Optimising your email marketing is no easy task, if it was, everyone would be getting fantastic results from their email campaigns.
A major factor in either facilitating or constraining how effective your emails are is the functionality available in your "Email service provider (ESP)", which today is often called "Marketing Automation" or "Marketing Cloud" services. To help select the best fit of provider based on the most important features or 'functionality', we have produced this handy Email service provider checklist to see if your email service provider is providing you with all the features you need. For members, we also have a more detailed guide for choosing your email service provider.
| Email Marketing Management Feature | Level: |
|---|---|
| Does it allow to create different groups of prospects? (segmentation) | Essential |
| Does it have a range of standard fields? Can you add custom disclosed fields easily? | Essential |
| Can a landing page be set up to capture email addresses which are then added to the database? | Intermediate |
| Can relevant field be updated if a subscriber clicks on part of an email or web page? | Advanced |
| Does it have mobile responsive templates? | Intermediate |
| Does it easily allow you to bulk import and export from files? | Essential |
| Does it allow to add content based on profile features (Dynamic content insertion) | Advanced |
| Does it allow the emails to be displayed as plain text at the click of a single button? (to circumvent image blocking) | Intermediate |
| Does it allow you to preview what your email will look like in different email readers? | Intermediate |
| Does it allow data integration and and sharing of content with the 4 main social networks? | Intermediate |
| Does it allow data to automatically be added to the CRM system (CRM integration) | Intermediate |
| Does it allow you to send abandoned cart and service emails? (Ecommerce integration) | Intermediate |
| Can campaign tracking codes be defined for campaigns and automatically added to web pages? (Analytics Integration) | Essential |
| Does the service give you a spam score for each email and a breakdown of spam elements in the email? | Essential |
| Does it show you delivery rates and open rates? | Essential |
| Does it allow you to set up Google Analytics campaign tracking? | Intermediate |
| Does it allow you to score leads? e.g. based on downloads of content | Intermediate |
Download Free Email marketing platform RFP template checklist
This guide will cover all the key capabilities of ESPs in over 40 questions across these key 8 requirements areas. The Guide is free to basic and expert members.
We also have this list of providers to help you compare email service providers and you can check out Email providers in our marketplace.
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
Turbocharge your results with this toolkit containing 8 resources
The Email Marketing And Marketing Automation toolkit contains:
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