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Glossary |
Double opt-in? html sniffing? Soft bounce?
Puzzled? Don’t be. In this section you’ll find an extensive list of email marketing terms and their explanations.
Having trouble finding the right description of an email marketing term? Let us know at and we’ll help you out.
Overview
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | L | M | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W
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A/B split - Refers to a test situation in which a list is split into two pieces with every other name being sent one specific creative, and vice versa. See also Nth name. |
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Above the fold - The part of an email message or Web page that is visible without scrolling. Material in this area is considered more valuable because the reader sees it first. Refers to a printing term for the top half of a newspaper above the fold. |
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Access - Microsoft software tool used for developing a database. Any database vendor you work with -- email broadcaster, list broker, third-party list-hygiene service, etc. -- should be able to work with this format (as well as several others.) |
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Ad swap - An exchange between two publishers in which each agrees to run the other's comparably valued ad at no charge. Value is determined by rate card, placement, size of list, quality of list, name brand fame, etc. |
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Affiliate - A marketing partner that promotes your products or services under a payment-on-results agreement. |
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Alert - Email message that notifies subscribers of an event or special price. |
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AOL - America Online. |
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Application Program Interface (API) - How a program (application) accesses another to transmit data. A client may have an API connection to load database information to an email vendor automatically and receive data back from the email. |
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Application Service Provider (ASP) - Company that provides a Web-based service. Clients don’t have to install software on their own computers; all tasks are performed on (hosted on) the ASP’s servers. |
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Authentication - An automated process that verifies an email sender's identity. |
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Autoresponder - Automated email message-sending capability, such as a welcome message sent to all new subscribers the minute they join a list. May be triggered by joins, unsubscribes, all email sent to a particular mailbox. May be more than a single message — can be a series of date or event-triggered emails. |
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B-to-B - Business-to-business (also B2B). |
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B-to-C - Business-to-consumer (also B2C). |
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Blacklist - A list developed by anyone receiving email, or processing email on its way to the recipient (or interested third-parties) that includes domains or IP addresses of any emailers suspected of sending spam. Many companies use blacklists to reject inbound email, either at the server level or before it reaches the recipient’s in-box. Also Blocklist and Blackhole list. |
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Block - An action by an ISP to not forward your email messages to the recipient. This is a distinct activity from a Bounce. |
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Bounce email - A message that doesn’t get delivered promptly is said to have bounced. Emails can bounce for more than 30 reasons - the email address is incorrect or has been closed; the recipient’s mailbox is full, the mail server is down, or the system detects spam or offensive content. See hard bounce and soft bounce. |
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Bounce message - Message sent back to an email sender reporting the message could not be delivered and why. Note - Not all bounced emails result in messages being sent back to the sender. Not all bounce messages are clear or accurate about the reason the email was bounced. |
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Bounce handling - The process of dealing with the email that has bounced. Bounce handling is important for list maintenance, list integrity and delivery. Given the lack of consistency in bounce messaging formats, it's an inexact science at best. |
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Bounce rate - Number of hard/soft bounces divided by the number of emails sent. This is an inexact number because some systems do not report back to the sender clearly or accurately. |
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Broadcast - The process of sending the same email message to multiple recipients. |
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Campaign - A coordinated set of individual email marketing messages delivered at intervals and with an overall objective in mind. A campaign allows each new message to build on previous success. |
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Call to Action - Words that offer the opportunity and encourage the prospect to take action. For example, "Click here to see a product tour" or "Add this product to your wish list." |
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CGI - Acronym for Common Gateway Interface. It is a specification for transferring information between the Web and a Web server, such as processing email subscription or contact forms. |
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Challenge-response system - An anti-spam program that requires a human being on the sender's end to respond to an emailed challenge message before their messages can be delivered to recipients. Senders who answer the challenge successfully are added to an authorisation list. Bulk emailers can work with challenge-response if they designate an employee to watch the sending address' mailbox and to reply to each challenge by hand. |
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Click-through & click-through tracking - When a hotlink is included in an email, a click-through occurs when a recipient clicks on the link. Click-through tracking refers to the data collected about each click-through link, such as how many people clicked it, how many clicks resulted in desired actions such as sales, forwards or subscriptions. |
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Click-through rate - the percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email. To determine the click-through rate, divide the number of responses by the number of emails opened (multiply this number by 100 to express the result as a percentage) |
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Confirmation - An acknowledgment of a subscription or information request. "Confirmation" can be either a company statement that the email address was successfully placed on a list, or a subscriber's agreement that the subscribe request was genuine and not faked or automatically generated by a third party. |
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Confirmed opt-in - A Confirmed Opt-In is a two-step process to allow a user to opt-in to your list. They must initially sign up, and then they receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription to the mailing list. |
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Conversion rate - The number or percentage of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in a given email marketing campaign or promotion. This is the measure of your email campaign's success. You may measure conversion in sales, phone calls, appointments etc. |
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Co-registration - Arrangement in which companies collecting registration information from users (email sign-up forms, shopping checkout process, etc.) include a separate box for users to check if they would also like to be added to a specific third-party list. |
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CPA - Cost per Action (also can be Acquisition). A method of paying for advertising, or calculating results from non-CPA marketing. |
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CPC - Cost per Click. A method of paying for advertising. Different from CPA because all you pay for is the click, regardless of what that click does when it gets to your site or landing page. |
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CPM - Cost per Thousand. |
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Creative - An email message's copy and any graphics. |
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CRM - Customer Relationship Management technology and systems |
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Cross-post - To send the same email message to at least two different mailing lists or discussion groups. |
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CTR - Clickthrough Rate. Slightly inexact because some clicks "get lost" between the click and your server. Also be sure to ask if the CTR is unique, meaning that each individual user is only counted once no matter how many times they click on a link. |
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Dedicated Server - An email server used by only one sender. A dedicated server often costs more to use because the expense can't be spread among many users, but it performs better than a shared server. Email usually goes out faster, the server is more secure, and you eliminate the possibility that another sender could get the server blacklisted for spamming. |
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Deduplication - (deduping) - The process of removing identical entries from two or more data sets such as mailing lists. |
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Delivered email - Number of emails sent minus the number of bounces and filtered messages. A highly inexact number because not all receiving ISPs report accurately on which email didn't go through and why not. |
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Delivery tracking - The process of measuring delivery rates by format, ISP or other factors and delivery failures (bounces, invalid address, server and other errors). An inexact science. |
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Digest - A shortened version of an email newsletter which replaces full-length articles with clickable links to the full article at a Web site, often with a brief summary of the contents. |
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Discussion group - An email service in which individual members post messages for all group members to read ("many to many.") In contrast, a newsletter is a "one to many" broadcast, where comments by members or subscribers go only to the message sender. Aka by the trademarked name Listserv. |
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DomainKeys - An anti-spam software application being developed by Yahoo and using a combination of public and private "keys" to authenticate the sender's domain and reduce the chance that a spammer or hacker will fake the domain sending address. |
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Double Opt-In - A double opt in is a two-step process to allow a user to opt in to your list. They must initially sign up, and then respond to a follow up email to opt in twice to your mailing list. |
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Email address - The combination of a unique user name and a sender domain (JohnDoe@anywhere.com). The email address requires both the user name and the domain name. |
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Email client - The software recipients use to read email, such as Outlook Express or Lotus Notes. |
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Email Domain - Aka Domain. The portion of the email address to the right of the @ sign. Useful as an email address hygiene tool (e.g. identify all records where the consumer entered "name@aol" as their email address and correct it to "name@aol.com"). |
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Email filter - A software tool that categorizes, sorts or blocks incoming email, based either on the sender, the email header or message content. Filters may be applied at the recipient's level, at the email client, the ISP or a combination. |
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Email Friendly - Name Aka Display Name, From name. The portion of the email address that is displayed in most, though not all, email readers in place of, or in addition to, the email address. |
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Email newsletter - Content distributed to subscribers by email, on a regular schedule. Content is seen as valued editorial in and of itself rather than primarily a commercial message with a sales offer. Also known as an ezine. |
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Email newsletter ads or sponsorships - Buying ad space in an email newsletter or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles. Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both depending on the publication) inserted into the body of the email. Email newsletter ads and sponsorships allow advertisers to reach a targeted audience driving traffic to a website, store or office, signups to a newsletter or sales of a product or service. |
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Email Prefix - The portion of the email address to the left of the @ sign. |
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Email vendor - Another name for an email broadcast service provider, a company that sends bulk (volume) email on behalf of their clients. |
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Event triggered email - Pre-programmed messages sent automatically based on an event such as a date or anniversary. |
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False positive - A legitimate message mistakenly rejected or filtered as spam, either by an ISP or a recipient's anti-spam program. The more stringent an anti-spam program, the higher the false-positive rate. |
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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions. |
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Filter - See email filter. |
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From - Whatever appears in the email recipient's inbox as your visible "from" name. Chosen by the sender. May be a personal name, a brand name, an email address, a blank space, or alpha-numeric gobbledegook. Note - this is not the actual "from" contained in the header (see below) and may be different than the email reply address. Easy to fake. Aka Email Friendly Name. |
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Full-service provider - An email vendor that also provides strategic consulting and creative support, in addition to sending messages. |
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Goodbye message - An email message sent automatically to a list member who unsubscribes, acknowledging the request. Always include an option to resubscribe in case the unsubscribe was requested accidentally. |
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Hard Bounce - A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason, such as a non-existent email address |
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HTML email - An email that is formatted using Hypertext Markup Language instead of plain text. HTML makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colours. HTML makes an email more interesting and when used properly can generate higher response rates than plain text. |
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Header - Routing and program data at the start of an email message, including the sender's name and email address, originating email server IP address, recipient IP address and any transfers in the process. |
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High Level Domain - The portion of the Domain that is to the right of the last period, e.g. "com, net, gov". This is useful for email hygiene. |
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House list - The list of email addresses an organisation develops on its own. (Your own list.) |
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IP address - A unique number assigned to each device connected to the Internet. An IP address can be dynamic, meaning it changes each time an email message or campaign goes out, or it can be static, meaning it does not change. Static IP addresses are best, because dynamic IP addresses often trigger spam filters. |
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IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol, a standard protocol for accessing email from a server. |
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Impression - A single view of one page by a single user, used in calculating advertising rates. |
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In-house list (or Retention List) - A permission-based list that you built yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time. Your in-house list is one of your most valuable assets because it is 7 times less expensive to market to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Use every opportunity to add to it and use it. |
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ISP - Internet Service Provider. Examples - AOL, EarthLink, MSN |
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Landing page - A Web page viewed after clicking on a link within an email. Also may be called a microsite, splash page, bounce page, or click page. |
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List - The list of email addresses to which you send your message. Can be either your house list or a third-party list that sends your message on your behalf. |
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List host - See email vendors. |
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List hygiene - The act of maintaining a list so that hard bounces and unsubscribed names are removed from mailings. Some list owners also use an email change-of-address service to update old or abandoned email addresses (hopefully with a permission step baked in) as part of this process. |
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List owner - The organisation or individual who has gathered a list of email addresses. Ownership does not necessarily imply "with permission." |
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List rental - The process in which a publisher or advertiser pays a list owner to send its messages to that list. Usually involves the list owner sending the messages on the advertiser's behalf. (If someone hands over their list to you, beware.) |
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List sale - The actual purchase of a mailing list along with the rights to mail it directly. Permission can only be "sold" if the subsequent mailings continue to match the frequency, brand name, content, and "from" of the past owner's mailings -- and even then this is a somewhat shaky procedure on the spam-front. You are in effect buying a publication, and not just a list. |
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Mail bomb - An orchestrated attempt to shut down a mail server by sending more messages than it can handle in a short period of time. See DOS. |
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Mailing List - A mailing list is a group of email addresses (with or without information) to be sent specific mailings to. |
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Mail loop - A communication error between two email servers, usually happening when a misconfigured email triggers an automated response from the recipient server. |
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mailto - A code to make an email address in either a text or HTML email immediately clickable (mailto -JohnDoe@anywhere.com). When the link is clicked, it usually opens the user's email client and inserts the email address in the To - link of a blank message. |
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MTA - Mail Transfer Agent. A computer that forwards email from senders to recipients (or to relay sites) and stores incoming email. |
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MSP - Mail service provider, such as Hotmail. |
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Multi-part mime - Also known (confusingly) as an "email sniffer." Message format which includes both an HTML and a text-only version in the same message. Most (but not all) email clients receiving messages in this format will automatically display the version the user’s system is set to show. Systems that can’t show HTML should show the text version instead. |
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Open Rate - The number of emails opened divided by the total number of emails sent, multiplied by 100. |
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Opt-in (or Subscribe) - Opt-In is the action a person takes when he or she actively agrees, by email or other means, to receive communications. To opt-in or subscribe to an email list is to choose to receive email communications by supplying your email address to a particular company, website or individual thereby giving them permission to email you. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. mountain biking) and/or indicate what types of emails he/she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. newsletters). |
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Opt-out (or Unsubscribe) - Opt-Out is the action a person takes when he or she chooses not to receive communications. It requires tactics and mechanisms by which people can ask to be removed reliably from an email list. |
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Pass-along - An email recipient who got your message via forwarding from a subscriber. (Some emails offer "forward to a friend" in the creative, but the vast majority of pass-alongs happen using email clients, and not that tech.) Pass-alongs can affect the formatting of the email, often stripping off HTML. Also known as viral. |
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Permission-based email - Email sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing. |
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Personalisation - The practice of building an email such that the recipient feels it's a more personal experience. Personalisation can include a number of things, such as mail merging a name into the subject line, referring to previous purchases, or more dynamic content based on demographic fields. |
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Plain text - Text in an email message that includes no formatting code. See HTML. |
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POP - Post Office Protocol, which an email client uses to send to or receive messages from an email server. |
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Postmaster - Whom to contact at a Web site, ISP or other site to request information, get help with delivery or register complaints. |
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Preferences - Options a user can set to determine how they want to receive your messages, how they want to be addresses, to which email address message should go and which messages they want to receive from you. The more preferences a user can specify, the more likely you'll send relevant email. |
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Preview pane - The window in an email client that allows the user to scan message content without actually clicking on the message. See open rate. |
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Privacy - The quality or condition of being free from unsanctioned intrusion. Privacy in the email marketing world implies that a recipient's email address is not shared and they will not receive email they did not request. |
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Privacy policy - A clear description of a website or company's policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data. Your privacy policy builds trust especially among those who opt-in to receive email from you or those who register on your site. If subscribers, prospects and customers know their information is safe with you, they will likely share more information with you making your relationship that much more valuable. |
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Push - The metric for the quantity of email messages delivered from an email server. Pushed - Bounces = Delivered. Also the act of sending those messages. Since a mailer cannot control or oftentimes accurately forecast the number of bounces a campaign will receive, knowing expected ROI per email pushed is oftentimes more useful. |
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Read email - Not measurable. Only opens and clicks are measurable in any way. You can never know if a recipient simply read your message. |
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Read email - Not measurable. Only opens and clicks are measurable in any way. You can never know if a recipient simply read your message. |
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Relationship email - An email message that refers to a commercial action -- a purchase, complaint or customer-support request -- based on a business relationship between the sender and recipient. Generally are not covered by CAN-SPAM requirements. |
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Reverse DNS - The process in which an IP address is matched correctly to a domain name, instead of a domain name being matched to an IP address. Reverse DNS is a popular method for catching spammers who use invalid IP addresses. If a spam filter or program can't match the IP address to the domain name, it can reject the email. |
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Rich Media - Creative that includes video, animation, and/or sound. Rich-media emails often collect high open and click rates but requires more bandwidth and are less compatible with different email clients than text or regular HTML email-format messages. Some mailers also consider transactional email "rich". |
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Seed emails - Email addresses placed on a list (sometimes secretly) to determine what messages are sent to the list and/or to track delivery rate and/or visible appearance of delivered messages. Seeds may also be placed on Web sites and elsewhere on the Internet to track spammers' harvesting activities. |
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Segment - The ability to slice a list into specific pieces determined by various attributes, such as open history or name source. |
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Select - A segment of a list determined by any number of attributes, such as source of name, job title, purchasing history, etc. CPM list renters pay an additional fee per thousand names for each select on top of the base list price. |
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Selective Unsubscribe - An unsubscribe mechanism that allows a consumer to selectively determine which email newsletters they wish to continue receiving while stopping the sending of others. |
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Sender ID - The informal name for a new anti-spam program combining two existing protocols - Sender Policy Framework and CallerID. SenderID authenticates email senders and blocks email forgeries and faked addresses. |
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Sent emails - Number of email names transmitted in a single broadcast. Does not reflect how many were delivered or viewed by recipients. |
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Server - A program or computer system that stores and distributes email from one mailbox to another, or relays email from one server to another in a network. |
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Shared server - An email server used by more than one company or sender. Shared servers are less expensive to use because the broadcast vendor can spread the cost over more users. However, senders sharing a server risk having emails blocked by major ISPs if one of the other users does something to get the server's IP address blacklisted. See dedicated server. |
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Signature file - (or sig file for short) - A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email message that identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information. Your signature file is a marketing opportunity. Use it to convey a benefit and include a call-to-action with a link. |
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SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the most common protocol for sending email messages between email servers. |
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Snail mail - postal mail. |
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Soft Bounce - A soft bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a non-permanent reason, such as mailbox full or unavailable server. |
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Solo mailing - A one-time broadcast to an email list, separate from regular newsletters or promotions, and often including a message from an outside advertiser or a special promotion from the list owner. |
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Spam or UCE - (Unsolicited Commercial Email) - Email sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to the sender. |
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Sponsorship Swap - An agreement between email list owners, publishers or advertisers to sponsor each other's mailings or newsletters for free. See ad swap. |
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Spoofing - The practice of changing the sender's name in an email message so that it looks as if it came from another address. |
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Subject Line - The title of the email communication. This is the first (and hopefully not last) element of the communication recipients will see when they access their email. It has to grab attention and be credible or the email will not get opened. |
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Subscribe - The process of joining a mailing list, either through an email command, by filling out a Web form, or offline by filling out a form or requesting to be added verbally. (If you accept verbal subscriptions, you should safeguard yourself by recording it and storing recordings along with time and date, in a retrievable format.) |
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Subscriber - The person who has specifically requested to join a mailing list. A list has both subscribers, who receive the message from the sender, and pass-alongs. |
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Suppression file - A Do Not Email list that you run against any lists you plan on sending mail to prior to the send. Required by CAN-SPAM. |
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Targeting - Sending the right message to the right recipient at the right time. Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service. Targeting is very important for an email marketer because targeted and relevant email campaigns, yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes. |
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Text newsletter - Plain newsletter with words only, no colours, graphics, fonts or pictures; can be received by anyone who has email. |
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Thank-you page - Web page that appears after user has submitted an order or a form online. May also be a receipt. |
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Tracking - Collecting and evaluating the statistics from which one can measure the effectiveness of an email or an email campaign. |
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Transactional email - also known as transactive email. A creative format where the recipient can enter a transaction in the body of the email itself without clicking to a web page first. Transactions may be answering a survey, or purchasing something. |
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UCE Unsolicited Commercial Email (also referred to as Spam) - Commercial email sent without the recipient's express permission. |
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Unique Click - A unique click is a single click by a single user. When unique clicks are measured, it is an aggregate number of how many times that URL was clicked by individual users (not the complete total of all users, all clicks.) |
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UCE - Unsolicited Commercial Email, also called spam or junk mail. |
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Unsubscribe - To remove oneself from an email list, either via an emailed command to the list server or by filling in a Web form. |
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URL (or Universal Resource Locator) - A website, page or any other document address or location on the Internet. URLs indicate the location of every file on every computer accessible through the Internet. |
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Vendor - Any company that provides a service. See email vendors. |
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Video email - An email message that includes a video file, either inserted into the message body, accessible through a hotlink to a Web site or accompanying it in an attachment (least desirable because many ISPs block executable attachments to avoid viruses). |
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Viral Marketing - A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a company's customers. It is often referred to as word-of-mouth advertising. Email has made this type of marketing highly prevalent. Tools such as "send this page, article or website to a friend" encourage people to refer or recommend your company product, service or a specific offer to others. |
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Welcome message - Message sent automatically to new list members as soon as their email addresses are added successfully. |
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Whitelist - Advance-authorised list of email addresses, held by an ISP, subscriber or other email service provider, which allows email messages to be delivered regardless of spam filters. |
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Worm - A piece of malicious code, often delivered via an executable attachment in email or over a computer network. |
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Having trouble finding the right description of an email marketing term?
Let us know at knowledge@emailgarage.com and we'll help you out.
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