Getting out of the Gmail Penalty Box
It was approaching holiday season, and Medical Supply Depot’s email open rate had plummeted to below 5%.
Revenue from email had been steadily dropping since May, and for no apparent reason.
After careful research, it was determined that virtually none of their emails being sent to Gmail addresses were getting through to the inbox. Gmail was effectively locking them out from their customers.
It was time for drastic action. Over a period of 6 weeks, we slashed the list of recipients to about 20% of what it normally was, including anyone with @gmail.com in their address.
The subject lines were carefully chosen to elicit engagement, and the offers we sent were carefully matched to the profiles of the segments.
Within about 3 weeks, their Google domain score had risen from Bad to Low, and within 6 weeks they were at a healthy Medium level.
With time, and using great care, our team executed a custom approach for their holiday season, resulting in much improved open rates and record sales.
Challenge: How to 2x Holiday Season Email Revenue
It was during the COVID pandemic of 2020, and a huge decline in store visits meant that ecommerce was expected to make up the shortage.
We right away realized that sending more emails would be key to increased revenue. But how could we send even more emails to our list than we were already sending without causing severe message fatigue from customers, possibly resulting in irreparable damage?
Looking into the customer database, it became clear that Patriotic Mint’s shoppers belonged to one of three groups – mint coins, commemoratives, and collectible coins.
Using previous order history, we build robust list segments around these three core groups, crafting the messaging and product selection to carefully match the customer profile.
Over the course of 5 weeks, we doubled the sending volume of previous holiday seasons. Since each campaign was carefully related to something the subscriber had bought or expressed interest in the past, they found it relevant and non-intrusive.
The results were astounding!
Open rates were in the low 20% range overall, and sales rose 250% over previous years.
Lesson learned: Sending more emails do result in greater sales, but it must be done with a plan of action.
