Email Marketing
Glossary

A/B testing is an email marketing tool that helps determine which version of an email subject line, email content or timing performs better. Marketers send two versions of the same email to different groups of subscribers and compare the results according to open rates, clicks, and conversions to find the more effective version.

A set of strategies, ranging from copy to design and coding, aimed at making emails understandable and usable to as many individuals as possible, regardless of individual ability.

Marketers send an abandoned cart email (an automated email) to those shoppers who added products to their cart on an e-commerce site but left without completing their shopping. The reason could be that they want to compare prices or more. An abandoned cart email is an alert reminder that aims to encourage shoppers to return and purchase.

The term "above the fold" explains the part of an email that readers see immediately when they open it, without scrolling. This area is highly important because it is typically the first thing that the reader notices in your email and decides whether he/ she will stay or quit.

Alternative text is a short description that we add to an email image. If the image does not load or a subscriber uses a screen reader, the alt text explains what the image shows.

Analytics is basically a box of information that marketers collect from email campaigns to check performance. With analytics, businesses, with the help of marketers, track metrics such as opens, clicks, conversions, and subscriber engagement.

Anchor text is the clickable text that includes a link. It does not show a full URL but uses clear and meaningful words that tell readers what they will find when they click the link.

An API let different software programs connect and share data with each other quickly. No manual effort is required. In email marketing, this means your email platform can easily sync up with marketers' websites, CRM systems, and other business tools.

Approval is the last step that checks for email mistakes and analyses if the content fulfills brand and compliance standards. Basically, it is a process where the sender reviews and confirms the email before the final sending to subscribers.

An attachment is a file added to an email, such as a PDF, document, or image. It enables users to get all the additional information without visiting another webpage. Although it works for personal emails, you can not use it for commercial initiatives. The reason is that most spammers and malevolent actors frequently use it to spread malware via attachments, so it is not secure.

Authentication is like an ID check for your emails. It confirms that you are receiving email from a legitimate sender, not a spammer. Authentication is built with inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook and helps avoid spam landing, phishing, and fraudulent email.

Audience segmentation is a way to divide subscribers into smaller groups based on some factors such as interests, location, purchase history, or behavior. Marketers send more relevant and personalised emails with list segmentation.

An autoresponder is an automated reply email that businesses send just after a customer takes any customer-specified action, like signing up for a newsletter or completing a form.

The average open rate is the ratio that tells how many people have opened your email from the total number of people who received the email. It helps in analysing a subject line's performance and the sender's name and reputation.

Bounce rate is the percentage of those emails that could not be placed into the recipients' inboxes. If your email has a high bounce rate, it can hurt your sender reputation and shorten email deliverability.

A blacklist is also known as a blocklist. It is a database of domains or IP addresses that are identified as sending spam or unwanted emails. If you are on a blocklist, your emails may not reach subscribers' inboxes.

Bulk email is thousands of emails that marketers send to a large group of recipients in just one click without spending a large amount of time and effort. The common examples of bulk email are newsletters, promotional campaigns, and announcements.

A broadcast email is a one-time email sent to a specific group of subscribers. It is used to share any updates, promotions, events, or important announcements.

Bounce Management is a process in which marketers keep an eye on emails that don't reach the inbox (bounce back) and also handle them the right way. It also removes bad addresses from your list. It helps your emails stay out of spam and keeps your sender reputation clean.

BIMI is an email standard in email marketing. It allows a company's verified logo to show next to its emails in supported inboxes. It helps increase brand recognition and bring authenticity.

Email blast is an older term used for sending one email to a large list at once. Today, it is more commonly called a broadcast or email campaign.

A hard bounce means your email cannot be delivered permanently. Hard bounce happens when the email address is invalid, does not exist, or is due to an inactive domain.

A soft bounce means the email could not be delivered temporarily. The main reasons for a soft bounce include a full inbox, a server issue, or the message being too large.

CTR is a way of analysing how many people have clicked on the link that you have provided in the email after opening it. Email marketers understand the quality of email and how engaging its content is.

The CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) is a U.S. law. It sets rules for sending commercial and marketing emails. According to this, businesses need to provide accurate sender information. It should include an unsubscribe option and follow email compliance standards that work to protect recipients from misleading messages.

Every email contains a purpose and expects a particular action from the receiver. This is called a CTA. Simply put, when an email has a button or link like "Shop Now" or "Sign Up", it basically tells readers what their next step should be. That link or button is a call to action (CTA). Sometimes this CTA is just a clear instruction in text.

A cold email is sent to someone who has not interacted with your business before. It helps to start a new business connection or lead through email.

This is a metric in email marketing that shows how many people have converted from audience to customers or subscribed to your brand through email. Example: if someone bought a product or filled a form.

Churn rate is a metric that explains the real percentage of subscribers who have quit your email list by clicking on unsubscribe, spam complaints, or undelivered emails. The churn rate of a healthy email list remains 0.1% to 1% per campaign. A lower churn rate means your audience stays active longer.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is a metric that tells you how much money, on average, a business spends to fetch one new customer. It also includes marketing and sales costs. Marketers check if their business growth is actually profitable or if they are just spending more than it's worth.

Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount spent each time someone clicks a link in your email or marketing campaign. It helps measure the performance of your email campaign — is it driving traffic, engagement, and cost-effectiveness?

CRM is a system that helps businesses manage customer data and interactions. Businesses can easily track their leads, emails, and communication all in one place through CRM.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process to improve your emails or landing pages, for instance, content, design, or CTAs. It helps to receive more action from customers, like buying, signing up, or clicking through. CRO is a way to test what works and where changes are needed.

DKIM gives a digital signature to your emails and confirms that they were sent from an authorised source. It works for email security and strengthens trust with email providers.

DMARC is an email authentication policy that works with SPF and DKIM. It prevents email spoofing and secures sender domains. Additionally, it guides email providers on how to handle suspicious emails.

Deliverability in email marketing means "Has the email landed in the right inbox or not? If yes, that means high email deliverability; if not and it lands in spam or other places, that means low email deliverability. Deliverability plays a vital role in email marketing. Any email service provider should have a strong sender reputation and proper email authentication to improve the deliverability rate.

A drip campaign is a sequence of automated emails sent based on timing or subscriber actions. It helps guide leads and customers through a planned communication process.

A dedicated IP is an IP address used exclusively by one sender for email campaigns. It gives businesses more control over their sender reputation and email performance.

Domain reputation is your sending domain's 'trust score' with email providers like Gmail and Outlook. It is helpful in building your sending history. The higher your trust score, the more likely your emails land in the inbox. On the other hand, if the score is bad, your email may land in spam.

Dynamic content is email content that changes automatically for each reader according to who they are and their behavior. So that different subscribers experience personalised email that makes them feel like it is written only for them.

Data segmentation means dividing the contact list according to their data, for instance, location, behavior, or purchase history. The sender analyses their audience's tastes and needs. Then they send a targeted and personalised email to build a relationship.

Delivery rate is an email marketing metric. It tells the marketer the total percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to recipients' mail servers. Email marketers use it to evaluate the overall health and quality of their email list.

Engagement rate is one of the email marketing metrics that tells the sender what the engagement with their email is. Opens, clicks, replies, and sometimes conversions explain the actual engagement rate of any email campaign. Let's understand with an example: if 1,000 people receive an email and 200 people interact, then the engagement rate will be 20%.

An ESP is an email marketing platform or tool. It helps different industries run email campaigns and manage them. Truesend is also an ESP (email service provider) that provides list management, automation, reporting and much more.

Email cadence is the schedule or timing of when to send emails. A good cadence can keep your users engaged. They don't even need to overwhelm their inbox. For example, if a brand sends weekly newsletters every Monday, it is actually following a fixed cadence.

An email preheader is the short preview text. We can see it next to or below the email subject line in the inbox. It gives a quick idea about the email context and also improves the open rate. For example, "50% off inside" is shown before opening the email.

E-commerce is basically a type of business that runs online, buying and selling products or services through digital stores. The full form of e- commerce is "Electronic Commerce". Amazon and Walmart are prime examples of E- Commerce.

When your email is automatically delivered to a user's account by analysing user actions or scheduled workflows, it is called email automation. It makes email marketing comfortable, as you just need to set it up, and your email will trigger the user's inbox at the right time without manual effort.

In an email campaign, marketers make a collection of subscriber email addresses to target and grow business; that collection is an email list. It is very helpful in bulk email sending. For example, A brand's newsletter subscriber database is an email list.

End user is the final person who receives your email and interacts with it. For example, a customr receiving a promotional offer email is an end user in email marketing.

A Feedback Loop is a system where email providers (like Gmail, Yahoo) tell senders when users mark an email as spam. This helps you understand which emails are unwanted so you can improve future campaigns and protect your sender reputation. For example, if 50 users click "Report spam" on your newsletter, the FBL sends that data back to your email platform.

The footer is the bottom section of an email. It usually includes important details, for instance, company information, contact details, an unsubscribe link, and also legal text. It keeps your emails compliant and gives subscribers an easy way to learn more about you.

Frequency is a term that defines how often you send emails to your subscribers. It's important to maintain the balance. If you send too many emails, especially with a new IP Address, people may get frustrated and unsubscribe from you. On the other hand, if you send too few, it affects engagement, or they may forget about you. For example, we can say that a weekly newsletter means one email is sent every 7 days.

A forwarded email is when a subscriber shares your email with someone else. It is an important engagement signal. It shows that your content is valuable enough to share. For instance, a user forwards your discount email to a friend. It increases reach.

Fallback content is the backup version of an email. It basically appears when the main content fails to load on the reader's device. With fallback content, your email looks complete and makes sense, even if something doesn't display properly.

Filtering is basically a process in which email providers decide where your email should land. They inspect your content, sender reputation, and how people engage with your emails. Then they decide email placement.

Flagging happens when a subscriber marks your email as spam or reports it as suspicious. Email providers take this seriously because it signals that users don't want your emails. If your email campaign faces too many flags, let me tell you, it can hurt your sender reputation and reduce future inbox delivery.

The Gmail Promotions tab is a section in Gmail where marketing and promotional emails are automatically placed. For instance, Newsletters often land in the Promotions tab. It is helpful to keep the personal and promotional emails separate so that the receiver can focus on what they want.

It is a data privacy law that controls how businesses collect, store, and use user data. According to this, user consent before sending marketing emails is important.

Greylisting is a spam protection method where an email is temporarily rejected the first time it's sent. Legit emails are usually sent again and delivered, while many spam emails don't retry and get blocked.

Hard bounce means your email is failing to hit the inbox permanently. It happens when your email address is fake or doesn't exist. Another reason is when your account gets closed. Hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure.

HTML Email is a type of email that focuses on design elements like images, colors, and buttons. It is not plain text like a normal email. Most email marketers send this HTML email when they want something attractive and clickable. A clear example of an HTML email is a promotional email with banners and buttons.

The header is the head ( top) part of any email that describes basic information like the sender’s name, subject line, and user details. Besides this, it also contains technical data that helps email systems deliver the message correctly.

A heatmap is a graphic report of your email. It shows how people interact with your email. You can see where users click, scroll, or focus the most. This helps you improve design and CTA placement. You will usually see it in colors like red (high activity) and blue (low activity).

Inbox Placement is simply where your email actually lands after you hit send. For example, your reader's main inbox, their promotions tab, or (the worst case) spam folder. Good inbox placement means people actually see your email instead of it getting lost or ignored.

IP Warming is the process in which marketers slowly increase the number of emails that they are sending for their email campaign from a new email server (IP address). It helps build trust with email providers like Gmail. This helps avoid spam landing. For example, you start an email campaign today with 100 emails per day, but increase this number gradually.

In email marketing, an ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the service that delivers emails to users' inboxes. Examples include Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook. They also filter emails and decide if a message goes to the inbox, promotions, or spam folder.

Junk Email is unwanted or spam email that users don't ask for. If any email contains ads, promotions, or suspicious messages, this is called junk email and is automatically sent to the spam or junk folder.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a simple data format. It helps to send and receive information between systems through APIs. Along with that, it organises data in key-value pairs so that computers as well as humans can easily understand and share information.

It is a system that scans email content for spam-triggering words and filters emails accordingly. For example, words like "free money" may trigger filters.

Knowledge Base Emails are the ones that include helpful information, guides, or answers to users' common questions. This email educates subscribers about something and helps them solve problems.

List segmentation is basically a method to divide your email list into smaller groups, analysing their behavior or interest. It helps in sending the relevant email to the right people to get a better response.

A landing page is the webpage where a visitor actually lands once they click a link. They click that link in an email, ad, or campaign. A landing page aims for one specific goal, like a signup or purchase.

List hygiene means a healthy email list. There should be no invalid, inactive, or duplicate contacts. A clean, accurate, and up-to-date email list improves deliverability, engagement, and email campaign performance.

A lifecycle email is an automated email. Marketers send them to subscribers or customers according to their stage of relationship with a brand. For example, welcome emails for new signups, purchase follow-up, or re-engagement emails to inactive customers.

It is a computer system or software. It sends, receives, and stores email messages between users. Mail servers handle email traffic with the help of protocols SMTP for sending and POP/IMAP for receiving.

It is data points that email senders use to track and evaluate email campaign performance. Open rate, CTR, and conversion rate are all metrics that let the sender know about the progress or success in a specific area.

Marketing automation refers to a system where an email campaign runs without any manual help. It is completely automatic with the help of software. It analyses user schedules and previous actions, and guides them on whom to send what. It improves efficiency, engagement, and campaign effectiveness.

A newsletter is an email communication format used to send information to your readers. It includes news, tips, updates, or promotions. Send newsletters to your readers not only to update them but also to engage them with your brand. One type of newsletter is, for example, a weekly company update email.

A nurture campaign is a collection of segmented emails or messages used to build long-term relationships with prospects or customers over time. It educates them about taking the right action. It could include a purchase, sign-up, or engagement.

Open rate is a KPI (short for key performance indicator) that represents how many people have opened your email. Businesses use this stat to understand the efficiency or the engagement factor of the subject line and sender information in the email. Let's understand the concept with an example: If 20 out of 100 emails are opened, that's a 20% open rate.

When a person allows a business or organisation to send emails or is willing to receive them, it is called opt-in compliance.

Opting out refers to a situation where a customer does not want to receive an email or message from a business. Upon clicking on an unsubscribe link, the user is removed from the mailing list.

It's a series of welcome emails sent to new subscribers or customers after they sign up on the website. It helps them become familiar with a product, a service, or a brand. These emails show them how to begin.

When you use personal information of your subscribers for analysing their behaviour, aside from assessing their preferences or data records. No need to send the same email to every individual. This makes it easier for marketers to deliver suitable content emails that not only boost engagement but also lead to an increase in conversions.

Phishing is a kind of scam. Scammers send fake emails and make users believe that they are from reliable sources. Then they illegally acquire people's sensitive personal information like bank details, passwords, or OTPs. These scam emails often make use of fake links to be able to gain unauthorised access to your account.

Postmaster Tools is a free service (commonly from Gmail) that helps email senders monitor and improve their email deliverability. It gives you stats on spam rate, domain reputation, email performance and more, so you can see how people are receiving your emails.

Preview text is basically a small piece of text which you can easily see next to the email subject line or below it in the inbox. It also helps to increase open rates by encouraging users to click, in addition to quickly summarising email content.

In email marketing, a queue is a system that holds emails before it delivers them to recipients. An email service provider sends this message, and it proves beneficial when businesses send high-volume email campaigns. Marketers, with this system in place, can easily manage email delivery effectively.

Quarantine is an email marketing technique that stores dubious or potentially harmful emails in a different location and stops them from reaching your inbox. It defends users against spam, phishing, and malicious information.

Reply rate explains how many recipients have responded to your email out of the total emails delivered. Marketers get to know through this metric how engaging and relevant their email content is to the audience.

Rendering is how people see an email when it's shown on different devices, different screen sizes, and different email clients. This makes sure that all readers will see the email content, graphics, and layout correctly on devices.

A responsive email is an email that's designed to programmatically adjust layout, images, and text fluidly across all screen sizes and devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers. It provides a good reading experience for the readers.

A metric called the "spam score" quantifies how likely an email would be flagged as spam by email service providers. Other than having an impact on inbox placement, the spam score is based on various factors, including content quality, links, formatting, and sender reputation.

SMTP is a widely used protocol for email marketing. It helps in sending emails through the internet from one server to another. Besides these functions, the protocol controls the delivery of emails from email clients to the recipient's mail server.

Email providers give a sender a score after analysing their email sending habits, spam complaints, bounce rates, and engagement. This is what we call the sender's reputation. It defines the possibility that your emails will end up in the spam folder or the inbox.

The subject line is the short text that shows in a recipient's inbox before opening an email. It is a highly important part of an email, as it summarises the email content and decides whether the recipient will open the email or not. For example, "Your recipient's ends today" is a subject line of an email.

A transactional email is an email that marketers automatically send just after a customer clicks on any specific CTA, like sign up, reset password, or place an order. It is not like a promotional one. But this includes important personalised information related to the action in the email. For example, "Your order has been shipped" is a transactional email.

A trigger email is a behaviour-based email that is automatically sent to users. Let us tell you that all transactional emails are trigger emails, but not all trigger emails are transactional. The trigger email is broader than that. It can be marketing-centric, relationship-centric, or sales-centric. Trigger emails are a welcome email after the user signs up, a reminder on an abandoned cart, or a re-engagement email if the user is inactive.

A tracking pixel is a tiny invisible image that can be embedded in an email. The pixel enables businesses to track when emails are opened and to see how recipients are engaging with them. It provides information on email performance, such as user involvement and open rates.

When a user does not want to receive email from any company, they click on the unsubscribe option. Then the sender stops sending future emails to recipients. The user uses this option to manage email preferences. Along with that, it is also a standard requirement in email marketing.

User engagement is basically an analytics metric that helps senders know the level of interaction and involvement of users with an email, website, app, or any digital content. Companies measure this metric through actions such as opens, clicks, replies, shares, and conversions.

Email verification is a way to know that the sender's email address is actually valid, active, and ready to receive emails. Verified email addresses experience minimum bounce rates and improved email deliverability.

Email volume is the total number of emails sent or received during a specified period. It helps analyse the activity of an email marketing campaign. Let's say a company sends out 50,000 promotional emails in a week. The email volume for that campaign is 50,000 emails.

A whitelist is a collection of email addresses or domains that are thoroughly trusted and user-approved in email marketing. If you choose whitelisted senders, their emails are mostly delivered into the inbox rather than the spam folder.

A workflow is basically a set of automated email actions. It hits inboxes according to a subscriber's behaviour. It helps send the right emails at the right time without manual effort. Thus, due to automation, email workflows save a lot of time and effort and improve engagement. At the same time, it guides customers step-by-step through the buying process. Example: Welcome → Reminder → Offer emails.

XML feed is a format of structured data. It is used for automatic exchange and update of data like product details, prices or inventory between different systems. Simultaneously, it confirms that the email content is correct and up-to-date. This reduces the need for manual email marketing updates.

Yahoo Mail filtering is a mechanism that Yahoo Mail uses to filter incoming emails to the inbox, spam or other folders. They filter emails by analysing different factors like sender reputation, the content of the email, etc.

The yield rate is a measure of the revenue, sales, or conversions you get from an email campaign. "It helps marketers understand how effective their emails are at driving business outcomes." For instance, if you send out 1000 emails and that email campaign results in sales of Rs.50,000, then that amount will be part of the yield rate of that email campaign.

Zero bounce means all your emails are landing in the right inbox successfully. That means keeping your email list clean with valid email addresses. This helps to reduce or eliminate bounced emails. It improves the sender's reputation and reachability.

Zero-party data is data a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a business - such as preferences, interests, or feedback.