Today, we're going to talk about a sector that matters, economically speaking, but that we don't talk about very often after all. This sector is the adult entertainment (hence the hot 😉 ). So we're going to see an email from Sexy Avenue, one of the leaders in adult ecommerce.
Sending email in this sector is obviously more complicated than average, difficult indeed to avoid sensitive keywords. But that doesn't mean that some players don't manage to make the most of it, commitment is obviously essential.
Well, on the other hand, he's going to end up in a Badsender, that's because everything is not always rosy in the land of sexy entertainment. But we'll leave the "Bad" reasons for the end, let's focus first on what is "Good"!
The Good!
A preview without image: the best!
It is rare, very rare to have such a level for an email without the images displayed. Here, the use of special characters in the ALT tags is particularly well done. The main message is totally readable, the user can go to the next step without displaying the images (there is even a call to action...).
A good preheader. But!
In the email, there is also a very good preheader "Gift: your limited edition 2014 erotic calendar or a caramel oil for any order..." which complements an effective but imprecise subject line "For any order receive a gift".
The worry is the preheaders that the acquisition platforms have added on top and that spoils the one of the email kit.
A very clean design
The design of the email is really interesting, even if we regret the absence of well identified call-to-action. The only part of the email with a strong contrast is the promo code, which is unfortunately not clickable.
Real landing pages
And yes, when you click in the email you come across good landing pages, very complete, with a direct link to the action and giving more details. This is rare enough to be highlighted.
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The Bad!
Acquisition and therefore 13 identical emails in 15 days
Overall, I think it's a good email campaign (as long as you're interested in the items on sale). But as often, an element comes to spoil everything, it is acquisition, and so I received 13 times the email in 15 days on the same email address. These 13 emails seem to have been sent by the same platform, even if the sending domain names are different.
If sending 13 times the email can undoubtedly improve mechanically the results of the campaign, for what concerns the brand image of Sexy Avenue and the reputation of sender of the acquisition platforms the impact cannot be positive. Let us not forget that in this precise case, if Sexy Avenue decides to use this email to carry out a campaign of loyalty, this one could well finish in spam because of the practices of acquisition.
No "via MyPlatformZ" in the sender's name
Speaking of branding, the name (alias) of the sender is here only "Sexy Avenue" and the name of the acquisition platform never appears whereas it is nevertheless strongly recommended.
4 shipping domain names and 10 IP addresses, but the same shipping platform
Looking at the source of the emails, it is obvious that this one was sent by the same technical platform: same X-mailer, same structure of unsubscribe links, all IPs at OVH, ...
If you have fun testing the IP addresses at Senderscore.org, you will soon realize that these addresses generate a lot of complaints and have a rather low reputation. Not really surprising.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, while as we saw above this email was well done, the classic practices of the acquisition world make it fall into the Bad. By keeping the same concept and creating a few kits dedicated to relaunching, it would have been possible to do much better, and especially not to tire the user. With a little more transparency from the acquisition platform, it is perhaps possible to make an acquisition email fall into the Goodsenders. Let's just say it!
Identity card
Generic email information:
- Subject of the email : For any order receive a gift
- From : Sexy Avenue (and for the email address, it depends, it is of acquisition)
- Preheader : it depends what the acquisition platform has placed in the first line, but Sexy Avenue has provided "Gift: your limited edition 2014 erotic calendar or a caramel oil for any order..."
- Sending platform : Unknown
Checklist :
- Link to privacy : KO
- Link to unsubscribe : OK (it is present, which does not mean that it will be followed by effect)
- DKIM : OK
- Text version : KO
- Text to Image Ratio : KO
- List-unsubscribe : OK
- Friendly reply : ??
- Mobile ready : KO
Screenshot of the email
2 réponses
I have a silly technical question, how in the alt, can we make the text bigger or smaller and colored?
Anyway thanks for this interesting little topic 🙂
Hello Florian,
It depends on the email client, but usually a little span around the image with the style you want to give your ALT works.
A+