Glossary of Email

Marketing Terms

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Contents 1. Introduction 1. Email Marketing Glossary 12. Further Information

Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

Note: This publication has not been updated • Alert - Email message that notifies since it was last published. Some of the subscribers of an event or special price. hyperlinks may have changed and may need • Alexa Ranking - A ranking by Alexa updating. In addition, some of the information Internet, Inc., a California-based in this publication may be out of date. subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and website. Once installed, the toolbar Introduction collects data on browsing behaviour In this publication, we provide an which is transmitted to the website explanation of Email Marketing terms. where it is stored and analysed and is the basis for the company's web traffic reporting. Ranking is from 1 to 20,000,000. 1 is best. Email Marketing • Alias - A unique and usually shorter URL (link) that can be distinguished from other links even if they ultimately Glossary go to the same Web page. This makes • A/B Split - Refers to a test situation in it possible to track which message led which a list is split into two pieces with viewers to click on the link. every other name being sent one • Application Program Interface specific creative, and vice versa. (API) - How a program (application) • Above the Fold - The top part of an accesses another to transmit data. A email message that is visible to the client may have an API connection to recipient without the need for scrolling. load database information to an email The term originally comes from print vendor automatically and receive data and refers to the top half of a folded back from the email. newspaper. • Application Service Provider (ASP) • Acceptable Spam Report Rate - The – A company that provides a Web- rate at which you can be reported as based service. Clients don't have to SPAM without harming your sender install software on their own reputation. Anything over 0.1% (1 computers; all tasks are performed on report per 1000 emails) will get a (hosted on) the ASP's servers. warning. • Attachment - A text, video, graphic, • Acceptance Rate - The percentage of PDF or sound file that accompanies an email messages that are accepted by email message but is not included in the mail server. Just because an email the message itself. Attachments are not is accepted by the mail server does not a good way to send email newsletters mean it will get to an inbox. because many ISPs, email clients and individual email recipients do not allow • Acquisition Cost - In email marketing, attachments, because hackers use the cost to generate one lead, them to deliver viruses and other newsletter subscriber or customer in an malicious code. individual email campaign; typically, the total campaign expense divided by • Authentication - A term that refers to the number of leads, subscribers or standards, such as Sender ID, SPF and customers it produced. DomainKeys/DKIM, that serve to identify that an email is really sent from • Ad Swap - An exchange between two the domain name and individual listed publishers in which each agrees to run as the sender. Authentication standards the others comparably valued ad at no are used to fight spam and spoofing. charge. Value is determined by rate card, placement, size of list, quality of • Autoresponder - Automated email list, name brand fame, etc. message-sending capability, such as a welcome message sent to all new • Affiliate - A marketing partner that subscribers the minute they join a list. promotes your products or services May be triggered by joins, under a payment-on-results unsubscribes, all email sent to a agreement. particular mailbox. May be more than a • Affirmative Consent - An active single message - can be a series of request by a reader or subscriber to date or event-triggered emails. receive advertising or promotional • Bayesian Filter - An anti-spam information, newsletters, etc. Generally program that evaluates header and affirmative consent does not included content of incoming email messages to the following: failing to uncheck a pre- determine the probability that it is checked box on a Web form, entering a spam. Bayesian filters assign point business relationship with an values to items that appear frequently organisation without being asked for in spam, such as the words "money- separate permission to be sent specific back guarantee" or "free". A message types of email, opt-out. that accumulated too many points is either rejected as probable spam or

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

delivered to a junk-mail folder. Aka clients allow the recipient to override content-based filter. the system's settings and direct that mail from a suspect sender be sent • Blacklist - A list that denotes IP addresses as spammer IPs, impeding directly to the inbox. email deliverability. Many companies • Bulk Mail - Large scale email use blacklists to reject inbound email, marketing sends in which the same either at the server level or before it content goes to a large group of reaches the recipient's in-box. Also people. Blocklist and Blackhole list. • Call to Action - In an email message, • Block - A refusal by an ISP or mail the link or body copy that tells the server not to forward your email recipient what action to take. message to the recipient. Many ISPs • CAN-SPAM - Short for 'Controlling the block email from IP addresses or Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography domains that have been reported to And Marketing Act of 2003,' it's a law send spam or viruses or have content that outlines rules for commercial that violates email policy or spam email, establishes requirements for filters. commercial messages, provides email • Bonded Sender - A private email- recipients with the right to make you registration service, owned by email stop emailing them, and lays out vendor Ironport, which allows bulk consequences for violations of the Act. emailers who agree to follow stringent • Catch-all - An email server function email practices and to post a monetary that forwards all questionable email to bond to bypass email filters of Bonded a single mailbox. The catch-all should Sender clients. The programs debit the be monitored regularly to find bond for spam or other complaints from misdirected questions, unsubscribes or recipients. other genuine live email. • Bounce Handling - The process of • Cell (Also known as Test cell or dealing with the email that has version) - A segment of your list that bounced. Bounce handling is important receives different treatment specifically for list maintenance, list integrity and to see how it responds versus the delivery. Given the lack of consistency control (regular treatment). in bounce messaging formats, it's an inexact science at best. • CGI (Acronym for Common Gateway Interface) - It is a • Bounce Message - Message sent back specification for transferring to an email sender reporting the information between the Web and a message could not be delivered and Web server, such as processing email why. Note: Not all bounced emails subscription or contact forms. result in messages being sent back to the sender. Not all bounce messages • Challenge-Response System - An are clear or accurate about the reason anti-spam program that requires a email was bounced. human being on the sender's end to respond to an emailed challenge Bounce Rate (also Return Rate) – • message before their messages can be The number of hard/soft bounces delivered to recipients. Senders who divided by the number of emails sent. answer the challenge successfully are The rate at which your emails are not added to an authorization list. Bulk delivered. There are two types of emailers can work with challenge- bounces, hard and soft, both of which response if they designate an employee are defined later in this glossary. An to watch the sending address' mailbox acceptable bounce rate is less than 5%. and to reply to each challenge by hand. Broadcast - The process of sending • • Churn - How many subscribers leave a the same email message to multiple mailing list (or how many email recipients. addresses go bad) over a certain length • B-to-B (Business-to-Business) - The of time, usually expressed as a exchange of information, products or percentage of the whole list. services between two businesses - as • Clicks Per Delivered - A percentage opposed to between a business and a measure of the number of clicks divided consumer (B2B). by the number of emails delivered to • B-to-C (Business-to-Consumer) - the intended inbox. The exchange of information, products • Clicks Per Open - A percentage or services between a business and a measure of the number of clicks divided consumer - as opposed to between two by the number of opens. businesses (B2C). • Click-through Rate - Total number of Bulk Folder (also Junk Folder) - • clicks on email link(s) divided by the Where many email clients send number of emails sent. Includes messages that appear to be from multiple clicks by a unique user. Some spammers or contain spam or are from email broadcast vendors or tracking any sender who's not in the recipient's programs define CTR differently. address book or contact list. Some

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

• Click-through Tracking - When a • CPA (Cost per Action or hotlink (hyperlink) is included in an Acquisition) - A method of paying for email, a click-through occurs when a advertising, or calculating results from recipient clicks on the link. Click- non-CPA marketing. through tracking refers to the data • CPC (Cost per Click) - A method of collected about each click-through link, paying for advertising. Different from such as how many people clicked it, CPA because all you pay for is the click, how many clicks resulted in desired regardless of what that click does when actions such as sales, forwards or it gets to your site or landing page. subscriptions. • CPM (Cost per Mille (Thousand)) - • Commercial email - Email whose An industry standard measure for ad purpose, as a whole or in part, is to sell impressions. Email has a relatively low or advertise a product or service or if CPM compared to other marketing its purpose is to persuade users to channels (Note: "M" represents perform an act, such as to purchase a thousand in Roman numerology). product or click to a Web site whose contents are designed to sell, advertise • Creative - An email message's copy or promote. and any graphics. • Conditional Blocks - A text fragment • CRM (Customer Relationship that is pasted into an email message Management) - The methodologies, only if certain conditions are met (for software, and Internet capabilities that instance the recipient lives in a certain help a company manage customer area). Conditional blocks allow email relationships in an efficient and marketers to create more personalized organized manner. mailings. • Cross-campaign profiling - A method • Confirmation - An acknowledgment of used to understand how email a subscription or information request. respondents behave over multiple "Confirmation" can be either a company campaigns. statement that the email address was • Cross-post - To send the same email successfully placed on a list, or a message to at least two different subscriber's agreement that the mailing lists or discussion groups. subscribe request was genuine and not faked or automatically generated by a • Custom Fields - Within email list third party. management software programs there are certain fields that one may use to • Confirmed opt-in - Inexact term that personalize each message such as may refer to double-opt-in subscription prefix, first name, last name, suffix, processes or may refer to email email address, and three custom fields addresses which do not hard bounce (field1, field2, field3). back a welcome message. Ask anyone using this term to define it more • Database - A storing of records. clearly. Databases are made up of tables. Tables are made up of columns and • Consent - This is where you actively rows. Data is stored in a field (also sign up for something and where you known as cell). Popular types of web know what you are signing up to. There databases include SQL and MySQL. may be a number of ways to indicate consent. • Database Management System - A database system that provides • Content - All the material in an email possibilities for users to connect a message except for the codes showing database back-end and, hence, send the delivery route and return-path out personalized messages to information. Includes all words, images customers, according to their and links. demographic information and • Conversion - When an email recipient preferences. performs a desired action based on a • Dedicated IP - In email marketing, it mailing you have sent. A conversion refers to an IP address from which only could be a monetary transaction, such you send email. as a purchase made after clicking a link. It could also include a voluntary • Dedicated Server - An email server act such as registering at a Web site, used by only one sender. A dedicated downloading a white paper, signing up server often costs more to use because for a Web seminar or opting in to an the expense can't be spread among email newsletter. many users, but it performs better than a shared server. Email usually goes out • Co-registration - Arrangement in faster, the server is more secure, and which companies collecting registration you eliminate the possibility that information from users (email sign-up another sender could get the server forms, shopping checkout process, etc.) blacklisted for spamming. include a separate box for users to check if they would also like to be • Deduplication (or Deduping) - The added to a specific third-party list. process of removing identical entries from two or more data sets such as

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

mailing lists. Also known as • Dynamic content - Email-newsletter merge/purge. content that changes from one recipient to the next according to a set of • Delivered email - Number of emails sent minus the number of bounces and predetermined rules or variables, filtered messages. A highly inexact usually according to preferences the number because not all receiving ISPs user sets when opting in to messages report accurately on which email didn't from a sender. Dynamic content can go through and why not. reflect past purchases, current interests or where the recipient lives. • Delivery Speed - How fast mailing software can deliver mail. • ECOA (Email Change of Address) - A service that tracks email addresses • Delivery Tracking - The process of changes and updates. measuring delivery rates by format, ISP or other factors and delivery failures • Effective Rate - Metric that measures (bounces, invalid address, server and how many of those who opened an other errors). An inexact science. email message clicked on a link, usually measured as unique responders divided • Denial-of-service attack (DOS) - An by unique opens. organized effort to disrupt email or Web service by sending more messages or • Electronic Mail - This means email traffic than a server can handle, and text/picture/video messages, WAP messages and ‘bluetooth’. shutting it down until the messages stop. • Email Address - The combination of a unique user name and a sender domain • Deploy - The act of sending the email campaign after testing. ([email protected]). The email address requires both the user name • Digest - A shortened version of an and the domain name. email newsletter which replaces full- Email Appending – A service that length articles with clickable links to the • full article at a Web site, often with a matches email addresses to a database brief summary of the contents. of personal names and postal addresses. Appending may require an • Discussion Group - An email service "OK to add my name" reply from the in which individual members post subscriber before you can add the messages for all group members to name to the list. read ("many to many"). In contrast, a newsletter is a "one to many" • Email Campaign - An email or series broadcast, where comments by of lead nurturing emails designed to members or subscribers go only to the accomplish an overall marketing goal. message sender. • Email Client - The software recipients use to read (or send) email, such as • DNS - Domain Name Server (or system) - How computer networks Mail or Outlook. locate Internet domain names and • Email Domain - Also known as translate them into IP addresses. The Domain. The portion of the email domain name is the actual name for an address to the right of the @ sign. IP address or range of IP addresses. Useful as an email address hygiene tool (e.g. identify all records where the • Domain Throttling - A technique that allows you to limit the number of email consumer entered "name@aol" as their messages sent to a domain within a email address and correct it to "[email protected]"). certain time frame. It is used to comply with ISPs and to avoid tripping spam • Email Filter - A software tool that filters. Many ISPs have their own categorises, sorts or blocks incoming policies and preferred limits. email, based either on the sender, the email header or message content. • DomainKeys / DKIM - An anti-spam software application being developed by Filters may be applied at the recipient's level, at the email client, the ISP or a Yahoo and using a combination of public and private "keys" to combination. authenticate the sender's domain and • Email Friendly Name - Also known as reduce the chance that a spammer or Display Name, From name. The portion hacker will fake the domain sending of the email address that is displayed in address. most, though not all, email readers in place of, or in addition to, the email • Double opt-in - A process that requires new list joiners to take an address. action (such as clicking on an emailed • Email Harvesting - An automated link to a personal confirmation page) in process in which a robot program order to confirm that they do want to searches Web pages or other Internet be on the list. Sometimes interpreted destinations for email addresses. The incorrectly by some email broadcast program collects the address into a vendors to mean a new subscriber who database. does not opt-out of or bounce a • Email Header - The section of an welcome message. email message that contains the

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

sender's and recipient's email • Feedback Loops - Set up with addresses as well as the routing Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Once information. a feedback loop is set up, the ISPs will contact you and ask you to deal with • Email List -A collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an the complaint. If a feedback loop is not organization to send material to set up, the ISPs may blacklist you multiple recipients. The term is often without giving a chance to defend extended to include the people yourself. subscribed to such a list, so the group • Footer - An area at the end of an email of subscribers is referred to as "the message or newsletter that contains mailing list", or simply "the list". information that doesn't change from one edition to the next, such as contact • Email List Management Software - Software that allows users to collect, information, the company's postal import, and manage subscribers (see address or the email address the also Email Marketing Software below). recipient used to subscribe to mailings. Some software programs can be set to • Email Marketing - The use of email place this information automatically. (or email lists) to plan and deliver permission-based marketing • Forward (also Forward to a Friend) campaigns. - The process in which email recipients send your message to people they • Email Marketing Software - Allows know, either because they think their users to send out newsletters to their friends will be interested in your lists and track results. Standard message or because you offer features include mail-merge incentives to forward messages. personalization, message scheduling, Forwarding can be done through the and bounce back handling. Generally, recipient's own email client or by giving email marketing software is also email the recipient a link to click, which list management software. brings up a registration page at your • Email Newsletter - Content site, in which you ask the forwarded to distributed to subscribers by email, on give his/her name and email address, a regular schedule. Content is seen as the name/email address of the person valued editorial in and of itself rather they want to send to and (optionally) a than primarily a commercial message brief email message explaining the with a sales offer. reason for the forward. • Email Prefix - The portion of the email • Forward DNS Lookup - A Forward address to the left of the @ sign. DNS Lookup, or just DNS Lookup, is the process of looking up and translating a • Email Sponsorships - Buying ad domain name into its corresponding IP space in an email newsletter or address. This can be compared to a sponsoring a specific article or series of Reverse DNS Lookup, which is the articles. Advertisers pay to have their process of looking up and translating an ad inserted into the body of the email. IP address into a domain name. • Email Vendor - Another name for an • FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain email broadcast service provider, a Name - A name consisting of both a company that sends bulk (volume) host and a domain name. For example, email on behalf of their clients. Also www.google.com is a fully qualified email service provider (ESP). domain name. www is the host; google • Enhanced Whitelist - A super- is the second-level domain; and .com is whitelist maintained by AOL for bulk the top-level domain. emailers who meet strict delivery • From - Whatever appears in the email standards, including fewer than 1 spam recipient's inbox as your visible "from" complaint for every 1,000 email name. Chosen by the sender. May be a messages. Emailers on the enhanced personal name, a brand name, an email whitelist can bypass AOL 9.0's address, a blank space, or alpha- automatic suppression of images and numeric gobbledygook. Note - this is links. not the actual "from" contained in the • Event-Triggered Email - Pre- header (see below) and may be programmed messages sent different than the email reply address. automatically based on an event such Also known as Email Friendly Name. as a date or anniversary. • Full-service Provider - An email • Ezine (also e-zine) - Another name vendor that also provides strategic for email newsletter, adapted from consulting and creative support, in electronic zine or electronic magazine. addition to sending messages. • False Positive - A legitimate message • Goodbye Message - An email mistakenly rejected or filtered as spam, message sent automatically to a list either by an ISP or a recipient's anti- member who unsubscribes, spam program. The more stringent an acknowledging the request. Always anti-spam program is, the higher the include an option to re-subscribe in false-positive rate will be. case the unsubscribe was requested

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

accidentally. • IP Warm-up - Sending a progressively increasing number of emails out of an • Hard Bounce - Email messages that cannot be delivered to the recipient IP address in order to build the IP's because of a permanent error, such as reputation. an invalid, closed or non-existent email • ISP (Internet Service Provider) - A address. company that provides access to the Internet, including the World Wide Web • Hard Bounce - A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a and email, typically for a monthly fee. permanent reason like a non-existent, • Joe Job - A spam-industry term for a invalid, or blocked email address. forged email, in which a spammer or hacker fakes a genuine email address • Header - Routing and program data at the start of an email message, in order to hide his/her identity. including the sender's name and email • Landing Page - A Web page viewed address, originating email server IP after clicking on a link within an email. address, recipient IP address and any Also may be called a microsite, splash transfers in the process. page, bounce page, or click page which provides additional information directly • Honey Pot - A planted email address by organisations trying to combat spam related to products or services that, when a spammer harvests and promoted in the email's call-to-action. emails, identifies that sender as a • Levels of Authentication - A way of spammer. establishing a sender's identity, and ensure the sender is allowed to send • Host - When a server acts as a host it means that other computers on the from a given domain. network do not have to download the • Linkrot - What happens when links go software that this server carries. bad over time, either because a Web site has shut down or a site has • House List (or Retention List) - One of your most valuable marketing stopped supporting a unique landing assets, it's a permission-based list of page provided in an email promotion. email addresses your organisation has • List Broker - A company that sells or developed on its own. rents lists of email addresses. • HTML Email - Sending HTML email • List Fatigue - A condition producing makes it possible to get creative with diminishing returns from a mailing list the design of your emails. whose members are sent too many offers, or too many of the same offers, • HTML Message - Email message which contains any type of formatting other in too short a period of time. than text. This may be as simple as • List hygiene (also see Hygiene) - programming that sets the text in a The act of maintaining a list so that specific font (bold, italics, Courier 10 hard bounces and unsubscribed names point, etc.). It also includes any graphic are removed from mailings. Some list images, logos and colours.HTML stands owners also use an email change-of- for hypertext mark-up language. address service to update old or abandoned email addresses (hopefully • Hygiene - The process of cleaning a database to correct incorrect or with a permission step baked in) as outdated values. See also List Hygiene. part of this process. List Management - How a mailing list • IMAP (Internet Message Access • Protocol) - A standard protocol for is set up, administered and maintained. The list manager has daily accessing email from a server. responsibility over list operation; • Impression - A single view of one including processing subscribes and page by a single user, used in unsubscribes, bounce management, list calculating advertising rates. hygiene, etc. • Individual Subscriber - This means a • List Owner - The organisation or residential subscriber, a sole trader or individual who has gathered a list of an unincorporated partnership in email addresses. The list owner is also England, Wales and Northern Ireland. responsible for administrative matters • In-House List - A list of email and for answering questions from the addresses that a company has gathered list subscribers. through previous customer contacts, • List Rental - The process in which a Web sign-ups or other permission- publisher or advertiser pays a list based methods. owner to send its messages to that list. • “In the course of a sale or Usually involves the list owner sending negotiations for a sale” - A sale does the message's on the advertiser's not have to be completed to satisfy this behalf. criterion. For example, you may have • List Sale - The actual purchase of a asked for a quote for insurance online mailing list along with the rights to mail but chose not to take up the offer. it directly. Permission can only be "sold" if the subsequent mailings

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

continue to match the frequency, brand and HTML versions. Recipients can then name, content, and "from" of the past open the message in their preferred owner's mailings. format. • List Segmentation - Selecting a • Multi-threading - A process though target audience or group of individuals which a mail server can perform for whom your email message is multiple concurrent deliveries to relevant. different domains, which greatly speeds up the delivery of large volumes of • Mail Bomb - An orchestrated attempt to shut down a mail server by sending email. more messages than it can handle in a • MX (Mail Exchange Record) - An short period of time. entry in a domain name database that identifies the mail server that is • Mail Loop - A communication error between two email servers, usually responsible for handling e-mails for that happening when a misconfigured email domain name. triggers an automated response from • Nth Name - The act of segmenting an the recipient server. email list for a test in which names are pulled from the main list for the test • Mail-Merge - A process that enables the delivery of personalized messages cell by number - such as every 5th to large numbers of recipients. This is name on the list. usually achieved using email list • Open Rate - The number of HTML management software working in message recipients who opened your conjunction with a database. email, usually as a percentage of the total number of emails sent. The open • mailto - A code to make an email address in either a text or HTML email rate is considered a key metric for immediately clickable (mailto: judging an email campaign's success, [email protected]). When the link but it has several problems. The rate indicates only the number of emails is clicked, it usually opens the user's email client and inserts the email opened from the total amount sent, not just those that were actually delivered. address in the To: link of a blank message. Opens also can't be calculated on text emails. • Merge-Purge - The act of removing duplicate email addresses from a • Open Relay - An SMTP email server coalesced list that is composed of two that allows outsiders to relay email or more existing lists. messages that are neither for nor from local users. • Metrics - Term used to refer to message statistics such as open and • Opt-In (or Subscribe) - A specific, click through tracking, number of pro-active, request by an individual bounces, number of unsubscribes, etc. email recipient to have their own email address placed on a specific mailing list • Moderated List - Moderators must thereby giving them permission to approve any message posted to an email you. The subscriber can often email list before it is delivered to all indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. subscribers. It is also possible for the mountain biking) and/or indicate what moderator to edit or delete messages. types of emails they wish to receive A moderated list thus puts the list from the sender (e.g. newsletters). owner in the equivalent position as an editor of a newspaper. • Opt-Out (or Unsubscribe) - When a subscribers chooses not to receive • MSP - Mail service provider, such as email communications from the sender Hotmail. anymore, and requests removal from • MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) - A your email list. It is legally required computer that forwards email from that you provide a clear way to opt out senders to recipients (or to relay sites) in every email you send. and stores incoming email. • Out-of-office Reply - Automatic email • MUA (Mail User Agent) - also known reply messages triggered by incoming as email client. email to a user's inbox, typically activated when users are on vacation or • Multi-part MIME - Also known otherwise unavailable through email for (confusingly) as an "email sniffer". an extended period. Message format which includes both an HTML and a text-only version in the • Pass-along - An email recipient who same message. Most email clients got your message via forwarding from a receiving messages in this format will subscriber. (Some emails offer "forward automatically display the version the to a friend" in the creative, but the vast user's system is set to show. Systems majority of pass-alongs happen using that can't show HTML should show the email clients, and not that tech.) Pass- text version instead. alongs can affect the formatting of the email, often stripping off HTML. Also • Multipart/alternative – An email known as viral. message format that includes both text

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

• Permission - The implicit approval information that adds value to your given when a person actively requests relationship. to have their own email address added • Protocol - The set of formal rules that to a list. describe how to transmit data, • Personalisation - A targeting method especially across a network of in which an email message appears to computers. have been created only for a single • Proxy server - A proxy server is a recipient. Personalisation techniques server that acts as an intermediary include adding the recipient's name in between a workstation user and the the subject line or message body, or Internet. the message offer reflects a purchasing, link clicking, or transaction • Query - A subset of records in a history. It could refer to addressing the database. Queries may be used to recipient by name, referencing past create highly specified demographics in purchases, or other content unique to order to maximize the effectiveness of each recipient. an email marketing campaign. • Phishing - A form of identity theft in • Queue - Where an email message goes which a scammer uses an authentic- after you send it but before the list looking email to trick recipients into owner approves it or before the list giving out sensitive personal server gets around to sending it. Some information, such as credit-card or list software allows you to queue a bank account numbers, Social Security message and then set a time to send it numbers and other data. automatically, either during a quiet period on the server or at a time when • Physical Address - The physical, human approval isn't available. street address of the company sending the email, usually found in the footer of • Read or Open Length - A measure of an email. Its inclusion is a legal the length of time a person opens the requirement for all email marketing. email until they close it. • Plain Text - Text in an email message • Registration - The process where that includes no formatting code – it’s someone not only opts into your email an email sent without HTML. You should program but provides some additional always give your recipients the option information, such as name, address, to read emails in either HTML or plain demographic data or other relevant text for better readability. information, usually by using a Web form. • POP (Post Office Protocol) - An email client uses it to send to or receive • Relationship email - An email messages from an email server. message that refers to a commercial action - a purchase, complaint or • Postmaster – the person to contact at customer-support request - based on a a Web site, ISP or other site to request business relationship between the information, get help with delivery or sender and recipient. register complaints. • Rental List (or Acquisition List) - • Preferences - Options a user can set Not a recommended email marketing to determine how they want to receive technique, it is a list of prospects or a your messages, how they want to be targeted group of recipients who have addresses, to which email address opted in to receive information about message should go and which certain subjects, usually targeted by messages they want to receive from something like interest, profession, or you. demographic information. • Preview Pane - The window in an • Reply-to - The email address that email client that allows the user to scan receives messages sent from users who message content without actually click “reply” in their email clients. Can clicking on the message. differ from the “from” address which • Privacy Policy - A clear description of can be an automated or unmonitored how your company uses the email email address used only to send addresses and other information it messages to a distribution list. gathers via opt-in requests for • Reverse DNS - The process in which newsletters, company information or an IP address is matched correctly to a third-party offers or other functions. If domain name, instead of a domain you rent, sell or exchange your list to name being matched to an IP address. anyone outside your company, or if you This can be compared to a Forward add email addresses to opt-out DNS Lookup, which is the process of messages, you should state so in the looking up and translating a domain privacy policy. When subscribers, name into its corresponding IP address. customers and prospects trust you with their information, they expect that it • Rich Media - Creative that includes will be safe. If you expressly state your video, animation, or sound. A Rich- privacy policy, subscribers, visitors and media email often collect high open and prospects will more readily share click rates but requires more bandwidth

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

and are less compatible with different year or so), it may be a good email clients than text or regular HTML investment for mailing customers. email-format messages. Some mailers • Server - A program or computer also consider transactional email "rich". system that stores and distributes • Router (Routing System) - The role email from one mailbox to another, or of a route can be described as a bridge relays email from one server to another between two or more networks. The in a network. function of the router is to look at the • Shared IP - A less costly option than a destination addresses of the packets dedicated IP address, it is an IP address passing through it, and thereafter from which many people send emails. decide which route to send these packets on. • Shared Server - An email server used by more than one company or sender. • Scalability - The ability of a software Shared servers are less expensive to program to continue to function use because the broadcast vendor can smoothly as additional volume, or work spread the cost over more users. is required of it. However, senders sharing a server risk • Seed emails - Email addresses placed having emails blocked by major ISPs if on a list (sometimes secretly) to one of the other users does something determine what messages are sent to to get the server's IP address the list and/or to track delivery rate blacklisted. and/or visible appearance of delivered • Signature - A line or two of messages. information found in the closing of an • Segment - The ability to slice a list email, usually followed the sender's into specific pieces determined by name. Signatures can include various attributes, such as open history advertising information, such as a or name source. company name, product, brand message or marketing call to action • Select - A segment of a list determined by any number of attributes, such as (subscribe to a company newsletter with the email subscribe address or source of name, job title, purchasing history, etc. CPM list renters pay an Web registration form, or visit a Web site with the URL listed). additional fee per thousand names for each select on top of the base list price. • Signature File - A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email • Selective Unsubscribe - An unsubscribe mechanism that allows a message that identifies the sender and consumer to selectively determine provides additional information such as which email newsletters they wish to company name, physical address, and continue receiving while stopping the contact information. sending of others. • Sign-up Form - A form that is to be put on a web site and allows visitors to • Sender ID - The informal name for a new anti-spam program combining two subscriber to a company’s newsletters existing protocols: Sender Policy and announcement lists. Framework and CallerID. SenderID • Single Opt-In - A single opt-in list is authenticates email senders and blocks created when users sign up for email email forgeries and faked addresses. communications, but don't confirm the action. This means they can be signed • Sender Policy Framework (also SPF) - A protocol used to eliminate up for a list by someone else, and as such is not a recommended way to email forgeries. A line of code called an SPF record is placed in a sender's build a healthy email marketing list. Domain Name Server information. The • SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer incoming mail server can verify a Protocol) - The most common protocol sender by reading the SPF record for sending email messages between before allowing a message through. email servers. SMTP is a set of rules regarding the interaction between a • Sender Score - A free service of Return Path, it's a reputation rating program sending email and a program from 0-100 for every outgoing mail receiving email. server IP address. Mail servers will • Snail Mail – The name given to check your Sender Score before traditional or surface mail sent through deciding what to do with your emails. A postal services. score of over 90 is good. • Sniffing - A method of determining • SenderBase - A type of delivery whether email recipients are capable of insurance, stamp of approval company receiving HTML-formatted messages. for email marketing companies. If you This procedure is not recommended as purchase the SenderBase IronPort it is flawed and may result in inaccurate Bonded Sender Certificate, they will findings. guarantee that your mail gets delivered • Soft Bounce - A soft bounce is the to the large ISPs that they have failed delivery of an email due to a relationships with. While it is expensive temporary issue, like a full mailbox or to obtain this certification ($7500 a

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

an unavailable server. • Subscribe - The process of joining a mailing list, either through an email • Solo Mailing - A one-time broadcast to an email list, separate from regular command, by filling out a Web form, or newsletters or promotions, and often offline by filling out a form or including a message from an outside requesting to be added verbally. advertiser or a special promotion from • Subscriber - The person who has the list owner. specifically requested to join a mailing list. A list has both subscribers, who • Spam - The name given to unsolicited commercial email. However, some receive the message from the sender, email recipients define spam as any and pass-along. email they no longer want to receive, • Suppression File - A list of email even if it comes from a mailing list they addresses you have removed from your joined voluntarily. regular mailing lists, either because they have opted out of your lists or • Spam Cop - A paid spam service that plants their own emails and monitors because they have notified other who harvests the address and spams it. mailers that they do not want to receive mailings from your company. • Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) - Email sent to someone who • Targeting - Using demographics and has not opted-in or given permission to related information in a customer database to select the most appropriate email to the sender. Over 90% of email sent is classified as spam. recipients for a specific email campaign. Test - A necessary step before sending • Spam Trap - An email address that • was once valid, but no longer is. If you an email campaign or newsletter. Many email this address, you'll receive a hard email clients permit you to send a test bounce notice. When the mail server email before sending a regular email sees consistent traffic going to the dead newsletter or solo mailing, in which you would send one copy of the message to email, however, they can turn the email into a spam trap. It will stop returning an in-house email address and then review it for formatting or copy errors a hard bounce for the known bad address, and instead accept the or improperly formatted links. Email marketers should also send a test message and report the sender as a spammer. campaign to a list of email addresses not in the deployment database to • SPF (Sender Policy Framework) - determine likely response rates and An authentication protocol used by how well different elements in the recipient sites to verify that the message perform. originating IP address is authorized to send email for the domain name • Text Newsletter - Plain newsletter declared in the "MAIL FROM" line of the with words only, no colours, graphics, mail envelope. SPF is used to identify fonts or pictures; can be received by messages with forged "MAIL FROM" anyone who has email. addresses. It’s a DNS record that says • Thank-you Page – a web page that on whose behalf an IP or domain sends appears after user has submitted an email. order or a form online. • Spider - An automated software tool • Throttling - The practice of regulating that can visit hundreds of web sites per how many email message a second and extract (“harvest”) any broadcaster sends to one ISP or mail information on those sites (such as server at a time. Some ISPs bounce phone numbers, mailing addresses, or email if it receives too many messages the most commonly extracted item - from one sending address at a time. email addresses). • Tracking - In an email marketing • Sponsorship Swap - An agreement campaign, measuring behavioural between email list owners, publishers activities such as click-throughs and or advertisers to sponsor each other's open-ups. mailings or newsletters for free. • Transactional email (also known as • Spoofing - The practice of changing transactive email) - A creative format the sender's name in an email message where the recipient can enter a so that it looks as if it came from transaction in the body of the email another address. itself without clicking to a web page first. Transactions may be answering a • Subject line - Text that identifies what an email message is about, often survey, or purchasing something. designed to entice the recipient into • UCE (Unsolicited Commercial opening the message. The subject line Email) - Another name for spam or appears first in the recipient's inbox, junk mail. often next to the sender's name or • Unique Reference Number - A email address. It is repeated in the unique number assigned to a list email message's header information member, usually by the email- inside the message. broadcast software, and used to track

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

member behaviour (clicks, subscribes, a product, service or specific offer to unsubscribe) or to identify the member others (lines such as “send this to a to track email delivery. friend”), this method is very popular for email marketing. • ‘Unsolicited’ - This means something that is not invited. However, it does not • Viral Responses - The number of mean something that is ‘unwanted’. recipients who actually opened a forwarded message and clicked on a • Unsubscribe - To remove oneself from an email list, either via an emailed link. command to the list server or by filling • Virtual Hosting – A web server in a Web form. hosting service that replaces a company’s need to purchase and • Unsubscribe Link - The link at the bottom of each email which allows maintain its own Web server and visitors to unsubscribe or connections to the Internet. modify/update their information. • Web bug (also Web beacon) - A 1 pixel-by-1 pixel image tag added to an • URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - The Web address for a page, always HTML message and used to track open beginning with http:// (or https:// for a rates by email address. Opening the secure page) and followed by www. (or message, either in the preview pane or variations, although some URLs are set by clicking on it, activates the bug and sends a signal to the Web site, where up not to include this information) and the domain name. For example: special software tracks and records the http://www.google.com. signal as an open. Webmail (also Web mail) - Any of • Usability - A measure of how easy it is • for a user to complete a task on a several Web-based email clients where software or online. In the context of clients have to go to a Web site to email marketing, it refers to how easy a access or download email instead of using a desktop application. Some subscriber or prospect can opt in and opt out of a list, and how easy it is to examples are Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. find and use the resources they are offered. • Welcome Message - Message sent automatically to new list members as • User Interface - A set of controls such as buttons, commands and other soon as their email addresses are devices that allow a user to operate a added successfully. computer program. • Whitelist - Advance-authorized list of email addresses, held by an ISP, • Value - The overall appeal and usefulness prospects and customers subscriber or other email service find in a product or service. provider, which allows email messages to be delivered regardless of spam • Verification - A program that filters. An IP address included in a determines an email came from the whitelist is authorized to deliver email sender listed in the return path or even when blocking measures are in Internet headers; designed to stop place. When an email service provider email from forged senders. states that they are ‘whitelisted’, this • Video e-mail - An email message that means that their IP addresses are includes a video file, either inserted into registered with and authorized by the message body, accessible through a specific ISPs, which is a guarantee that hotlink to a Web site or accompanying the messages sent through this it in an attachment. provider will be delivered. • Viral Design - Elements, functions and • Worm - A piece of malicious code content included in a communication delivered via an executable attachment that render the message ‘contagious’ in in email or over a computer network the sense that recipients feel impelled and which spreads to other computers to pass it on to others, thus leveraging by automatically sending itself to every the marketing effort. email address on a recipient's contact list or address book. • Viral Forwards - The number of referrals sent. • Viral Marketing - A marketing strategy that encourages email recipients to pass along messages to others in order to generate additional exposure. • Viral Marketing - A method of marketing in which a company’s customers participate voluntarily. It is often referred to as word of mouth (or WOM) advertising. With tools that motivate people to refer or recommend

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Glossary of Email Marketing Terms

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Publication issued or updated on: 11 May 2012

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