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Case study · Email marketing

The newsletter that opened at 22% now opens at 42

A leading Spanish digital food publication hands us its newsletter: tens of thousands of subscribers who get the same thing, whether they open it or not. The job is to make sure each person gets the email they'll actually want to open.

2.7 → 5.3%
click rate in a year; the industry's "good" bar is 3%
57,440
subscribers in the database, 8,661 more than a year earlier and above the annual target
89%
open rate and 30% click rate on the topical sends to the subscribers with the most demonstrated interest
Let's talk about your email See the email service
01 · The starting point

An email for everyone is an email for no one

We'd been measuring the publication's site for years when the email project reached us. The opening picture: a single newsletter for all of Spain, with the same content selection for the subscriber in Bilbao and the one in Seville, and an open rate stuck to the industry average.

The database grows slowly and, to top it off, the channel can't even take credit for what it earns: the sends go out untagged, and much of the traffic email brings in gets logged in Analytics as direct traffic.

Where things stood
  • A single generic newsletter for the whole country
  • 21.9% open rate, at the restaurant industry average (19.8%)
  • Database growing below target
  • Untagged sends: the credit for email went to direct traffic
02 · The strategy

Make every subscriber get the email they want to open

01 Dynamic sends Each email's content is reordered based on what each subscriber opens and clicks. This piece alone raises opens by 37% and clicks by 35%, and adds more than 22,000 site visits in a year.
02 One newsletter, ten editions From a single national send to ten regional editions with their own content: the restaurants, plans, and recipes of each area, plus loyalty contests with local hospitality. The best editions open at 58%.
03 Lead scoring: interest is measured and rewarded Every open and every click add points by topic. Anyone who shows interest in restaurants or recipes gets their own topical sends, the best performers of the whole project.
03 · The numbers

The year of the jump, and the subject lines that explain it

41.3%
average open rate in the year of the jump, against an annual target of 34%
39%
bounce rate on visits that come from email, the lowest of any channel on the site
126,501
loyalty sends the following year, opened at 41.8%
EditionEmail subject lineOpen rateClicks
Balearic Islandsquick meals to make this summer58.46%5.98%
Balearic Islandsmeet the art of cooking over the coals58.44%6.71%
Madridirresistible brunches! Find out where to enjoy them57.87%5.87%
Madridthe juiciest, most delicious burgers are waiting for you53.48%4.26%
Cataloniathe restaurants with the best Spanish omelets48.66%4.98%

Real subject lines from the best-performing regional editions · the project's email platform

04 · What the reports don't show

First measure it right, then brag

When we arrived, email was performing better than the dashboards said: sends were going out untagged and Analytics was attributing those visits to direct traffic. Before optimizing anything, we tagged everything. The channel's results showed up where they belonged, and since then every improvement can be proven with its own number.

The other uncomfortable truth is in the tables themselves: sends with standard content, the kind not tailored to each region, consistently open worse. Original content costs more to produce. It's also what people open.

How many people actually open your emails?

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