E-mail certification can increase ROI

A good e-mail reputation is not just good manners. It's good for business, according to a new study by Goodmail and Jupiter Research.

The study, called "The ROI of Rendering,” included the responses of 202 senior level e-mail marketing executives, and found that e-mail marketers that use some kind of e-mail certification have an average of 38% more profits than those that do not.

“To begin with marketers that are accepted to send CertifiedEmail are subjected to vigorous standards that take into account the complaint rate,” said Jordan Cohen, Senior Director of Industry Relations at Goodmail.
“But it also allows e-mail marketers to get more sophisticated once they get past the concerns of e-mail deliverability and things like image rendering.”

In addition, the study found that e-mail marketers that use certification see e-mail as a larger part of their overall business.  Among those e-mail marketers who say e-mail drives 3.1%  or more of their company's online sales, 88% use certification, compared to 52% who don't.

“Marketers these days are worried about how to get the most out of this channel,” Cohen said. “Certification is like an insurance policy, when they are trying to get the most out of it.”

The study also shows that marketers using e-mail certification employ more sophisticated marketing tactics. For example, they are more likely to include four images or more in their e-mail templates and employ list segmentation and dynamically-generated content to construct their e-mails.

“E-mail marketers can really focus on being e-mail marketers with e-mail certification and do more A/B testing, more segmentation, do more sophisticated things with images and dynamic content and as a result, naturally with greater sophistication and the greater trust, there are greater conversion rates,” Cohen said.