Comments on: Personalization Fail – Was it Needed?

By: Jake Holman

Jake Holman — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:02:50 +0000

Not to mention “Dear {firstname}” will generally pick up more spam points than “Hi”.

However, there is nothing _wrong_ with using personalisation at the beginning of an email, whether it’s a newsletter or not. What doesn’t add to the UX for some may well add it for others; no need for assumptions.

Ian, I’m honestly surprised that there are still ESP’s that don’t have fallbacks for their data tags – especially something so data dependent as Salutations.

Of course, there’s always the danger you might fall into the “Dear Dummy” trap ;) http://budurl.com/v3xg

By: Glenn

Glenn — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:31:45 +0000

That is a good point. Are we taking personalisation to literally sometimes and putting in emails that don’t need it?
Thanks for prompting me to think about this.

By: Ian McCollum

Ian McCollum — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:26:24 +0000

I have run into this situation when and ESP does not provide the function to specify a default value for personalization fields. After some consideration we decided to forgo the greeting line since it really does not add to the user experience or boost opens/clicks.

This makes me think of other things we are doing just because we are “supposed to.” The list is long I am sure, but can you think of elements of your email creative that add dev time without adding true value? I know I can.