Email marketing in the recent years is more about sending relevant and targeted content rather than sending simple batch-and-blast emails. It is no more a secret that targeted content boosts engagement and drives better results. While email automation and personalization have helped marketers in creating content that is tailored to each individual subscriber, DYNAMIC CONTENT makes it more relevant.
speaks to experts from the industry who have been using dynamic content extensively in their email marketing activities. We are thankful to our experts from PowerInbox, NiftyImages and Movable Ink who have shared their first-hand experience and valuable insights to help you effectively implement dynamic content in your email campaigns to boost sales.
Meet the experts!
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| Jeff Kupietzky CEO | PowerInbox | Kevin Linden Co-Founder | NiftyImages | Kristen Dunleavy Senior Content Marketing Manager | Movable Ink |
The experts take you through:
- The common factors one must consider while implementing dynamic content in their campaigns
- The common mistakes to avoid
- Tips for those who want to Explore with dynamic content in their email campaigns
- The future of dynamic content in email marketing
 | Jeff KupietzkyCEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Jeff has led PowerInbox since 2012, shaping the company into a leader in real-time email monetization. Jeff began his career as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., and later held leadership positions with X1 Technologies, Digital Insight (Intuit), Siebel Systems (Oracle), and Loudcloud/Opsware (Hewlett-Packard) and also as CEO of Oversee.net. A frequent speaker at Digital Media conferences, he has also been featured on CNN, CNBC, and in many news and business magazines. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jkupietzky | ||
How is Dynamic Content going to revolutionize email marketing in the coming days?
Jeff Kupietzky: We believe Emails will move from being one-to-many, static, out-of-date and uninteresting to fully real-time, dynamic, personalized and engaging. Just like the Web has evolved from original static, brochure-ware, so too emails will become more relevant and engaging. This will enable marketers to get the right message to the right user at the right time.
What are the success factors of using Dynamic Content in email campaigns?
Jeff Kupietzky: We believe tracking Time in Email and then Click-through rate is the best way to measure engagement and as a predictor for increasing revenue. The more time your user spends in the email, the more likely they will click and the more clicks, generally, the more revenue you can earn. To drive these engagement metrics, we recommend focusing on use cases that first capture a user’s attention such as Video, Carousels, Popup windows and other items with animation.
Then, look for relevant context – does the message reflect the geography, device or time of day for the user. This will make the email more personalized and likely to be interacted with. Finally, focus on the email interactivity and allow users to click on an email to become more involved. Our clients have seen on average 20% lift in click-through rates when using Dynamic content.
What key customer data according to you should be considered to create dynamic content, and why?
Jeff Kupietzky: We think there are stages:
1) Objective, contextual data – this comes from a user when he/she opens the email. The location, device and time all can be used to change the email
2) First party data – this can come from their ESP and can be used to change content according to certain attributes like what customer segment or gender
3) Personalized click history – we can assist tracking clicks by users and showing personalized content to each user
What are the common mistakes marketers tend to make when dealing with Dynamic Content and how to avoid them?
Jeff Kupietzky: They might pay too much to a vendor! We recommend shopping around for the best value. Another mistake is expecting emails to appear the same on all devices. We allow clients to support multiple clients even with different experiences.
Any Expert tips you’d like to share for marketers looking to EXPLORE Dynamic Content in Emails for the first time.
Jeff Kupietzky: Just do it! Best is to try everything and continue to test with a control to see the lift from using Dynamic Content.
 | Kevin LindenCo-Founder | |
|---|---|---|
| In 2002 and straight out of college, Kevin co-founded the email service provider EmailDirect.com. He was able to build that business to over 500 monthly clients and 1 Billion emails sent a month. After a successful exit in 2015, he started a new company NiftyImages.com. NiftyImages offers tools for email marketers to build dynamic images such as Personalized Images, Live Social Feeds, Real-Time Images and Countdown Timers. They currently have over 10,000 users and direct integrations into multiple ESP platforms. Follow Kevin on Twitter: @NiftyImages1 | ||
How is Dynamic Content going to revolutionize email marketing in the coming days?
Kevin Linden: I think that email is going to become more fun and way more engaging. With more companies adopting real-time images, gamification and pushing the limits of what can be done in email, I think subscribers are going to start expecting more. In the coming years, I think a good portion of email campaigns will be showing a unique version of that email for each subscriber, based on any data they can get their hands on.
What are the success factors of using Dynamic Content in email campaigns?
Kevin Linden: I think with dynamic content successful campaigns are going to be redefined. Companies are able to not just push a variety of personalized products/offers, but also objectives that go beyond just open rates and a good CTR. While those are nothing to ignore, we see a lot of companies using dynamic content to push more interaction towards loyalty programs, social media engagement and using email as a source of content (current prices, product availability, live news, scores, stats, etc.).
What key customer data according to you should be considered to create dynamic content, and why?
Kevin Linden: Location – being able to target based on physical factors such as weather, distance to a location, and also the economic climate for a particular region.
Purchase Behavior and Frequency/Loyalty – you don’t want to treat your top purchasers the same way that you treat a one-off customer or new signup. With dynamic content, you have the ability to customize the message per recipient, which could be building loyalty and brand recognition for some, versus sales or content interaction for others.
What are the common mistakes marketers tend to make when dealing with Dynamic Content and how to avoid them?
Kevin Linden: The biggest mistake I see is being complacent with your email design and strategy. If you aren’t trying new techniques or implementing new trends, you are becoming stale to your customers.
You don’t want to be on the
wrong side of the stats that says, 68% of marketers say personalization based on behavioral data has a high impact on ROI, yet only 19% do it. – Hubspot
Don’t think that a recommendation engine is going to save your email strategy. Way too many companies like to use the term AI as a product description and you should be wary. As much as you may like the thought of Watson (IBM) being on your team, he probably isn’t.
Any Expert tips you’d like to share for marketers looking to EXPLORE Dynamic Content in Emails for the first time?
Kevin Linden: Try something you haven’t done before. Don’t get caught following your competitors and always playing catch up, be the innovator.
You can easily test dynamic content without making a huge investment in time or money. There are plenty of solutions which allow you to test and get real results before going all in for the year.
There are lots of free APIs (news, sports, weather, finance) which can supply you with data for real-time images/content.
 | Kristen DunleavySenior Content Marketing Manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Kristen is the head of the content marketing program at Movable Ink, the leading provider of intelligent content for email marketing. When she isn’t writing, you can find her training for her next physical challenge or sampling new cuisines (but not at the same time). Follow Kristen on Twitter: @KristenWritesIt | ||
How is Dynamic Content going to revolutionize email marketing in the coming days?
Kristen Dunleavy: Dynamic content puts the customer first. By blending contextual elements with real-time relevancy, you are meeting the customer where they are: in the lifecycle, and literally where they are based on moment-of-open information.
At Movable Ink, we take this a step further with intelligent content. Intelligent content automatically activates any data (from any source!), any content, and any business logic to help marketers become more agile and meet their customers’ needs even faster.
This customer-centric content approach drives incredible engagement, and ultimately more revenue. If you’re using intelligent content, your production flow becomes easier, too.
What are the success factors of using Dynamic Content in email campaigns?
Kristen Dunleavy: Engagement is a big one.
- Lenovo drove 17x higher engagement when they recently added browsed products to their newsletter.
- Hilton saw an $82 per-click conversion rate lift with their data-driven campaign.
- Delta lifted CTR by 132% with their year-in-review campaign.
Check out the case studies here!
What key customer data according to you should be considered to create dynamic content, and why?
Kristen Dunleavy: Any customer data that highlights a customer’s interactions between them and your brand, because that’s how you showcase and strengthen your relationship with them. For example, their loyalty program data like rewards points and tier status (including up-to-the-second rewards info), product recommendations based on past purchases and content based on their website browsing behavior.
What are the common mistakes marketers tend to make when dealing with Dynamic Content and how to avoid them?
Kristen Dunleavy: Customer expectations are higher than ever. Basic personalization and simple countdown clocks just don’t cut it anymore. The good news is that we’ve been seeing more innovative brands embrace sophisticated use cases to create long-term, repeatable strategies that put the customer first.
Any Expert tips you’d like to share for marketers looking to EXPLORE Dynamic Content in Emails for the first time.
Kristen Dunleavy: Some marketers think they don’t have enough content or data to get started with a more sophisticated campaign. Or, they might have the content and/or data, they just have no idea how to even find it within their organization and leverage it in their emails. This is a common content problem, and it stops a lot of marketers from launching great campaigns.
The only way to solve it is to get started ASAP and dive right in. Movable Ink can help with that too 😉
Wrapping Up
Dynamic content provides access to relevant emails and increases the effectiveness of your campaigns. And the insights from our expert panel further reiterates the fact that Dynamic Content is much more about delivering the right offer to the right person at the right time.
Have you been using Dynamic content in your email campaigns? Do share your experience with us in the comments below.
Kevin George
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