litmus Design & Spam tests to flag any content that might cause issues and test your email’s design in a variety of email clients can also be used. It goes a long way towards making sure that your campaign looks great in every email client, and you can add this service to your account from the Marketplace for an additional monthly fee.

Tests perfect? Ready to send? Step 6 goes over all of the important last minute details before you schedule your campaign to send at a later date, or schedule it to Send Right Now.  Select the right details, hit Schedule and that’s it! Now you can just lean back and relax, but don’t count on taking it easy for long – the minute your campaign is sent there are reports to check on!

After You Hit Send

Once you’ve sent your campaign, you are able to view reports for campaign A and campaign B, keeping tabs on clicks and opens, and monitoring which one is in the lead.

Of course, watching the results come in is great, but if the full length of time for your test hasn’t elapsed yet and you can already see a clear winner (or you just want to override the testing and send your favourite version), you can click on the “Pick A Winner” button in your report and your campaign will send immediately instead.

With your winning campaign heading to the inboxes of the rest of your list, you’re now able to take a look at reports for each part of the campaign – tests A & B along with the final results.

That’s it! We’ve just created an A/B Split Test Campaign from start to finish. Now that you know how to run one yourself, you just need to decide what you want to test. Here are some quick ideas for experiments you could run:

• What subject lines work best? Is a hard sell effective? What about a special offer?
• Should your subject line include a date? Be short and sweet? Be long and descriptive?
• Should your company newsletter come from a real person’s name? Your company name?
• What if you change the layout of your email? Is one column better? Two? Text? HTML?
• How effective is your new template design versus the old version?

These options are just the beginning for tests you could run with this new feature. Have you already seen great A/B Split Test results? Leave a comment below to share your success!

If you want to read more about new features in CakeMail 3, visit the CakeMail: Tiramisu microsite for a feature overview, or view other blog posts in the CakeMail 3 category. Like what you see and need an email marketing solution for your agency? Sign up for a free trial today!

As if that wasn’t enough, did you know you are hurting your delivery at the same time?

Using a noreply@ address is not a good idea for the following reasons:

• Your email is more likely to be flagged as spam.
• The message you’re sending to your subscribers (those current or potential customers) is that you’re not interested in receiving their email, even though it’s ok for you to email them. Is that really the message you want to send?
• You’re missing great (and sometimes crucial) customer feedback – user comments, unsubscribes – that can help you improve your marketing efforts (and see more return on investment).
• When someone replies to your emails, you’re likely to be automatically added to their contact or “Safe Sender” list at the same time which means all your future emails you send them will go straight to their inbox. Replies should be encouraged!
• Modern webmail & mobile email clients show people more than the name of the sender – they show your email address as well. Would you open email that was from noreply@domain.com?
• Using a noreply@ address has been shown to decrease open rates, increase unsubscribe and complaint rates.

Compelling evidence to give up the noreply@ address, right? Here’s what the Pros have to say:

The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business

“Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.” Learn more here.

MAAWG Sender Best Communications Practices:

“Senders should have the capability to process email-based unsubscribe requests. Senders should also consider making offline unsubscribe mechanisms available. The sender’s ‘From’ or ‘Reply-to’ email address should also be able to receive unsubscribe requests, unless otherwise indicated.” Learn more here.

Email marketing can be a great way to keep your customers engaged and foster two-way communication, but if you’re using a noreply@ address, your conversations will always be one-sided.

If you are using a noreply@ address, it’s time to change. Start by sending an email informing your customers you will be changing your address shortly and encourage them to add the new one to their Safe list. Tell them you welcome their feedback with open arms and show them they actually mean something!

Bye for now,

Kevin

PS: This is one of many topics we will be covering in our soon to be released CakeMail Deliverability Whitepaper – so stay tuned!

Now as soon as you log in, whether you’re an agency/reseller, or an end user, you can instantly see the latest updates about your account without digging around in a reporting tool that’s hard to get to, or having to export Excel files and turn them into useful charts and graphs yourself.

View the number of emails sent over time, check out overall campaign performance data for all of your clients – for this month, or any month over past year! All new charts let you keep an eye on significant trends and vital performance data (seeing high levels of unsubscribe requests or spam reports over a particular period, for instance), and new abilities to see data for a specific date range give you the ability to tap into information that makes your job even easier.

You can also see the last five campaigns that were sent from your system at a glance – who sent them? to what list? to how many? – and get a quick campaign preview or performance update. For agencies and high volume senders this feature makes sure you can always know what’s happening right now – an effortless way to stay on top of things without having to lift a finger.

If you want to read more about new features in CakeMail 3, visit the CakeMail: Tiramisu microsite for a feature overview, or view other blog posts in the CakeMail 3 category. Like what you see and need an email marketing solution for your agency? Sign up for a free trial today!

We’re SO excited to announce that the latest version of CakeMail (we’ve been affectionately referring to this version as the Tiramisu edition) is available TODAY. Yippee! This new version has been many months in the making and now it’s ready for a public unveiling.

There are so many new great new features like all new dashboards full of data,

an add-on marketplace with all sorts of extras,

automagic (and exceptionally advanced) branding,

not to mention a beautiful new interface, new types of campaigns (like A/B split tests and the ability to use dynamic content), improved user management and so many more. It’s just not possible to tell you about all of them here right this instant, so instead, click on over to the CakeMail 3 site where you can learn all about ‘Tiramisu’ and sign up for your very own trial account.

You can also have a peek at some of the feature-by-feature blog posts we’ve been writing about CakeMail 3 features – there are many more on the way!

• Easy Template Management
• A Brand-ed New User Interface

Are you already a CakeMail customer? Check your inbox for an email with links to your very own CakeMail 3 interface and upgrade instructions. And if you’re a trial user, log in and click on the “Upgrade to CakeMail 3″ button to access the all-new interface and new features right away.

If you haven’t tried CakeMail yet, now is a great time to check it out. Sign up for a free trial today!

A new template directory makes it easy to scroll through your template library to manage or select templates.

And our new organization tools – like categories – make your templates easy to find, and easy to share. You can even share only specific templates with specific clients and set permissions so that can modify and tweak the templates as they need to.

And for those who use templates created by an agency (or you’re an agency that creates templates for your clients), prefer to write code & design emails in other tools, or just upload everything all at once, you’ll love our new “Upload From .Zip” capabilities. Put your HTML file and images in a single zip file and upload the file in one fell swoop.

So much easier than uploading handfuls of images one at a time – and cutting and pasting (and triple-checking!) that HTML.

If you want to read more about new features in CakeMail 3, visit the CakeMail: Tiramisu microsite for a feature overview, or view other blog posts in the CakeMail 3 category. Like what you see and need an email marketing solution for your agency? Sign up for a free trial today!

Since we love design so much, we’re excited to share a few of the more aesthetic CakeMail Version 3 secrets we’ve been keeping.

We’ve been working on this new version of CakeMail for quite some time now, and one of the key new features that’s not all about ‘easier client management’, ‘more fancy-schmancy reports’ or a ‘new kind of email’ is a new and improved sleek, beautiful, more intuitive user interface. For our customers and for their end users, we felt that it was SO important that the user interface bring smiles to people’s faces that we really spent time making sure we got it right.

From default sign in screens to dialog popups, to delicate shadowing on text fields, we took great care with every element.

The best part of this new UI is that it’s the perfect platform for our customers to build on. CakeMail has always been customizable, but this time around we have extended the customization to almost every element for our advanced users and simplified it for basic users who just want to add a logo, pick a few colors and move on to more important things, like creating email campaigns.

Now when you set up your CakeMail account you can choose from three different types of branding:

Logo & Basic Colors
Upload a logo, select from default color schemes, build a theme based on your logo colors (or your corporate style guide’s color rules).

Advanced Colors
Set a color for everything – from text colors to tab gradients to drop shadows you can define what every last thing looks like.

CSS
If you’re a CSS whiz you can whip up your own style sheet for all of the elements of the site. Prefer nice square corners over rounded ones? Something lacking a shadow or an interactive hover state? Add it yourself with a custom stylesheet or rules you define and then save within your site settings.

We’ll dive into more detail about Advanced Colors and CSS Branding in the new few days – they deserve posts in and of themselves!

If you want to read more about new features in CakeMail 3, visit the CakeMail: Tiramisu microsite for a feature overview, or view other blog posts in the CakeMail 3 category. Like what you see and need an email marketing solution for your agency? Sign up for a free trial today!