We tend to associate going viral with social mediain part because

its relatively easy to see and measure the very public noise of social
sharing in terms of likes, favorites, and retweets. However, the much
quieter email forward is often a considerably more powerful influencer.

According to SocialTwists The Connected Consumer report, which examined referral

mechanisms and responses, although more consumers are reached through [referrals via]
Facebook, email results in greater response. In fact, more new visitors were reached through
email referrals than through both Facebook and Twitter combined.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, social referrals dont demand action and often simply
flow through a persons timeline without ever being seen, whereas inboxes are more like to-do
lists where emails wait for action to be taken.

And second, social network connections tend to be weaker, more casual relationships so social
referrals typically reach lots of people who are demographically and psychographically quite
different from the referrer. In contrast, email forwards tend to be hyper-targeted and therefore the
content of the email is highly likely to be relevant to the recipient of the forward. Put another way,
the 1-to-1 or 1-to-few nature of email forwards makes them much more personal and much more
trusted.

Trust and action often go hand in hand, according to Nielsens 2013 Global Trust in Advertising.
The report found that consumers trust recommendations from people I know more than any
other sources of product information and that, as a consequence, they generate the highest level
of self-reported action.

To better understand the quiet, often invisible influence of email forwards, we used Litmus Email
Analytics to examine the forwards generated by more than 400,000 commercial email sends
with at least 500 opens between January 2013 and March 2015. To reduce the impact of list size,
we normalized forward activity by calculating the forward-to-open ratethat is, what percentage
of opens generated a forward. This gave us a great view of forwarding behavior and allowed us
to construct benchmarks around email virality.

But to truly understand the drivers of email forwarding, we analyzed more than 200 emails from
among the top 1% of viral emails and another 200-plus emails from around the 50th percentile.
We looked at the tactics, topics, and other elements of these two groups of emailsand some of
the results were truly surprising.

Read on and we hope youll leave with some new ideas for sparking email forwards and with a
new yardstick for measuring viral success.

Social sharing excels at expanding reach, whereas email forwards

excel at driving additional conversions.
Benchmarks for Email Virality
Email forwarding is a natural, almost expected behavior, although its not guaranteed. Among the
more than 400,000 email sends that we analyzed, 5% of them generated no forwards at all. In
many of those cases, there were tens of thousands of opensand even some where there were
hundreds of thousands of opensand not a single forward.

That said, 95% of the emails we examined generated some level of forwarding. The median
email (50th percentile) produced a 0.27% forward-to-open rate. Put another way, the middle-of-
the-pack email generates 1 forward for every 370 opens.

As we travel along the forward-to-open curve, it exhibits the exponential growth behavior that
youd expect. The 75th percentile was 2.4 times more viral than the 50th percentile, the 90th
percentile 5.1 times more viral than the 50th percentile; the 95th percentile 7.9 times; and the
99th percentile 17.6 times. Or put another way, the 1st percentile of viral emails generates 1
forward for every 21 opens.

At the very, very top of the curve, there were even some extremely rare emails that had forward-
to-open rates in excess of 100%. Those clearly involved very unique, special circumstances. In
this report, well focus on broader trends and more easily replicated situations, but its interesting
to know that email virality can go beyond a 100% forward-to-open rate.
Forwards: The Ultimate Sign of Program Health
Forwards expand the reach of your messages and generate additional conversions, but they
have significant meaning beyond that. Forwards are a powerful indication of the overall health of
your email program, because they are a sign that youre fulfilling your subscribers needs at the
highest level.

Subscribers have four levels of needs from marketers. At the lowest level, they need marketers
to Respect their permission grant. Then they need marketers to send emails that are Functional,
in that they render appropriately, links take them to the intended destination, and the content is
clear and free of errors. Then subscribers need marketers emails to deliver Value, whether its in
the form of deals, news, alerts, or some other kind of content.

And lastly, subscribers need the emails they receive to at least occasionally deliver Remarkable
content and experiencessomething thats worth telling someone else about. People are social
beings and want to be in a position to share high-value information with their friends, family
members, coworkers, and colleagues before anyone else. They want to evangelize for your
brand, but you have to give them something worth sharing.

We recommend tracking your forward-to-open rate and using our Forwards per Open
Benchmarks as a barometer of email program health. If your monthly forward-to-open rate is in
the bottom quartilethat is, less than 0.11%then thats likely a sign that your email program is
not delivering experiences that are deeply relevant. If youre not meeting this need, you may find
that the engagement of your new subscribers falls off quickly, youre managing a high level of
inactive subscribers, and the lifetime value of your subscribers is low.

Be sure to check out How to Make Your Emails Go Viral at the end of this report for strategies
and tactics for increasing the forwarding of your emails.
The Drivers of Email Forwarding
To better understand what exactly drives higher levels of email virality, we examined behavior
of our full data set and also took a deep dive into more than 200 emails from among the top 1%
of viral emails. We then compared the characteristics of those highly viral emails to middle-of-
the-road emails from the 50th percentile. We discovered some clear patterns that can help you
create more forward-worthy emails.

Audience Size
Although it honestly wasnt much of a surprise, email audience size had a powerful effect
on forward-to-open rates, with smaller audiences consistently spurring much higher rates of
forwarding.

The median email among those with 500 to 50,000 opens was forwarded 90% more than the
median email among those with more than 50,000 opens. And at the 90th, 95th, and 99th
percentiles, smaller sends were more than 150% more viral than sends that resulted in more than
50,000 opens.

This makes perfect sense, as smaller audiences tend to coalesce around narrow interests,
specialty products, niche services, and local attractions. That, in turn, allows the businesses that
serve these audiences to tailor their email content so that its highly relevant to themand the
focused nature of this content makes it appealing for recipients to share it with their friends,
family members, coworkers, and colleagues that they know have an affinity for this content.

Email content with mass appeal is clearly viewed by subscribers as less worthy of being
forwarded.
Segmentation & Triggered Messaging
While smaller companies seem to have an advantage when it comes to creating email content
thats more likely to be forwarded, that doesnt mean that larger companies are doomed to lower
rates of forwarding. The key is for big companies with big email lists to send more segmented
and triggered emails.

By sending tailored messages to segments of their list that exhibit certain attributes or behaviors
and by setting up triggered messages that respond to specific subscriber actions, large
companies can enjoy high forward-to-open rates just like smaller companies.

Among the more than 200 emails we examined from among the top 1% of most viral commercial
emails, we were able to unmistakably identify 13% of them as segmented and another 16% as
triggeredfor a total of 29%. These emails generated 16,504 opens on average, placing them
well within the small audience group of messages with fewer than 50,000 opens that exhibited
much higher forward-to-open rates when compared to larger sends.

We also found that emails in the 50th percentileour typical, middle-of-the-road emailswere
considerably less likely to be targeted, with only 3% of them segmented and 5.4% triggered.
With emails in the 1st percentile 4.3 times more likely to be segmented and 2.9 times more likely
to be triggered than emails in the 50th percentile, these two tactics are clear drivers of email
forwarding.

There were no clear trends among segmented messageswhich is to say, they all seemed to
spur sharing. However, among triggered emails, the ones that seemed to be most forwarded
involved post-event messaging, follow-ups to inquiries, account action needed messaging, and
emails about the next required step in an application or process.

To promote their Best

of North County Party,
San Diego Magazine sent
segmented messages to both
last years attendees and to
attendees of the Best of San
Diego Party. The targeted
delivery and messaging
propelled both of these emails
into the top 1% of viral emails
tracked by Litmus Email
Analytics.
Personalization
Whether the email contained significant
personalizationnot just a first-name merge
also affected forward rates. Among the more
than 200 emails we examined from among the
top 1% of most viral commercial emails, 8.9%
contained personal or personalized content.

For example, several highly viral emails that we

examined included pictures of the recipient or
their friends or family members that were taken
at an event hosted by the sender. Rather than
downloading the picture and then re-attaching it
to an email to share with friends, some recipients
simply forwarded the email along directly.

Only 2% of our baseline emails in the 50th

percentile contained personalized content, This one-time email from a Chevy
making emails in the 99th percentile 4.5 times Safe & Fun event included a photo of
more likely than the typical email to include the recipients child from the event.
personalization. Forwarding the email was an easy
way for people to share the photo.

Share with your Network

Being direct with subscribers tends to be
the best way to drive action. So when you
want them to register for an event, include
a Register call-to-action button. The same
appears to hold true for email sharing. If you
want them to share the email, ask them to share
the email.

Emails in the 99th percentile were 13 times

more likely to include a share with your
network call-to-action than emails in the 50th
percentile6.4% vs. 0.5%. The suggestion of
social sharing seems to have also motivated
subscribers to forward the email, either instead
of or in addition to sharing via social media.
Recipients of this segmented email from
JustGiving were very happy to spread the
word that they were among the top 1%
of fundraisers during 2014. The calls-to-
action to share the news via Facebook and
Twitter likely also spurred forwards.
Email Content
In addition to all the factors already discussed, the subject of an email is in many cases a strong
predictor of how viral the email will be. While there are no absolutes here, emails about certain
topics are much more likely to be forwarded than emails about other topics.

Events that require registration or an RSVP were the most common topic among the most viral
emails we examined. Moreover, emails in that 99th percentile were 3.2 times more likely to be
about an event than emails in the 50th percentile31% vs. 9.9%. This makes a lot of sense, as
events are social in nature and urgent because of deadlines.

News and helpful content was the second most common topic of highly viral emails. However,
this kind of content was slightly more prevalent among emails in the 50th percentile. We believe
the takeaway here is that while high quality non-promotional content can be rewarded with lots
of forwards, the vast majority of content doesnt rise to this level.

Emails that are transactional, involve account changes, or require action are also prominent
among the most viral emails. These emails were 4.6 times more likely to be among the 99th
percentile of viral emails than among the 50th percentile18% vs. 4.0%. Many of these emails
were segmented or triggered, so were in line with that driver as well.
That said, while forwards about events and news are generally intended to share the content
and have the effect of increasing the reach of the message to other households, forwards
connected to these transactional emails are likely intended to seek advice from other household
members and therefore dont increase reach in a meaningful way. (See The Two Different Kinds
of Email Forwards on the next page.)

Promotions, deals, and discounts were the most common topic among the typical email in the
50th percentile, but were 67% less likely to be the topic of the most viral 1% of emails56% vs.
18%. Promotions will always be a huge part of email marketing, so neither of these numbers is
shocking. Just like all news and helpful content doesnt justify high level of forwarding, neither do
most promotions. But a fantastic deal can cut through the clutter and spur sharing.

It also appears that promotions about new products, new services, and store openings as well
as promotions about free trials and free products can cause an email to break out into that top
1% of viral forwarding. We tracked those types of promotions
separately and found that emails about new products,
services, and store openings were 6.0 times more likely
to be in the 99th percentile of viral emails as in the 50th
percentile (8.9% vs. 1.5%); and that emails about free trials
and free products were 8.0 times more likely to be in the
99th percentile of viral emails as in the 50th percentile (4.0%
vs. 0.5%).

The flipside of new products and store openings, emails

about discontinuations, store closings, and product
recalls were also quite viral. Around 3.5% of emails in
the 99th percentile were about these topics vs. only 1.0%
of the emails in the 50th percentile. These emails have
substantial urgency and many subscribers likely forward
them as a warning to others.

Seasonal messaging was well represented in the 99th

percentile, but was a bit more common among messaging
in the 50th percentile. However, considering that
promotional messaging was three times more common
in the 50th percentile as in the 99th percentile, the much
better ratio for seasonal messaging actually speaks well of
the urgency and effectiveness of tying email messaging to
holidays and other seasonal events.

Emails about charity and fundraising efforts also

exhibited high levels of forwarding. Messages on those
topics were 3.0 times more likely to be in the 99th
percentile of viral emails as in the 50th percentile5.9%
This new store announcement email from
vs. 2.0%. Its probably a safe assumption that subscribers
IKEA was forwarded thousands of times,
feel good about sharing these messages and trying to
proof that the community was excited
bring more attention to their favorite causes.
about the news.
Beyond the topics already discussed, we looked at a
number of others that had no statistically relevant impact on The Two Different
email forwarding, including: Kinds of Email
Social and video content Forwards
Announcements of website, email, app, product, and
other redesigns All email forwards are not
created equal. Depending on
Calls for content
the content of your emails,
Sweepstakes your forwards could be for one
Humor of two very different purposes:

That last one kind of surprised us. It wasnt just that there Social forwards are to
wasnt a statistically relevant difference between the usage friends, family members, co-
of humor in the 99th percentile and 50th percentile. It was workers, and colleagues for
the purpose of sharing news,
that we didnt encounter a single April Fools Day email
including them in planning, or
or anything remotely humorous in either the 99th or 50th alerting them to an opportunity
percentile of viral emails. So it was 0% vs. 0%. that they might want to take
advantage of. These forwards
While its possible that every funny email is sitting just build awareness and start
outside the 99th percentile, its more likely that this is others down their own funnels
further proof of the utility that people expect out of email toward conversions.
marketing. While a lot of advertising is driven by humor,
Advice-seeking forwards
marketing is driven by value and service, and the results of
are to spouses, relatives,
this study appear to support that. coworkers and bosses for
the purpose of helping the
forwarder decide whether to
convert. These forwards are a
sign that the person is moving
down their individual funnel
toward conversion.

Identifying the kind of forward

your messaging is likely
to cause will allow you to
accurately interpret the effect
of your email forwards.

While this Glo email was forwarded at

a high rate, it was wasnt viral in the
traditional sense because mostif not all
of the forward recipients simply aided the
forwarder in completing their application
and converting.
How to Make Your Emails Go Viral
When your subscribers forward your emails, they expand your reach, increase conversions, and
boost your email engagement metricswhich is good for branding, revenue, and deliverability.
Based on our findings, our framework will help more of your emails go viral:

1. Target a niche audience

Content targeted at smaller audiences is more viral, so

If youre a small business or offer a specialty product or niche service, embrace your
uniqueness and narrow focus with email content to match.

If youre a large business or offer a wide assortment of products or services, send

segmented messages based on email and web behavior, topic preferences,
demographics, geography, and other factors so you can speak to the very specific needs
and interests of sub-audiences within your overall audience.

Regardless of the size of your business, develop an array of triggered emails that deliver
the right content to the right subscriber at the time when theyre most receptive to it.

Targeted messages are generally

at least 90% more viral than
untargeted messages.
2. Create highly shareable content
Consistently generating a high level of forwarding is an unrealistic goal for most brands, but you
should be looking to routinely create highly shareable emails by doing the following

Add significantly personalized content to your emails. First-name personalization and even
account balances are not enough to encourage sharing.

Promotions and helpful content are staples of email marketing, so subscribers are only
driven to forward those that are truly great. Plan your email content calendar so that youre
occasionally sending an awesome deal, exclusive news, or similarly impactful content that
stands out as special. Wed recommend changing up your usual email design to highlight
the specialness of this content.

People love things that are new and free, so be sure to sufficiently draw attention to
new stores, new products and services, free trials, and the like.

Webinars, seminars, and other events that require registration and have the urgency of
a deadline are among the most viral email topics. If youre already doing these, consider
group pricing or referral bonuses to further leverage forwards. If youre not doing any such
events, we encourage you to explore them.

Subscribers clearly feel good about sharing charity efforts with others. The viral pass-
along of emails about these efforts are another compelling reason to engage in cause
marketing.

3. Spur forwarding
Subscribers will naturally share compelling email content, but you can give that natural impulse a
nudge to increase the effect by doing the following

When appropriate, include a prominent share with your network (SWYN) call-to-action, as
this will increase forwards as well

Consider directly asking subscribers to forward the email to others, especially if its a
specific kind of person (e.g., a bride-to-be).

Emails in the top 1% of viral emails were 13 times more likely

than the typical email to include a prominent share with your
network call-to-action.
About the Methodology
To understand the rates at which emails are forwarded, we used Litmus Email Analytics to
analyze the forwards generated by more than 400,000 email sends with at least 500 opens
between January 2013 and March 2015. To understand the drivers of email forwarding, we
analyzed more than 200 emails from among the top 1% of viral emails and another 200-plus
emails from around the 50th percentile, and then compared those two groups of emails in terms
of their tactics and topics.

About the Author

Chad White is the Research Director at Litmus and the author of Email
Marketing Rules and thousands of posts and articles about email
marketing. His research and commentary have appeared in more than
100 publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, and USA Today.

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