What Is Email Advertising?
Email advertising is when you place an ad in an email sent to a list owned by another site. For example an advertorial in a site’s regular newsletter. There are also permission lists where subscribers have given permission to receive emails from companies offering specific products or services.
Ads have traditionally been text editorials but with the adoption of HTML email clients’ banners and forms can now be supported in email advertising.
Advantages of Email Advertising
- Very targeted lists are available
- Detailed demographic information is often available and ad creative and content can be filtered using this data.
- Well targeted ads can have high click through and conversion rates
- A/B testing is simple to implement and evaluate
- Excellent viral marketing mechanism as its easy to forward the ad to others
Disadvantages of Email Advertising
- Permission is the golden rule. Advertising on a non permission list is called SPAMMING and can have negative branding and increasing legal implications
- Untargeted campaigns can have low open and click through rates
- Inventory limited
When to Use Email Advertising
- If you have a specific offering that will appeal to a niche market and an email list matches your niche then it’s a great tool.
- If you are trying to build your own list then targeting people who are already happy to receive and respond to commercial email is a good place to start.
- Viral marketing campaigns