As email marketers, we’re constantly trying and testing new things to optimize our copy, creative and results. Our Director of Lifecycle Marketing, Kim Stiglitz, recently tried a few tactics with an email we send each month to customers that have signed up for our free trial, but haven’t activated their account (double opt-in). I wanted to share the results with you because I thought they were pretty interesting and a bit surprising.

The Details

Kim got a list together of all VR customers who have signed up for a free trial, but never activated their online account (we require customers to double opt-in, so this is a necessary step). Kim sent one creative (Version A) in April and one creative in May (Version B). She could’ve also run a split test which the team often does.

Version A encouraged customers to activate their account, and then offered a discount if they “liked” us on Facebook. Version B didn’t offer an incentive and focused solely on encouraging customers to activate their account.

Version A

Version B

The main differences are:
1.    The subject line
2.    Discount vs. no discount
3.    Copy & images
4.    Call-to-action buttonBased on what you see, which version do you think performed better? What metrics would you base that on? We looked at three things:  the open rate, click through, and of course, how many people on the list actually activated their account.

And the Results…Version B received 32% more opens and clicks. The subject line in Version B compelled more people to open it and the lion’s share of the clicks came from the bow around the finger image, the “activate your account” links in the first three lines of the email, and the call-to-action button. What kind of creative and copy testing are you doing? Try shaking things up from time to time and you may be surprised by the results.

© 2011 – 2012, Contributing Author. All rights reserved.