Do you guys notice an increase on the amount of opens when you put a name in the "from" field as the sender or do you get better results when it's something like "cheap auto insurance" as the sender name?
Personalizing works best for us. We always find picking a PERSISTENT persona and sticking with it helps to build familiarity and trust with our list members and not to mention helps delivery to the TLDs. Of course sticking with the same From name and email is a Yahoo best practice but it also helps Abaca filter based on the From.
Whether you go with the insertion of a fname or something along those lines - making a from/subject 'unique' to you is really the name of the game. If you think about it - you can have dozens if not 100's of mailers all on the same network or offer and if everyone is using the same from/subject combination - you are not differentiating yourself and as such will be shuffled off as spam along with the others. Things to consider before using fname specifically is whether or not your list HAS a fname for each record. If not - some of your mail will look stupid and that's gonna hurt you somewhat. I'd suggest sorting any list you want to try this with by fname (only an example - use whatever you like) and for records with blank fields add something like "valued customer" just to make sure you don't mail with your tag populating the from/subject. But either way you do it - be sure to run the same offer both ways on the same list so you can split test it and see the results for yourself.
Really, for TLD, your "branding" should be in the FROM address and stay in there... advertisers that demand you use their from just don't get it, so you'll want to talk to them and get permission, but if you use the subjects/from's directly as the Advertiser's have laid out, you stand no chance.
Right on. Never use any advertiser "From name", I've been preaching about "branded" from names since 2005. Yes, your complaints might be high at first, but in the long run you'll win. Also, Pass on any advertisers that make it mandatory that you use their from name, never sacrifice your email rep for an inexperienced advertiser, it 'aint worth it.
He said "from address", which would be the email address, and to that I agree. The name part can be anything and since it is typically the first thing people look at, it should be something that catches their attention and prompts them to read the subject, open the mail then click the link inside.
Are there many advertisers, really that insistent on using their From? Seems more like most of them include [Your List Name] in the approved Froms.
To take the personalization one step further - a females name in the From tends to get less complaints than a male.
