HTML, everyone’s favorite universal language

By Julia, Deliverability Expert

The absolute coolest thing, among many other impressive things, about HTML coding is that it is almost a completely universal language. This means it can be understood by anyone who comprehends the code, regardless of its origins.

In short, the coding will be compatible with any content platform, no matter where it comes from. And, yes, that does mean you can use any other HTML-coded documents from past-used systems in the Nucleus platform.

There is one catch, though… Many email marketing platforms find value in the use of variables to pull custom information within the HTML as it helps to reach people on a more individual level… without having to manually send thousands of customized emails. Examples of this custom data would be a recipient’s first name or email, and other bits of personal information.

In these cases, the variable codes may differ slightly between platforms. That simply means that it is important to find and replace any variables with the proper ones so they function properly.

For instance, on Nucleus, we use the following variables very frequently:

PROTIP: you can actually find these located at the bottom of our html-coding-email-builder function:

These are very incredible tools as they can be crucial to your marketing technique but it is important to always remember to use the codes that are compatible with your platform.

This prevents us from sending wonky subject lines like “Hello, %%FIRSTNAME%%!”

These variables are usually very similar to the ones you are using, so just locate and replace any that you found. Most platforms, like our own Nucleus, will not even let you send when there is an error in the variables or coding so hopefully you will not encounter this issue anytime soon…

For example, just for the first name variable, I’ve seen some of the following variable codes:

• %recipient.first%
• %%FIRSTNAME%%
• %NAME%
• {{RECIPIENT.FIRST}}

…and there are way more than that! Always be on the lookout!

What went wrong?

Controllable factors edition.

At the end of the day, there are many factors that we cannot predict or control when sending emails to a high volume of recipients – some examples of this includes if a server blocks you or if you land into an inbox or spam-box.

BUT… you can use “context clues” to help identify potential causes and use controllable factors to attempt to resolve.

Once you have sent your email, there are usually 3 statistics we look into to gauge our success: deliverability rate, open rate, click rate.

And the only true way to test how something will perform is to send it.

A low deliverability rate generally means that we have hit a server block & this is a less controllable factor.

This is a good time to reach out to your Campaign Nucleus team to look into ways of resolving and mitigating any blocks.

A low open rate can mean that are delivering to the server but landing more so in spam and promotional inboxes instead of our primary inboxes & this is a less controllable factor.

BUTTTT it can also mean…

Your recipients are not engaged with your subject line & this is a controllable factor.

This is a good time to make sure we are not using any offensive or triggering terms & to try testing a few different subject lines.

If you see some improvement in your open rate with the new subject lines, you can assume that your audience and the servers preferred this subject line to the other.

If our deliverability and open rate look good, we can go a step further & look into our click rate (which generally leads to ultimate conversions) to get a better idea of how our email content is performing. If we are seeing a high open rate followed by low click rates, it is generally indicative of our recipients not being engaged with the content after clicking into the email.

This is a great opportunity to test different copy & marketing techniques in your emails. If our click rate increases when we use other copy, we can assume that our recipients respond better to that type of content & should use it more moving forward to drive better conversions.

Of course, every once in a while, the stars align and we are presented with high deliverability rates, high open rates, and high click rates - & this means you have a very good email on your hands.

While the servers will never truly confirm or deny reasons for blocking your messages and placing them in spam & your recipients will likely not give you advice on marketing to them better, we can use these three statistics to help to send the best and most effective emails to our recipient list.

For more information regarding how to best understand the email statistics our platform offers, be sure to contact our team!

Fail or Pass

By Julia, Deliverability Expert

A saga of bounces and deferrals

As many of you are aware, we track the amount of fails each email encounters while it is attempting to send to your list of recipients. And, as some of you can attest, this can lead to some rather overwhelming statistics.

Before we get ourselves too worked up over a few failed email sends, let’s get a better idea of what we’re dealing with.

Our system, like many others of a similar nature, recognizes 2 types of failures:

Let’s think of soft fails as ‘deferrals’ – an email can defer multiple times & still ultimately go through. These can signify an impending block or simply be how that server delivers emails with a high volume of recipients.

Some servers, such as Verizon & Comcast, slowly deliver their messages so it can actually be common for them to have thousands of soft fails without having any hard fails. In some cases, a few messages may “time out.” This is still not necessarily a hard block.

Think of it as a waiting room with hundreds of people – they are either going to wait their turn (send) or they are going to get impatient and leave (time out).

Let’s think of hard fails as ‘bounces’ – an email can only bounce once. It either signifies a bad/invalid email, a server block, or the final soft fail.

It is important to look into these errors especially. Invalid emails should ALWAYS be removed from a recipient list; Server blocks always need appropriate attention and, when necessary, mitigation; and too many soft fails that permanently bounce means that we may be sending at too high of a volume.

Oftentimes, soft fails can be used proactively while hard fails generally require us to work reactively & learning how to best respond to both is key to successful email marketing. It is crucial to have an understanding of these types of errors because the quicker we respond to factors affecting our deliverability, the less damage they are able to cause.

By Julia, Deliverability Expert

Have you ever been put in a situation where you were at an event with some of the most sensitive people in the

world & you are just trying to get through the night without offending anyone in your conversational

encounters?

Literally, I hope you haven’t. BUT figuratively… this is actually a pretty good representation of your situation when you are sending emails to recipients and their affiliated servers.

Not only are the servers sensitive, but they are also all sensitive to different topics. For example, Google may hate talking about people dying, while Verizon may hate the mention of “BIG Tech.” It gets tricky to avoid offending ALL the servers. If your recipient list contains recipients from all email servers, you do not have to avoid offending one server but rather ALL the servers. 

Unless you’re “on the inside” & working with a server, it would be impossible to know and identify all the possible spam triggers in your copy and subject lines. 

Before you panic, there are a couple of tricks we can use to prevent the overuse of triggering phrases and words.

1. Almost EVERY server hates the act of “overpromising”

a. Avoid phrases like “100% guarantee” or “We promise you WILL NOT regret this!”

2. Do not be afraid to try the “nicer route”

a. This means using wording or phrases that implies a nicer connotation

i. For example, “passed away” sounds way better than “died tragically”

ii. “Weaponization” sounds a bit worse than “armed” or maybe “fortified”

One major point to be aware of is that the servers do not go through and read every email; instead, they have features in place set to look for triggering phrases and words. All this means is that, with a bit of creativity, we can avoid the brunt of censorship within these servers.

When you are choosing your subject line & content for emails, be sure to keep these tips in mind. While we are against the idea of censoring the important information that you are sharing, our email servers do not always feel the same. It isn’t fair, but until it is in our control, we will continue to work toward fully canceling the cancel culture.Please join us in achieving this goal!

For more information regarding contact our team!

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