NEWSLETTER GLOSSARY
Learn the essential jargon with this glossary and create more engaging, strategic newsletters.
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A/B Testing: This process involves experimenting with two versions of your newsletter to understand which elements, such as subject lines or design, engage your audience more effectively. It helps you make data-driven decisions for future newsletters.
Ideally, you should A/B test various elements of your newsletter, including subject lines, design and layout, and types of content.
The most important thing is to start with a hypothesis and a goal you aim to understand. Consider questions like, "What will help increase our open rate?" or "Which link formats get the highest click-through rate (CTR)?"
One thing to consider in traditional A/B testing is that you should limit the changes – don't try to test more than one variable at a time, just like in any good experiment.
Above the Fold: This term refers to the portion of your newsletter that is immediately visible when opened, without scrolling. It's crucial for grabbing attention and should contain engaging content or calls to action (CTAs).
To encourage readers to read the entire email, we also recommend placing engaging content at the bottom of your newsletter, not just in the visible portion on the screen.
Ad Blockers: These are tools used by readers to prevent ads from appearing in online content.
To effectively navigate ad blocker limitations, focus on creating engaging, non-intrusive content. Avoid using common ad/spam trap phrases and words, such as 'Buy now', 'Exclusive deal', 'Guarantee', or overly aggressive sales language. This helps limit how often your newsletter gets intercepted by these third-party tools. It is a helpful practice to make sure in the welcome email they receive during signup.
Recently, Google and Yahoo have mandated that brands authenticate their domains, a measure aimed at reducing encounters with ad or spam blockers.
Analytics: This term refers to the collection of data about how subscribers interact with your newsletters, such as open rates, time spent reading, and the frequency of forwarding or sharing. Analytics help you understand reader preferences, engagement levels, and the overall performance of your content.
Automation: This refers to using software to send newsletters automatically at specific times or in response to certain subscriber actions, such as signing up, making a purchase, or clicking a link in a previous newsletter. It streamlines your workflow and ensures timely communication with your audience.
With Letterhead, you can simplify and speed up various processes, including the full automation of your newsletter. This involves curating content from your feeds and publishing it at predetermined intervals.
Bounce Rate: This term refers to the percentage of emails sent that couldn't be delivered. A high bounce rate could indicate problems with your email list or issues with email deliverability.
Bulk Email: This involves sending the same email to a large group of people. It's common practice for newsletters, but it requires careful management to avoid spam filters and maintain subscriber engagement.
One could say an email newsletter of today is essentially a type of ‘bulk email.’ Therefore, many practices from email marketing can be leveraged in email newsletters.
Call to Action (CTA): This is a statement or button in your newsletter encouraging readers to take a specific action, like subscribing to a service, visiting a website, or participating in an event. Make your CTA clear and exciting, telling readers exactly what they'll gain by clicking, like 'Subscribe for Exclusive Tips,' 'Discover Our New Collection,' or 'Register for the Webinar to Enhance Your Skills.'
Campaign Analytics: These are detailed metrics specific to individual email campaigns, providing insights into the effectiveness of your newsletter efforts and guiding future strategy.
Often, this term is used when analyzing data from promotional campaigns to track the performance of a series of ads worked within a newsletter.
CAN-SPAM Compliance: This refers to following the laws that regulate commercial email. Key requirements include avoiding misleading headers and offering a clear opt-out mechanism. Compliance isn't just a bonus, it's crucial. Most email service providers (ESPs), like Letterhead, strive to ensure your emails meet these standards, so your main focus can be on creating great content.
To stay compliant, avoid common pitfalls such as:
- Failing to provide a clear ’unsubscribe’ option
- Using deceptive subject lines
- Not including a valid physical address of the publisher
- Sending emails to recipients who have not given consent
- Omitting a clear identification that a message is an advertisement, when relevant to your communications with subscribers
Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric represents the percentage of readers who click on a link in your newsletter. It's crucial for gauging reader interest and the effectiveness of your content.
With recent changes in how Apple handles emails in your inbox, the open rate – a long-time metric for measuring audience engagement – has become less reliable.
Consequently, some brands now track click-through rate as a more accurate measure of engagement.
Content Blocks: These are distinct sections within your newsletter layout, each with different types of content like text, images, or links. Well-organized content blocks enhance both readability and engagement.
Content Curation: This is the process of gathering and presenting relevant and valuable content to your audience. It involves selecting articles, images, and other media that resonate with your readers.
Letterhead offers a variety of ways to curate. You manually copy and paste links, which then automatically unfurl into newsletter-optimized content with images and text. Alternatively, you can use our Chrome web clipper or pull in content curated through filters and RSS feeds.
Conversion Rate: This refers to the percentage of newsletter recipients who take a desired action like making a purchase or signing up for an event. It's a critical measure of how effective your newsletter is in driving specific business goals.
Deliverability: This measures the rate at which emails successfully land in your subscribers' inboxes. Good deliverability means your content is likely being seen and not getting lost in spam folders or being blocked.
Double Opt-In: This process requires subscribers to confirm their email address twice before joining your newsletter list. It ensures that they genuinely want to receive your content, thereby reducing spam complaints.
With Letterhead, your Welcome Letter is triggered only after subscribers have completed this double opt-in process.
Email Campaign: This is a series of emails sent with a specific purpose, such as promoting a product or sharing news.
Each campaign should be targeted and purposeful. Remember, individual newsletter editions are just as important. It's important to focus on the reader's journey and have a clear goal.
For example, do you want your readers to become more informed, purchase event tickets, or become paying subscribers? It's always better to tailor your campaign toward one specific action.
Email Client: This refers to an application used for reading and sending emails, such as Outlook or Gmail. To ensure a good reader experience, it is important to understand how your newsletter appears across email clients.
Please keep in mind that the version history, device type, and iOS version of each subscriber can significantly impact how your newsletter appears to them.
At Letterhead, our aim is to ensure that your newsletter always looks its best, regardless of the device or email client each subscriber uses.
Email Deliverability: This focuses on ensuring that your emails reach the subscriber’s inbox without being marked as spam. It involves managing your sending reputation and adhering to email best practices.
Email Footer: This is the bottom part of your newsletter and typically includes contact information, copyright notices, and unsubscribe links. It's important for legal compliance and provides useful information to your readers.
You can use Letterhead to automatically place this footer at the bottom of your newsletter, so there's no need to worry.
Email Header: This is the top section of your email, which usually contains your logo and may include your newsletter's title. It sets the tone and brand identity of your communication.
One important thing to keep in mind with your header is that if you do not include ‘preview text’ when scheduling your newsletter, this information will appear as the preview text in your subscribers' inboxes.
Email List: This is a collection of email addresses that you send your newsletters to. Managing this list well involves regular updates and cleaning to keep your audience engaged and relevant.
You’ll also see this mentioned as a ‘subscriber list’.
Commonly, the term ‘email list’ includes both readers who have churned via bounces or unsubscribes. With Letterhead you’ll only pay for active subscribers.
Email List Segmentation: This is the process of dividing your email list into smaller, more specific groups based on criteria such as interests or behavior. Such segmentation allows for a more targeted and effective communication strategy.
With Letterhead, you have the option to send your message to either your entire list of subscribed readers or a specific segment based on custom tags, prior newsletter engagement, or profile options.
Email Personalization: This practice involves tailoring your email content to individual subscribers, often using their names or other specific information. Such customization can significantly increase engagement and relevance. A common example includes incorporating the subscriber’s first name in the email.
Email Rendering: This refers to how your email visually appears across different email clients. Good rendering ensures your newsletter looks as intended, regardless of where it’s opened.
Email Service Provider (ESP): This is a company that offers services for sending and managing email campaigns. ESPs provide tools for creating, sending, and tracking emails. While some are designed primarily for email marketing, others cater to specific needs of media publishers, like Letterhead.
Engagement Metrics: These are key indicators of how subscribers interact with your newsletter like open rates, click-through rates, and the time spent reading.
GDPR Compliance: This involves adhering to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which governs data protection and privacy in the EU. It's crucial for respecting subscriber privacy and avoiding legal issues.
Hard Bounce: This refers to an email that couldn’t be delivered because of a permanent issue like a non-existent email address. Monitoring hard bounces helps maintain a clean email list.
HTML Email: This is an email designed with HTML code, which allows for advanced formatting and styling. It makes newsletters visually appealing but requires proper design to ensure compatibility across email clients. With Letterhead, you don’t need to write HTML to send beautiful emails – we do the hard work for you.
Inactive Subscriber: This term refers to a subscriber who hasn’t engaged with your emails for a set period. Identifying and re-engaging these subscribers can improve your overall engagement rates.
IP Warming: This is the practice of gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new IP address to build a good sending reputation and avoid being marked as spam.
Landing Page: This is a web page specifically designed to receive and convert traffic from your newsletter. It should be focused, relevant, and aligned with the newsletter's call to action.
Lead Magnet: This is an incentive offered to potential subscribers in exchange for their email address like a free eBook or webinar. It's a powerful tool for growing your email list. For media publishers, there are various other methods to grow your subscriber base, such as running contests, organizing events, providing paywalled content, and more.
List Hygiene: This refers to the process of regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers. It is essential for improving deliverability and engagement rates.
Mobile Optimization: This involves ensuring that your newsletter looks good and is easily readable on mobile devices.
Many people nowadays check their emails on phones, so it's important to focus on improving the reader experience on these devices.
Depending on your audience demographic, you may find that your newsletter campaigns are read almost equally on desktop and mobile devices. However, even if you see a smaller percentage, it's still important to prioritize the experience of both mobile and desktop subscribers in order to ensure the success of your newsletter.
Newsletter Analytics: These are detailed statistics about your newsletter's performance, including open rates, click rates, and subscriber behavior. These insights help you tailor your content and strategy.
Newsletter Design: This refers to the overall look and feel of your newsletter. A good design captures attention, reflects your brand, and makes content easy to read.
Open Rate: This is the percentage of subscribers who open a given email. It’s a basic metric that gives you an idea of how engaging your subject line and content are.
Opt-In: The act of a person willingly subscribing to your newsletter. This consent is crucial for building a list of engaged and interested readers.
Opt-Out/Unsubscribe: This is the process through which subscribers can choose to stop receiving your emails. Facilitating an easy opt-out is crucial for respecting subscriber preferences and ensuring legal compliance.
Plain Text Email: This type of email lacks formatting or HTML. It’s simple and accessible, ensuring that your message is readable by everyone, regardless of the email client they use. Think of this like a simple Gmail message to a friend, devoid of images or complex formatting.
Preheader Text: This is the short summary text that follows the subject line in an email inbox. A well-crafted preheader can increase the chances of your email being opened.
Teasing out elements of what lies within the newsletter beyond the obvious subject line text helps drive curiosity and excitement among your subscribers. Therefore, don’t skip out on crafting a great preview text.
Promotional Content: This refers to any content in your newsletter that aims to sell or promote products, services, or events. For better reader reception, it should be balanced with informative and engaging material.
Reputation Management: This involves maintaining a positive reputation for your email sending practices. It includes managing bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement levels.
Responsive Design: This involves designing your newsletter so it adapts to different screen sizes and devices. It's key for ensuring a positive reading experience for all subscribers.
RSS-to-Email: This automated system sends your newsletter whenever new content is published on your RSS feed. It’s a time-saver for regularly updating subscribers with your latest content. Letterhead enables you to easily place content blocks in specific sections of your newsletter and selectively filter the content that appears in each area.
Sender Reputation: This term refers to how email providers view your reliability as a sender. A good reputation helps ensure your emails consistently reach your subscribers' inboxes.
Soft Bounce: This occurs when an email can’t be delivered temporarily, often due to issues like a full inbox or a server problem. Monitoring these instances helps you maintain the quality of your email list.
Spam Filter: A tool used by email clients to filter out unwanted emails. Understanding and navigating spam filters is key to ensuring your newsletter reaches its intended audience.
To ensure your newsletter successfully bypasses spam filters, be aware of common triggers.
These include overusing sales-oriented phrases (like "Buy now" or "Free"), sending from a domain with a poor reputation, embedding excessive links or images, lacking personalization, and using poorly structured or invalid HTML.
Subscriber Acquisition: This refers to the process of gaining new subscribers for your newsletter. It involves strategies like offering lead magnets, optimizing sign-up forms, and creating engaging content.
Subscriber Lifecycle: This term refers to the various stages a subscriber goes through, from signing up to becoming a loyal reader or eventually unsubscribing. Managing this lifecycle involves engaging content and regular communication.
Subject Line: The title of your email. A compelling subject line is crucial for encouraging subscribers to open and read your newsletter.
Subscription Confirmation: This is a message sent to new subscribers to confirm their subscription. It’s a good practice for ensuring consent and reducing spam complaints. Related term: ‘Opt-in email’
Template Customization: This involves adjusting a pre-designed email template to fit your brand and content needs. Doing so helps maintain consistency and a professional appearance in your newsletters.
Transactional Emails: These are automated emails sent in response to specific actions by users, like purchase confirmations or password resets. They’re essential for user communication but are distinct from regular newsletters.
UTM Parameters: Urchin tracking module (UTM) parameters are tags added to URLs in your newsletter to track the performance of your campaigns in web analytics tools. They help you understand how subscribers interact with your content.
User Engagement: This refers to how actively subscribers interact with your newsletter, for example, by reading, clicking links, or responding. High engagement is a sign of content relevance and quality.
Webhooks: These are automated messages sent from an app when a specified event occurs.
For instance, in newsletters, webhooks can be used to trigger actions like sending a welcome email when a new subscriber joins or updating subscriber data based on their interactions.
This functionality enables more responsive and customized interactions based on subscriber behavior.
Welcome Email: The welcome email is the first communication sent to new subscribers of your newsletter. This initial email is pivotal in setting the tone for your future correspondence and establishing a connection with your audience.
A great welcome email should include a warm and personalized greeting, a brief introduction to what the newsletter offers, and what subscribers can expect in terms of content and frequency.
Additionally, it's beneficial to highlight any unique selling points or subscriber benefits, such as exclusive content or special offers. It's also an opportunity to encourage new subscribers to whitelist your email address, ensuring future newsletters are delivered directly to their inbox.
Lastly, using a clear and friendly tone helps in making a positive first impression and laying the foundation for ongoing engagement.
Whitelist / Allow List: This refers to the process of a subscriber adding your email address to their list of trusted contacts, which ensures that your emails are delivered to their inbox.
Historically known as 'whitelisting,' this term is evolving to 'allow list' as part of a broader initiative to adopt more inclusive and neutral language.