As a question that often comes up about what can be done to increase the X% of a campaign by X%. I had to sit back and ponder this question. I would typically not be one that is short of words about much of anything, but for this I had to reach out to the rest of the email marketing experts that I pow-wow with to get some feedback from them. Yes, we all talk to one another (even the competing ESPs and Agencies).

The Opt In:
Average reach is >1 and opt in from 20-90%. Tough range to present to your boss, but if you can work on increasing this number consistently you will have success in your email opt in programs.

Fine Tuning:
I usually put some circumstances around it and give a range of improvement, but never shy away from predicting improvement based on experience. I usually say I can improve reach/response by 10-25% using "our" approach... and feel very comfortable we can deliver on that. If you could improve your campaign 10-25% on a sale or conversion that might be amazing for you. It all depends on the client, list, and situation.

Budget and Testing:
We've seen enough programs improve, fail, and have all the tactics on our bag of tricks. It's really just a matter of economies. How fast and at what cost will this improvement happen? (You just need to wrap it with great assumptions and circumstances). Many people are looking for instant improvement. We can tell you that it is not tied to a one email campaign situation, but to constant iterations and testing the multiple variables like offers, subject lines, list segmentation, time of day, day of week, and landing page. I must stress the landing page, because if we cannot control the interaction from the email, then you can not have control of the campaign results. Often times it is due to the rush or budgets as to why improvements do not happen.

Email certification Lift:
One of the firms working in the email accreditation/certification space reports that prospective senders showing a lift w/ CertifiedEmail in the 20 - 45% range. This means that if you are using an additional method of paying for delivery to the ISPs, you can see an increase in performance metrics. Now does this translate to sales? Not from what I know. However, organically, tests have shown that the natural increase to the inbox can give you more of an opportunity to convert a subscriber to a sale.

What is success?
Well, that is different in every case we have encountered. It can be as simple as an increase in deliverability, sales, opens, clicks, page views, or even ads rendered. I would try to force you to think about it as a combination of all of the above. If you are routinely testing, learning and changing your programs CONSTANTLY then you can find success. Just like in the days of direct mail, we need to never be complacent with our results and strive to exceed them. Whether this is something you can do it house yourself or need to leverage an agency with email marketing experience like eROI, that is for you to decide. BUT if you could beat your goals like we have for our clients over and over again by having another set of eyes that see 1000s of email campaigns a year in pass through our shop in all verticals, then you should reach out and allow us to make an effort to make you more successful.