Internet Marketing Center Case Study

Customer	The Internet Marketing Center
Industry	Business Services
Email type:	Marketing

CUSTOMER

The Internet Marketing Center (IMC) has led the field of online marketing since 1996, with online sales totaling $60 million. IMC develops resources and strategies that small and medium-sized online businesses can use to market themselves successfully on the Internet. Core products such as The Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business on the Internet and The Insider Secrets To Email Marketing are revised and updated every year to reflect the changing dynamics of the online environment. Before recommending any product or marketing technique to its customers, IMC tests it; as a result its email campaigns are already highly effective. The company wanted to find out if CertifiedEmail would make a difference to its AOL conversion rates and if it would be a practical option for the smaller online marketers who make up its clientele.

CERTIFIED EMAIL TEST

IMC tested two emails promoting a new product: reprint rights to four eBooks featuring well-known business experts. Recipients in both tests were given a link to the product landing page. Half of the emails were sent via CertifiedEmail and the other half were sent without certification.


CertifiedEmail sample as received by the customer.

RESULTS

The response rates for the CertifiedEmail recipients as compared to the non-certified email recipients showed the following increases:

Click-through rate	+22%
Site login:	+44%
Revenue per email:	+81%

ANALYSIS

These mailings tested only one variable: the appearance or absence of CertifiedEmail’s unique trust icon indicating that the message was authentic and trustworthy. IMC’s emails consist entirely of text, with no images or attachments, so no one was required to click to view the message. The control and test groups saw messages in their inboxes that were identical except for the trust icon. Therefore it can be concluded that the trust icon alone was responsible for the notable increases in click-throughs, conversions, and revenues. The return on investment for IMC was 1,646%.

TERMINOLGY

Click-through rate	The number of emails that were clicked-through to the website over the emails received, as a percent. A single email clicked
Site login	The number of people that logged into the website over the emails received, as a percent. Multiple logins driven from the same email are counted as a single login (unique login).
Return-on-investment (ROI)	Profit generated by a marketing campaign less the cost of the campaign (return), over the cost of the campaign, expressed as a percent. A positive ROI is one where the profit generated exceeds the cost of the campaign. For example, an ROI of 180% means an investment of $1.00 generated a return of $2.80.
Revenue per email	Per customer, the average revenue generated per email.

Download the PDF of the Internet Marketing Center Case Study

“We were frankly
astonished that the
CertifiedEmail icon
could make such
a difference in clickthroughs,
conversions,
and revenues.

The clear increases
and excellent ROI
convinced us that
CertifiedEmail is an option any professional
e-mail marketer
should consider.”

Derek Gehl
CEO
Internet Marketing Center
Author: Insider Secrets
to Email Marketing