An Email and SMS Journey

Overcoming Compliance and Deliverability Challenges
in the Payday Lending Vertical.

Project Goals

Develop and implement a comprehensive email and SMS marketing strategy for a payday lending company that navigates strict compliance requirements and ensures deliverability while effectively promoting the company's services and driving customer engagement.

Pain Points

Strict Compliance Requirements

Deliverability Challenges

Competitive Market

Strategies & Tactics

Refine Campaigns

Maintain Compliance

Workarounds

A/B Testing

Diligent A/B testing to bypass spam filters from email service providers and mobile carriers to improve deliverability and user engagement, ultimately resulting in more effective customer-facing communication.

Email & SMS Platform Used:
AWS Pinpoint

Method of Measurement:
Pearson's Chi-Squared Test of Independence

Some Examples:

Link Placement

Hypothesis:
Link location will impact delivery rates due to carrier SPAM filters.

Variant A:
Link in the middle of the SMS.

Variant B:
Link at the end of the SMS.

KPI:
SPAM

Other Formats:
Experiment with multiple links in the message or URL names.

Winner:

🤫 😉

Personalization

Hypothesis:
Addressing customers by their name will improve response rate.

Variant A:
Hey [Name]! Short on cash?

Variant B:
Hey! Short on cash?

KPI:
Clicks

Other Formats:
Experiment with the location of the customer's name in the copy.

Winner:

🤫 😉

Emojis

Hypothesis:
Using emojis will increase user engagement.

Variant A:
Short on cash? 💰

Variant B:
Short on cash?

KPI:
Clicks

Other Formats:
Replacing words with emojis. Number of emojis used in a message.

Winner:

🤫 😉

Spam Words

Hypothesis:
The use of spam words will result in less deliverability.

Variant A:
Spam Words.

Variant B:
No Spam Words.

KPI:
SPAM

Other Formats:
Density of SPAM word useage: High, Medium, Low.

Winner:

🤫 😉

Time of Day

Hypothesis:
Sending during off peak hours will result in better engagement.

Variant A:
Peak Hours

Variant B:
Off Peak Hours

KPI:
Clicks

Other Formats:
Segment by time zone to see if there are variations based on geography.

Winner:

🤫 😉

SMS CTA

Hypothesis:
Using a CTA lead in to the link will result in more clicks.

Variant A:
Short on cash? [CTA]: [LINK].

Variant B:
Short on cash? [LINK].

KPI:
Clicks

Other Formats:
Varying the style and tone of the CTA to determine the most effective approach.

Winner:

🤫 😉

Email & Copy Samples

Long Form Copy