What’s EmailSmart Defender?

by | Jul 29, 2024

EmailSmart Defender is part of our Deliverability Dashboard suite of apps designed to help you make more money for longer from your existing email list. It makes managing your email list quick and easy while also serving as an advanced diagnostic tool and a key component of the List Simulator (part of Email List Optimization).

EmailSmart Defender works with both Keap, Active Campaign and High Level (GHL) to automatically tag your contacts daily based on engagement. Engagement includes both opens & clicks.  

Tag Categories include:

  • New and Unengaged (from “00-01 days” up to “14-30 days”)
  • Engaged (from “in last 000-007 days” up to “in last 365+ days”)
  • Clicked (from “in last 00-07 days” up to “Never Clicked”)

No more spending hours creating reports and tagging contacts to manage your list and segment your sends. Now it happens automatically overnight so that you can load your email and hit send.

We have to admit, we originally built Smart Defender just for List Management, but we’ve since discovered it’s an amazing performance diagnostic tool and a way to test new list management processes before adopting them (as part of the Email List Simulator).

This post focuses on it's improving email performance capacities.

Case Study

Our client has a very successful funnel. It’s a longer funnel that runs over 5 weeks and relies heavily on email. Sales are typically made at the start of the funnel, and a higher-priced product at the end of the funnel.

The client has always wondered, “How many of the daily tasks does a prospect need to perform during the funnel to be more likely to purchase at the end of the funnel?”

They had tried various analytics approaches but never got a satisfactory answer… until they used Smart Defender.

They collected daily sales data for the end-of-funnel product, specifically looking at the Smart Defender tags. 

Here are the results:

  • Total Sales: 76
  • Opened in the last 7 days prior to purchase: 73
  • New to list (used different email to purchase): 3
  • Clicked in the last 7 days prior to purchase: 61
  • Clicked in the last 30 days but not the last 7 days: 8
  • Clicked in the last 60 days but not the last 30 days: 1
  • Never clicked: 3

Takeaways

  • 100% of customers who purchased the backend product had opened an email in the last 7 days after being on the list for 20-35 days 
  • 83.5% clicked a link in the last 7 days
  • 3 customers opened an email in the last 7 days but hadn't clicked any links. (This result surprised us, but we assume because they had been reading the emails, they still desired the product)

What did we do with this insight?

Since this is a lengthy funnel and only people who are engaging with the emails are purchasing the end-of-funnel product, our hypothesis was “there’s no need to keep sending the daily emails if the contact stops engaging. Perhaps we can win them back by sending different content.” 

To test this we created decision diamonds at 2 spots in the funnel to create a different path for contacts who hadn’t engaged in the last 7-days i.e. using the Smart Defender tags. 

The email sequences were simple, involving 2 emails.

Email 1 - Checking In
(Note: these are the concepts of the emails not that actual emails)

  • I know you signed up for a reason and just wanted to make sure I’m supporting you
  • It’s not uncommon for people to fall off schedule at this point
  • Here are some options to get you back on track
  • Would any of these be helpful?

Email 2 - Takeaway (sent 48 hours later)

  • I know you signed up for a reason and just wanted to make sure I’m supporting you
  • It’s not uncommon for people to fall off schedule at this point
  • Here are some options to get you back on track
  • Would any of these be helpful?
  • My team is here to support you but if I you don’t select an option in the next 48 hours I’ll assume now is not the right time for you 

RESULTS

1st Decision Diamond (Day 10)

  • ⅓ of leads were unengaged
  • 66% of unengaged leads were successfully re-engaged

2nd Decision Diamond (Day 20)

  • 26% of leads were unengaged
  • 40% of unengaged leads were successfully re-engaged

Overall

  • The leads who chose not to continue with the funnel were sent different but related valuable content followed by a promotional offer
  • Purchase rate for re-engaged leads were the same as engaged leads

Takeaways

  1. 1
    Not everyone re-engaged, plus not everyone who re-engaged chose to continue with the funnel. (Day 10 Decision Diamond: 23% continued with funnel | Day 20 Decision Diamond: 13%)
  2. 2
    A high percentage of leads who had stopped engaging re-engaged with this Win-Back strategy.  Re-Engagement rates were higher with earlier intervention.
  3. 3
    Re-engaged leads (both in funnel and new path) became customers at the same rate as engaged funnel leads, meaning instead of continuing with a funnel they'd lost interest in and had already started to ignore our emails, they re-engaged, which lead to more customers.

Summary

When you identify and plug engagement leaks in your email program, you will keep more people’s attention for longer, and…

  • Higher Engagement = Higher Sender Reputation
  • Higher Sender Reputation = More Inbox Placement
  • More Inbox Placement = More Attention
  • More Attention = More Touchpoints
  • More Touchpoints = More Opportunities to Build Authority, Like & Trust
  • More Authority, Like & Trust = More Primed Prospects
  • More Primed Prospects & Great Offers  = More Sales

…and with EmailSmart’s suite of Deliverability Dashboard apps, it’s a great time to finally understand exactly what’s happening with your email list so you can start optimizing to make more sales.


Next Steps:

If your business could benefit from Email List Optimization but you prefer an expert to guide you through the entire process, saving you time and effort,  schedule a call and let's see how we can help you get better email results.


If you’ve missed any of the EMAIL LIST OPTIMIZATION series, here’s where you can catch up: