Archive for ◊ August, 2010 ◊

Unsolicited Commercial Email

More affectionately known to the public as “spam”, unsolicited commercial email (UCE) is one of the most infuriating things facing mankind today.  Worldwide, it is estimated that there are approximately 183 BILLION spam messages sent DAILY.  Yes, BILLION and yes, DAILY.  Even though we may only spend a few seconds on each piece of spam, all those seconds add up to some staggering amounts of lost time, productivity and money.  Google has a nifty tool to help you find out what spam might be costing you.

In 2003, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enacted the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act” in an attempt to curb the rapidly growing spam problem. Who thinks it worked?  Since then it has been revised a few times, but as far as controlling spam goes, it remains just as ineffective.  We’ll get to why I think that in a bit. more…

Every facet of internet marketing has its own vocabulary, and for beginners it can be difficult to effectively communicate your wants needs without a proper understanding of the terminology.  Terms like “Open Rate”, “Click Rate”, “Conversion Rate” and “Cost-per-Click” can be a little intimidating for people when they are just getting started.

Without at least a basic understanding of the language of email marketing, it can be difficult to know what you need to track and what the measurements can tell you about the success or failure of your campaign.

What follows is a list of ten terms that are commonly used with email marketing campaigns, what they mean, how they are normally calculated and why it’s important to you. more…