As one of the oldest email providers, AOL remains a major inbox contender for marketers. In a session at EEC this year, Rock discussed how to optimize email messages for AOL.
He recommended following certain best practices to improve deliverability rates. These include maintaining a clean list and avoiding pitfalls like excessive font colors and unformatted HTML.
Optimize Your Emails for AOL
AOL is a leading email provider for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers. Since they often have strict delivery standards and personalization requirements, it’s important to optimize your email messages for this platform.
One of the key things to do is ensure that your email messages are responsive and optimized for mobile. Many AOL users access their emails from their phones, so it’s crucial to make sure your emails are easy to read on these devices. It’s also important to include a clear and concise email signature in your emails.
Another way to improve your email deliverability is to monitor and act on spam complaints. AOL includes a feedback loop that sends you information about each spam complaint submitted by an AOL user. It’s important to respond quickly to any spam complaints that you receive.
Lastly, you should also make it easy for users to unsubscribe from your list. This can be done by providing a simple, one-click unsubscribe option in your email messages. It’s also important to make sure that your email program can track when an email has been opened. This is important because some ISPs, including AOL, don’t report open rates to you.
Optimize Your Subject Lines
A compelling subject line can be a great way to grab recipients’ attention and encourage them to open your email. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your subject line should be relevant and convey the content of your email without being misleading. Subject lines that promise too much or fail to deliver on their promises may be a turnoff for readers, leading them to delete your message or mark it as spam.
Including your brand name or logo in your subject line can help establish trust and familiarity with recipients. You can also use subject lines that ask a question or pose an intriguing statement to inspire curiosity and intrigue. It’s also helpful to include a call to action in your subject line, as this can be an effective way to drive click-through rates.
Ultimately, optimizing your subject lines requires thoughtful experimentation and ongoing analysis. Using tracking and analytics tools can help you identify which elements of your subject lines resonate with your audience the most, and avoid spammy tactics that can hurt your sender reputation and deliverability rates.
Optimize Your Emails for Mobile
With more than 345.2 million mobile phone users in the United States, it’s essential to have emails that are optimized for smartphones. Unoptimized emails can have a negative impact on user experience and engagement, as well as conversion rates.
Keep in mind that mobile devices have limited screen space. This means that you need to make sure your subject line and preheader text is short, enticing, and complements your email content. You also want to optimize your images for mobile by reducing their size and adding alt text.
Another important consideration is that your email needs to be easily navigated on a smartphone. For example, your email should have a clear call to action, as well as a prominent link to unsubscribe or change preferences.
Finally, remember that mobile users often delete messages with cluttered texts and buttons, or ones that take too long to download. To avoid this, ensure your email is simple and clean, with plenty of white space. Also, don’t add too many links or calls to action. This can confuse or overwhelm your readers and may result in them clicking the wrong thing in haste.
Optimize Your Emails for Click-Through Rates
One of the most important things you can do to optimize your emails for click-through rates is to clearly communicate the purpose of each email. This dictates everything else you do, including what images you use, the copy you write, and your call-to-actions (CTA). By crystallizing the purpose of each email, subscribers are less prone to getting lost and will be more likely to take the action you want them to take.
Another way to improve your click-through rates is to make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices. Research from Get Response shows that emails that aren’t optimized for mobile receive lower click-through rates than those that are.
Finally, it’s critical to use a single CTA in each email. Using multiple CTAs can confuse subscribers and lead them to stray from the intended goal of your email. In addition, a single CTA can help increase click-through rates by up to 371%. This is because it encourages readers to act quickly before an offer expires. You can also increase your click-through rates by sending emails to individuals on your list based on their interests. This will make your emails more relevant to each subscriber and is an excellent way to build relationships with them.
Optimize Your Emails for Open Rates
Email open rates are one of the most important metrics for marketers. They indicate how many of your emails are actually making it into your subscribers’ inboxes, rather than landing in their spam folders. A low email open rate can lead to poor deliverability and even damage your sender reputation.
There are a few key ways to improve your email open rates. The first is to optimize your subject line. Make sure it is concise and compelling, as well as relevant to your subscriber’s interests. Subject lines that are too long will get cut off on mobile devices, so keeping them below 50 characters is ideal. Subject lines personalized with a recipient’s name have also been shown to increase email open rates.
Another way to improve your email open rates is to send emails at the right time. For example, if your target audience is composed of stay-at-home parents, then sending an email after school or during the weekends might be more effective. Additionally, email marketers have found that using humor or a call-to-action in the subject line can increase open rates. You can also buy AOL email accounts in bulk for email marketing from PVAAccountsBuy.