Have you ever sent an email campaign, only to realize too late that one of the hyperlinks was broken or incorrect? Adobe has been testing a new tool that could solve this common email headache.
Adobe Labs, the product research and development division of Adobe, has been testing a product that detects misalignments within an email and landing page utilizing Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s
framework for machine-learning and artificial intelligence. Mathieu Hannouz, senior evangelist and group manager at Adobe Marketing Cloud, gave Email Marketing Daily a sneak peak of the new
email tool.
“As marketers, once we send an email there’s nothing we can do to fix it,” explains Hannouz. “If a link is broken, there’s nothing we can do to
correct it. If a link doesn’t work, it results in a bad customer experience. If a link goes to the wrong place, such as an off-topic landing page, it results in a bad customer
experience.”
Broken or incorrect links can have substantial negative consequences for an email marketer’s overall ROI, explains Hannouz.
“If I click on a 20% off link
and I don’t get that 20% off coupon, or I need to look for it, you’ve probably already lost me,” says Hannouz. “When links don’t work, it lowers your success rate, it
directly impacts your KPIs and bottom line.”
The financial implications of broken hyperlinks are compounded by the fact that email still drives a large chunk of online revenue. Almost a
quarter of online sales during the 2017 holiday season were driven by email, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
The beta email tool that Adobe Labs has been testing aims to minimize
hyperlink mistakes by highlighting and color-coding links in the email draft mode of Adobe Campaign, Adobe’s email and campaign management solution. Email links are highlighted so they catch
marketers’ eyes, and then color-coded like a traffic light based on their likelihood of accuracy as determined by Adobe Sensei.
Sensei analyzes the links that marketers include in their
email drafts and then compares the link’s destination with the content of the email message. If Adobe Sensei detects that a hyperlink works and directs to the correct landing page, the link is
highlighted in green within Adobe Campaign. Hyperlinks highlighted in yellow or red, however, alert marketers about potential mistakes in their email messages. Red notifies marketers that their links
are broken, while yellow advises caution because links may direct subscribers to incorrect landing pages.
The color-coding is based on a flexible relevancy score that marketers can set
themselves. In addition, marketers can also choose to have Adobe Sensei proactively notify them whenever it detects potential issues within an email message, even if the email message has already been
sent. Adobe’s concept technology also creates a fix from the server side for consumers who have yet to click on the link.
Adobe will be previewing the new solution next week at Adobe Summit, the company’s annual digital marketing conference in Las Vegas.