Behavioural targeting email marketing has been in the headlines for some time now and there is a good reason for that. It works!

Few examples:

RedEye has helped Sainsburys Bank achieve 750% ROI with their behavioural targeting campaign. (view case study)

In a recent Lyris seminar at the ecommerce EXPO Michael Weston has shared a very interesting statistic. One of Lyris’ clients (fashion retailer) observed website behaviour email campaign has outperformed the welcome trigger and the email click behaviour programmes in terms of Open Rate and Click Through rate.

Ok, so Behavioural Targeting works – fact. But, how does this fall into your email marketing strategy as a whole?

You have convinced a person to give you his email address in return for relevant and timely newsletters. You keep your promise for six months and enjoy your average, but steady open rates and conversions. One day your subscriber receives a “You have visited THIS product page and we thought you might also like THESE” email. What is your subscribers reaction? Is he thrilled by the relevance or is he worried that you are tracking him?

Success of your Behavioural Targeting campaign depends on how you are managing your subscriber expectations. Was your subscriber aware that you will be tracking his behaviour on your website? If not, does he trust you (your brand) to collect this kind of information?

If your answer to both of those questions is “no” this campaign is most likely to have a negative impact on your recipients, as this technique may seem intrusive. (More about “too relevant” email marketing techniques)

There are two ways you can approach this:

1. Think how you word the email or do not mention why they are receiving this email at all.
2. Introduce your subscribers to Behavioural Targeting.

It may seem like a crazy idea at the beginning, however after all it is all about the relationship. John Doe trusted you with his email address in return for relevant communications and it does not get any more relevant than Behavioural Targeting.

“Great news, John! We have spent 4 sleepless weeks and just over 500 mugs of coffee to bring you personalized emails. From now on every time you interact with our website – our production and creative teams will be churning away on an email that is tailored just for you. Ok, it is a little bit more technical than that, but it is still pretty awesome. So next time you open our email you know we are thinking of you.”

Personal? Yes. Honest? Yes. Intrusive? No, as long you give John an option to opt-out from Behavioural Targeting.

You can either do this during the sign-up process or send them an introduction email explaining how Behavioural Targeting works and how they will benefit from it. This will also give you an opportunity to ask them to unsubscribe from Behavioural Targeting emails or ask more questions about their interests.

Taking this to the next level: display the Behavioural Targeting data on their email newsletter preference centre page.

A good example how this is implemented in banner advertising campaign between B&Q and Criteo.

How Amazon does it.
Subject line:  Amazon.co.uk recommends “Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion” and more

Recommendation Preferences page:

New to Behavioural Marketing?
Start thinking about how you will integrate your Website Analytics data with your Email Marketing Service provider and then eventually your CRM.