When it comes to reaching customers, email marketing can seem downright old school, next to TikTok content and microtargeted ads. But email has stuck around as long as it has for one simple reason: it works.
Email marketing revenue is expected to reach an estimated nearly $11 billion by the end of 2023, driven in part by an impressive ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. Traffic from email marketing campaigns has an average conversion rate of 4.29%—that’s higher than direct, social, or even search traffic.
With a prime audience of interested subscribers, email marketing is a great platform for delivering campaign messages. But be warned—executing your email strategy poorly can alienate your audience quickly.
All it takes are a few basic errors to break the user experience and waste all your effort. What’s worse, since email marketing relies on sending out content at scale, small mistakes can damage your reputation with huge swathes of customers.
Image source: www.flyporter.com
Take for example Canadian travel darling Porter Airlines. They’ve built a great brand as the little guy who still believes in delivering a quality experience, whether it’s their flights, snacks and bevies, or their website (it’s actually a lot of fun—check it out). Unfortunately, less so their email marketing. Let’s check it out.
When email marketing hits turbulence
Porter has been pushing a new campaign hard recently, a market share play against Air Canada. They’ve started matching Air Canada’s Aereoplan program with their own, VIPorter, and offering 1-1-point conversion to anyone willing to switch.
Image source: www.flyporter.com
It’s a compelling offer, and we love to see marketing that takes a shot at the competition (looking at you, Wendy’s). Porter has been leveraging their website, social channels, and paid ads to get the word out successfully. But the campaign’s emails are a different story, thanks to three issues that should never have made it past a simple review.
1. Broken links
Imagine being a Porter subscriber, getting their campaign email, and being totally sold on the offer. You go to convert, you click the link, and then you get:
Image source: www.flyporter.com
Any broken link is damaging to your brand. When a user encounters one, their session stops in its tracks, leaving them frustrated. They may see your site as poorly maintained, which makes you seem less reliable. And recovering from even one negative impression is nearly impossible—research shows 88% of consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. Even your analytics will take a hit, as broken links drive up bounce rates and lower SEO rankings on Google.
But broken links in an email leave an even worse impression, since users are clicking on the link because you specifically asked them to. In this case, Porter subscribers who are interested in learning more don’t get the chance to find out about the perks of the rewards program, inquire about points conversion, or ultimately sign up and start booking flights.
2. Language disconnect
Porter lets its email subscribers choose whether they get communication in English or French (a best practice—props to Porter). But the English version of the campaign emails went out with the French links embedded. The links that worked sent English users here:
Image source: www.flyporter.com
In a best-case scenario, the user is bilingual, and is simply annoyed at having to switch gears. They may be unsure of how to proceed, and if they have no understanding of the language, they’ll bounce off entirely.
This mistake is tragic because it’s so easily avoidable. Mousing over the hypertext during a QA check shows the destination URL, which will show the “fr” at the end, or better yet, a URL that’s in French (that best practice wasn’t followed in Porter’s case).
By letting that detail slip past, Porter wasted all the effort that went into developing, approving, designing, and translating their content. C’est vraiment dommage.
3. Typos
Porter customers who found a link that was working, and in a language they understood, had one last hurdle to clear when they were getting ready to convert: the offer appeared to have expired before it began.
The marketing banner and terms and conditions had different dates, with one noting the deal expires in March 2023, instead of March 2024. Even if the typo doesn’t kill the conversion, Porter is negatively impacting the user experience and potentially overloading their customer support channels with people seeking clarification.
Image source: www.flyporter.com
Key takeaway: Soaring to new revenue heights is possible
The global airline industry is valued at $841 billion USD, and Air Canada is the 10th most profitable airline in the world. How much of that potential market could Porter have grabbed with a couple more rounds of quick edits?
By delivering email content that features working links in the user’s preferred language and free of copy errors—easily achievable with careful proofing—Porter can convert more subscribers and build a lucrative loyalty program. Below are some tips that can help improve any email campaign.
Passport to success: Email marketing best practices
1. Make it skimmable. People don’t have time to read your whole email, they will most likely scroll through it while watching TV or working on something else. Put the most important info at the top and use sub-headings to guide the eye.
2. Optimize for mobile. 46% of all email opens happen on mobile, and that number is increasing. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes by making your mobile experience smooth.
3. Be consistent. Not sending anything for weeks and then hitting your subscribers with a bunch of emails when a new campaign rolls around is a surefire recipe for an uptick in bounce rates and unsubscribes. A regular and reliable cadence is best.
4. Test, test, test! Check for broken links, typos, and correct UTM codes so you can track results. If users can easily run into these issues, you should be able to find them easily in testing.
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