5 Tips to Ensure EOY Email Success in Luminate Online
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Congratulations on an amazing #GivingTuesday! Overall, organizations using Luminate Online surpassed last year's fundraising numbers by double digits. Now that you are in the final stretch of your preparations for the holiday giving season, we wanted to provide you with some Luminate Online email pointers to help ensure your year-end efforts are successful.
1. Avoid email rush hours & spam complaints
We saw big clumps of emails going out at the top of the hour, especially during prime sending times like 8 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern.
Strongly consider taking steps to enhance site performance during your year-end campaign send(s). Some best practices to adopt:
Avoid sending emails to your full house file. Instead, send more, smaller campaigns. We’ve seen a correlation between more targeted messages and better revenue from email overall.
4. Make sure your email list is clean
This should be an on-going process year-round but is most important at end of year when bad addresses can influence your sender reputation. Read up on the latest email deliverability best practices, including list hygiene and spam trap avoidance!
5. Pre-December 31st testing
Test in advance of the big email sending days to avoid hiccups and leverage your findings in December 31st mailings.
We are grateful for each of you this holiday season and we wish you all the very best!
1. Avoid email rush hours & spam complaints
We saw big clumps of emails going out at the top of the hour, especially during prime sending times like 8 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern.
- Schedule sends for “odd” times (i.e. 9:10 AM CST). The email will process more quickly, and it eliminates congestion. It’ll also help to separate your message from those of all the other bulk email senders across the world also sending at peak times.
- Think of your own inbox on Giving Tuesday this year. You were more likely to look at the ones that came in on their own, than ones that came in a group of 20.
Strongly consider taking steps to enhance site performance during your year-end campaign send(s). Some best practices to adopt:
- Avoid sending to people who have already donated during the campaign by sending your emails on the fly (vs. scheduling them) when you're sending a series of emails, to ensure you have the most up-to-date audiences. Review this blog post to understand some best practices to ensure your groups are up-to-date.
- Disable the "Rebuilding Groups" functionality for groups that aren't in use. https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/65549
- Avoid nesting non-static groups. Having a query-based group where the query references other non-static groups can cause extremely high group rebuild times. https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/65549
Avoid sending emails to your full house file. Instead, send more, smaller campaigns. We’ve seen a correlation between more targeted messages and better revenue from email overall.
4. Make sure your email list is clean
This should be an on-going process year-round but is most important at end of year when bad addresses can influence your sender reputation. Read up on the latest email deliverability best practices, including list hygiene and spam trap avoidance!
5. Pre-December 31st testing
Test in advance of the big email sending days to avoid hiccups and leverage your findings in December 31st mailings.
- A/B testing is NOT recommended on peak send dates like December 31st. Since all messages should be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance, plan to do your A/B testing in the weeks prior so you can use the results to your advantage.
- Preview and test your email messages before you schedule and send. Ensure that test emails contain the same info as your main message and avoid blank message sends.
We are grateful for each of you this holiday season and we wish you all the very best!
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Blackbaud Luminate Online® Blog
12/05/2019 8:00am EST
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