DOUBLE DOG DARE: Test Your Email Nav Bar

Friday, June 27, 2008 by eec Blog Contributor

Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new, edgy or against the conventional wisdom. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Stephanie Miller of Return Path:

If you include your website navigation bar in your emails, test to see if it's truly worth the real estate. I find it fascinating that many marketers have intense loyalty to including their website nav bar in their email templates, even if they have never actually done any analysis on the nav bar to see if it's (a) relevant and interesting or (b) ever clicked on. This is definitely worth testing, especially as so many of them take up a lot of key real estate in the preview pane. If the nav bar in your emails isn't driving significant clickthroughs, then I dare you to cut it.

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

–>Consider more Double Dog Dares.

Comments for DOUBLE DOG DARE: Test Your Email Nav Bar

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Kath Pay:
We took out our nav bar at the top of our newsletter a year or so ago, when we checked out how it looked on a Blackberry - it was painful to scroll through it all just to get to the good stuff. Results say 'twas a good decision.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Jack Felsheim:
What we have found is, it depends. It depends on the nature and audience of the e-mail. For example, a product heavy e-mail's top navigation is a useful guide to the rest of the site and should be included while a lifestyle or offer based e-mail will get little benefit from including the top navigation. Using analytics to help guide the creative message will allow marketers to stay connected with their audience. It's these types of customer behavior insights which will help with effective one to one database marketing. Great question.

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