An Introduction to Lifecycle Email • Hacker News Board

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#21

Post by danmaz74 » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 7:32 AM UTC

MortenK wrote: post #12

A tip if you already use lifecycle programs: Set up your marketing automation tool to automatically unsubscribe your recipients from the program, if they are not opening the first 2-3 emails (thereby showing a lack of interest in the specific program). This allows you to keep a higher percentage of email permissions, which you can use for less frequent communication. Otherwise a large part of the uninterested segment…

On the other hand, measuring email opens is far from perfect - the user can have images off - and you could unsubscribe users who are actually reading your stuff.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#22

Post by forgotten » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 9:49 AM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #20

napoleond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is neither a description of how the world works nor is it a description of how the world should work. In human communities, social structures evolve around concepts like respect. It's anti-social for newcomers (or anyone else) to disregard those structures, regardless of whether or not it would otherwise be logical to do so. In theory, HN allows a short-cut past all the social stuff by requiring disagreements to…

I think two issues are being conflated here – the issue of whether one should be reasonably respectful, and the issue of whether social or other status should garner increasing respect. I only meant to disagree with you on the latter, not on the former. From the TV series Kung Fu , episode Sun and Cloud Shadow (season 1, episode 8, 1972): Master Po: “ In the pond there are some lotuses which stand above the water. An…

Awesome reply. This made my day :)

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#23

Post by forgotten » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 9:52 AM UTC

username223 wrote: post #7

napoleond wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN users have traditionally been very interested in sharing their experiences in the software business (among, obviously, many other interests). If that doesn't interest you, that's quite alright, but it's not "hucksterism". Also, 'patio11 is one of HN's most valued contributors (as evidenced by his position on the leaderboard). That doesn't mean that he should be exempted from any criticism, but I think in any healt…

> Also, 'patio11 is one of HN's most valued contributors... I'm guessing "kalzumeus.com" and/or "zeeshanm" is "'patio11", but I'm not plugged into the community enough to recognize this august citizen. The article reads like a sleazy, low-grade sales pitch, so I don't see why it deserves any particular respect.

It is a sleezy low grade sales pitch. You're not wrong about that imo.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#24

Post by jasonkester » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 11:30 AM UTC

laurencei wrote: post #8

As I read this - I felt like I've read it before. Then I realised it is just a duplicate of https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/lifecycle... . Its almost the exact same content - just a slightly newer version with 2-3 small typo changes, and is a couple of years old

The reason is that it's not a blog entry. It's the "read in a browser" version of Patrick's amazing email course.

Lots of people signed up for it when it was new, and even though Patrick specifically asked that it not be submitted here, every mail was. Now we get the occasional repost from people who are just now working their way through the course.

That it is occasionally updated and has no date stamp should therefore not come as a surprise.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#25

Post by fenomas » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 12:36 PM UTC

I tried the "WPEngine speed report" link described in this, and got back a slightly humorous result:

  > What If WP Engine Were Your WordPress Hosting Company?
  > 0% faster total page-load time!
  > Using the techniques detailed below, moving your blog to 
  > WP Engine would shave 0.0 seconds off your page-load time..

Not meaning to belittle the service, which I'm sure is excellent, but there's a lesson there about preparing automatic reports...

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#26

Post by hawkice » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #25

I tried the "WPEngine speed report" link described in this, and got back a slightly humorous result: > What If WP Engine Were Your WordPress Hosting Company? > 0% faster total page-load time! > Using the techniques detailed below, moving your blog to > WP Engine would shave 0.0 seconds off your page-load time.. Not meaning to belittle the service, which I'm sure is excellent, but there's a lesson there about preparin…

For any WPEngine employees reading: I now trust you almost completely on the subject of website speed.

This is the perfect opposite of e.g. the A/B testing company that will show a statistically significant improvement from no change at all -- if I see that you aren't overstating the case, I care about the results and trust they are valid.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#27

Post by fenomas » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

hawkice wrote: post #26

fenomas wrote: post #25

I tried the "WPEngine speed report" link described in this, and got back a slightly humorous result: > What If WP Engine Were Your WordPress Hosting Company? > 0% faster total page-load time! > Using the techniques detailed below, moving your blog to > WP Engine would shave 0.0 seconds off your page-load time.. Not meaning to belittle the service, which I'm sure is excellent, but there's a lesson there about preparin…

For any WPEngine employees reading: I now trust you almost completely on the subject of website speed. This is the perfect opposite of e.g. the A/B testing company that will show a statistically significant improvement from no change at all -- if I see that you aren't overstating the case, I care about the results and trust they are valid.

Actually it looked more like a possible bug. WPEngine's report gave me an "F" grade on 4 of its 6 result categories (my site is just wordpress out of the box), plus it reported a great many metrics to many significant digits, so it'd be odd if everything came out precisely equal to their offering. (There was no detail on where the "0%" came from, though.)

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#28

Post by tnpuig » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #27

hawkice wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any WPEngine employees reading: I now trust you almost completely on the subject of website speed. This is the perfect opposite of e.g. the A/B testing company that will show a statistically significant improvement from no change at all -- if I see that you aren't overstating the case, I care about the results and trust they are valid.

Actually it looked more like a possible bug. WPEngine's report gave me an "F" grade on 4 of its 6 result categories (my site is just wordpress out of the box), plus it reported a great many metrics to many significant digits, so it'd be odd if everything came out precisely equal to their offering. (There was no detail on where the "0%" came from, though.)

Actually a few things can cause that state.

1. You could be on us already so we'd say "Hey, can't be faster than us, on us" 2. The speed test API could have gotten wonky and not returned a result. 3. Could be a bug

I'll check on if any of those are true and thanks for the heads up.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#29

Post by MortenK » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #21

MortenK wrote: post #12

A tip if you already use lifecycle programs: Set up your marketing automation tool to automatically unsubscribe your recipients from the program, if they are not opening the first 2-3 emails (thereby showing a lack of interest in the specific program). This allows you to keep a higher percentage of email permissions, which you can use for less frequent communication. Otherwise a large part of the uninterested segment…

On the other hand, measuring email opens is far from perfect - the user can have images off - and you could unsubscribe users who are actually reading your stuff.

That's very true, you'd be unsubscribing some false positives. Usually this is marginal though, and it's a tradeoff worth taking except if your recipient group have an abnormally high use of image off. Also, you can decrease the percentage by hosting content on a landing page since in most tools, a click will also register an open.

Re: An Introduction to Lifecycle Email

#30

Post by MortenK » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #14

MortenK wrote: post #12

A tip if you already use lifecycle programs: Set up your marketing automation tool to automatically unsubscribe your recipients from the program, if they are not opening the first 2-3 emails (thereby showing a lack of interest in the specific program). This allows you to keep a higher percentage of email permissions, which you can use for less frequent communication. Otherwise a large part of the uninterested segment…

What's the best way to do this in Mailchimp?

Not sure it's possible to automate easily since mailchimp is a rather simple esp. I might be mistaken though, it's been a while since I used them. You could probably solve it through the API or at least through a bit of recurring manual work.