I recently decided that I wasn’t receiving enough emails so I signed up to a whole load more. The process was actually quite eye-opening. These were the retailers I chose to subscribe to:

Positioning of the sign-up

Uniqlo and Adidas were the only ones whose sign-up forms were at the top of their sites and above the fold. I really like the way Adidas used a drop down to display more information about the newsletters. They make it really clear why someone would want to sign up and it didn’t really affect the overall UX of the site.

The rest of the retailers all had sign-up forms at the bottom of their home pages. Unlike me, consumers are unlikely to proactively look for the sign-up forms, and I would suggest that retailers consider moving them towards the top of their home pages. It would even be worth replacing one of the hero banner images with a sign-up form, at least for a short while, because it’s a sure-fire way to net more sign-ups.

Aldo, Sweaty Betty and Havaianas were the only retailers to have a popover on the site. Unfortunately, Aldo’s popover coincides with its cookie message appearing at the same time, which detracts from the user’s experience of the site. What’s more, the brand doesn’t actually have the form on the popover and you still have to click through to a separate page. I think a wise move would be for Aldo to delay showing the popover timing for a few more seconds. Aldo clearly shows the benefits of signing up to its emails, although the amount of information asked is perhaps unnecessary in the very first instance and, to me, is a little off-putting.

I think Cath Kidston has a sweet and twee way of encouraging sign-ups, however it is lost somewhat among the rest of the floral products and branding on its site.

Additional data capture

With most of the retailers I wanted to receive emails from, once I had typed in my email address that was the end of the process. Those brands are losing a prime opportunity to find out more about their customers. However, some did ask for further information.

Footlocker had a bit of a title fail. Unfortunately, the only option you get is either Mr. or Mrs.

I tend to buy both men’s and women’s clothing. With a lot of these retailers I was only ever given the option to select one gender. Whilst it is a very simple and easy way to sign up, I feel that Allsaints could consider adding a “Both” option in its sign-up form.

Forever21 were the only ones that gave me the option of selecting both.

Once you’ve gone past the initial sign-up stage on Hotel Chocolat’s site, I like the company’s clear preferences option which allows me to select the types of emails I would like to receive.

Nike, surprisingly, was the only site where I couldn’t sign up – its “Sign up for email” page couldn’t be found. A huge lost opportunity to capture visitor’s emails – hopefully they get it up and running soon.

Conclusion and advice

1. Put your sign-up forms near the top of your home page
2. Use popovers in addition to a static sign-up page
3. Use it as an additional opportunity to find out more from your contacts
4. Tell your contacts the benefits for signing up
5. Check regularly that your sign up form and page still works

Did you find this useful? Look out for my next blog post, where I’ll be discussing and critiquing welcome emails.

The technical definition of spam is any email sent to individuals which is unsolicited and sent in bulk. We all know the traditional spam: grammatically incorrect emails selling you pills, porn, body part enlargements etc. However people’s perceptions of what constitutes spam go above and beyond what you traditionally find in your junk folder.

I’ve heard the following from many different people:

• ‘Spam is anything in my junk folder’
• ‘Spam is anything that doesn’t look good or doesn’t render correctly’
• ‘Spam is any email I did want before but am no longer interested in’
• ‘Spam is any email that isn’t relevant’
• ‘Spam is email from a company that are sent too often’
• ‘Spam is any email I didn’t request’

And probably the best one I’ve heard:

• ‘Spam is email’ – needless to say this poor chap didn’t have a website or an email address.

What happens when someone marks you as Spam

The main thing is you’ve just lost a very important asset to your company. If you use dotMailer or a similar ESP, these contacts will be suppressed within the system, meaning you won’t be able to send to them again. You may have jeopardised the quality of your brand and your company.

Every time you receive a spam complaint, you reduce the overall reputation of your sending domain and also the ESP’s IP addresses. If you receive too many spam complaints you may even be blacklisted by the ISPs which means that your emails just won’t get delivered to your recipients.

How do you avoid being classed as spam?

• Make sure that your list is fully opted-in by clearly asking your recipients permission to send them marketing emails. Any form of list purchasing, harvesting or just sending to a contact that hasn’t given you their permission should be avoided.
• Seriously critique how your campaign looks; if you think it looks amateurish, your contacts definitely will. There are no second chances at making a first impression, so make sure you get a professionally designed template. Also be sure to thoroughly test your campaign across multiple email clients to ensure that it renders correctly. If you don’t have time, just use an inbox preview tool.
• Make sure that your unsubscribe link is clearly visible in your email. Best practice guidelines suggest putting the unsubscribe link at the top of your email as well as the bottom. It’s much better to have people unsubscribe rather than mark you as spam.
• Put in place an efficient data hygiene strategy to remove old data and disengaged contacts. This will also stop the reporting from getting diluted by contacts that aren’t opening or clicking your emails. You’ll find your results will improve.
• Ensure that you effectively segment your contacts so that you are sending relevant information to the right people. Again this will help improve your results because you’ll be sending relevant emails which your contacts will be much more inclined to engage with.
• Be careful how often you send out your emails. If you send too frequently you will find that people will begin to find your emails annoying and as a result stop opening them and they might just mark you as spam.

Stick by these rules (head to the links to learn more) and the only spam you’ll need to worry about is the dubious meat snack which comes in a can. That’s a mystery even we can’t solve.