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Part 2  Strategy and applications

Optimisation

Continually reviewing the email campaigns and testing variables such as subject lines, from names, styles, 

content or timing enables Toptable to learn what works best for them and helps them maximise email 

performance.

Two main areas of testing are run:

● 

Subject line tests – 3 to 4 variants on subject lines are sent to a test file the night before, enabling them to 

identify the  best‑  performing subject line for the next day’s send.

● 

Ad‑hoc tests – testing any variant that may have an impact on performance from changing the type of content, 

the number of offers, position of content, automated content vs manual content, frequency of send and timing.

The subject line tests alone show a deviation of around 2% points between the best and worst subject lines 

open rates.

Analysis

In order to identify whether progress towards the sales targets is being met and to isolate areas within the 

email programme which either require improvement or are succeeding, a range of custom reporting is carried 

out. These reports include:

● 

How does frequency of send impact on  long‑  term booking rates?

● 

Analysis of generic newsletters versus tailored content and the impact on defection and reactivation rates

Other standard reports Toptable utilise from within Maxemail include the Heatmap report that shows visually 

where clients are clicking and comparison reports that make it easy to identify trends over time.

Deliverability

While deliverability was not considered a major issue previously it was discovered upon analysis that only 

around 65% of the emails were being delivered into the inbox due to their incumbent suppliers’ sending 

reputation. More worrying, it was found that the bounce list contained a large number of addresses that were 

falsely classified as invalid due to a black listing bouncing them. Upon analysis of this bounce list and subse‑

quent test sends the overall list size was increased by 25% by reactivating the emails.

For future sends through Maxemail Emailcenter took full ownership of deliverability issues. This involved:

● 

Set‑up of SPF/Sender ID records

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Dedicated IP range for corporate domains and use of a shared IP for Hotmail for the ultimate IP configuration

● 

Using  spam‑  checking tools and running test sends to major ISPs such as Hotmail and AOL using ‘Inbox 

Seeding’

● 

 White‑  listing and feedback loops set up with major ISPs.

● 

Within one month of the first delivery an inbox placement rate of 99.87% was achieved which has remained 

in place since.

Results

Since partnering with Emailcenter on their CRM activity Toptable have seen the following year‑on‑year per‑

formance increases across the board.