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Automated Profiling Tools and Dynamic Profiling Simplify Segmentation

Profiling techniques allow email marketers to get granular with their segmentation, and to understand how subscriber's needs and interest may have changed. Engagement and Geographic filters as well as behavioral tracking give email marketers the data they need to engage each subscriber with relevant messages at a one-on-one level.

And put quite simply, the more engaged subscribers are, the higher their response rates and the longer their lifecycles. And the more likely they are to continue doing business with you. According to Matt Elliott, Director of Client Services at Listrak, in Listrak webinar "Factors that Impact Deliverability" - the life-cycle value of each active subscriber is $118.

Most email marketers know and adhere to basic best practices when they collect data from new subscribers. They know where each subscriber lives, what newsletter topic interests them most, what products or services they're looking for, and all of the other pertinent information they need to determine what information to send.

They offer sample emails and delivery schedules up front so subscribers know when and what to expect. They're asking if subscribers prefer text or HTML message. They're even following up immediately with automated confirmation emails before adding subscribers to their lists.

Confirming your subscribers want to join your lists through a double opt-in process can increase activity by 20 percent or more and greatly extends your retention rate. And sending an enrollment confirmation or your first message within 48 hours can make the difference between your prospect's staying engaged or forgetting about you and moving on to your competition.

What many email marketers are still not doing, however, is incorporating report data into subscribers' profiles, giving themselves a flow of behavioral information about their subscribers, without having to go back to the subscriber. Dynamic profiling uses data that is generated when subscribers actually read messages and click on links. This is called behavioral tracking.

Marketers can automatically update each profile with the information and can then segment their lists based on the new criteria. This allows them to send emails to the right subscribers at the right time with the right information, leading to higher open, click-through, and conversion rates and decreasing spam complaints.

Behavioral tracking of email campaigns lets marketers know which links recipients click on in an email message, providing them the opportunity to analyze the information that each subscriber is viewing and what information is ignored.

The next step for a marketer is to evaluate how the subscriber's actual online behavior compares with the information provided in the initial subscription phase, and to answer the question of whether or how the recipients' needs have changed over time.

With dynamic profiling, you not only view the subscribers' click histories, but you may profile and segment your lists based on the information as well. By analyzing behavioral profile data and reviewing purchase histories for your subscribers you are also identifying the attributes of your most engaged customers and learning which offers are likely to be most well received.

Listrak's email marketing solution allows you to add any contact-level report data directly to the contacts' profiles automatically. In addition to the time the message was opened, the information that was viewed, the time of the click, Listrak lets marketers segment subscribers on engagement data such the date of last open, click, and read, and geographic location data from country level down to zip code.

This wealth of information can then be used to create dynamic content campaigns or to simply segment your lists. To learn more about dynamic content campaign creation, read "Creating Relevant Email Campaigns with Dynamic Content" and "Dynamic Content Strategy: Five Essential Campaigns."

The new data will transform your profiles. Instead of just knowing that Sue Smith subscribed on November 24, 2007, and she lives in San Diego, California, and she is interested in receiving HTML messages on your company's hiking and camping equipment, you will now have all of that information, plus the fact that she's opened four of the past five emails between 12:00 and 12:30 on Tuesday afternoons, and she's read three articles on mountain biking and viewed product information on bike helmets and shoes. Sue never updated her profile or requested information on mountain bikes, but it is clear that she has developed an interest in that area. It is also clear that she reads her email during her lunch break on Tuesdays.

Knowing this information allows you to send Sue an email the following Tuesday morning with an offer on mountain biking equipment. Because the message will be delivered at the right time with the right information, the message will most likely lead to a sale.

Without this information, you would continue to send Sue offers on hiking and camping equipment until Sue stopped opening your messages and finally opted-out of your list or reported your messages as spam.

Statistics show that many users are using the Report Spam button as a way to unsubscribe from email newsletters that are no longer relevant. Too many complaints can damage your reputation and cause your messages to be blocked by ISPs. Dynamic profiling gives email marketers an easy way to make sure they deploy relevant email messages every time they send a message to a subscriber.

To learn more about creating relevant email campaigns download white papers on the topic, including "How to Make your Email Campaigns More Relevant."