In today’s installment of this 4-part series, I’m going to shine a little light on the importance of keeping an inventory of your marketing automation programs, along with the data that they impact and are impacted by. I call it:
Because, rhyming.
In my 10+ years working in the email marketing industry, I have worked with many savvy marketers who periodically looked like chumps because they didn’t keep track of what automation programs they had in the wild.
Welcome emails, signed personally by an employee who was very publicly and notably no longer with the organization
Birthday offers with out-of-date and thus, defunct coupon codes
Two different anniversary campaigns running side-by-side to the same audience
And because they weren’t on the receiving end of these regular, automated emails, my marketing friends only became aware of the issues when a thoughtful (or in some cases, irate) customer would point out their mistake. Boo!
Track = the fundamental component of Track + Stack
If you don’t stack, my feelings will only be a tiny bit hurt. But if you don’t TRACK? You’re dead to me.
(Only kind of kidding)
We respect what we inspect. Having a handy inventory of all live automation programs ensures that you have a visual, visible reference for the emails that you are sending (without pushing a “SEND” button) on a semi-regular basis. In this Resource Bundle, you’ll receive a Word-based template that serves as a jumping off point for your Automation Program Tracker. Feel free to manipulate it to be useful and functional for your business, by all means. All I ask is that you please, USE IT!
Step 1: Name your automation program something unique and descriptive
Seems pretty straightforward, but you’d be surprised how confusing triggered and automated message names can become without a little forward thinking. “Club Welcome” could mean an initial welcome campaign to new rewards club members that outlines their membership benefits, or it could mean the onboarding email for a new subscriber that also opted into membership at the time of subscription. The content AND triggers would be pretty different for these two email campaigns. You may have multiple onboarding emails based on different access sources, or multiple Win-Back programs based on last purchase AND last engagement with email content.
Consider naming your programs with the most generic indicator first, e.g. “Welcome” or “Birthday”. You can add on additional terms the more granular your programming is, by indicating the acquisition source, offer detail, topic or goal of the campaign.
EXAMPLE:
A strong unique automation program name for my new rewards club member welcome would be:
Welcome_NewRewardsEnrollment_MemberBenefitOverview
While the welcome campaign for the new email subscriber who also opted into rewards could be:
Welcome_NewSubscriber_ThankYouAndSignUpOffer_YesRewards
Step 2: Keep track of the date launched and/or the last date you tested the campaign
Not to sound like a broken record, but: We respect what we inspect.
By keeping track of when your automation programs were implemented or updated, you can flag certain programs for updating/review based on seasonal shifts or inventory changes. Plus, if things DO go off the rails at any point, you will have greater visibility into the extent of the derailment by knowing how long the program was live with the error.
Step 3: Create a calendar reminder (at least quarterly) to run your automation programs through quality control
Not to equate email marketing with public bathroom cleanliness, BUT… I’m sure you’ve noticed when the “last cleaned” date/time field on the checklist in a restroom is like, a really long time ago.
You were totally grossed out, right?
Don’t let the Last Tested field on your Automation Program Tracker gross you out… set aside time regularly to run your program through some basic quality control. I’ll be diving further into this part of the process in the 3rd installment in this series, but suffice it to say, send yourself a test, make sure the campaign still renders beautifully (images are still showing up, font sizes are consistent throughout, etc.), and validate your data triggers and that personalization is working correctly. If the email looks wonky to you, it could look wonky to your customers. Adjust accordingly!
Step 4: Make note of the actions/events that trigger the launch of your automated program
This is important to streamline your quality control and testing process. If you’re trying to test a trigger but you haven’t documented what that trigger is, you might have spend unnecessary time and energy trying to reverse engineer how your automation email is getting sent in the first place. It’s also valuable as a way of monitoring the timelines your automation programs run on. It can help you optimize programs by adjusting cadence; maybe your birthday campaign would work better if you sent it BEFORE the customer’s birthday, or your win-back campaign will get better results if it is triggered three months after their last purchase instead of six.
Here are just a few examples of “Triggered By” actions/events:
- Email Opened
- Email Clicked
- Clicked Specific Link in Email
- Form Submission
- Data Match
- Date Match
Step 5: Document the Email Service Provider (ESP) fields that are used in your automation programs
This one is a two-parter.
Part 1 – keep track of any of the data points within your email service provider (from your Data Dictionary) that are called on to TRIGGER an automation program
EXAMPLES:
DOB = your system references that data point in the ESP and if it matches today’s date, sends the campaign
Customer Lifetime Value = this data point exceeds a certain amount and triggers a “Rewards Club Invitation”
Part 2 – keep track of any data points that your campaign actually populates content from
EXAMPLES:
First name = Your email campaign has a personal salutation of “Dear XXXX”
Purchase history = Your email campaign asks how the customer is enjoying the XXXX that they bought from you
Rewards Club Name = Your email populates a specific offer based on your membership level
Kapiche?
This step ensures that you are monitoring your data formatting, sources, and system fallbacks to avoid the “Dear [Space Comma]” salutation or the “We hope you’re enjoying the [NOTHIN’] you bought recently.” Hooray, you!
Are you ready to STACK?
Grab a highlighter.
Office supplies are kind of my fetish.
With your completed Data Dictionary from our first installment, and today’s completed Automation Program Tracker in front of you, highlight data and access points that you’re using in one or both places.
Now, look for data and access points that aren’t colorful yet.
Is there hidden opportunity here for a new automation program?
Do some of your data and access points get highlighted multiple times?
Are there data points or automation programs that are interconnected?
Can you take TWO data points, stack them, and create an even more powerful automation program?
DATA STACK EXAMPLE:
IF Date of birth = today AND Rewards Program = No
A birthday offer is awesome, but what about a birthday offer that makes your customer feel like a part of the inner circle?
Timed offers perform better because of the urgency created by that countdown, and exclusive benefits and special treatment is SOOOOO birthday. On your customer’s special day, send them a campaign inviting them to enjoy the benefits of your Rewards Club for one week only. Maybe that’s a pricing incentive, a shipping offer, or a freebie when they visit. At the end of that week, send an email that invites them to treat themselves to those benefits year-round by signing up for a full-blown membership.
You get the short-term revenue boost from the initial sale AND you create awareness about your Rewards Club. You may even get a higher value customer out of the deal, when that birthday celebrator converts to a Rewards Club Member.
The Power Stack
STACKING can also be used to create connected automation programs that feed each other. For instance, you may have a welcome campaign with the goal of converting a new subscriber into a first-time purchaser. Whether that new subscriber makes a purchase or not becomes a data point that you can use to enhance that customer’s ongoing experience with your business (be sure to add it to your Data Dictionary!). You could even create NEW automation programs based on that new data point (the Power Stack).
Can I STACK without the TRACK?
Of course you can, you Wonder Brain, you! Some marketers have amazing, all-the-synapses-fire-all-the-time, no-system-can-take-the-place-of-the-Old-Steel-Trap brains. But for mere mortals like myself, the Track + Stack method is a simple and effective way to not only avoid Email Automation Gone Wrong, but also to squeeze extra juice (in money and engagement form) out of our data.
What next?
Did this post get you stoked on marketing automation? Want practical tips for building and implementing your own automation programs? Sign up for Email Essentials 101, where I teach you to design and launch the FIVE essential programs for you to stay relevant and drive revenue through email marketing. Check it –> You can even sign up right there in the sidebar.