How many emails is too many?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone:

In a multi-national company, with many marketing departments, sometimes clients are getting emails multiple times a week (sometimes, more than once a day--ouch!)

How many emails is too many?  Monthly?  Weekly? Daily?

Can you point me to any research on this topic?

And (tangentially related), does anyone else routinely get TWO of every email Marketo sends out?  It's starting to be a joke in our organization.

Looking forward to the discussion!
Sandra

[Anonymous]

If you are asking this question, you are definitely sending too many! There is a setting there to limit number of email leads get daily / weekly - if it is over that, they don't get an email. We use that setting at 2 per day, 5 per week.

[Dory_Viscoglio]

Hi Sandra, I agree wih Alexey, you're probably sending too many! You're able to limit communications from Marketo, but it sounds like you might be able to hit them from multiple platforms since there are many marketing departments. In addition to setting the communications limits in the Admin section of Marketo, maybe it makes sense to sit down with the departments and figure out all of your mailings, and see if there's a better way to manage them.

As far as the Marketo emails, is there any chance that you're on a distribution list as well as your own personal email? Otherwise, you really shouldn't be receiving duplicates of all of the Marketo emails.

[Anonymous]

I know that Marketo's best practice is what Alexy cites--2 per day, 5 per week.

And I think that's insane. 😉

If you can't put together a coordinated email with everything you need to tell me in ONE email a day, then I think there's something wrong with your marketing.

From my own perspective, there are things I must subscribe to for news and knowledge--and yet it aggravates me to get two emails a day from them.

Dory--I've double-checked my own subscription settings with Marketo.  Even tried opting out for a while.  Still getting duplicates every time Marketo sends an email.  Doesn't give me great faith that the system does what it promises.

[Anonymous]

I get dupes from Marketo all the time too. When I passed the certification test I noticed that my profile wasn't updating with my new credentials, so I called in and asked why. They had a hard time figuring it out, and they eventually discovered that my record was indeed in there twice with different email addresses. one was @networkinstruments.com and one was @netinst.com.

They said they took care of the problem...which I am guessing was merging my records. But to this day I still get duplicate emails - so I am not surprised to here that you are having the same issue Sandra.

[Anonymous]

I am going to offer a slightly different perspective, and say it varies for each audience segment. In other words, there are some companies that I want to hear from more often, and some I don't. The challenge, and what Marketo can help you with, is segmenting your users, and sending the most optimal number of communications for each user. 

You can create smart lists in Marketo based on engagement  (email open and click rates). For example, if a group of people has high engagement then send them more emails. If the converse is true for another, send this group less emails.