Successful email monetization is not an afterthought or separate function of email content development and operations. Maximizing email monetization is dependent on how well it’s integrated into your overall email newsletter strategy. With a well executed monetization strategy, your subscribers should view content and advertising equally.  In other words, your goal for email monetization should be for your subscribers to value advertising as much as they value your content.  This is obviously easier said than done.  However, with a few tricks and and quality effort, you can create a great inbox experience greatly evening subscriber optics of content vs. advertising.  

Email Monetization for Publishers

Many publishers struggle to monetize email since there are more constraints compared to the web. As a result of deliverability issues and list exhaustion, CPM rates continue to fall, as advertisers demand more performance from the dollars they invest. Aside from the typical monetization avenues, there are, however, some new ways publishers can deliver results to advertisers while demanding high CPM rates.

Publishers must explore ways other than traditional display ads to deliver the extra value that advertisers are looking for.  Just as clicking editorial links on a website signifies interest or intent, so too do links in an email.  Publishers often ignore the opportunity to make sense of these clicks and monetize them accordingly.  Often times, these clicks not only signify interest but also purchase intent of related products and services and can be immediately monetized at higher rates.  For example, clicks from email editorial mentioning an increase in interest rates can be converted to leads for loans or mortgages.  Or, clicks from email editorial about identity theft can immediately be converted to free trials of credit monitoring services.  Conversion rates for these types of actions are higher because the subject matter is top of mind and a person’s curiosity has peaked.

In addition to publishers overlooking the monetization of these types of email behaviors, advertisers often insist that conversion happen on their microsites or landing pages.  In time, marketers will realize that this age old tactic is wrong for the simple reason that the advertiser has failed to establish trust and often results in abysmal conversion rates. Therefore, in order to circumvent missing trust, advertisers should consider placing conversion forms, etc. on a publisher’s website, within the ad unit, where trust has already been established. Follow up email can then be used to move the newly converted prospect through the sales or marketing funnel.   

Companies like RegReady are currently testing proprietary lead gen ad units that specifically use contextual relevancy in an email in combination with piggybacking off the established trust between publisher and subscriber.  This combination between trust and relevancy are yielding higher conversion rates and command greater returns to the publisher. 

RegReady is currently seeking publishers with proprietary editorial that would like to join our beta testing efforts. 

Benefits include:

1.     Eliminate ESP Costs – free and unlimited access to Gold Lasso’s system.

2.     New Found Revenue.

3.     Use Zero Existing Real Estate.

4.     Keep Visitors On Your Site.

5.     Profession Top-Tier Support & Proactive Deliverability Management.

For more information about our beta testing please download our information sheet here: http://bit.ly/1cS4lbg

Throughout it’s 14 chapters, “Performance Marketing for Professionals” offers great advice on becoming an affiliate, crafting successful email campaigns, and designing landing pages, making it a great resource for novice Internet marketers. However, this book is not just a newbie’s guide, as it also offers in-depth coverage of and expert tips on Facebook ad buying, Google and Bing PPC campaigns, and competitive intelligence. So, whether you are just starting out and are looking for a textbook to help get you started, or you an experienced digital marketer who is looking for some new ideas, “Performance Marketing for Professionals” is a great place to find all the information you need.

As we read through the book, one of our favorite chapters had to be the one focused on email marketing. It’s a comprehensive chapter on the subject that not only walks you through the steps of what a great email campaign needs, but it also offers some great insights into design and other factors that sometimes get overlooked.

“When people ask about making money with Email marketing, I have one simple answer, which is, send people what they want to receive,” the book explains. “You should know where they opted in and what they opted in for, so be sure to send them related things that they will like, click on, and sign up to use or purchase. If someone registers for a competition to win a vacation on your site, then send them more information about other people’s competitions to win a vacation. If they registered for a loan application, send them more finance related offers. If you blindly send irrelevant offers then there’s no value in your Emails. If you send good quality content in the form of a deal or a newsletter, customers may even send it on and help grow your list.“

From there the chapter delves into topics such as list development, co-registration, subject lines, deliverability, design, and more.

For all of this and much more, be sure to pick up Murray and John’s new book “Performance Marketing for Professionals” from their website—after all, where else can you get so much information for only $4?

Urban consumers feel 13% stronger than suburban ones that making a purchase DOES NOT constitute permission to market to them on their mobile device. Likewise, Urban consumers also feel 25% more strongly than suburban ones that making a purchase DOES NOT constitute permission to market to them via email.

Lesson: marketers shouldn't mess with city folks texts and email - they'll be a lot less forgiving!

Source: Determining Perceptions of Marketing Permission Impact Marketing Success