Email Marketing Glossary: Email Terms to Know Before You Get Started

Author: sophiamyles | Posted: 17.05.2012

Now that we've covered some of the basics that you'll need to think about as you decide how to develop your email marketing program, it's time to give you the most comprehensive list that we can think of that includes all of the email terms that you'll need to know as you get into the details of learning about email marketing. You may want to refer back to this section at various points if you come across the email terms later in the book and are confused!

Above the Fold: When talking about a webpage or landing page, this is the portion of the page that appears in the user's web browser without the user having to scroll down. When talking about an email, this is the portion of the email that appears in the email client's preview pane without the user needing to scroll or open the full email.

Auto Responder: This is a series of emails, typically between ten and twenty, which are automatically triggered and automatically sent after a user signs up for an email list with no ongoing effort by the sender. They are covered in detail in section 2.3 of this book.

Black List: In email marketing, being on a black list means that an email service provider has identified you or your company as spam and will no longer allow your emails to be delivered to users' inboxes, instead sending them into the spam or junk folder.

Brand Building: This email term is any activity that serves to make a product or company's brand name more prominent among users or the public. In specific to email marketing, it refers to emails that do not overtly strive to sell a product or service but instead work to build a relationship between the customer and the brand or company.

Call-to-Action: Any portion of a landing page or email that drives a user to take a specific action, such as to click a link or to purchase a product or to provide an email address.

CAN-SPAM: The U.S. law which governs the rules of privacy and consumer rights regarding the receipt of promotional email. It is covered in detail in section 2.4 of this book.

Customer Acquisition: The process of finding, converting and acquiring new and potential customers who have not previously been exposed to your brand, product, company, or website.

Customer Loyalty: The process of building a relationship with customers so that they continue to patronize your brand, business, product, service, or website rather than switch to a competitor.

Customer Retention: The process of ensuring that customers who have made a first purchase are retained in such a way that they make future purchases, site visits, etc.

Customer Win-Back: The process of converting customers who have lapsed or abandoned your product, service, brand, website, or business back into active customers.

Direct Sales Emails: Marketing sales emails that have the sole purpose of using a single call-to-action to convert users to purchasing a product or service or filling out a lead generation form.

Double Opt-In: This form of opting in to an email mailing list requires a user to confirm twice that they want to be included on the email list. The first time is when they click their acceptance of the email terms and conditions and add themselves to the list. The second time is when they click a confirmation link sent to them in an email immediately after signing up. While this may reduce overall quantity of email sign-ups, it often increases overall quality of sign-ups.

Email Personalization: This is the act of using client information, such as a first name or user name on a site, to personalize an email template. Many email marketing platforms, including Comm100, offer this personalization feature which can increase user engagement and conversions.

Email Service Provider: Any company that provides email services is referred to as an email service provider (ie: Hotmail, Yahoo!, Netzero, Gmail, etc.)

From Field: The section of your email that identifies whom the email is from. To be CAN-SPAM complaint, this field must accurately represent the individual or business that sent the originating email.

Gmail: The third largest Email Service Provider in the world. Gmail typically strips out email formatting and images, so your email must look acceptable primarily as html text in order to appear appealing in Gmail.

Hotmail: Compared with other similar email terms for email service providers, this is the world's largest and first free one. Hotmail is known for having one of the most sensitive and restrictive spam filters of any of the email service providers.

HTML: Short for Hypertext Markup Language it is the programming language that web pages and email templates are typically written in. To be a proficient email or internet marketer, you should have an understanding of basic HTML, commands. Image Links: Clickable links that are shown using a gif, jpg or png image on a web page or in an email. While image links are quite effective on web pages, they are not recommended for email due to the fact that many email service providers do not show images within emails by default.

Junk Folder: The email term means the folder or section of an inbox where an email service provider sends emails that it considers to be spam or junk mail.

Newsletters: When referring to email marketing, these are emails that contain useful information and may or may not also include product, service, brand, company, or website promotions.

Opt-In & Opt-Out: These two email terms mean the process of giving consent to be added to an email list and the process of telling the sender of an email that you no longer wish to receive emails from them. To be CAN-SPAM compliant, you must offer all subscribers to or recipients of an email an opportunity to opt-out of future emails.

Outlook: The email reading program of the Microsoft Office suite. It is important because most email campaigns should be optimized to present the most important information in the space that is the size of a standard Outlook email box preview pane.

Pixels: A unit of measurement of length or height for web pages and graphics. For example, a typical email header graphic should not be more than 700 pixels in width.

Preview Pane: The section of an email that is seen in an email client before a user opens up the full email. Typically, this preview pane is no more than three inches in height and approximately seven hundred pixels in width.

Reply To Field: The field of your email that tells a user where to "reply to" or that is the address that fills out when a users clicks "reply to" in their email client. Typically, a marketing or mass email will not have an active reply-to address that goes anywhere. However, to be CAN-SPAM complaint, your email reply-to address must accurately reflect the company or individual who sent the original email.

Sender Reputation: A metric that is used by email service providers and that is tied to your domain name and the IP address from which you sent your email that allows the email service provider to assess the likelihood that your email is spam or wanted by recipients. Sender reputation is compiled using data that includes, but is not limited to, spam complaints, email open rates, unsubscribe requests, IP address, the size of your email list, and the quality of your email list.

Single Opt-In: Different from the email terms of opt-out and double opt-in, it's a method of opting into an email list where a user simply confirms that he or she wants to be on the email list when he or she signs up and is not required to click a second confirmation link in an email that is sent to him or her afterwards.

Spam: The common name for unwanted or unsolicited email that makes its way into a recipient's email box.

Spam Folder: The folder or section of an inbox where an email service provider sends emails that it considers to be spam or junk mail.

Spam Score: A variable ranking of your email, usually factored pre-send, which determines the likelihood that the email will be considered spam by email service providers. Factors that determine the spam score include the content of the email body, the content of the subject line, and a number of other smaller factors.

Subject Line: The subject line of your email that appears in a user's inbox when he or she receives your email. To be CAN-SPAM compliant, the subject line must accurately reflect what will be in the content of the email once opened.

Text Links: Links to web pages that are contained in text rather than in images. In email design, text links are preferable to image links since not all email service providers display images automatically in emails.

To Field: The field in your email that identifies the user or address that you are sending the email to.

Unsubscribe: Another email term for opting-out, or otherwise telling the sender of an email that you no longer wish to receive future emails. To be CAN-SPAM complaint, you must offer all recipients or subscribers a valid and easy way to opt-out or unsubscribe.

Welcome Email: The first email that a user or subscriber receives when he or she signs up for an email list. This email typically includes a confirmation link for the user to click as well as a request for the user to white list the sending address of the email.

White List: As one of the email terms, white list can mean two things. The first is that your domain or company is on the "white list" of an email service provider, which means that the email service provider always sends your company's emails to the inbox rather than the spam folder. The second meaning is that individual users have "white listed" your email for safe delivery into their individual inbox by adding your send-from address to their contact list or address book. It is typically considered an email best practice to always ask users to add your send-from address to their contact list or address book in your welcome email.

Yahoo! Mail: The second largest email service provider in the world. Yahoo! Mail is one of the few email service providers that typically displays images by default.


About Author:
Comm100 Email Marketing takes a look with you at newsletters and direct sales email in detail and helps you determine what type of email content you should send to for the various goals.Comm100 Email Marketing Provides powerful email marketing software that can help you develop and maintain good relationships with your customers and increase your sales revenue at a very low cost. For more information about us, please visit:http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/

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