Campaign Set Up
Pick a Goal
Choose the right campaign type for the goal of your campaign. There will be different options as you build your campaign based on what you choose initially.
Check out examples of one-time and automated campaigns here.
Naming your campaign
Consider a proper naming convention for your campaigns that will ensure they are easy to identify in the future if you’d like to duplicate the campaign, and makes them easy to sort in your reporting.
Naming convention ideas:
- Keyword: Season, cadence, name of promotion
- Campaign type: Offer, newsletter, we miss you, confirmation…etc.
- Audience: Family, group, couples, business
- Date: YY/MM/DD
Keep your naming convention consistent for all campaigns.
A/B Testing
Use A/B testing on one-time campaigns to test a subject line or the content within your campaign. Subject line will allow you to test your open rate while content will test your click through rate. Some campaigns will not have A/B testing available, be sure to choose the right campaign type for your goal.
The benefit of A/B testing is that you can then apply what you learned from the test — that personalized subject lines prompt better open rates, that a more prominent call-to-action converts better, etc. — to future campaigns to improve your overall email performance.
Learn more about the benefits of and best practices for A/B testing here.
Campaign Tracking
A UTM is a snippet of text added to a link’s code that helps you track the performance of campaigns and content. Turn on campaign tracking to append the UTM text to the end of each URL associated with your campaign. Set up your UTM code using Google’s Campaign URL Builder and know more about your guest’s engagement with your marketing communications.
It is a best practice to remove all spaces from your UTM Campaign Name to keep the appended URL clean. Note: Guests will see your UTM Campaign Name in their URL bar so be sure it is something you’d want the guests to see.
Email Composer
Templates
Use branded templates to ensure brand consistency with all of your email campaigns.
Subject Lines
Subject lines are a very important aspect of your campaign. Because they are the first thing your guests see in their inbox, open rates highly depend on the quality of your subject line. Ensure you capture your guests attention with a compelling subject line and email preview text. When possible, use A/B testing to learn more about your open rate using compelling subject lines.
Find Subject Line Best Practices here.
Images
Ensure your images are not only high quality images, but also meet the standard specs of the image box. Hero images should be no wider than 600 px and are best viewed as 600 x 300 px. Each image content block will provide you the best size for imagery.
It is a best practice to include alt text on each image for screen reader software and to help improve deliverability as it is previewed by email service providers.
Each image should be linked to a landing page associated with the goal of that image. For example, if your image is promoting a special offer at your property, the image should be linked to your offers landing page on your website.
Don’t use too many images or too much text. Balance is important. Use the 60/40 rule for text and images and ensure that you use a minimum of 500 text characters per email.
Call-to-action (CTA)
CTAs should be seen above the fold when a guest opens your email on desktop and mobile. Your CTA button should be attractive to the eye and use action inducing verbiage; book now, check rates, book a room.
Call to action buttons should be used sparingly throughout your campaign to ensure that you are not drawing attention away from the main goal of your campaign.
Use A/B testing to test which CTA’s are your top performing buttons.
Copy and Content
An email’s tone of voice, choice of words, and layout also help to convey your message to guests and potential guests.
Use plenty of white space in your design so it is easy for guests to visually follow and understand the email at a glance.
Keep your content simple and easy to understand. Provide guests with the information they need but not so much that the email becomes overwhelming due to length or amount of information. Promotional emails should have no more than 1 scroll whereas informational or transactional emails can offer 2-3 scrolls.
Hyperlinks
Any links that are added to your campaign will automatically follow your default hyperlink color. To set the default link color, go to the ‘body’ tab and edit the link color.
If you would like to edit the color of a specific hyperlink, turn on the “inherit body styles” and change the link color to your preferred color. Finish by ensuring that your text color is changed to the same color as your preferred link color.
Personalization
You can personalize your emails starting with the subject line, and then pulling that personalization through the email using data from your PMS. Use merge tags to include personalized details like your guests name, in a one-time campaign, and personal and reservation information in an automated campaign, like confirmation code, room type…etc..
Segmented email marketing campaigns achieve way higher open and click-thru rates than non-segmented email marketing campaigns. We crunched the numbers using our very own customer data and concluded that campaigns segmented with our Smart Segment Builder saw a 20% higher open rate, 70% higher click-thru rate and 73% higher revenue per recipient than non-segmented campaigns. Learn more about Segmentation Best Practices here.
Check, check and check again
Always be sure to preview your email before sending it to your guests. Send yourself a test email and click each link, image and button on the campaign to ensure it performs as you would expect.
Use the Specific Email Software feature to see how your email will be viewed on different devices and software.
Scheduling
When sending out one-time campaigns, consider the performance of your past campaign send times. If you are unsure when the best time and day of the week is to send a one-time send, look at other sources that are available to you such as your social media insights or website performance reports.
The best time to schedule automated campaigns is very subjective to each property and their marketing, but consider the following:
Pre-arrival - if you are using upsells within your pre-arrival, ensure that you are giving your team enough time to decide if the upsells can be approved. Example: will you know if you can approve an early check-in 7 days prior to the guests stay or do you need this to be closer to their check-in date, such as 3 days prior to check in.
We miss you - a standard practice is to send your we miss you campaign 6 months after your guest has checked out and again 1 year post-check out. Ensuring this only goes to guests who do not have future reservations.
Cancellation recovery - Set up a drip series for your cancellation recovery campaign to deploy 1 hour after a guest cancels and 24 hours after their cancellation.
Shopping cart abandonment - Similar to the Cancellation Recovery campaign, use a drip campaign for 1 hour and again 24 hours after they have abandoned their cart.
Sending Checklist
Use our checklist to ensure your email is ready to send.
