Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

10-2008

Abstract

We develop a testing methodology that can be used to predict the performance of e-mail marketing campaigns in real time. We propose a split-hazard model that makes use of a time transformation (a concept we call virtual time) to allow for the estimation of straightforward parametric hazard functions and generate early predictions of an individual campaign's performance (as measured by open and click propensities). We apply this pretesting methodology to 25 e-mail campaigns and find that the method is able to produce in an hour and fifteen minutes estimates that are more accurate and more reliable than those that the traditional method (doubling time) produces after 14 hours. Other benefits of our method are that we make testing independent of the time of day and we produce meaningful confidence intervals. Thus, our methodology can be used not only for testing purposes, but also for live monitoring. The testing procedure is coupled with a formal decision theoretic framework to generate a sequential testing procedure useful for the real time evaluation of campaigns.

Keywords

database marketing, e-mail, pretesting, advertising campaigns

Discipline

Advertising and Promotion Management | Marketing

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Marketing Science

Volume

28

Issue

2

First Page

251

Last Page

263

ISSN

0732-2399

Identifier

10.1287/mksc.1080.0393

Publisher

INFORMS

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1080.0393

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