Level Up Dynamic Images for Email | Ragnarokast #7

Steven

I’m Steven. 

Spencer

And I’m Spencer. Welcome to Ragnarokast, your podcast for all things marketing and MarTech. 

Steven

Hello everyone. 

Both

We’re the Co-CEOs of Ragnarok. 

Spencer

Hello there, I’m Spencer, and welcome to the Ragnarokast

Steven

And I’m Steven the other Spencer. 

Hello. Hey guys, it’s me today. 

Spencer

Today with us, we have, we have two guests. We have Sir Eric, of the Sacramento Hill people. We have Cathrina of the Gator Clan. 

Cat

Yeah,, I am stepping out from my producer mode to talk about some nifty stuff. 

Steven

Bam. What a pun. 

Spencer

So, Eric, actually, why don’t you, before we get into the questions, why don’t you just quickly introduce yourself? 

Eric

Yeah, of course. My name is Eric Elliott. I obviously work here at Nifty Images. I’ve been here for the past five years. I believe it’ll be six years this December. As far as my role here with the company, it’s kind of interesting in that I get to work both on the enterprise sales side as well as assist our, our partnership teams. So from my perspective, it’s, it’s a very unique role in that I get to be very hands-on with our clients. Kind of an intimate approach to really get to understand their, their wants and needs, and then put that into, into production for them. But I have been in the email marketing space though for the past 16 years, which is pretty crazy to say that out loud. 

Ultimately, just really excited about what we’re doing here at Nifty Images. 

Really stoked about the opportunity to get to partner with a company like Ragnarok and get to work with y’all. And yeah, ultimately things are going good and, and we’re, we’re really excited. But 

Steven

How long have you been around? You know, maybe give us a little bit of background on the company. How long you been around, what do you do? 

For our listeners, obviously, we’re pretty nifty here.

Spencer

And our viewers and our viewers. 

Steven

And our viewers 

Eric

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So Nifty Images, we’ve been around for the past eight years, plugging along strong and interesting how we came to be and that, you know, the, the partners here at Nifty Images, they all have a background in owning an ESP. And during that time of ownership, they noticed a lot of, a lot of gaps in functionality when it came to dynamic content and email personalization. So the idea of Nifty was born, we wanted to build it so that, you know, we completely removed IT development. We wanted to make it so that no integrations were needed. We wanted to make it incredibly easy to use, which I think we all can agree is amazing. 

And then four, we wanted to make it affordable so that not just the top 1% of the companies are able to use the solution that does the same things that we do. So that’s how Nifty Images was born, and that’s how we became to be. Now, in regards to how does it work, this is where my wife says that I overcomplicate the entire explanation. So it’s really just a simple image, URL with a merge tag. And what I mean by that is whatever type of personalized image you wanna build, whether that’s a live poll or countdown timer, or a calendar ab split test or a chart when you’re done building that image, we give you an image URL and you simply just take that image, URL, you copy it, and then you’ll paste it right into your existing email template. 

Now we’re ESP agnostic, so we work with any ESP seamlessly, which is kinda the beauty of nifty images. So hopefully that’s a simplified explanation of how to use it. 

Cat

So like, my big thing that why I’ve like really sort of gravitated toward Nifty is just from the creative side, especially in email, we’re just always telling our clients like, no, sorry, you can’t do that. No, it doesn’t work. So that’s kinda like why I’ve really gravitated toward this. And, you know, we are kind of ramping up for the holiday sales and campaigns with just highly personalized greetings and urgency messaging. 

Which features new or legacy have you seen perform well in this kind of situation? And, you know, what do we see could be really beneficial as we’re kind of gearing up toward, you know, planning our holiday strategies? 

Eric

Yeah, I think the first feature that comes to mind, which is probably nothing new to a lot of folks here, is countdown timers. 

And if you wanna see an uptick in, in performance and engagement your campaigns, throw a countdown timer in there and see what happens. And there’s a lot of reasons for it. You know, scarcity increases perceived value. There’s FOMO, obviously consumers are visual creatures. So, it excites, a visual sensory experience. 

It just causes users to act. So it’s, it’s, it’s a great feature to easily add in during this time of year with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holidays. So you’re gonna see a lot of countdown timers this time of year. 

The next I would say is probably, it’s called a critical message and a critical message. It’s either an image that’s turned off or turned on. So an example would be if you’re running a promotion and that promotion is not doing exceptionally well, maybe you turn on that critical message and you deepen the discount so you can excite users about that, that promotion you’re running. Or you can show live inventory in that critical message to show how many more products are available left to buy. So critical messages are a great feature to have this time of year. 

The next would probably be condition-based images. So with condition-based images, it’s, it’s kind of just that it’s, it’s showing different images to different users based on the data that you have on them. So this is great for loyalty points and loyalty programs. If you wanna show, you know, images to certain people based on how many loyalty points they have or how far they are to the next tier, that can all be done at scale. Where you remove the need for segmentation. We’re literally just creating logic and based on that logic, we’re showing the appropriate images to certain users. 

And the last would be dynamic content. So with dynamic content, obviously that’s done through an API, we’re able to do things like show abandoned cart emails or a suggested product emails. It’s, you could even do like, you know, weather-based images if it’s above a certain degree in temperature, show certain weather-related products. So anything where we can utilize an API and pull in real-time images or data that’s gonna be great for dynamic content. So those would probably be the most heavily used around this time of year. 

Steven

So when you’re, you know, you’re, you’re talking about all these different features that Nifty has to offer, which is great because that’s exactly the kind of toolset that you want coming into the holidays, basically more leverage to drive an incremental sales, especially when you have such a limited period of time, you don’t have a lot of tolerance for messing up more or less. So it sounds like, you know, part of the toolset is the flexibility as you message me said with the critical messaging. Yeah. I don’t know why that was so hard for me, you know, of having that flexibility to, to to, you know, if hey, if it doesn’t work, yeah, I can just put something else in there. 

Yeah. But is there a sort of any other type of strategy that you recommend for people to keep in mind in holidays? Such as things like, you know, do, do you recommend micro-segmentation or having like, pretty narrow defined audiences Yeah. And having a lot of experiences around that. Yeah. Like how, how do we kind of do this at scale? 

Eric

Yeah. So I think micro-segmentation and creating these pretty narrow defined audiences, I think there’s always gonna be a time and a place for that. I don’t wanna say that there’s not a need for it, but I think, the really cool thing with Nifty Images is that we’re giving marketers the ability to personalize the user experience at scale. And, at scale is the keyword here. We’re kind of eliminating the need to micro-segment and create these pretty narrow defined audiences because when you’re in Nifty Images, you can, you know, create the rules and logic of what you want to show and to whom, which is pretty amazing. 

So you send out a single email campaign and now users get a completely different experience based on, you know, the known data that we have, the known characteristics that we have, anything that we know about our subscriber base that’s gonna dictate what content is seen by the subscribers. So again, harnessing the power of that data gives marketers now the ability to create some really cool unique visual experiences at scale where we don’t really need, like we did in the, in the past to, to segment or to create these pretty narrow defined audiences. So it’s pretty cool to see. Pretty cool to watch. 

Cat

Yeah. 

Steven

So essentially you’re, you’re what you’re sort of saying is, hey, if you might normally have sort of three or five different segments that correspond to each loyalty tier or something like that, if you use a definition around points, however, with Nifty, we can just kind of plop in this, this, you know, one by one pixel. Yeah. And then it’s, it’s dynamic based on whatever data that we pop in there. So, for example, if some tier has a higher discount or lower discount, kind of depending on what point value the person is at, and you can kind of track those changes over time. 

Eric

Yeah.

Steven

Which is pretty nifty if I say so myself. 

Eric

It’s, it’s very, very nifty. The cool thing too is that you can actually take an image and then change the image even after the email’s been sent. So again, in that, that example of, you know, a client’s running a promotion, the promotion is not doing as well as that the marketers would want. So you insert that critical message, it says, now if someone opens it, they get 25% off that promotional item that they’re sending. So something to keep in mind is that, let’s say that the promotion does well or the promotion doesn’t do well with the critical message, you have the ability to pivot in that email and say, Hey, we can either discount this more, or if that product is no longer available, let’s say inventory is low, we can now take in another promotion, put it where the first promotion was, and anyone that opens that email will now get something that’s still relevant. 

But maybe, you know, we just don’t have it any longer for that initial experience of a subscribers have. 

Cat

Yeah. That I actually love, because there’s so many times that maybe I, I miss my window and I don’t necessarily get my follow up my, you know, down the journey soon enough. I just remember like, oh my gosh, I remember there was a cell phone case I wanted and I go and I do a keyword search for like who that cell phone company case was. And I’m like, okay, there it is. And I don’t necessarily remember what was marketed toward me, what exact items, but I remember that there was a sale. Yeah. And so I’ll go back and I think it’s great because now, like I don’t have exact memory of what it was, but I do know that I’m going back to that company and taking advantage of the sale. 

Eric

Yeah. I think we’ve all had a similar experience to what you just shared with us. Cat. Funny though, we actually have a kind of a neat feature called subscriber actions that would work perfectly in something like this. 

Not that you kind of put the ball in the tee for me, but imagine this, right? So you get that email, it’s showing cell phone cases that are heavily discounted. You open the email, you click on the cell phone case, you go back to the website, you abandon it, and you don’t make the purchase. And let’s say later on that day, you open that same email to look at that cell phone case again. Well, what we could do is we can actually change that image. So it’s maybe a different image or it has different content that could say, Hey, it’s you again. Don’t make this awkward, you know, you need me. Right? So marketers have fun with situations like these, you know, they get creative and we’ve seen a spike when it comes to maybe the second or third engagement with an email with changing either the image or the content a little bit and having fun with it. 

So maybe you gotta let me know about that cell phone case so I can, you know, go talk to ’em. 

Spencer

So Eric, what are some key strategies to keep in mind when creating these dynamic modules? 

Eric

There’s gonna be a, a lot of strategies that you’re gonna want to keep in mind. However, something that, that I like to drive home with my clients and, and folks that I talk to is be mindful about what email client your subscribers are opening their campaigns on. And what I mean by that is, if you’re wanting to show an animated gif, like a countdown timer, the old archaic, if you wanna call it archaic, the older Outlook email clients don’t support animated gif. So in replace of that, you can show, you know, a personalized image or a date stamp. That way those folks are still getting somewhat of a personalized experience. 

And then everyone not on Outlook would get the anticipated countdown timer that you would want to show. Another strategy is, you know, use data to enhance the user experience. You know, not everyone is and should get the same experience, especially in how they interact with your brand. So use that data to offer a, a creative and visual experience for subscribers that would be different again, based on how they’re interacting with your brand. Whether that’s, you know, they’re spending money or you have a loyalty program. Maybe we want to show different images to customers and subscribers because they are, are purchasing more and have more loyalty points. 

You know, we want to reward them and treat them maybe a little differently than someone that maybe has not made a purchase and, and, and has no loyalty points with your program. So again, use the data to enhance the user experience. The next would be, I don’t know if it’s really a strategy, but just be willing to pivot. You know, I’ve seen a lot of clients where they’re running a promotion and the promotion’s not doing as well as they would anticipate. So what they’ll do is they’ll swap that promotion with maybe a different promotion, or they’ll put some sort of a critical message that drives home that promotion that says live inventory, we only have X amount of this product left. 

So again, be willing to pivot if maybe something is not going in your favor. And I think the last thing to kind of touch on for a strategy is, is to kind of use the holidays to your advantage. There’s gonna be a lot of, of web visitors, there’s gonna be a lot of people on your website. They’re gonna be looking at products. 

Use the data that you know you have of as far as what they’re browsing and what they’re looking at, and then get that right back in front of ’em because they’re going to go to one of your competitors. They’re gonna look for a better sale or a better deal, a different color. But be mindful of that. And if they do abandon your site, use the data that you’ve collected on them to put that back into an email in front of them so you can hopefully convert them into a customer. 

Cat

So this was something that’s kind of like, I’m learning a lot more about data, you know, coming from the more visual world. And I, and I’m thankful that I’ve got my team to teach me all about this stuff. But we’ve got the polls. The polls are like a really cool new thing that Nifty is doing, and we’ve got that. And then we have other first-party data collection. You know, it’s becoming very normal. 

But what are some ways that people can leverage user responses in their creative in future sense and continue to iterate? That was a mouthful. 

Eric

Yeah, Cat, we are absolutely pumped up about this new feature. Live polls. Really, really excited about it. And in the last two months or so that we’ve released it, the feedback that we’re getting from our clients that are utilizing this feature has been nothing but positive. And you’re right though, zero-party and first-party data, that’s the golden standard of what US marketers should be doing on how we want to interact with our subscribers by, again, using that data. 

Obviously, we want to be as relevant and as engaging, and as personalized as we can be. Otherwise, it’s, it can basically just be kind of white noise for consumers when they open those emails. And that’s kind of why we’re so pumped up about the idea of polls, live polls. With live poles we’re now able to gather valuable insight on our subscribers that gives the marketer the ability to tailor future marketing sends to those subscribers based on the feedback, that they’re receiving. You know, we’re getting their interests, their preferences, their likes, you know, everything that they’re interested in can be done through a live pole. 

You know, if you were to take just an example here and we’ll say, we’ll use the company Strava. Strava is, an exercise fitness app with a social component to it. 

If they sent a live pole to me that said, what type of bicyclist am I? And my options would be, you know, downhill Enduro riding or stationary Peloton riding, or even, you know, the third option could be, you know, uphill climbing. 

I would choose uphill climbing. ’cause I’m a masochist. So obviously, the emails that would be appropriate for me moving forward would be something in the effect of like, what is proper nutrition for climbing? Or what are some exercises I can do in the gym to be a better rider? Or even are there local mountains in my neighborhood or my general vicinity that I could ride? So again, valuable insight, great zero-party data that we’re able to collect. And again, we can use that, leverage that data to market to our subscribers downstream to be more impactful with the messaging that we want. 

Steven

Yeah. So Eric, you brought up a lot of great points today. I mean, if you were to just kind of summarize everything, you know, for our listeners and viewers here of the Ragnarokast, you know, maybe give us three bullet points about everything we talked about, just, just as a nice way to wrap it up. 

Eric

Yeah, I’d be happy to take a stab at that. You know, I think I’ll start with, there’s always an opportunity to strengthen the relationship and the customer journey. So regardless if that is, you know, email acquisition or during the customer lifecycle, or even post-purchase, if marketers take a look at the data that they truly know and have on their subscribers, it’s gonna give them the best opportunity to be organic and to be genuine and to speak to their audience in an individual manner. That ultimately is gonna create a lift in those email campaigns. 

Two is that if you’re currently not using a feature like live polls to gain valuable insight on your subscribers, I would definitely encourage it. It’s super fun, it’s interactive, it’s engaging, you know, customers are willingly giving up that information, which marketers then can take and create very tailored, targeted email to send to them in the future. 

And then three, you know, with the holidays coming up, if you haven’t tried putting timers in your email campaigns to create a lift, it’s something I would definitely encourage too, as well. 

Nifty images is a very fun, it’s a very easy-to-use solution. So if you are, if you have thoughts about possibly using some of these personalization tactics in, the holiday season, it’s definitely worth giving a shot. So maybe a little shameless plug right there at the end. 

Spencer

Well, that is quite literally all the time that we have for today. 

So I want, I would like to thank our co-host slash guest Cat for joining us and asking questions. 

And I would also very much like to thank Eric Elliot. Or should I say, yeah, Eric Elliot. 

So everybody be sure to follow us not on Threads because I don’t think we’re on there yet, but on 

Cat

We are, we are. We’re on Threads. We just aren’t very on. We aren’t super active Threats. 

Spencer

Okay. We’re on Threads. 

Steven

We’re on Thread. We’re threaded,

Spencer

We’re on LinkedIn. We’re on, follow our email, follow, our Snapchat. Now. Our emails.

Cat

Pretty good. Our email’s pretty good. We don’t have Snapchat though. 

Spencer

We have Oh, we don’t have Snapchat. Don’t follow 

Cat

We have TikTok though. We do have TikTok. 

Steven

Oh, we got the top. We got TikTok. We’re talking follow on there. And then don’t forget to visit Nifty Images at N-I-F-T-Y-I-M-A-G-E S.com. That’s niftyimages.com.