Selecting An Email Marketing Platform Checklist Template Smart Insights

EMAIL PLATFORM RFP CHECKLIST
The key questions you need to ask to choose

the right Email marketing service or
Marketing Automation platform
Author: Dr Dave Chaffey, SmartInsights.com
Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist
Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
2
Introduction
Selecting a new Email
marketing platform
An introduction to ESPs and Marketing Automation systems
Email marketing remains one of todays core customer communications channels with
analytics showing that for most types of business, alongside search marketing, it is one of
the main drivers of online sales and leads.
To manage email marketing, businesses have traditionally used software and services that
focus on email marketing. These email marketing management services have traditionally
been known by email marketers as Email Service Providers or ESPs.
What is it? Email Service Provider (ESP)
ESPs help marketers manage their email marketing campaigns. They are typically
online services where marketers can sign-in and use these core functions which we
show you how to evaluate in this report:
1 Customer profle and targeting using segments
2 Creating and editing email
3 Automation and personalisation
4 Integration with other channels, campaigns and platforms
5 Delivery
6 Evaluation and tracking
We also cover fees and additional services offered by the service provider:
7 Support and customer services
8 Pricing and fees
The label ESP is now a bit misleading since most now offer far more than management
of email campaigns. Rather they are platforms for managing communications across the
whole customer relationship from when a prospect frst subscribes via a landing page
to when customers purchase and interact with a brand through social media. ESPs not
only offer newsletter broadcast, but also offer rich opportunities to send personalised
behavioural emails and integrate with social media platforms.
What is it? Behavioural emails
Automated, personalised 1:1 emails sent in response to interaction of a subscriber
with content on site, or within an email. Due to their relevance and context they tend
to gain a much higher response rate than campaign-based email.
3
Introduction
To show the value of providing CRM services and delivering contextual relevance in
this way, without the need for manual sending of campaigns, many ESPs are now
evolving into Marketing Automation platforms.
What is it? Marketing Automation
Marketing automation enables businesses to automate tasks in the marketing and
sales process to make the process of generating new business more efficient and
effective.
1. Automatically build marketing lists using landing pages offering content assets
to profle subscribers.
2. Automatically welcome visitors with relevant email messages and as
appropriate personalized messages on the website and remarketing to maintain
interest via publisher websites.
3. Automatically review interaction with messages and online content and
segment intent to purchase based on lead scoring.
You can see that the functions available in Marketing Automation and ESPs are very
similar!
So, Marketing Automation offers businesses potential to deliver more relevant
communications that increase conversion rates with contacts to increase leads and
sales. Marketing Automation enables businesses to automate customer communications
activities as part of the marketing and sales process. The use of Marketing Automation
services makes new, more sophisticated, processes and relevant communication and
experiences possible across a range of touchpoints over the customer lifecycle. More
relevant experiences and offers promise an increase in return-on-investment from
customer communications and increased efficiency in marketing teams with time savings
from manual campaign activities.
Given the overlap between ESPs and Marketing Automation platforms we will limit
our review to Email marketing platforms, although these will include many Marketing
Automation features.
4
Introduction
About Smart Insights
Smart Insights provides actionable marketing resources to help businesses succeed
online. More than 80,000 members use our blog, sample marketing templates and
weekly Emarketing Essentials newsletter to follow best practices and keep up-to-date
with the developments that matter in digital marketing.
Our Expert members use our planning and management templates, video courses and
guides to map, plan and manage their marketing using the RACE Planning framework.
See these 10 reasons why Expert members use our resources
Recommended resource? Smart Insights Expert member Email marketing advice
We have grouped our member resources on our Email marketing hub page. If youre
serious about improving your Email marketing we recommend our in-depth 7 Steps guide
to Email marketing which shows how to develop an email strategy and gives tips on
making your emails more effective. Other resources for Expert members include:
Email marketing effectiveness audit spreadsheet
Email campaign calculator spreadsheet
Email contact strategy template
About the author
Dr Dave Chaffey is CEO and co-founder of digital marketing management
advice site Smart Insights. He is author of 5 bestselling books on
Ecommerce including Total Email marketing and Digital Marketing:
Strategy, Implementation and Practice and was recognised by the
Chartered Institute of Marketing in 2004 as one of 50 marketing gurus
worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.
About this Email marketing platform RFP checklist
This checklist is aimed at helping you choose the best email provider to ft your needs
based on their features and service. Larger businesses can use it to create a Request for
Proposals (RFP) when seeking tenders or when comparing bids in a pitch from different
email marketing service or marketing automation providers.
There are so many email platforms, with all the online services having the same basic
features, that it may almost seem like its simply a case of choosing the cheapest. Not so!
The ease of use when you set up campaigns differs widely and it can be frustrating if you
havent made the best selection. The tools to manage your campaigns and marketing
automation differ widely in their capabilities too. Then there is the differences in insights
available, important for reviewing and improving your email marketing. We will cover all
the key capabilities of these services across all these areas.
5
Introduction
About Pure 360
Pure360 is an email and digital marketing provider who specialise in helping businesses
get the best results from their campaigns. Pure360 work with over 1,000 organisations
including brands such as Rightmove, Jet2 and innocent drinks. Our customers stay with
us through choice, not contract, and they tell their friends about us but never their
competitors.
Well work with you to improve your email and digital marketing results. Youll get the best
from your campaigns without being tied into a long contract, because your success is our
success. Youll get full training, support and regular free advice supported by email and
digital marketing software thats developed in-line with customer feedback.
Pure360 customers have access to the largest UK-based customer support team of
all email marketing providers because our whole focus is on improving your results by
working together.
Members of the DMA, weve recorded a 10% higher open rate for our customers than
the DMA average, leading to higher clicks and conversions for your email marketing
campaigns.
You can fnd the team working to improve our customers email campaigns, down in
Brighton, pop in or give us a call on 0844 586 0001 to discuss how we can help you get
excellent results from your email & digital marketing campaigns.
Pure360 improving results together
6
EMAIL PLATFORM CHECKLIST
Structure of this checklist
This checklist is based around these 8 key issues to consider that will affect both how you use
the service on a day-to-day operational basis and how you work with the provider when you
need support:
1 Customer profle and targeting using segments
2 Creating and editing email
3 Automation and personalisation
4 Integration with other channels, campaigns and platforms
5 Delivery
6 Evaluation and tracking
We also cover fees and additional services offered by the service provider:
7 Customer service and support
8 Pricing and fees
We hope you fnd this checklist useful, do ask any questions about selecting email platforms
in our Answers Forum or contact us.
In our checklist over 40 Email marketing features to review are grouped within each of 8 key
areas with tips on how to compare platforms for the feature as shown below.
Email marketing management feature Practical evaluation tips
1
Name of feature
(Importance of feature)
Further explanation of feature or what to look for when
comparing services.
Suggestions on testing the feature
q
7
Email Marketing Platform selection checklist
Email marketing platform checklist
Evaluation area 1 Customer profle management
and targeting options
1
Range of standard felds and ease of
adding custom disclosed profle felds
(Essential)
This should be straightforward, its not usually a way in
which systems differ.
Test adding different types of profle
felds
q
2
Range of behavioural felds
(Advanced)
Can relevant feld be updated if a subscriber clicks on
part of an email or web page?
Decide on whether you need to
deliver more relevant follow-up
emails after a user interaction
q
3
Fields updatable via API
(Advanced)
Integration with other content management or email
marketing systems possible enabling felds to be
updated based on action?
You need to make programming
resource available to implement
these
q
4
Bulk import and export options
(Essential)
Ease of use of import and export from fles?
Check for standard formats such as
Excel and Comma Delimited (CSV)
q
5
Lead scoring
(Intermediate)
Enable lead scores to be updated for each record
based on their profle updates to disclosed and inferred
felds, e.g. role and when downloaded whitepaper or
other content type.
A core feature of Marketing
Automation systems, essential for
B2B Marketing
q
6
Segment setup and selection
(Essential)
Ease of use of creating different groups of prospects
and customers depending on their profle felds. Are
SQL options available?
Defne a few key segments and
check how easy to setup and select
q
7
Landing page setup
(Intermediate)
Can a page be setup to capture email addresses which
adds felds to the database?
Review options for testing setup
Review options for data capture on
Facebook
q
8
Evaluation area 2 Creating and editing email
8
Ease of using WYSIWYG editing
(Essential)
WYSIWYG stands for What you see is What you get.
Editors look similar, but their usability varies massively.
Try a real test for an example email to
add content
q
9
Range of integrated example templates
(Intermediate)
You can get an agency to create your templates, but
this is relatively costly to create from scratch, so see
which pre-built templates are available with your email
provider.
Make a list of the type of templates
needed and review examples
q
10
Mobile responsive templates
(Intermediate)
Most emails are now read on smartphones and tablets,
so make sure the email templates you use work on
these.
Ask for examples sent from gallery
and review how they work on the
main iOS, Android and desktop
devices
q
11
Dynamic content insertion
(Advanced)
This advanced feature enables you to add content or
images based on profle features. For example, if a
reader is female, insert a different introduction.
Choose some examples of common
rules you would send
q
12
Ease of adding content assets
(Essential)
You will want to add images and icons to your email
which will be hosted online.
Check the ease of use of this process
q
13
One click text email creation
(Intermediate)
Some emails will still be displayed as plain text, so you
have to provide an alternative version of your email.
Check your service makes it easy to add a plain text
version.
Check the ease of use of this process
q
9
14
Inbox preview tool
(Advanced)
Your email will appear differently on different email
readers, e.g. Gmail display is different from Outlook. So
you should check they render correctly in all of these,
particularly for desktop versions.
Separate services such as Litmus
can be used for this.
Test the quality of service included
q
Evaluation area 3 Automation and personalisation
15
Behavioural email sequence setup
(Intermediate)
Is it possible to defne a sequence of emails based on
an event that triggers sequence fring, e.g a new lead,
sale or customer service enquiry or other feld update.
Test for setting up different types of
behavioural emails such as Welcome
or reactivation.
q
16
Behavioural email trigger setup
(Intermediate)
What options are available to trigger a sequence for
example, just adding to list or other conditions related
to visiting site, accessing specifc content?
Are sequences only triggered
by subscribing to list of are other
conditions related to visiting site,
accessing content and taking other
actions possible.
q
17
APIs available to trigger sequences
(Advanced)
Application Programming Interface (API) or coding
within a CMS or Ecommerce system may be needed to
trigger a sequence.
Review use cases where this type
of trigger may be needed, e.g.
completing an order
q
18
Email sequence personalisation
(Intermediate)
Can messages in sequence tailored with content
according to segment?
Review benefts of different segments
receiving tailored sequences
based on felds, e.g. mail or female,
category purchased.
q
19
Web personalisation
(Advanced)
Does the system also offer personalisation of
promotions on a website using similar triggers and
sequences?
You may have separate personalisa-
tion systems for the website that may
need to integrate.
q
10
Evaluation area 4 Integration with other services
20
Landing page hosting service
(Intermediate)
Are integrations available for collecting data via
Landing Pages?
Examples include Unbounce and Ion
Interactive
q
21
Social media integration
(Intermediate)
Does the service enable data integration and sharing of
content with the 4 main social network sites (Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+)?
Is Facebook data capture possible?
Is there a social sign-in option to
populate the database via an API?
Are tools available for viral
promotions like quizzes and
competitions on social media?
q
22
CRM integration
(Intermediate)
Does the email service enable data to be automatically
updated in standard CRM systems?
Typical lead capture and scoring
integrations include Salesforce and
Microsoft Dynamics
Integration with surveys, e.g.
Customer satisfaction?
q
23
SMS service integration
(Intermediate)
Can messages also be sent via text?
Is it possible to set rules to automate
these too?
q
24
Ecommerce integrations
(Intermediate)
For retailers, abandoned cart and service emails are
essential and a key part of implementing a new ESP.
Which Ecommerce platforms are
supported?
Ease of abandoned cart setup?
Voucher code integrations?
q
24
Blog to Enewsletter creation
(Intermediate)
Can an RSS feed from a blog automatically create
enewsletter content ?
Particularly useful for publishers and
content marketers.
q
26
Analytics integration
(Essential)
Can campaign tracking codes be defned for
campaigns and automatically added to clickthroughs on
email or web pages?
Check for standard Google Analytics
UTM tracking on email campaigns
which is most common.
11
Evaluation area 5 Delivery
27
Spam rating scoring
(Essential)
Does the service give a spam score for each email plus
a breakdown of spam elements in email?
Note that use most email platforms
use Spamassasin scoring which is
used for some businesses, but not
webmail platforms.
q
28
Inbox delivery reporting
(Essential)
Is inbox delivery reported to show overall % delivery?
Delivery should be reported overall
and by webmail platform.
q
30
Options for server sender reputation
(Essential)
Standard techniques applied for server authentication
to improve delivery including rDNS, SPF, DKIM, and
DMARC.
Review reports for other clients
Are unique IP addresses possible or
is address shared?
q
31
Options for high volume senders
(Intermediate)
Can email send rates be varied or throttled for larger
list size?
Ask for typical send sizes for ESP
amongst clients
q
32
Closed-loop webmail reporting
(Intermediate)
Is reporting of spam complaints by webmail providers
available?
Ask about relationships with major
webmail providers to review and
improve delivery
q
Evaluation area 6 Evaluation and tracking
33
Open, click, bounce reporting
(Essential)
Standard reporting of subscriber engagement and
response.
Check how this is visualised?
How can it be customised, exported?
Can response be reported by
segment?
q
12
34
Beyond the click conversion reporting
(Intermediate)
Can the site be tagged to report on goals from email,
e.g. leads, sales, value?
Check product level reporting for
retailers?
How can it be customised, exported?
Can it be reported by segment
q
35
Google Analytics campaign tracking
Can Google Analytics UTM campaign tracking be
setup? See article for details.
Review ease of automating this for
different types of campaigns?
q
36
Long-term value assessment
(Advanced)
Can response and value be reported over a longer time
period for different cohorts?
Review options for RFM analysis if
relevant
Review options for Lifetime Value
Analysis if relevant
q
37
Conversion attribution
(Advanced)
Review options for apportioning value of conversion to
earlier response .
(more typically used in Google Analytics)
Review weighting options
Review visualisation options
q
Evaluation area 7 Support and customer services
38
Reliability - Service Level Agreements
(Essential)
What recompense is available for downtime?
Ask for recent platform availability
levels
q
39
Quality of support
(Essential)
What is availability of support by phone and email?
Test process and quality of service
for support
Review support in your timezone
q
40
Additional services
See section 8. Pricing for these.
Migration of data
Creative and design
Strategy consulting
Optimization
q
13
Evaluation area 8 Pricing and costs
41
Demo account options
(Essential)
Ease of setting up tests.
Develop a test of typical email
marketing activities in a month to
assess costs
q
42
Setup fees
What are total costs before emailing can start?
Standard setup fees
Fees for data migration from current
system?
Fees for using templates?
q
43
Broadcast costs
Review cost model for sending emails.
Cost for subscribers on list?
Cost for volume of send per month?
q
44
Additional costs
Review these hidden costs carefully which typically
should be included.
Reporting fees?
Support fees?
Additional modules required?
Strategy consulting fees?
Creative design fees?
Other hidden service costs?
q
14
Your next steps?
We hope you have found this guide useful and that it helps you select the right type of
email marketing platform for you.
We hope you fnd this checklist useful, do ask any questions about selecting email
platforms in our Answers Forum or contact us.
Recommended resource? Smart Insights Expert member Email marketing advice
We have grouped our member resources on our Email marketing hub page. If youre
serious about improving your Email marketing we recommend our in-depth 7 Steps guide
to Email marketing which shows how to develop an email strategy and gives tips on
making your emails more effective. Other resources for Expert members include:
Email marketing effectiveness audit spreadsheet
Email campaign calculator spreadsheet
Email contact strategy template
The team at Pure 360 will also be happy to answer questions about the capabilities of
their platform - view Pure 360 Platform capabilities. Call 0844 586 0001.

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EMAIL PLATFORM RFP CHECKLIST

The key questions you need to ask to choose

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