NetHawk: Glossary of Permission Email Marketing Terms

A/B Split	Nth Sampling
Appending	Opt-In / Opt-Out
Call to Action	Permission
Campaign	Personalization
Click-through	Privacy
Conversion Rate	Prospect
CPA (or Cost per acquisition)	Rental list (or Acquisition list)
CPM (or Cost per thousand)	Rich media
Headers	Select
House list	Spam/UCE
Landing Page	What is SPAM?
Lead	Subject Line
Mailing list	Targeting
Merge/purge	Timing

A/B Split
To test two different offers, you can divide the list into two segments. One segment receives message A, the other segment would receive message B.

Frequently Asked Questions Glossary

Appending
Appending is the process of running information in one database against another to create a complete record for individuals (postal address, email address, phone number, etc). This may be done with two "permission-based" databases, but with the appending process, the individual has not necessarily given the database owner permission to contact them at all of their contact outlets.

Call to Action
Words or phrasing that ask the reader to take action. For example: "Click here", "Buy now", "Sign up".

Campaign
A group of email messages sent to the same of different audience relating to an overall promotion. Each wave of the campaign builds on the previous campaign success.

Click-through
When a message recipient clicks on a link within the email message. To get the click through rate, divide the number of clicks (responses) by the number of emails that were opened.

Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the number of recipients who completed the desired action within the message (usually a sign up, or a downloading of a whitepaper). This rate can be figured by taking the number of recipients who completed the action and dividing by the total number of email recipients.

CPA (or Cost per acquisition)
A payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

CPM (or Cost per thousand)
In e-mail marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on a given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges $.25 per e-mail address.

Headers
The documentation that accompanies the body of an email message. Headers contain information on the email itself and the route it's taken across the Internet. Recipients can normally see the "to" (identity of recipient), "from" (identity of sender) and "subject" (information in the subject line) headers in their inbox. You can modify these to influence their decision to open or delete an email.

House list
A permission-based list that you built yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time.

Landing Page
The page to which the email directs the prospect via a link. This page is used to collect contact information on the lead (usually just the basics - name, title, company, phone number, email address), and present the offer to the message recipient. Without a successful landing page, your email campaign is going to flop. The Web page your readers click to does the heavy lifting. Use concise yet friendly copy to request the basics, usually no more than name, title, company, phone number, and email address. Then make it easy and fast to download the offer. Ideally, it's a sequence of quid pro quo pages. You politely ask for contact information to collect a lead. In return, your reader gets the opportunity to specify how she wants to continue a conversation with you (by e-newsletter, phone, postal mail, etc.).

Lead
A prospect who is engaged actively in the buying decision for a product or service.

Mailing list
A set of email addresses designated for receiving specific email messages.

Merge/purge.
As more B2B email lists become available for rental, merge/purge becomes a B2B issue. According to the Association for Interactive Media (AIM), merge/purge is "the practice of purchasing multiple e-mail lists, combining (merging) them, and eliminating (purging) any duplicate names." When you're renting lists from several different sources for the same target audience (e.g., engineering product managers), find out if some form of merge/purge is possible so your intended recipients don't get two copies of your message. You don't want to be labeled as a spammer.

Nth Sampling
When a subset of the list is constructed based on every Nth individual. For example, if one is doing Ninth-Testing, every ninth person on the list is sent an email.

Opt-In / Opt-Out
Opt-In is the action a person takes when he or she actively agrees, by email or other means, to receive communications. It requires tactics and mechanisms to encourage and allow people to become recipients. Opt-Out is the action a person takes when he or she chooses not to receive communications. It requires tactics and mechanisms by which people can ask to be removed reliably from an email list.

Opt-In - Where an individual deliberately requests to join a service or receive more information.

Opt-In eMail - Commercial email delivered with prior permission.

Opt-Out (a) - To unsubscribe to a service or ask to stop receiving information.

Opt-Out (b) - Where an individual deliberate requests to NOT join a service or receive more information.

Permission
The idea of only sending email messages to those recipients who have agreed (or asked) to receive them. The definition of permission is the subject of considerable debate in the email marketing community.

Personalization
The practice of writing the email to make the recipient feel that it is more personal and was sent with him or her in mind. This might include using the recipient's name in the salutation or subject line, referring to previous purchases or correspondence, or offering recommendations based on previous buying patterns.

Privacy
The quality or condition of being free from unsanctioned intrusion. Communications need to reassure the prospect through clear, accessible and enforced assurances so he/she can feel comfortable about providing personal information and transacting business.

Prospect
A suspect who actively expresses interest in the product or service.

Rental list (or Acquisition list)
A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opted-in to receive information about certain subjects. Using permission-based rental lists, marketers can send e-mail messages to audiences targeted by interest category, profession, demographic information and more. Renting a list usually costs between $.10 and $.40 per name.

Rich media.
B2B rich media email will come of age this year. Why? The multidimensionality of rich media email is ideal for conveying more complex B2B messages. Plus, some of the cool new rich media technologies are being specifically adapted for email. For a peek of the future, see Rob Graham's recent column on the gee-whiz factor. Also take a look at Impact Engine's multimedia presentations, EyeWonder's video email, and TMXInteractive's application service provider (ASP) rich media email sales tool.

Select
Select is the industry term used for choosing a specific demographic or geographic criteria

Spam/UCE
Unsolicited commercial email. The term normally given to commercial email sent without the recipient's permission. Those accused of sending UCE can run into trouble, ranging from impolite responses through loss of Internet access accounts to destruction of reputations and infrastructure.

What is SPAM?
SPAM is the opposite of permission-based emails. It means sending to contacts that have not requested any information from you or your business. A SPAM approach can be very damaging to the reputation of your business because SPAMS are perceived as intrusive junk mail.

Subject Line
The title of the email communication. This is the first element of the communication recipients will see when they access their email. It has to grab attention and be credible or the email will not get opened. Did the title of this article make you want to open and read it? The subject line is one of the most important elements of successful email marketing, but most email marketers still don't know how to craft a good one. Think of the subject line as the purest distillation of your email marketing message. If you understand what motivates your target audience -- what their pain points are in relation to your product or service -- you have a good chance of getting a click.

Targeting
Sending the right message to the right recipient at the right time.

Timing
1. Scheduling the email campaign to reach the audience at the most opportune time so it is most likely to be read. Timing might be seasonal (for example, vacation or school), dependent on holidays, etc. or mailings might go out on a standard schedule. Even the day of the week and what time of day the mailing goes out are important considerations: for example, a Friday afternoon mailing may be great for retailing customers, but bad for business-to-business customers.
2. Choosing the most appropriate interval between emails in a campaign, to maximize overall effectiveness.