Olivia Ray:

A couple of examples for data-driven outreach testing

1. Email subject lines

The most common and straightforward testing scenario involves email subject lines. Measuring their effectiveness is relatively easy if you define your metrics clearly.

Steps to test subject lines:

• Divide your audience randomly into two equal groups (50/50 split). Ensure the split is completely random to avoid bias.
• To isolate the impact of the subject line, keep all other elements such as the email body, timing, and sender identical.
• Compare the performance metrics (e.g., open rates, click-through rates) of the two subject lines. Ensure the observed differences are statistically significant and not due to random chance.

2. Multichannel messaging: Testing platforms

Another approach involves testing the same message across different platforms to determine which channel resonates best with your audience.

Case study: Driving engagement for a premium webinar

We tested personalised outreach targeting 20 high-value accounts in the IT industry, with the goal of increasing registrations for a premium webinar.

• Variation A (control): Personalised LinkedIn messages sent by the sales team. These messages referenced specific challenges faced by the recipient’s company and included a webinar invitation.
• Variation B (test): Personalised email featuring a video message from the account executive. The video addressed the company’s pain points and highlighted solutions to be discussed in the webinar.

Audience segmentation:

1. Divide the 20 accounts into two equal groups of 10, ensuring both groups are similar in size, industry, and potential value.
2. Group A: Received LinkedIn outreach.
3. Group B: Received personalised email with a video.
4. Define metrics:
   • Primary metric: Webinar registration rate (percentage of recipients who registered).
   • Secondary metrics: Click-through rates (CTR), reply rates, and overall engagement)

Both campaigns were executed simultaneously, keeping all other factors (e.g., webinar date and content) identical to ensure a fair comparison.

Results:

• Group A (LinkedIn): 3 registrations from 10 accounts (30% conversion rate).
• Group B (email): 6 registrations from 10 accounts (60% conversion rate).

In this instance, personalised email with a video message significantly outperformed LinkedIn outreach in driving webinar registrations.

James Bradshaw-Weaver:

The key thing to remember when setting up a split test (whether A/B, or A/B/C, etc.) is to be clear on what you’re trying to evaluate. Key elements that you can test could include the message, the creative approach, your specific call to action, or the timing of your campaign for example.

It’s important to take a robust approach – only test one aspect of your campaign at a time, in order to understand the different response to different versions. You can run 2, 3 or 4 versions of your message for example, but keep the campaign creative and delivery the same each time.

It’s also important to randomise your data segmentation – each test group should share roughly the same characteristics (company type, job title, geographical spread, etc.), so that you’re comparing apples with apples.

We generally look for trends and patterns in split tests, so it’s vital to run multiple touches in your test campaign, rather than relying on one-off results. It’s also worth swapping the approach to that you first try Version A with Group 1 and Version B with Group 2, and then vice versa. This helps you to confirm the validity of any variations in response.

Olivia Ray:

Personally, we’ve managed global projects but haven’t had to directly handle the data, so I can’t offer extensive experience on that front. However, my advice would be to partner with a local expert—whether it’s a legal advisor or a local agency that can provide support, especially if the campaign is large enough to warrant it.

James Bradshaw-Weaver:

The principles of ABM are common to all, however you need to be very mindful of a number of things when marketing in different countries and regions.

Firstly, it’s important to be aware of cultural nuances in each region, covering both your message and your campaign delivery tactics. Getting the tone right and operating within your target audience’s expectations of acceptable marketing approaches is key to running a successful campaign, and it helps a great deal to have local knowledge you can leverage – if you don’t have staff operating in each country or region, you may have existing clients who can help advise.

Secondly, you of course have to thoroughly research the specific data protection laws and regulations in each country. As these are subject to change, there is no quick fix, but again having local knowledge you can leverage will help. It’s also useful as a starting point to use AI tools such as ChatGPT to summarise existing legislation and best practice in your target geographies. The USA is different to Europe, which is different to MENA, and so on – and even within Europe each country will have its own legislation, which may go further than the overarching GDPR regulations. Relying on ‘legitimate interest’ as a basis for processing data, even in a B2B setting, is often not enough to meet in-country legislation.

In summary – do your research, ask an in-country expert if you can, and on the side of caution.

Olivia Ray:

Personalisation

Use account-level data (e.g., challenges, goals, industry trends) to tailor your messaging. Mention specific pain points or opportunities relevant to the recipient. Customise emails for the recipient’s job role. Decision-makers (e.g., C-suite) and influencers (e.g., managers) require different levels of detail and focus. Use email tools that allow for dynamic elements, such as personalised subject lines, headers, or images.

Compelling subject lines

Keep it relevant by referencing a recent interaction, event, or shared interest. Pose a question or share a teaser like, “Is [Account Name] ready for the next big thing in [Industry]?” Use verbs that drive action, e.g., “Transform [Specific Process] in Just 3 Steps.”

Value-driven content

Offer Something Tangible by sharing insights (e.g., reports, benchmarks), exclusive content (e.g., webinars, case studies), or tools (e.g., ROI calculators) that solve their problems.

Highlight how your solution helped a similar company in their industry or stage.

Avoid Over-Promotion, focus on the value you bring to their business rather than just pitching your product.

Time your outreach strategically

Ensure your email is part of a coordinated sequence across channels (LinkedIn, phone, direct mail) to reinforce your message. Test and analyse the best days and times for your target accounts, considering their industry and role.

Humanise your approach

Write emails as though you’re speaking directly to the recipient. Use a conversational, professional tone rather than generic corporate jargon and sign off personally and use a real person.

Avoid email overload

Don’t overwhelm your recipients with too many emails instead space out communication strategically. Ensure every email adds value, whether it’s insights, solutions, or opportunities.

James Bradshaw-Weaver:

As marketers we need to work much harder nowadays to earn the attention of our target audience. When it comes to email, we need to work much harder on subject lines, as well as tone of voice in the messaging. It’s important to sound authentic, and to adopt a one-to-one, personal communication style – if it looks and sounds like marketing, people will most likely ignore it.

Text-based emails tend to perform better than visually slick, image-heavy email templates, and a high degree of personalisation and customisation helps to cut through the noise. Making use of dynamic content based on the data fields at your disposal will help achieve this – whether that be the person’s name, company name, industry sector, location, etc. Try to avoid cliché in your messaging as much as possible, aim to be a little unusual. It’s also worth asking your sales team how they word their emails to see if they have any tips.

It’s also worth investigating a multi-channel approach in your campaigns. With so much digital noise now, channels such as direct mail are starting to make a return. Direct mail drops, whether a highly targeted, high-impact piece of creative, or even a traditional flat-sheet DM, if done creatively and thoughtfully, can grab the attention, which then filters through into an uplift in responses to the digital elements of your campaign. Even if your campaign is 70-80% digital, punctuating it with physical collateral now and then can help drive more engagement overall.

Olivia Ray:

Use simple supporting visuals or “scamps” as I referred to in the webinar. Even if the campaign isn’t at the stage for fully fleshed-out visuals, you can create basic sketches, wireframes, or mock ups. These don’t need to be polished but can help stakeholders visualise concepts.

Try to tell a story where you can, presenting the strategy as a narrative such as “a day in the life” for example can help people to visualise how the creative could work.

Highlight how the phase you’re at will set the foundation for the visuals to come, linking the process to their expectations and if you can, perhaps involve them in a workshop or some form of collaboration so that stakeholders can contribute ideas.

This can be dangerous as ideas may be floated that you’re not sure about the stakeholders will start to absorb the strategy in the process regardless of you using their creative input another option is to create a roadmap or timeline that includes the visual development stage, showing stakeholders when and how their feedback on visuals will be integrated.

If your budget will not allow for any form of conceptual scamps then the advice would be to tailor communication to stakeholder needs, identify communication styles and preferences, some people may need additional meetings or one-on-one discussions to understand the strategy better.