The right incentive can make a significant impact on response rates, whether it’s used to build lists and generate leads or increase online sales.

But how do you determine which incentive will overcome friction best and deliver maximum return? And which common errors should you avoid?

Even if a site or page has been 100% optimized for several factors, adding the "ideal incentive" can substantially improve results.

This brief will examine how to find the ideal incentive, and not just for the purposes of email capture.

Anyone who has set up an email campaign knows many factors need to be considered before hitting the Send button:

• Quality of leads and lists;
• segmenting and targeting;
• envelope fields;
• copy content and length; and
• where prospects or subscribers end up once they click through to the offer.

Mastering any process requires knowing where to begin, and email optimization is no exception.

This brief introduces a symbolic notation illustrating our approach to that process: The MarketingExperiments Email Optimization Sequence^sm.

We are seeking answers to two key questions:

1. What is the most effective way to approach an email messaging optimization project: Where should you begin?
2. As you begin, what role does Relevance play in the optimization process?

Email has become an extremely powerful marketing tool. In fact, U.S. firms spent $400 million in 2006.

Our research has identified 7 distinct factors of email marketing campaign effectiveness. Not surprisingly, body copy is among the factors with the greatest impact (highest coefficient).

Email has become an extremely powerful marketing tool. In fact, U.S. firms spent $400 million in 2006.

Our research has identified 7 distinct factors of email marketing campaign effectiveness. Not surprisingly, body copy is among the factors with the greatest impact (highest coefficient).

At MarketingExperiments.com, we have repeatedly stressed this point: The best publishers are good retailers; the best retailers are good publishers.

However, many pure retail operations ...