How important is dynamic content for email marketing campaigns?

Email marketing has long since been a fundamental part of successful digital marketing campaigns as they often produce a higher conversion rate than its paid and organic counterparts. However, the constant change in the digital marketing landscape means the introduction of new technologies is commonplace and best practicing methods are constantly changing - and email marketing has seen its fair share of evolution.

One of the most fundamental, and most successful, changes in email marketing is that of dynamic content. Primarily down to the introduction of AI within advertising, the ability to insert customer specific content based on their demographics or online actions has enabled marketers to create a personalised persona to their campaigns. Inspired by this evolution, we look at what makes dynamic content so special and how it can revamp your email campaigns.

What is dynamic content?

In today’s day and age we are almost constantly glued to the internet, whether that’d be via the social media networks on our smartphones or the daily browse on a laptop for example. With this, comes the desire for more personalised content from the brands we are browsing. This is most common in terms of email marketing, when you receive emails from a company which is addressed with your name. Dynamic content, however, takes this concept one step further.

Dynamic content in email marketing allows email campaigns to deliver entirely customisable content based on data of the recipient. Most simply, this could be sending content based on the demographic statistics of the receiver, whether that’d by age or sex for example. This data could be expanded to both behavioural, e.g. purchase patterns, and psychographic, e.g. hobbies and interests. This type of content means that all the members on your mailing list receive the same email, but the blocks of dynamic content will be unique to the specific user.

The GDPR snag

There is however a little snag, and it goes by the name of GDPR. For dynamic content to work most effectively, it requires data of the individuals who are browsing a client’s content; specific data. With the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation earlier this year, users must now give a website permission to collect data regarding their online activity through the site and forces companies to be transparent about the information they already hold.

Therefore users must be made aware of what data is being collected and what, if anything, it is being used for. The data collected from these website sessions is the basis for what ties dynamic content together and makes the emails for certain marketing campaigns unique. If users do not provide websites with such permissions, individual content could not be formed. One prompt you could use to urge users to give permission is to highlight the benefits of receiving tailored content in doing so.

Will dynamic content improve my conversions?

So, you have all the permissions you need and have collected the required data from your website’s users. But you’re wondering how you can take dynamic content to the next level? Dynamic content works particularly well for ecommerce companies. It can be used to send unique types of emails, for example:

• Abandoned cart emails - which you could send at a scheduled time 24 and then 48 hours later.
• Personalised recommendation emails - which you could send to repeat customers.
• Replenishment emails - to signal when a certain product a user has browsed is back in stock.
• Reengagement emails - to send discounts to those who haven’t browsed in while.

The best dynamic content will be business specific and tailored to each particular audience. This type of content allows your business to build trust between business and customer in providing unique and relevant content through email marketing campaigns. For smaller businesses this could create an invaluable source of conversions, whilst simultaneously creating a stronger bond with the customer.

Dynamic content can however be a tricky element to integrate into your email campaigns, so if you need help with your campaigns get in touch with SilverDisc today!