Engage.

Email engagement had a great year at Mozilla.  We started 2011 with 125,000 email subscribers. In December, we crossed the finish line with more than 3 million subscribers and we’re now adding 25,000 new subscribers each day.

Email engagement overview:

We believe email is a powerful channel for communicating with users.  Our consumer facing email programs inform users of new features and help optimize their experience with Mozilla’s product offerings.

How effective was email in 2011:

Our email program has grown extensively and maintained healthy engagement rates.  This is a testament to the interest and enthusiasm our subscribers have for Mozilla products.

Here’s a break down of open and clicks in 2011:

You’ll notice a dip in our engagement rates as the list grows.  This is a common trend. Mozilla’s email engagement consistently beats industry open and click averages when compared to list size.

Most Popular Links of 2011 for English Readers:

We thought it’d be interesting to take a peek at the most popular links clicked in 2011.  Take a look:

Localized Firefox & You

One of our major objectives in 2011 was to launch several localized versions of Firefox & You.  Jessilyn Davis joined Mozilla in September to manage the localization process and work closely with contributors to create content that speaks to our global audience.  As of Jan 2012, we now offer Firefox & You in French, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish.

Learn more about our localization program on Jess’s blog.

Into 2012 and beyond…

Localization will continue to be a priority for our email program in 2012.  Our goal is to address every major Firefox market by providing them with a localized version of the Firefox & You newsletter.

We’ll also be making more upgrades to our newly launched email preference center.  We launched version 1 of the preference center late in 2011.  Our goal is to provide subscribers with one place to manage their email preferences.  They are now able to add or remove themselves from one or multiple Mozilla newsletters in a central location.  Phase 2 of the email preference will provide them with more ways to customize their email content.  For example, if I wish to hear exclusively about apps, I’ll be able to change my preferences to request that all content be centered on apps.

Maintaining our growth rate will continue to be a focus.  We’re currently adding 25,000 new email subscribers each day. We will continue to strive for an 8% click through rate and 20% open rate to ensure that users are finding value in the content they are receiving.

Thanks!

A big thanks to our web dev and creative teams.  Creative is responsible for all the beautiful email templates and images you see.  Also, Matej Novak writes the rich copy you’ll find in every edition of Firefox & You.

Just as important are the members of the web dev team who have helped integrate mozilla.org with our email vendor.  In addition, they also built our recently launched email preference center – a critical piece of our email program that allows users to edit and change their communication preferences.

Sign up!

You can sign up for email updates by visiting www.mozilla.org/newsletter.

The May email stats for the Mozilla & You newsletter are in. Let’s do the numbers:

We maintained strong open and click through rates.  However, you’ll notice we did see a dip when compared to March and April.  We believe this was due to the Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of summer vacations.  Having said that, our numbers are still strong and exceed industry averages. We’ll see these numbers climb a bit during the next week.

If you’re interested in seeing how our program stacks up to others, check out benchmark stats from email marketing providers Bronto and MailChimp.  You’ll find information on average open and click through rates.

Have a look at our trends report:

In addition to our aggregate numbers, we’ve analyzed open and clicks by locale.  We narrowed our focus to countries with more than 5,000 readers.

When reviewing the data, one conclusion jumps out immediately. Localized content provides us with high engagement stats.  Our recently localized German newsletter is the top performer. The remaining top performers are all from countries with a large population of English speaking citizens.  This isn’t a surprise given we currently only offer the newsletter in German and English, but great reinforcement for continued work on expanding our email program into other markets using localized content.

To that end, we’re in the process of launching a French and Portuguese newsletter.  More news about those projects coming soon.  Stay tuned.

Finally, let’s take a look at our top links in English and German:

English:
1. Download Firefox for Desktop
2. Check your plug-ins
3. Panorama
4. Add-on – Webmail Notifier
5. Download Firefox Mobile

Germany:
1. Check your plug-ins
2. Download Firefox for Desktop
3. Add-on – Add to Search Bar
4. Video – About Firefox Mobile
5. Today’s Tip – Add-on Bar

The next issue of Mozilla & You is targeted for June 21.  Make sure you’ve opted in to receive the newsletter!

We had a lot of email coolness in April. We rolled out a new email template and launched our first localized newsletter. German subscribers now have their very own ‘Mozilla & You’.  Willkommen!

A new look

Why redesign?  The previous template had some minor rendering issues in email clients.  We also wanted the newsletter to match the recently updated style of Mozilla.com.  Our goal for the new template was to render beautifully in AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and Outlook 2007/2010.  We also optimized for mobile readers.  Take a look at the old vs. the new.

The Old

The New

The new design is brighter and the layout provides more flexibility when adding new articles.  The old version had a sidebar on the right throughout the entire email.  Eliminating that made it much easier to add content blocks.

We also launched two new sections devoted entirely to Personas and Add-ons.  In past editions, we found that Add-ons and Personas were hot topics.  It made sense to make them a recurring theme each month.

A big thanks to the creative team for doing such an amazing job on the new template.

April stats:

Measuring opens and clicks help us determine what our readers like and don’t like.  Here’s an overview of April broken down by language:

English Version:

• Open rate:  29.5%
• Click through rate (CTR):  14.5%
• Sent to:  624,879

Both the open and CTR were strong.  In fact, this is the highest CTR we’ve seen for Mozilla & You.

German Version:

• Open rate: 55%
• Click through rate (CTR): 33.2%
• Sent to: 3,811

Holy cow!  Look at those German numbers.  They’re awesome but not entirely unexpected.  This is the first time we’ve emailed our German subscribers, and these individuals opted-in within the past sixty days.  The more recent the subscriber, the higher the opens and clicks.

Here’s a reminder of how we’ve performed in 2011 to date:

Top 5 clicks

Finally, let’s take a look at the top five links in English and in German.

English

1.    Update Plugins

2.    User Interface Video

3.    Download Firefox 4

4.    Add-on: Web_of_Trust

5.    Add-on:  F1

German

1.    Download Firefox 4

2.    Update Plugins

3.    User Interface Video

4.    Add-on – Mein Gutscheincode Finder

5.    Today’s Tip – App Tabs

We see the update plugins link near the top of the list in every edition. As we suspected, Add-ons continue to be a hot item.  The user interface video was surprising for our German audience.  We noted in the German version of the copy that it was only available in English, but it still managed a high CTR.  Personas didn’t make the top 5, but they also received a high number of clicks in both English and German.

That’s it for April.  The May edition will arrive in your inbox on the 25th.  Make sure you’ve opted in for the newsletter!

Hi.  I’m Winston – the Mozilla email guy.  Since this is post number one, we’ll start off with some context into Mozilla’s email program.  Here’s what you’re about to read:

• Why email engagement?
• Aren’t all email marketers nasty spammers?
• How is Mozilla’s consumer email program performing?

Why use email to talk with users?
Email is in an interesting period of flux.  The popularity of social media has led many to question what the future of email will be. There are dozens of theories predicting how email may evolve (or when it will find itself buried six feet under).  But for this post, we won’t speculate about what the future holds.  Let’s talk about what we know right now.  For now, we believe our program has demonstrated email is a powerful channel that allows us to deliver relevant content to Mozilla subscribers.  You’ll get the juicy details on how we support that statement in just a second.

Email marketing does not mean SPAM.
Believe it or not, most email marketers hate spam.  No reputable email marketer believes in sending unsolicited email. The difference between SPAM and permission-based email is super simple.  Didn’t ask for the email newsletter that’s sitting in your inbox?  It’s spam.  There are a few exceptions like transactional email (receipts from online purchases, password retrievals, etc), but for the most part, no permission = SPAM.

A little history…
In September, Mozilla launched its first consumer email program designed to keep users informed about Firefox news and updates.  I was fortunate enough to join the user engagement team in January and take the helm of Mozilla’s consumer facing email communications.  By the way, email isn’t brand new to Mozilla. The community team has been sending out a bangin newsletter long before we launched the consumer program.  The consumer piece is different in that the content is solely focused on consumer needs and interests.

What do we send?
Each month we send out a monthly newsletter to Firefox users about enriching their browsing experience (go sign up). You’ll find stories about new releases, popular Add-ons and hot Personas. We also make time to tell the Firefox story and talk about the thousands of volunteers around the world that make Firefox possible.

Is anyone reading?
We call our consumer newsletter ‘Mozilla & You’. Since its launch in September, we’ve grown our subscriber base to 767,000.  We expect to eclipse the big 1,000,000 before the end of Q2. Champagne bottles are standing by.

Keeping people engaged.
While a big list is a great asset, the most important part of an email program is the level of engaged subscribers.  In this case, engaged means lots of opens and clicks from the readers. Thanks to an incredible product, a passionate user base and content geared for consumers, we’ve consistently beat industry averages for open and clicks.

Note:  The low October open rate was due to a reporting error. 

So how do we stack up compared to industry averages? A recent report by email marketing provider Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council cited the average open rate as 22% and the average click through rate as 5.1%.  In the first quarter of 2011, Mozilla maintained an average open rate of 29% and an average click through rate of 12.5%.  Both stats are exciting.  It demonstrates that our users are digging our content.

Look out for another post in the next few days with the results from our April newsletter.  In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up.  Next edition will be released the week of May 23.