Monkey in the Middle, Money on the Outside

To efficiently utilize email marketing you need to use templates. Sure, it would be great to have a glossy customized email for every campaign, but for many companies that’s simply not feasible.

I recently worked with an email marketer on a test of her template. We wondered if the principle of KISS (keep it simple stupid) was more effective than the product smorgasbjord. In other words, was an email with a few products guaranteed to be above the fold more effective than having an email with many products displayed some of which would require the end user to scroll.

The results were suprising.

In the control email the products were aligned in a single row. 5 products in all. In the test email the products were in 3 rows each row having 5 products greating a grid of 15 products. Not only was the email with 15 products more successful in terms of conversion events but we found that the products at the ends of rows and at the bottom of the email got more clicks.

Our users (results may vary) scanned the entire email and clicked more on the fringes of the product grid and the bottom of the grid than the middle. Even more suprising was that the products in the middle (the ones clicked less) were big sellers. The products on the fringes were unknown duds.

The resulting conclusion was that in future uses of this template it’s important to put higher margin products on the outside edge and bottom right of this particular template. That maximized clicks and profits and that’s why we do what we do.