Best Practices for Implementing a Multi-Brand Email Marketing Solution

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[Posted by Greg Paul Technical Archictect, Neolane, Inc.]

Customers often ask questions such as “How can I send emails representing multiple brands from a single instance?” or “How do I ensure my emails are branded appropriately?” These are very good questions and should be discussed early in the implementation process. To provide some insight into what you might want to ask up front during requirements gathering, here are five points to consider when building a multi-brand email marketing solution:

  1. Subdomains. Make sure your subdomains are correctly delegated to your email hosting provider. By using a branded subdomain, the recipient knows the email is from your company or brand. Setup of branded subdomains can be accomplished through proper configuration of the DNS records.
  2. Mailboxes. Select a “From” email address which refers to a mailbox hosted on your subdomain. Monitoring the “From” and “Reply-to” mailboxes is a best practice and offers good consumer experience with your brand if replies are addressed.
  3. Images. Reference images in your HTML content which have been published on the branded subdomain. Neolane delivery templates can be configured to publish local images to the branded subdomain and update the content references automatically.
  4. Links. Use branded URLs in your content when referencing the tracking server (for opens and clicks), the mirror page, and the unsubscription page. Neolane delivery templates can be configured to use branded URLs.
  5. Templates. Use templates to simplify and standardize your email communications. Common elements of deliveries – including all the points above — can be stored in a template and re-used for future deliveries. This is very useful when you want all emails to be built the same way and have the same look and feel, with the only difference being the content.

Follow the above points for each of the brands. Neolane is flexible and configurable to support sending emails for multiple brands using a single instance. This makes it more efficient for marketers while ensuring a consistent and seamless experience for customers.