When it comes to re-sends in email marketing, there are two schools of thought:

1. Re-sends are a great way to increase conversions/revenue at near zero extra cost

2. Re-sends are an ineffective and lazy strategy that reduce average open and click rates

So which is true?

We set out to investigate on a sign-up campaign for our subject line prediction tool Touchstone. Being an email marketing agency, we knew a simple email campaign would boost sign-ups and decided to add a re-send 5 days later.

Sure enough, the first email produced a significant spike in sign-ups as well as delivering an acceptable open and click rate (OR: 23.6% | CR: 4.3%). So far, so predictable. 5 days later we re-sent exactly the same email to non-openers with a different subject line. Had we done this for a client the maximum cost would have been $95 as there are no creative or build costs.

As expected, the re-send produced a much lower open rate of 11.0% and a reduced click rate of 3.5%.It’s often at this point those metrics would be used to dismiss the re-send as a failure. Open and click rates dropped, so it didn’t work. But take a look at the sign-ups. They nearly doubled! So what’s going on?

In short, subscribers can’t interact with an email they don’t receive. This re-send gave us a second bite of the cherry for free. As is often the case with a re-send, the CTO rate is higher because the keenest subscribers opening the initial send were repressed.

So, although there are now fewer openers on the re-send, those that do open are more likely to click because they haven’t just opened based on the sender. And, as they are more qualified clicks, the conversion rate is higher too.So, next time your sign-ups, conversions or revenue need a boost, why not try a re-send? They really do work. And watch this space for more behind-the-curtain reports.

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Last updated: Mar 04, 2015