What we learned from nearly 300k outreach link building emails. My presentation form LinkLove London 2012 and

1. QUANTIFYING OUTREACH
What we learned from nearly 300,00 outreach emails
MICHAEL KING
@ipullrank

2. Download this deck:
http://slidesha.re/quantifying-outreach

3. I did SEO here 2010-2011 SEO Lead until last Friday
Working for huge brands is cool, but it was time for a change.
@ipullrank

4. Director of Inbound Marketing
Lead Inbound Marketing Efforts for the Brand
Launch and Lead On-Page Optimization and Digital Brand Strategy Teams
Training Link Building Teams in Social Link Building
Working With Tech Team to Improve Products & Processes
@ipullrank

5. QUANTIFYING OUTREACH
What we learned from nearly 300,00 outreach emails
MICHAEL KING
DIRECTOR OF INBOUND MARKETING
@ipullrank
5

6. BUILDING LINKS IS
TOO HARD.

7. WHY CAN’T I GET
ANY RESPONSES
TO MY LINK
REQUESTS?

8. SOMETIMES IT WOULD
REALLY BE NICE TO
KNOW IF I’M DOING
THIS SH*T RIGHT!

9. @JamesAgate from Skyrocket SEO did a cool study on the performance of
outreach emails by different features and I was inspired
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/putting-guest-post-outreach-theories-to-the-test-with-some-real-world-data (@jamesagate)

10. Gender
Opening Salutation
Day of the Week
Hour of the Day
Number of Mails
Message Length
First Touch on Twitter
Email Trust Signals
Combining the iAcquire iRank and Buzzstream datasets we analyzed the features
of 297,791 emails to develop definitive insights on outreach link building
Download the study: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/

11. Super props to Mike
Bernardez for all his hard
work wrangling this data
for me.
Give him a shout on Twitter @mikebwinging

12. The Link
Building Process
@ipullrank

13. RANKING DIRECTORIES 647,631 OUTREACH
RESULTS & LINK DB’S OPPORTUNITIES
3-4 attempts made
12,558,303 MANUAL VIEWING
PAGES
REVIEWED QUALITY CONTROL CLIENT
• Full-time Highly-trained REQUIREMENTS
POTENTIAL PARTNER
Team • Relevancy Guidelines
BLUELIST FILTERING • Multi-layered Review • Content Guidelines
• Evolving Quality Guidelines • Legal Requirements
TOP 5,000
amazon.com, apple.com, wikipedia.org, etc
NO
“NO”
RESPONSE
BLACKLIST FILTERING
535,062 112,569
“DO NOT CONTACT” LIST UNQUALIFIED “YES”
(internally established) OPPORTUNITIES
PAGES
BAD NEIGHBORHOODS
(link network & spam)
SEO METRICS FILTERING
Client Specific – Filtering out data based on IBL,
Moz-Rank, OBL, PR, etc.
NEW Content
& Link Partner
POTENTIAL FUTURE
QUALIFIED PAGES
OPPORTUNITIES
11,487,318
PAGES
VETTING PROCESS REMOVED VIEWING PROCESS OUTREACH PROCESS
Technology Driven

14. SO WHAT, MIKE? I
CAN’T DO THAT.

15. Sure you can. Right in Excel, no less.
Crawl prospects Pull any other metrics you Pull Open Site
in list mode care about Explorer metrics
Download Screaming Frog: http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
Download Niels Bosma’s SEO Tools: http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/
Read: https://seogadget.co.uk/links-data-excel-seomoz-api/ @seogadget

16. Scrape Rate and Share Rate
Scrape Rate is why
ipullrank.com ranked first
page for Googlebot for
several months
Compute the Scrape and Share Rates of the sites you guest post on to
determine the propensity for the article to get scraped and generate more links
Read “Scrape Rate and Shareability Rate:” http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/
(Original props for scrape rate belong to @pointblankseo)

17. The Study (finally)
@ipullrank

18. I ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS
For every link building feature we will discuss I wanted to know:
The number of emails that fit the criteria
The rate of response
The rate of link placement or close

19. MY ASSUMPTIONS
The dataset is large enough to be statistically significant
Conclusions are made in a vacuum
Buzzstreams data represents varying link building practices,
philosophies and time zones
Correlation is not Causation

20. MY ASSERTION
iRank’s data represents a controlled and highly structured
data-driven link building methodology implemented by a team
working out of one office from 8AM-6PM PST Monday-Friday

21. LIMITATIONS
iRank™ Reporting Limitations
BuzzStream’s Privacy Policy
BuzzStream User Types

22. Would you give
us the data
already?

23. WHAT GENDER PERFORMS BEST?

24. WHAT GENDER PERFORMS BEST?
60000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Received
50000 # Closed
40000
30000
20000
10000 14.91%
4.8% 16.82%
4.5%
0
MALE FEMALE

25. GENDER ANALYSIS
iRank™ data shows that while women do get a higher response
rate than men (2.1% more responses for women) in outreach, the
close rate is slightly in favor of men (men close 0.31% more links).

26. GENDER INSIGHT
Hire outreach professionals based on their ability and the quality
of their work rather than their gender as neither has an inherent
advantage that affects the ROI of campaign significantly.

27. GENDER ACTION
Invest resources in equal hiring and/or training for link builders
of either sex.

28. WHAT OPENING SALUTATION PERFORMS BEST?

29. OPENING SALUTATION DATA
45000
“PERSONAL” # Emails Sent
CLOSE RATE # Responses Received
40000
35000
6.52% # Closed
2.41% Higher
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
13.8%
5000 20.6%
6.52% 10.54% 4.1%
3.12%
0
PERSONAL CUSTOM GENERAL

30. SALUTATION ANALYSIS
The response and close rate was substantially higher for emails
that were addressed directly to a person. If that’s not available a
general salutation such as a “Hello” performs best. The next
section will discuss the performance of the different types of
general salutations.

31. SALUTATION INSIGHT
Expend the extra effort to find out the name attached to the prospect.

32. SALUTATION ACTION
Use a tool such as Rapportive or RapLeaf to find out more info
on the prospect. With Rapportive you get all of a given users
social information in the right pane within Gmail.

33. WHAT GENERIC SALUTATION PERFORMS BEST?

34. GENERIC SALUTATION DATA
“HI” CLOSE
40000 RATE # Emails Sent
# Responses Received
35000
5.63% # Closed
Higher than all
30000
specific types
25000
20000
15000
10000
14.37%
17.47%
5000
4.14% 13.63% 16.21%
5.62% 3.82% 5.45%
0
HELLO HI HEY GOOD AM/PM OTHERS

35. GENERIC SALUTATION ANALYSIS
Of those general salutations “Hey” yielded the best results
however due to the lack of volume “Hi” is the winning general
salutation.

36. GENERIC SALUTATION INSIGHT
Expend the extra effort to find out the name attached to the
prospect.

37. GENERIC SALUTATION ACTION
Use a tool such as Rapportive or RapLeaf to find out more info
on the prospect. With Rapportive you get all of a given users
social information in the right pane within Gmail.

38. WHICH DAY OF THE WEEK DOES BEST?

39. iRANK DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
18000 # Emails Sent
16000
# Responses Received
# Closed
14000
12000
10000
DAY CLOSE
RATE
8000
6000
TUES
Higher than other
days
4000
2000
0
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAYTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

40. BUZZSTREAM DAY OF THE WEEK DATA
20000
# Emails Sent
18000
# Responses Received
16000
14000
DAY CLOSE
12000
RATE
10000
8000
SAT
Higher than other
6000 days
4000
2000
0
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAYTHURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

41. DAY OF THE WEEK ANALYSIS
For BuzzStream data close rates we were able to determine that
Saturday resulted in the highest response rate followed by
Sunday and Friday for the Buzzstream data.
We’ve found that the iRank data shows emails sent on Monday
have the highest rate of response, followed by Thursday with
Tuesday and Wednesday tied for third. Initial emails sent on
Tuesdays yielded the highest rate of activated links, followed by
a tie for Monday and Wednesday.

42. DAY OF THE WEEK INSIGHT
The volume of overall email lower on the weekend and therefore
it is simply easier for an email sent on the weekend to be seen.
Therefore in this case we believe that Buzzstream’s data is more
definitive.

43. DAY OF THE WEEK ACTION
Outreach specialists should schedule initial link building emails
during the weekend with a tool such as Boomerang for Gmail to
ensure the best chance at a response. Integrating Buzzstream
with Gmail allows you to use Boomerang for this as well.

44. WHICH TIME OF DAY DOES BEST?

45. iRANK TIME OF DAY DATA
RESPONSE RATE
18000 # Emails Sent
16000 9AM # Responses Received
# Closed
14000
Higher than other
12000 times
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0

46. BUZZSTREAM TIME OF DAY DATA
8000
RESPONSE # Emails Sent
RATE
# Responses Received
7000
6000
2AM
Higher than other
times
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0

47. TIME OF DAY ANALYSIS
Buzzstream’s data shows that sending emails at 1AM, 10PM and
2AM EST result in the highest responses.
Conversely, iRank data shows that 4AM, 9AM and 6AM EST
return the highest rate of response and emails sent at 9AM, 4AM
and 5AM EST return the highest rate of link activations.

48. TIME OF DAY INSIGHT
It’s hard to draw a definitive conclusion here but however since
all these times fall within the 10PM and 9AM range the insight is
that the volume of email is lower throughout the night than during
the day and therefore prospects come across these emails first
thing in the morning before “email fatigue” sets in.

49. TIME OF DAY ACTION
Schedule emails to send within between 10PM and 9AM EST to
using a tool such as a Boomerang or hire a link building team
that operates at those times within the targets time zone.

50. WHAT NUMBER OF EMAILS WORKS BEST?

51. NUMBER OF EMAILS DATA
35000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Received
30000
# Closed
25000
20000 MALE CLOSE
RATE
15000
0.31%
10000 Higher than women
5000
0
1 2 3 4 5 6+

52. NUMBER OF EMAILS ANALYSIS
Outreaches that continued to 6 emails and beyond proved to do
substantially better than those that stopped at the standard 4th
email. Most importantly, we found that we achieved 60% more
responses by sending a second and third email.

53. NUMBER OF EMAILS INSIGHT
Be persistent until the prospect explicitly says no without abusing
someone’s inbox.

54. NUMBER OF EMAILS ACTION
Schedule follow-up emails with a tool such as Boomerang.

55. WHAT EMAIL LENGTH WORKS BEST?

56. EMAIL LENGTH DATA
50000
LONG EMAIL # Emails Sent
CLOSE RATE
45000 # Responses Received
40000
1.09% # Closed
Higher than short
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000 14.93%
16.47%
5000 5.41% 4.32%
0
LONG EMAILS SHORT EMAILS

57. EMAIL LENGTH ANALYSIS
Short initial emails resulted in 1.54% more responses than long
emails however long emails converted at 1.09% higher rate.

58. EMAIL LENGTH INSIGHT
Longer emails typically resulted in more personalization and
more detail specific to the content partnership opportunity.

59. EMAIL LENGTH ACTION
Throw away your form letters and write more personalized
emails.

60. HOW DOES FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER PERFORM?

61. FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER DATA
TWEETED FIRST TWEETED FIRST
Got a Response to Email After
Tweeted before emailing Tweeting First
Did not get a response
Did not tweet first

62. FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER ANALYSIS
In 2011, 347 emails were sent from users on Buzzstream that
have a Twitter account attached. Of those users there were 16
emails sent after initial contact was made via Twitter. Of those 6
elicited responses.

63. FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER INSIGHT
While the figures are not statistically significant within the scope
of this study, the 37.5% response rate is worthy of further
investigation.

64. FIRST TOUCH VIA TWITTER ACTION
Build relationships using Twitter to engage prospects with
contextually relevant information that benefits them.

65. HOW DO TRUST SIGNALS PERFORM?

66. PHONE # VS. NO PHONE # DATA
80000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Received
70000
# Closed
60000
50000
40000 NO PHONE #
CLOSE RATE
30000
20000
2.48%
Higher than with phone #
15.32%
10000
4.62%
20.1% 7.1%
0
WITH PHONE # NO PHONE

67. PHONE # VS. NO PHONE
ANALYSIS
Emails without phone numbers got 4.78% more responses and 2.48%
more link closes.
INSIGHT
Prospects may correlate the appearance of a phone number in an
unsolicited email with those of famous email scams.
ACTION
Remove phone numbers from initial outreach emails and only provide a
phone number should a prospect explicitly ask for it.

68. PHONE # VS. NO PHONE # DATA
80000 # Emails Sent
# Responses Received
70000
# Closed
60000
50000
40000 NO PHONE #
CLOSE RATE
30000
20000
2.48%
Higher than with phone #
15.32%
10000
4.62%
20.1% 7.1%
0
WITH PHONE # NO PHONE

69. PHONE # VS. NO PHONE
ANALYSIS
Link builders performing outreach without a linked profile in their footer closed
4.98% of the prospects they reached out to while those with linked profiles closed
4.33% of their prospects. The difference in response is similarly negligible at
0.77%.
INSIGHT
The difference in effectiveness is negligible enough that it does not weigh too
heavily on performance whether a linked profile is present or absent.
ACTION
Link builders should not scramble to add or delete any linked profiles when
sending outreach emails. However if a 0.65% increase in closes will make or
break a given campaign it is wise to remove them.

70. LOGO VS. NO LOGO DATA
50000
LINKED LOGOS
45000 CLOSE RATE
40000
35000
6.86%
Higher than no logo
# Emails Sent
# Responses Received
# Closed
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
14.11%
5000 18.08%
6.03% 3.72%
18.29% 10.58%
0
LINKED EMBEDDED NO LOGO

71. LOGO VS. NO LOGO DATA
ANALYSIS
Linked logos have the highest rate of close at 10.58% with embedded
logos coming in strong at number two with a close rate of 6.03%. Emails
with no logos close at 3.72%.
INSIGHT
Including logos in outreach emails is a trust signal that leads to a drastic
increase in link closes.
ACTION
Link builders should put a brand behind their link building efforts and
include the logo for that brand in every outreach email.

72. TADA! I’M AN
OUTREACH
MASTER!
@ipullrank

73. The Worth of A Link
(shout out to Mike Essex)
@ipullrank

74. LINK EQUITY NOT LINK JUICE
What “link juice” makes me think of What “link equity” makes me think of
Formalizing the nomenclature allows clients to the idea of building links a lot more
seriously when they think of it as building value into their online home.

75. LINK EQUITY AS THE FUNCTION OF A LINK BUY
Link Brokers charge $100/month for a PR5 link
Number of Links You Build Monthly
Price of Labor for those links monthly
THE VALUE OF LINK EQUITY YOU ARE BUILDING
Use what it would cost to buy the number of links to explain the value of a backlink profile. The
value of your labor is offset by the risk of being penalized.

76. LINK EQUITY AS THE FUNCTION OF CPC
Incremental Traffic Increase As Computed by Projected Visibility
Increase of Link Building Efforts
Cost Per Click in Paid Search
Price of Labor for those links monthly
THE VALUE OF LINK EQUITY YOU ARE BUILDING
At iAcquire we use what it would cost to buy the incremental projected traffic in Paid
Search. This is a rough approximation of how that could be applied to pricing.

77. Michael King
Director of Inbound Marketing
www.iacquire.com
mike@iacquire.com
@iPullRank
THANK YOU / Q&A