Selecting An Email Marketing Platform Checklist Template Smart Insights

EMAIL PLATFORM RFP CHECKLIST
The key questions you need to ask to choose

the right Email marketing service or
Marketing Automation platform
Author: Dr Dave Chaffey, SmartInsights.com
Introduction
Selecting a new Email
marketing platform
An introduction to ESPs and Marketing Automation systems

Email marketing remains one of todays core customer communications channels with
analytics showing that for most types of business, alongside search marketing, it is one of
the main drivers of online sales and leads.
To manage email marketing, businesses have traditionally used software and services that
focus on email marketing. These email marketing management services have traditionally
been known by email marketers as Email Service Providers or ESPs.
What is it? Email Service Provider (ESP)
ESPs help marketers manage their email marketing campaigns. They are typically
online services where marketers can sign-in and use these core functions which we
show you how to evaluate in this report:
1 Customer profile and targeting using segments

2 Creating and editing email
3 Automation and personalisation
4 Integration with other channels, campaigns and platforms
5 Delivery
6 Evaluation and tracking
We also cover fees and additional services offered by the service provider:
7 Support and customer services
8 Pricing and fees
The label ESP is now a bit misleading since most now offer far more than management
of email campaigns. Rather they are platforms for managing communications across the
whole customer relationship from when a prospect first subscribes via a landing page
to when customers purchase and interact with a brand through social media. ESPs not
only offer newsletter broadcast, but also offer rich opportunities to send personalised
behavioural emails and integrate with social media platforms.
What is it? Behavioural emails

Automated, personalised 1:1 emails sent in response to interaction of a subscriber
with content on site, or within an email. Due to their relevance and context they tend
to gain a much higher response rate than campaign-based email.
Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
Introduction
To show the value of providing CRM services and delivering contextual relevance in
this way, without the need for manual sending of campaigns, many ESPs are now
evolving into Marketing Automation platforms.
What is it? Marketing Automation
Marketing automation enables businesses to automate tasks in the marketing and
sales process to make the process of generating new business more efficient and
effective.
1. Automatically build marketing lists using landing pages offering content assets
to profile subscribers.
2. Automatically welcome visitors with relevant email messages and as
appropriate personalized messages on the website and remarketing to maintain
interest via publisher websites.
3. Automatically review interaction with messages and online content and
segment intent to purchase based on lead scoring.
You can see that the functions available in Marketing Automation and ESPs are very
similar!
So, Marketing Automation offers businesses potential to deliver more relevant
communications that increase conversion rates with contacts to increase leads and
sales. Marketing Automation enables businesses to automate customer communications
activities as part of the marketing and sales process. The use of Marketing Automation
services makes new, more sophisticated, processes and relevant communication and
experiences possible across a range of touchpoints over the customer lifecycle. More
relevant experiences and offers promise an increase in return-on-investment from
customer communications and increased efficiency in marketing teams with time savings
from manual campaign activities.
Given the overlap between ESPs and Marketing Automation platforms we will limit
our review to Email marketing platforms, although these will include many Marketing
Automation features.

Introduction
About Pure360 Sponsors of the report

Pure360 is an email and digital marketing provider who specialise in helping businesses
get the best results from their campaigns. Pure360 work with over 1,400 organisations
including brands such as Bravissimo, Tetley and innocent. Our customers stay with
us through choice, not contract, and they tell their friends about us but never their
competitors.
Well work with you to improve your email and digital marketing results. Youll get the best
from your campaigns without being tied into a long contract, because your success is our
success. Youll get full training, support and regular free advice supported by email and
digital marketing software thats developed in-line with customer feedback.
Pure360 customers have access to the largest UK-based customer support team of
all email marketing providers because our whole focus is on improving your results by
working together.
Members of the DMA, weve recorded a 10% higher open rate for our customers than
the DMA average, leading to higher clicks and conversions for your email marketing
campaigns.
You can find the team working to improve our customers email campaigns, down in
Brighton, pop in or give us a call on 0844 586 0001 to discuss how we can help you get
excellent results from your email & digital marketing campaigns.
Pure360 improving results together
About Smart Insights

Smart Insights provides actionable marketing resources to help businesses succeed
online. More than 130,000 members use our blog, sample marketing templates and
weekly Emarketing Essentials newsletter to follow best practices and keep up-to-date
with the developments that matter in digital marketing.
Our Expert members use our planning and management templates, video courses and
guides to map, plan and manage their marketing using the RACE Planning framework.
Recommended resource? Smart Insights Expert member Email marketing advice
If youre serious about improving your Email marketing we recommend our in-depth 7
Steps guide to Email marketing which shows how to develop an email strategy and gives
tips on making your emails more effective. Other resources for Expert members include:
Email marketing effectiveness audit spreadsheet
Email campaign calculator spreadsheet
Email contact strategy template

Introduction
About the author

Dr Dave Chaffey is CEO and co-founder of digital marketing management
advice site Smart Insights. He is author of 5 bestselling books on
Ecommerce including Total Email marketing and Digital Marketing:
Strategy, Implementation and Practice and was recognised by the
Chartered Institute of Marketing in 2004 as one of 50 marketing gurus
worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.
About this Email marketing platform RFP checklist

This checklist is aimed at helping you choose the best email provider to fit your needs
based on their features and service. Larger businesses can use it to create a Request for
Proposals (RFP) when seeking tenders or when comparing bids in a pitch from different
email marketing service or marketing automation providers.
There are so many email platforms, with all the online services having the same basic
features, that it may almost seem like its simply a case of choosing the cheapest. Not so!
The ease of use when you set up campaigns differs widely and it can be frustrating if you
havent made the best selection. The tools to manage your campaigns and marketing
automation differ widely in their capabilities too. Then there is the differences in insights
available, important for reviewing and improving your email marketing. We will cover all
the key capabilities of these services across all these areas.

EMAIL PLATFORM CHECKLIST
Structure of this checklist

This checklist is based around these 8 key issues to consider that will affect both how you use
the service on a day-to-day operational basis and how you work with the provider when you
need support:
1 Customer profile and targeting using segments
2 Creating and editing email
3 Automation and personalisation
4 Integration with other channels, campaigns and platforms
5 Delivery
6 Evaluation and tracking
We also cover fees and additional services offered by the service provider:
7 Customer service and support
8 Pricing and fees
We hope you find this checklist useful, do ask any questions about selecting email platforms
in our Answers Forum or contact us.
In our checklist over 40 Email marketing features to review are grouped within each of 8 key
areas with tips on how to compare platforms for the feature as shown below.
Example
Email marketing management feature
1
Name of feature
(Importance of feature)
Practical evaluation tips

Suggestions on testing the feature
Further explanation of feature or what to look for when

comparing services.

Email Marketing Platform selection checklist
Email marketing platform checklist

Evaluation area 1 Customer profile management

and targeting options
1
Range of standard fields and ease of

adding custom disclosed profile fields
(Essential)
Test adding different types of profile

fields
This should be straightforward, its not usually a way in

which systems differ.
2
Range of behavioural fields

(Advanced)
Can relevant field be updated if a subscriber clicks on
Decide on whether you need to

deliver more relevant follow-up
emails after a user interaction
part of an email or web page?

3
Fields updatable via API

(Advanced)
Integration with other content management or email
You need to make programming

resource available to implement
these
marketing systems possible enabling fields to be

updated based on action?
4
Bulk import and export options

(Essential)
Check for standard formats such as

Excel and Comma Delimited (CSV)
Ease of use of import and export from files?

5
Lead scoring
(Intermediate)
Enable lead scores to be updated for each record
A core feature of Marketing

Automation systems, essential for
B2B Marketing
based on their profile updates to disclosed and inferred

fields, e.g. role and when downloaded whitepaper or
other content type.
6
Segment setup and selection

(Essential)
Define a few key segments and

check how easy to setup and select
Ease of use of creating different groups of prospects

and customers depending on their profile fields. Are
SQL options available?
7
Landing page setup

(Intermediate)
Can a page be setup to capture email addresses which
Review options for testing setup

Review options for data capture on
Facebook
adds fields to the database?

Evaluation area 2 Creating and editing email

8
Ease of using WYSIWYG editing

(Essential)
Try a real test for an example email to

add content
WYSIWYG stands for What you see is What you get.

Editors look similar, but their usability varies massively.
9
Range of integrated example templates

(Intermediate)
Make a list of the type of templates

needed and review examples
You can get an agency to create your templates, but

this is relatively costly to create from scratch, so see
which pre-built templates are available with your email
provider.
10
Mobile responsive templates

(Intermediate)
Ask for examples sent from gallery

and review how they work on the
Most emails are now read on smartphones and tablets,
main iOS, Android and desktop
so make sure the email templates you use work on
devices
these.
11
Dynamic content insertion

(Advanced)
Choose some examples of common

rules you would send
This advanced feature enables you to add content or

images based on profile features. For example, if a
reader is female, insert a different introduction.
12
Ease of adding content assets

(Essential)
Check the ease of use of this process
Check the ease of use of this process
You will want to add images and icons to your email

which will be hosted online.
13
One click text email creation

(Intermediate)
Some emails will still be displayed as plain text, so you
have to provide an alternative version of your email.
Check your service makes it easy to add a plain text
version.


14 Inbox preview tool
(Advanced)
Your email will appear differently on different email

Separate services such as Litmus
can be used for this.
Test the quality of service included
readers, e.g. Gmail display is different from Outlook. So

you should check they render correctly in all of these,
particularly for desktop versions.
Evaluation area 3 Automation and personalisation

15
Behavioural email sequence setup

(Intermediate)
Is it possible to define a sequence of emails based on
Test for setting up different types of

behavioural emails such as Welcome
or reactivation.
an event that triggers sequence firing, e.g a new lead,

sale or customer service enquiry or other field update.
16
17
Behavioural email trigger setup

(Intermediate)
Are sequences only triggered

by subscribing to list of are other
What options are available to trigger a sequence for
conditions related to visiting site,
example, just adding to list or other conditions related
accessing content and taking other
to visiting site, accessing specific content?
actions possible.
APIs available to trigger sequences

(Advanced)
Application Programming Interface (API) or coding
Review use cases where this type

of trigger may be needed, e.g.
completing an order
within a CMS or Ecommerce system may be needed to

trigger a sequence.
18
19
Email sequence personalisation

(Intermediate)
Review benefits of different segments

receiving tailored sequences
Can messages in sequence tailored with content
based on fields, e.g. mail or female,
according to segment?
category purchased.
Web personalisation
(Advanced)
Does the system also offer personalisation of
You may have separate personalisation systems for the website that may
need to integrate.
promotions on a website using similar triggers and

sequences?

Evaluation area 4 Integration with other services

20
Landing page hosting service

(Intermediate)
Examples include Unbounce and Ion

Interactive
Are integrations available for collecting data via

Landing Pages?
21
Social media integration

(Intermediate)
Does the service enable data integration and sharing of
content with the 4 main social network sites (Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+)?
Is Facebook data capture possible?

Is there a social sign-in option to
populate the database via an API?

Are tools available for viral
promotions like quizzes and
competitions on social media?
22
CRM integration
(Intermediate)
Does the email service enable data to be automatically
updated in standard CRM systems?
Typical lead capture and scoring

integrations include Salesforce and
Microsoft Dynamics
Integration with surveys, e.g.
Customer satisfaction?
23
SMS service integration

(Intermediate)
Is it possible to set rules to automate

these too?
Can messages also be sent via text?
24
24
Ecommerce integrations
(Intermediate)
Which Ecommerce platforms are
For retailers, abandoned cart and service emails are
Ease of abandoned cart setup?
essential and a key part of implementing a new ESP.
Voucher code integrations?
Blog to Enewsletter creation

(Intermediate)
Particularly useful for publishers and
supported?
content marketers.
Can an RSS feed from a blog automatically create

enewsletter content ?
26
Analytics integration
(Essential)
Can campaign tracking codes be defined for
Check for standard Google Analytics

UTM tracking on email campaigns
which is most common.
campaigns and automatically added to clickthroughs on

email or web pages?

10
Evaluation area 5 Delivery

27
28
Spam rating scoring

(Essential)
Note that use most email platforms

use Spamassasin scoring which is
Does the service give a spam score for each email plus
used for some businesses, but not
a breakdown of spam elements in email?
webmail platforms.
Inbox delivery reporting

(Essential)
Delivery should be reported overall

and by webmail platform.
Is inbox delivery reported to show overall % delivery?
30
Options for server sender reputation

(Essential)
Standard techniques applied for server authentication
Review reports for other clients

Are unique IP addresses possible or
is address shared?
to improve delivery including rDNS, SPF, DKIM, and

DMARC.
31
Options for high volume senders

(Intermediate)
Ask for typical send sizes for ESP

amongst clients
Can email send rates be varied or throttled for larger

list size?
32
Closed-loop webmail reporting

(Intermediate)
Is reporting of spam complaints by webmail providers
Ask about relationships with major

webmail providers to review and
improve delivery
available?
Evaluation area 6 Evaluation and tracking

33
Open, click, bounce reporting

(Essential)
Check how this is visualised?
Standard reporting of subscriber engagement and
Can response be reported by
response.
How can it be customised, exported?
segment?

11

34 Beyond the click conversion reporting
(Intermediate)
35

Check product level reporting for
retailers?
Can the site be tagged to report on goals from email,
How can it be customised, exported?
e.g. leads, sales, value?
Can it be reported by segment
Google Analytics campaign tracking
Review ease of automating this for
Can Google Analytics UTM campaign tracking be
different types of campaigns?
setup? See article for details.
36
Long-term value assessment

(Advanced)
Review options for RFM analysis if
Can response and value be reported over a longer time
Review options for Lifetime Value
period for different cohorts?
37
Conversion attribution
(Advanced)
relevant
Analysis if relevant
Review weighting options

Review visualisation options
Review options for apportioning value of conversion to

earlier response .
(more typically used in Google Analytics)
Evaluation area 7 Support and customer services

38
Reliability - Service Level Agreements

(Essential)
Ask for recent platform availability

levels
What recompense is available for downtime?
39
40
Quality of support
(Essential)
Test process and quality of service
What is availability of support by phone and email?
Review support in your timezone
Additional services
Migration of data
See section 8. Pricing for these.
for support
Creative and design
Strategy consulting
Optimization

12
Evaluation area 8 Pricing and costs

41
Demo account options

(Essential)
Ease of setting up tests.
42
Setup fees
What are total costs before emailing can start?
Develop a test of typical email

marketing activities in a month to
assess costs
Standard setup fees

Fees for data migration from current
system?
Fees for using templates?
43
Broadcast costs
Review cost model for sending emails.
44
Additional costs
Review these hidden costs carefully which typically
should be included.
Cost for subscribers on list?

Cost for volume of send per month?
Reporting fees?
Support fees?
Additional modules required?

Strategy consulting fees?
Creative design fees?
Other hidden service costs?

13
Your next steps?

We hope you have found this guide useful and that it helps you select the right type of
email marketing platform for you.
We hope you find this checklist useful, do ask any questions about selecting email
platforms in our Answers Forum or contact us.
Recommended resource? Smart Insights Expert member Email marketing advice
We have grouped our member resources on our Email marketing Toolkit. If youre serious
about improving your Email marketing we recommend our in-depth 7 Steps guide to Email
marketing which shows how to develop an email strategy and gives tips on making your
emails more effective. Other resources for Expert members include:
Email marketing effectiveness audit spreadsheet
Email campaign calculator spreadsheet
Email contact strategy template
The team at Pure 360 will also be happy to answer questions about the capabilities of
their platform view Pure 360 Platform capabilities.
Call 0844 586 0001.

14
Introduction
For our Expert members The Smart Insights

Email marketing toolkit
This sample guide will introduce you to some key issues for improving your email
marketing. For more strategic AND practical recommendations, Smart Insights Expert
members can consult the other resources in the Email marketing toolkit in the members
area. We recommend you:
Score your capability using our interactive benchmarking tool which gives you
a score for 7 areas of Email marketing and then recommends where to focus
Complete the e-learning which takes you through key areas to improve your use
of Email marketing with each section marked off as you complete it
Download our ebooks on best practices including our 7 Steps guide to email
marketing and marketing automation guide.
Download our actionable templates, including contact strategy and email
forecasting spreadsheets to help you plan your campaigns.
If you have any questions on selecting an email provider or any other aspect of digital
marketing, do ask us via our Digital Marketing Answers community.

15

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EMAIL PLATFORM RFP CHECKLIST

The key questions you need to ask to choose

An introduction to ESPs and Marketing Automation systems

1 Customer profile and targeting using segments

What is it? Behavioural emails

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

About Pure360 Sponsors of the report

Pure360 improving results together

About Smart Insights

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

About the author

About this Email marketing platform RFP checklist

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

EMAIL PLATFORM CHECKLIST

Structure of this checklist

Practical evaluation tips

Further explanation of feature or what to look for when

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

Email Marketing Platform selection checklist

Email marketing platform checklist

Practical evaluation tips

Evaluation area 1 Customer profile management

Range of standard fields and ease of

Test adding different types of profile

This should be straightforward, its not usually a way in

Range of behavioural fields

Decide on whether you need to

emails after a user interaction

part of an email or web page?

Fields updatable via API

You need to make programming

marketing systems possible enabling fields to be

Bulk import and export options

Check for standard formats such as

Ease of use of import and export from files?

A core feature of Marketing

based on their profile updates to disclosed and inferred

Segment setup and selection

Define a few key segments and

Ease of use of creating different groups of prospects

Landing page setup

Review options for testing setup

adds fields to the database?

Selecting an Email Marketing Platform RFP checklist

Email Marketing Platform selection checklist

Email marketing management feature

Practical evaluation tips

Evaluation area 2 Creating and editing email

Ease of using WYSIWYG editing

Try a real test for an example email to

WYSIWYG stands for What you see is What you get.

Range of integrated example templates

Make a list of the type of templates

You can get an agency to create your templates, but

Mobile responsive templates

Ask for examples sent from gallery

Most emails are now read on smartphones and tablets,

main iOS, Android and desktop

so make sure the email templates you use work on

Dynamic content insertion

Choose some examples of common