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10 Questions to Ask Upfront

After you have determined what your needs are, you should then begin to research the ESPs that fall within your range. Carefully review the experience of each email service provider to ensure that they have handled similar projects in the past; and, if so, ask to speak to a reference at that company. Also, while you are discussing the important features and benefits of each product, you should ask the following questions that might not be as obvious:

1. Do you develop your own technology in-house? While many ESPs develop their own technology, some simply private label someone else’s solution. Either solution will work for most companies. However, large enterprises that need a lot of customization should work directly with an ESP that develops their technology in-house as it will greatly reduce the time frame for tailored jobs.
2. How do you ensure deliverability of messages? Find out if the ESP offers advanced deliverability tools, such as accreditation and authentication tools, spam score, abuse processing, global suppression, and by-ISP delivery reporting. Also ask if the ESP has partnered with any third party deliverability experts, like Return Path or Pivotal Veracity, as these additional services will ensure that even more of your emails reach your recipients’ inboxes, but you might be charged extra. You should also find out if you will have a dedicated IP address or if you have to share with other customers as sharing greatly increases your risk of being filtered or blocked by ISPs if the other companies have poor reputations. Your number one goal should be ensuring your messages reach your recipients’ inboxes, and an ESP should provide up-to-date tools to help you overcome any deliverability issues.
   
   Another huge part of deliverability is image rendering. While it is important to be sure that your emails reach your recipients’ inboxes, if your emails are missing graphics or if the images do not appear correctly, it will negatively affect your results. There are several easy things you can do to ensure your images render properly, including sizing the images under 40 KB, storing the images online and linking them correctly into the body of the email, and testing your emails in different email clients prior to sending them out to your entire list. Doing so will show you exactly what the email will look like to your recipients and it will give you the opportunity to fix any issues in advance.
3. Do you brand each message with your logo and link to your website? For general email messages, it might not be a big deal to have a small logo and link of the ESP at the bottom of the email message. However, for messages that are highly-tailored and targeted to a small, specific group of subscribers, another company’s brand on the email message might be distracting. Some ESPs embed their logo on every message that is sent out, and others, like Listrak, allow you to remove the image or leave it off altogether in order to ensure the integrity of your brand.
4. How do you track responses? This is extremely important as there are no standards in measuring metrics at this time, although the Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition was formed earlier this year and it is working on putting standards in place. Some ESPs only count bounced messages as undeliverable while others also count messages that were filtered by the ISP or delivered to the recipients’ junk mail folders. The difference in these two methods means a vast difference in the deliverability rate of your messages, and, because that metric is used to measure every other metric, it helps you track results more accurately if you know which method is being used. There are also differences in the open verses read rate, as the read rate is a message that is held open for several seconds as opposed to a message being opened and immediately closed or deleted. The bottom line is to know how your ESP tracks results so you can accurately predict future responses.
5. Is your solution integrated with Google Analytics? The more data you have, the more accurate your rendering reports will be across multiple campaigns. Combining both your email tracking features and web analytics data will help you gain a better understanding of your subscribers’ online habits, which will allow you to better predict future responses. It also gives you additional reporting capabilities that allow you to track conversion to a specific campaign or email address. Once you know this information, you can use it to create relevant email campaigns that are essential to your subscribers’ needs.
6. Do you provide any subscription or action response tools that we can use to help us build and automate our online opt in form? In order to be successful at email marketing, you need to provide a way for subscribers to sign up for your lists quickly and effortlessly. Many ESPs, like Listrak, provide tools to help you add a subscription form to your website and integrate it with the email marketing software so subscribers’ contact information and preferences are automatically captured and stored in the correct list. These tools will save you and your IT department a lot of time and will help you implement your new solution on a faster time frame.
7. Do you provide APIs? If you are planning to integrate your email marketing solution with any other software program, such as sales force automation or customer relationship management tools, you need to ask if your ESP makes their APIs available so you can integrate the programs seamlessly. Doing so eliminates the need for manual imports and exports of data between programs so lists are updated in real time. If your ESP provides their APIs, be sure to ask about the cost and if they use the industry standard SOAP protocol, which creates a flexible platform for integration.
8. Do you offer a tiered pricing structure? A good strategy for companies that are new to email marketing is to find an ESP that offers a tiered pricing structure. This will allow you to start small and grow without paying for features that you will not use right away. For example, Listrak offers three levels of pricing – Listrak Lite, which includes plain text or HTML messaging, built-in HTML editor and pre-designed HTML templates, deliverability testing, open/read/click tracking, Google Analytics integration, bounced email processing, viral marketing tracking, and scheduled campaign delivery, Listrak Pro, which includes Listrak Lite plus user profile segmentation, mail merge personalization, dynamic profiling, list hygiene, soft bounce resend, and multi-user, role-based functionality, and Listrak Enterprise, which includes Listrak Pro plus dedicated IP addresses, blacklist reports, by domain delivery reports, custom delivery throttling, detailed bounce reporting tools, campaign preview rendering events, mail monitor seed list events, and web service APIs.
9. What hidden costs should I look out for each month? Many ESPs include a free number of email sends with each monthly charge, but to ensure you stay on track and within budget, you should find out upfront what the overage cost per email is. Also find out about items such as annual maintenance, template design, customization, additional product licenses, training, support, bandwidth and image hosting, and integration fees.
10. What tools to do you offer your clients to help them stay up-to-date on industry changes and best practices? The email marketing industry is in a constant state of evolution. With advancements in technology, changes in ISP filtering methods, and developments in industry standardization and legalities, it can be difficult to keep up with all of the progress. Ask the ESPs if they provide updated best practices, technical white papers, blogs, podcasts, webinars, and other communications to help you stay informed.

After you have performed the due diligence of watching product demos, testing each product, talking to references, and asking the right questions, you will be sure to find the right email marketing product for your company. 

Contact us today to learn more.