• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

A

Autoresponder

Automatic e-mail (reply or otherwise) sent to recipient upon onset of a trigger event, such as a certain calendar date, the click of a link on your site, or subscription request. Omnistar's autoresponder software completely automates the e-mail marketing process.

B

Bounced message

E-Mail that was returned to sender because of inability to process.

Bounce rate

Ratio of bounced e-mails to total e-mails sent.

C

Click-thru

Occurs when someone clicks on a link.

Click-thru rate (CTR)

Ratio of click-thrus to total e-mails sent.

D

Demographics

Data about the characteristics of your audience.

Double Opt-In

The most secure type of confirmation for newsletters. Double opt-in means that when a user clicks on a link to opt-in for a newsletter, they then receive an e-mail which requests that they verify their subscription. This is useful to prevent competitors from surreptitiously signing up users who did not request your newsletter. Here at Omnistar, we highly recommend the use of double opt-in confirmation, as it makes it nearly impossible for others to then sabotage your newsletter efforts.

E

E-mail Blacklist

Database of IP addresses and domains that are screened out on all incoming e-mail. If you get your IP or domain on a blacklist, then e-mails that you send out will largely be automatically deleted without anyone seeing your content. Furthermore, getting off f a blacklist is notoriously difficult. Thankfully, if you follow all the best practices for e-mail marketing that we recommend here at Omnistar, then you will never have to worry about this.

E-mail Bounce (soft)

An e-mail that was rejected by the receiving server for temporary reasons, such as a DNS time out or over quota.

E-mail Bounce (hard)

An e-mail that was rejected by the receiving server for permanent reasons, such as an invalid e-mail address.

E-mail Contextual Link

URL incorporated into the e-mail content. These types of links are MUCH better than "click here" links, both for matters of style, and also due to spam-detection software. Always use links that have descriptive words linking to the content.

E-mail Newsletter

A campaign of e-mails sent over time to prospects. E-mail newsletters are mainly used to maintain existing customer relationships.

E-mail Marketing Campaign

E-mail newsletters or stand-alone marketing messages delivered at intervals to market to a group.

E-mail Frequency

How often a newsletter is sent out.

E-mail Subject Line

The descriptive title of an e-mail. The e-mail subject line is one of the most important parts of your e-mail marketing campaign, because without a good subject line, your e-mails may never even be opened. Our extensive research has shown that the best open rates are closely associated with subject lines that have minimize sales pitches and accurately describe content. Unlike a billboard, which must be 'salesy' in order to get your product across, e-mail suffers from the stigma that so many spammers have given it over the years, and so prospects better appreciate straight-forward subject lines in their inbox.

H

HTML E-mail

An e-mail that utilizes html in order to maintain the consistent look and feel of your brand. It is important to send any html e-mails with a MIME multi-type alternative text version as well, or else spam detectors may fag your e-mail.

HTML E-mail Click-Thru Rate

By using html in your e-mail, you can check how many times a particular image in that html is loaded, thereby estimating how many times someone has opened your e-mail, less those that looked only at the text alternative. The click-thru rate (CTR) is then calculated by dividing the number of click-thrus to the number of e-mail opens (loads) and then multiplying by 100 to express the result as a percentage.

HTML E-mail Unique Opens

The number of different individuals who open the e-mail within a specific period. Note that determining this result is rather difficult, but by checking the number of loads you can get a fairly accurate estimate.

O

Open rate

The e-mail open rate measures the ratio of e-mails opened to the number successfully delivered. This ratio is usually determined by e-mails delivered (i.e.: sent - hard bounces) divided by estimated unique opens.

Opt-in

Confirmation to receive e-mails. Indicates the addition of a specific e-mail address to the recipient list.

Opt-out

Confirmation to unsubscribe from a mailing list. Opt-out links are required by law to be present on all outgoing e-mail marketing. Furthermore, it must be a single click-through, without double opt-out procedures in place. And unsubscribe requests MUST be processed within a "reasonable" period.

P

Personalization

The act of making your marketing e-mails change content according to whom the e-mail is sent to. Omnistar Email Marketing Software does this automatically.

S

Spam Filter

Software used to filter supposed unsolicited e-mail from users' inboxes. Getting around spam filters takes effort, but if you follow our recommendations, your e-mails should get past every spam filter on the market.

Segmentation (a.k.a.: Targeting)

The use of previously gathered information to send e-mails of a particular offer to a subset of the list.

Spam (a.k.a.: UBE)

Unsolicited bulk marketing e-mail. Spamming is against the law, and we cannot recommend its use in any way.

T

Tracking

Reporting CTR, open ratios, bounces, un-subscriptions, etc.

Trigger-based e-mail

An e-mail that is sent in response to the onset of an event, such as a click-through or the arrival of a specific day.

U

Unique click

A page load or loads by a specific user. Unique clicks are difficult to track directly, but estimates are available by making certain assumptions, such as separating clicks by IPs.