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Email Services – Overview & Capabilities

CAPABILITIES – EMAIL BUILDER (OMAIL)

Email Builder (Omail) from Omeda is a true end-to-end email deployment solution, and is driven from a completely integrated marketing database engine. Email Builder completely integrates your database, email, and web activity into one central marketing database. With Email Builder, all behavioral data (opens, clicks, keywords) and return data from deployments (including opt-outs and undeliverables) are automatically updated to the database, thus ensuring data accuracy, spam law compliance and rich customer engagement profiles. And, Email Builder features granular permissioning (opt-ins, opt-outs) by product. Simply, Email Builder will make you more efficient and profitable by keeping your database more accurate, relevant, and useful.

Features

Because Email Builder is a true end-to-end email deployment solution, we’ve created some of the most robust features in the industry. Our email deployment system can take you from an ordinary email campaign to a strategic, trackable, and results-driven marketing effort.

Reporting

With our comprehensive reporting capabilities, our clients can check the status of their deployments in real-time. Our Summary Stats report allows clients to create their own individualized summary data reports providing only the key metrics that help you to assess the health of each deployment or group of deployments.  In addition, we also work with each client to create a schedule by which they can automatically receive specified reports, sent directly to their inbox. In addition to our standard reporting package, we provide custom reporting services based on the robust business intelligence information derived from the integrated global marketing database from which Email Builder deployments are sent.

Deliverability and Bounce Management

Any successful email effort depends upon the success of your deliverability. While all email deployment providers will tell you that deliverability is important, we at Omeda take deliverability to a whole new level. Our experienced deliverability staff continuously monitors our clients’ deployments and work with all of the major ISPs to facilitate and maintain whitelisting and feedback loops. Our process of maintaining a ‘bounce counter’ and ‘bounce threshold’ for both hard and soft bounces enables us to more accurately flag bounces when they occur and avoid any false bounce data.

API Suite

Email Builder offers a complete suite of API calls which enable you to create and send one-off emails or send a deployment to an external list.  Imagine the increased engagement with your brand when you utilize the On Demand Send API to send a follow-up email based on your customer’s website behavior (which you tracked using the Email Builder web tracking string).  Or, the ease in which you can send a promotional email to your potential advertisers.  Plus, you could use the API calls to extract open and click data from each deployment for lead generation. The API suite allows you access to the functionality and corresponding data to enhance your business.

Automated Web Tracking String

Web tracking strings can be automatically applied to all URL’s within a deployment when you use the Omail wizard to enable your web analytics – Google Analytics, Adobe Marketing Cloud (formerly Omniture), etc.  Quite simply, enter the parameters once and it can be applied to all deployments.  Or, you can create unique strings for each brand or even each deployment type.  Your analytics tool can then accurately assign attribution.

WYSIWYG editor

Our WYSIWYG editor (“What you see is what you get”) is a time-saving enhancement for Omail users who work with message content. The WYSIWYG editor allows you to see the end result of each email while you are creating it.  Users can easily make changes to html messages without touching the html code, in addition to creating messages using the WYSIWYG editor.

Preference Pages

Email recipients appreciate the ability to manage their email subscriptions. The Email Builder Preference Page wizard (located in the Deployment Defaults) allows you to create unique preference pages including any or all of your deployment types. These Preference pages offer recipients the ability to opt-in to the newsletters that best fit their interests and to opt-out of those that don’t.  This is a seamless way to reduce the number of complaints and pure opt-outs for each of your newsletter products, in addition to gaining new subscribers with no extra promotions.

Recurring Emails

Deployments that are sent to a specified audience list at predetermined times and intervals can be automated – the deployment is created, content loaded from your website or ftp site, the audience list loaded, and the first test sent.  All of this can occur without any user intervention. This is time-saving functionality for those who are tasked with sending daily and weekly newsletters. Email Builder allows you to automate the routine and rote activities of creating newsletters.

Triggered Emails

We recognize that now, more than ever, time is money.  Accordingly, we strive to bring our clients the most efficient tools in the business. Our triggered email capabilities allow our clients to create a series of follow-up deployments using a ruleset at the outset of the deployment. For example, Email Builder will auto-generate a follow-up response specifically tied to one of the following occurrences (as created by the client for any given deployment):

  • The recipient did not open the email.
  • The recipient opened the email.
  • The recipient opened the email but did not click any links.
  • The recipient opened the email and clicked at least one link.

By using our triggered email tool, our clients are able to improve response rates in addition to increasing their email marketing efficiencies. Clients can spend more time thinking about how they want to use their data and less time worrying about when and how to handle follow-up emails.

Forward To A Friend

With our “Forward to a Friend” tool, our clients can embed a link in an email which allows the recipient to forward the email in its entirety to their friends or colleagues. The original recipient has the option of entering text which will appear at the top of the “friend’s” email. This enables our clients to extend their marketing reach and expand their marketing scope.

Spam Scoring

We have incorporated SpamAssassin within the Email Builder application, and this tool predicts a spam score based on the content of your message. The score will appear in the content pleat once you save the content. You will also see it on the Search Screen.  You can modify the content to lower the score prior to deploying.  While years ago it was a major point used by the receiving servers to determine if the mail was legit or not, it is now a very minor metric for deliverability purposes.  The scoring is proprietary to SpamAssassin, Omeda does not have any input or insight into the actual scoring algorithm.

Lead Generation

Integration with the master database to provide key demographic data and rich user profiles allows you to create deeper, more meaningful leads for your advertisers, whether the lead came from an email deployment and/or from web browsing on your site.

Keywords

Email Builder has additional functionality where you can tag the URL’s in deployments with a ‘keyword’.  This keyword could be your standard taxonomy which indicates the type of content or it could even be an advertiser’s name attached to their ad.  Because of the integrated database at Omeda, all clicks on a URL with a keyword are immediately available for your queries in Audience Builder.  This then allows you to further segment future queries based on interest groups, ultimately producing a customer list that is more targeted and engaged.

AB Testing

Clients can increase opens and call-to-action clicks by implementing AB Testing.  When testing any component such as subject line, position of the call-to-action click, colors, etc., the ‘winner’ is determined by either clicks or opens and the winning content automatically sent to the remainder of the audience list.

Dashboard View of Key Metrics

Omeda users can create their own personal dashboards to have a visual representation of their KPI’s.  Your dashboard is presented each time you log on to provide you with up-to-date data.  There is a complete library of widgets that can be customized for any number of deployments and any desired date range.

Automated Recurring Sends

With the enhanced functionality of your Omeda database, Omail and Olytics, deployments can be automated to send based on your customers actions.  You can easily increase the response rate on subscription conversions by automating an email for the ‘known’ customers that reached your subscription page but did not submit.  Our Olytics tagging very easily identifies these customers and enables the automation process of sending a follow-up email.   Clients also are finding a positive response rate when they automate the sending of an address verification/renewal email to customers where we have received a postal nixie from their magazine mailing.  These simple setup steps will save you money on new customer acquisition since you are able to lessen the loss of customers.

Integrated Database Advantage

Our unique integrated database technology and robust query application ensures that our clients’ deployments are being sent to only the very most relevant customers or prospects on their database. Thus, overall deliverability percentage increases, and there is a dramatic improvement in our clients’ response rates. In addition, the automatic flow of behavioral data from each deployment back to the master database ensures an ongoing cycle of creating a deeper and more expansive understanding of each customer’s engagement with your brand.

List Fatigue Calendar

List fatigue is perhaps the single greatest killer of your email marketing efforts. Too many emails can often lead to opt-outs and even spam reporting. Omeda provides our clients with a comprehensive list fatigue tool that allows them to manage their database effectively. Using our proprietary List Fatigue Calendar, our clients can search their global marketing database for recipients who have received or are due to receive deployments over a specified range of dates. Those recipients can then be excluded from the selected audience, ensuring that they are automatically suppressed from that particular deployment. Our clients can deploy with confidence knowing that a particular customer will not be receiving too many emails in a given week or month.

Email Behavioral Data

Data mining is enhanced when you can query the database for customers who have or have not opened your individual newsletters over the past month(s). How many have opened 5 newsletters? How many have opened 10?  What are the demographic profiles of the frequent openers versus those that never open? Likewise with recipients who have clicked within a newsletter. The possibilities for fine-tuning the recipient list and for creating re-engagement campaigns are endless.

Personalized Support

Email Builder services provide optimal data integrity and recency, valuable behavioral data, high-level and granular performance metrics, and a variety of options to increase efficiencies and drive revenues.  And, we provide all of this with a very high level of personalized service.

Email Services Feature Summary

1 – Create/Manage/Deploy Email Messages
With our email marketing suite, we have completely integrated the flow of database and email activity, creating enormous benefits in campaign setup and database recency.  On the front end, campaign setup reflects the most current data on the database, and multi-dimensional selections can be created via our powerful Audience Builder (OnQ) query tool.  In the middle, Email Builder’s extremely user friendly UI allows you to set up and send within minutes.  Most deployments with a standard frequency, i.e. newsletters, can be automated to make the sending even more efficient.  On the back end, all of the valuable behavioral data from campaigns (including sends, opens, clicks, keywords, opt-outs, and undeliverables) is automatically updated to the database, thus ensuring enhanced and up-to-date customer profiles, as well as ongoing data integrity and compliance with each country’s spam rules.  Other features include fatigue and future inventory calendars for reduced list fatigue and more effective campaign planning, and a ‘welcome & nurturing’ series of emails for nurturing and enhanced customer engagement.   Our email marketing suite includes a comprehensive reporting package, including the ability to track detailed results from any individual effort, as well as combinations of efforts. Reports can also be produced to analyze specific metrics, such as engagement over a period of time or an analysis of click activity when content is multi-purposed over multiple deployments.
2 – Content editing mechanisms (WYSIWYG/html code editor)
After loading your content, we provide a WYSIWYG editor for any revisions.  For our savvier clients, there is also the ability to edit the actual html code, too.  Original content is typically created outside of Email Builder via Dreamweaver or similar products.
3 – Header and Footer Management
Header and Footers can be stored in the Email Builder application and then ultimately defaulted within each of your deployments.  These can be as granular as you like and created for each deployment type. They can also be created at the client level.
4 – “From” display Management
The “from” line that is displayed to your recipients is totally customizable.  It can be stored at the deployment type level as a default and then automatically applied, saving your users time during the setup and testing process.
5 – Seed/Test Management
We support seeding and test lists, including varying levels of complexity based on client requirements (e.g. inserting individual names vs. lists of names, deployment types, etc.). This includes a ‘Select All’ option in a Seed list’s maintenance section that lets you adjust large and sometimes unwieldy seed lists.
6 – Newsletter opt-in forms
Any number of customized newsletter opt-in forms can be created.  These forms can be as simple as only requiring the email address and Country (to enable us to keep our clients spam compliant amongst a myriad of rules) to complete contact information and demographics.
7 – Managing email content by deployment varieties (brand and effort type)
Email Builder is designed to send any type of deployment that our clients desire (newsletters, promotions, renewals, third-party, etc.). These different types of deployments are segmented by “deployment type”, which retains the integrity of each audience list and also controls the opt-out functionality in that opt-outs are only applied at this ‘type’ level.  In addition, Email Builder has parameters built in for audited, digital issue alerts to ensure that no suppressions or de-duplication occurs in order to meet the audit requirements.  During Onboarding and setup, we work with your team to determine the actual deployment types.  Also, opt-outs can be easily selected or de-selected via our Audience Builder query tool.
8 – Image hosting options and library
We allow for the storage/management of images. Users can easily upload an image into our interface and receive a URL that can be used in any deployment.
9 – Opt-out management – (opt out by brand and/or effort type)
Email Builder allows you to handle opt-outs on as granular a level as you prefer.  Once an email address is in our ‘filter’ as an opt-out for a deployment type, the application will automatically suppress it from any future mailings for that deployment type. There is no override to this functionality, therefore eliminating any possible errors.  Any future opt-in action from the customer will override the prior opt-out, allowing our clients to have the most up-to-date database possible.
10 – “Unsubscribe from All” functions
There are two different ways that you can implement an “Unsubscribe from All” option:   1. An “Unsubscribe from All” option can be hard-coded onto the Unsubscribe page. 2. You can create a Preference page that not only displays the items that your customer is currently opted in to, but also all other products that you would like to offer.  The final option on that page is to “unsubscribe from all deployments detailed above”. Please note that these are both optional. We do not require our clients to offer an “unsubscribe from all” link.
11 – Preference center options
Within Email Builder you can create any number of preference center pages that are customized to each deployment type.  These pages will indicate which products the customer is currently subscribed to, in addition to other products that you would like to offer. Custom sign-up pages can be created by Omeda’s Form Builder Support team, or users can create custom sign-up pages via our partnership with Unbounce.
12 – List Selection/Management
Our integrated Audience Builder tool allows you to custom-create any number of audience lists based on any fields on the database, and split them into segments to meet your defined goals. The triggered functionality in Email Builder allows you to schedule a subsequent flow of emails to your customers, based on their action of either not opening, not clicking, opening, or opening and clicking in a prior email.  This allows you to push more recipients down the path to achieving your final goal for each campaign.  The list selection for standard deployments, such as newsletters, can be automated, thus saving time and eliminating any possible errors.
13 – Email search features
The ‘Search’ functionality in Email Builder allows you to search on 17 different elements.  Deployments are naturally categorized by brand and deployment type.  Further search options include date ranges, status, sending domain, etc.   There is an additional option in the “Sent As” dropdown box. By selecting this option of “All Except Recurring and OD Send API” you will see all deployments excluding Recurring, On Demand Send API generated emails, and Odyssey emails.
14 – Subscriber Look-up and Management
Subscriber data can be viewed and entered via our “Audience Search” application, where our clients access individual customer records. Users can search for individual customers via various criteria, including name, company/organization, zip code, email address, customer ID, and Audience Builder query selection. Customer records feature a multitude of contact, demographic, behavioral and transactional data, as well as valuable information on all product touch points (such as emails received, opened, clicked), to provide a comprehensive view of each customer.   Opt-in or Opt-out data can also be easily viewed in the Omail filter to determine the status of an email address.
15 – Welcome Series
All Omeda hosted web pages will automatically send a “thank you for registering/welcome” email when customers submit.   Omeda clients can also create any number of welcome and nurturing series of email communications to drive customer engagement based on an initial customer action. 1. You can create a series to welcome new newsletter subscribers.  The first email could be to remind them to whitelist the sending domain. The subsequent email could provide links to other valuable content, promote an upcoming webinar, and so on. 2. An automated series can be created to promote any of your trade shows or face-to-face events.  Once someone does register, they can be dropped from the promotional email flow and added to another series promoting what to look forward to at the event, for example. These are all easy and automated ways to drive engagement and to get those customers interacting on your website and with other products.
16 – Lead Nurturing
There are various tools within the Omeda user suite that can enhance lead nurturing efforts.  Our integrated Audience Builder tool allows you to custom-create any number of audience lists based on any fields on the database, and split them into segments to meet your defined goals.  Users can select on behavioral data such as opens, clicks and keywords, and any selections can be overlayed with demographic or other data in the database.  Multi-dimensional ‘Q-queries’, such as to recent leads within certain demographic categories, can be set up for easy reference and selection.   The welcome series outlined in 3.16 can be used to nurture leads such as those from videos or whitepapers, and the triggered functionality in Omail allows you to schedule a subsequent flow of emails to your customers, based on their action of either not opening, not clicking, opening, or opening and clicking in a prior email.  This allows you to push more recipients down the path to achieving your final goal for each campaign. Additional opportunities spring from our latest offering, Olytics, which is our web analytics service designed to track and report on website traffic for both known and unknown visitors.  Known visitors who are leads for new/additional products can be targeted for various communications.   Unknown visitors can be utilized by your CMS to access API-driven segments to drive better content and offer management.
17 – Triggered re-sends
For all of your deployments with a call to action, the Triggered functionality in Omail allows you to automate a series of deployments, encouraging the audience to take the desired action.  Subscription renewals can be created where a series of reminders can be automatically sent to those who do not open and/or click in the deployment to renew.  Or, a series of triggers can be created to encourage the recipients to download your latest whitepaper or attend an event.  Customer conversions can be completed with no effort on the Omail user’s part.
18 – Open, Click and other activity metric management
The Email reporting suite has a variety of standard reports to analyze all deliverability and engagement metrics for each deployment or any combination of deployments.  All reports analyze open and click activity on both Unique and Gross counts.  Engagement reports can rapidly display the customers that have opened each newsletter deployment for the past two months (as an example) and those that have not opened any to facilitate your creation of re-engagement campaigns. Customers can also use the Summary Stats report to create their own customized report (or reports) of the key statistical data that is important to you.  Standard functionality also includes heat maps and the ability to download the actual customers that opened or clicked within each deployment.
19 – Digital Edition – Audit Reporting – SMTP logs
We regularly interface with leading digital edition vendors on behalf of our clients. In addition, for many clients we utilize our integrated Email Builder services to send the digital edition notifications, and apply the valuable behavioral data from the emails (open, clicks) into the database for enhanced analysis, data query and marketing efforts. We also maintain all digital edition deployment logs (SMTP) for audit purposes.
20 – IP address – improve delivery to the in-box
Email Builder clients have the option of entering a sending pool or deploying from your own dedicated IP address.  Clients with small volumes are encouraged to utilize the high sending reputation of a pool since that would be difficult to obtain when you have random sending cadence and small volumes. There are multiple IP addresses within each pool, which enables efficient fail-over capabilities if spam blocks do occur. Larger clients benefit from their own dedicated IP address since they can create and maintain their own high and valuable reputation.   The Omeda staff automatically will set up all feedback loops and whitelisting requests on your behalf.  In addition, the Omeda Deliverability team on a daily basis addresses any blocks that may occur to ensure the best deliverability possible. Email Builder implements all technical specifications as required by Internet protocol, and also sending and throttling recommendations from the major ISPs.  Ultimately, inbox delivery is based on the recipient’s engagement with your content.  The Omeda team also works with you in this regard to create re-engagement campaigns and to also identify and remove those unengaged customers.
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