It’s no secret that a lead’s email address is one of the major points of contact alongside their phone number. So, whether you’re buying or selling leads, or leveraging organic traffic sources or affiliate marketing, it helps to know whether the provided email is valid, active, and deliverable.

In other words, you want to ensure that the lead in question is worth paying for or worth the effort, while also protecting your business from low-quality, duplicate, and outright fraudulent leads, a major threat that can undermine your marketing campaigns.

Take our marketing fraud prevention quiz to learn where you rank.

Email verification and validation software does all of that, giving you a data-driven estimate of the quality of the lead through running their email address against your internal and – most importantly – external databases like, for example, blacklists of disposable email providers, spam trap databases, domain reputation databases, and other reliable email quality data sources.

Then you know whether the lead is good enough to buy or engage with

Sounds good?

Read on to learn everything you need to know about email verification and how email verification solutions like iClear can help you verify leads’ emails before you purchase them.

Book a demo to learn how Phonexa’s native email verification and validation software can help your business.

What is Email Validation and Email Verification?

Email verification and email validation both boil down to checking a lead’s email address:

• Email validation checks an email address and domain structure to ensure the email is properly formatted. For example, john@@example..com, fake-domain.zzz, mike@@gmail.com, or [email protected] are all invalid emails.
• Email verification checks whether a specific email address exists, belongs to a real person, and is active. Valid emails may not pass verification if they belong to catch-all domains, the recipient’s mailbox is full, the server is down, or the email is disposable.

For practical purposes, both email validation and email verification ensure that you’re dealing with leads that match your marketing criteria. Although an email address alone may not provide all the details about the lead, it is often enough to determine whether the lead is worth pursuing.

Read also: 5 Ways Email Marketers Can Master Omnichannel Strategies

Important: Email validation and verification are more effective when used in conjunction with other checks, such as verifying the lead’s phone number, location, and other demographic and psychographic parameters, which ultimately help you pinpoint the intent and value of the lead.

Take a product tour to explore Phonexa’s performance marketing software suite.

How Email Verification Can Improve Your Marketing Campaigns

1. Confirming the Lead at the Moment of Capture

For buyers, real-time email verification and validation make the biggest impact, allowing them to confirm the lead’s quality and intent. In practice, email verification software like iClear – integral to Phonexa’s performance marketing software suite – verifies the email (and other data) when a lead submits a form, catching errors and fake entries.

Then, depending on the system’s configuration, you can accept, reject, or flag leads based on their email quality. Real-time email verification gives you full freedom in choosing which leads to buy, while you also have an opportunity to double-check leads rather than reject them by default.

2. Correcting the Lead’s Email Address on the Fly

Before flagging or rejecting the lead based on the wrong email address, an email verification system can prompt them to correct the entry, such as changing the incorrect [email protected] to the correct [email protected].

Auto-correction prompts can be implemented across all touchpoints, from forms to website registration, helping you improve lead quality and obtain valid email data from leads that might have been rejected or flagged as low-quality. For lead sellers, auto-correction increases the value of their leads, improves reputation, and reduces potential refunds and disputes.

For consumers themselves, real-time corrections provide clear guidance on filling out the form, making the process more intuitive. Without such prompts, users may either submit incorrect data and never be contacted, or they may abandon filling out the form if they are unable to submit it.

3. Ensures the Fastest Time-to-Contact Rates

Real-time email verification has found extensive application in time-sensitive marketing campaigns, like Black Friday and Christmas sales. When you’re competing against dozens of other brands, you may only have a few minutes to contact the lead, so you need to know which follow-ups to send to whom, especially if you’re segmenting your email campaign or have limited seats in the offer.

4. Zeroing in on Quality Lead Sources

One of the biggest benefits of email verification is that it helps evaluate the performance of your traffic sources, allowing you to allocate your resources most effectively. For example, if you’re seeing that leads from a specific affiliate, campaign, or marketing channel come with fake emails and cost more than they should, you might want to investigate the issue.

Read also: Key Affiliate Marketing Metrics to Track for Business Growth

More importantly, if you enable real-time email verification for all acquired leads, you can spot issues instantly, staying cost-effective at all times. Speaking of which, with iClear, you can use both real-time and post-purchase email validation and verification, depending on your goals.

5. Adding a Verified Email Address to the Lead’s Profile

Email verification software doesn’t work separately but is always integrated with a lead management system or CRM. The collected and verified email address is typically added or compared against multiple other data items before the system makes a decision.

So it’s very much about flexibility. On the one hand, you may want to give leads a chance to correct their email address so you don’t lose them; on the other hand, you don’t want to purchase or – if already purchased – spend resources on leads that are unlikely to receive your emails.

Email Verification with iClear – Know the Leads You’re Buying

You only want leads with active email addresses, but there’s more to it than verifying whether a specific email address is valid and belongs to a real person. There are also factors like verification and lead price that affect which emails you want to verify and how scrupulously.

Here are a few potential scenarios:

• You’re buying leads from the same lead generation company for a long time
• You’re tapping into a new lead source
• The quality of leads you’re buying is declining

In each of these scenarios, you may require a different level of email verification. In the first case, you might only want basic verification to ensure the leads haven’t made a mistake when typing their email address into the form. In the second and third cases, you may need a thorough evaluation to assess the traffic source or determine why the quality of the leads has deteriorated.

With iClear, you can cover all these needs and more while paying only for the power of the system you’re using.

Phonexa’s Email Validation and Email Verification Features

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Email Verification and Email Validation

Before digging deep into Phonexa’s three email verification features, it’s worth mentioning that all of them can be executed either synchronously or asynchronously.

• Synchronous checks are performed in real-time, with the software able to accept or reject the lead based on the check’s result. Likewise, you can choose to flag leads with suboptimal email data while still accepting them.
• Asynchronous checks are performed at any time after the leads are acquired, allowing you to evaluate the performance of each of your lead suppliers and campaigns. Then you can double down on the most profitable traffic sources and eliminate those that are not cost-effective.

At first glance, synchronous checks might seem far superior – why would you delay verifying your leads if you can do it right away at the same price? However, it can be tricky at times, mostly because synchronous checks rely on the server’s speed, which can potentially result in a poor user experience and drop-offs.

Even a delay of 2–3 seconds can be significant, causing some users to abandon filling out the form. In contrast, asynchronous checks do not affect user experience – the user can interact with the form without delays and submit it without waiting for the server response.

Book a demo to learn more about Phonexa’s iClear and other features and add-ons.

iClear: Basic Email Domain Validation

iClear: Basic Email Domain Validation is the simplest email validity check that searches an email for typos and errors. For example, if a lead submits an email like [email protected], iClear will reject or flag it so you don’t spend money on non-convertible leads. 

If you do want to buy the lead despite the error in the email address, you’ll get a chance to correct the error or typo before sending your marketing emails, ensuring higher email deliverability.

Here’s how you can use the Basic Email Domain Validation feature:

• Reject or flag leads with invalid email addresses
• Check email addresses post-purchase
• Block submissions with temporary emails
• Issue real-time prompts to users who are trying to submit invalid emails

Validating the lead’s email address may be the only service you need when purchasing leads from reputable sources. If you know that the leads you’re buying are of high quality, you might only need to ensure they haven’t made a mistake when typing their email address in the form.

Read also: 7 Lead Generation Strategies To Drive and Convert More Business Leads

iClear: Email Validation & Hygiene

In addition to validating emails – ensuring they have proper syntax and spelling – iClear can categorise them into Good, Risky, and Toxic based on the deliverability status and whether the email is disposable, blacklisted, associated with spam, known for abusive behaviour, and more factors

Differentiating emails by status makes it easier to navigate your lead acquisition campaigns, especially when it comes to Risky emails, some of which might be legitimate leads. For Risky emails, you can simply flag them and manually supervise them post-purchase.

Read also: Dominate CRO & UX Through User Behaviour Data & Analytics

iClear: Email Scoring

The Email Scoring feature with iClear allows you to quantify the quality of incoming emails and set the system to purchase emails that meet the minimum qualification score.

Email Checks with iClear

Make the Most Out of Your Email Campaigns with E-Delivery

With iClear offering fantastic email verification depth and accuracy, it’s only one of the many email and SMS marketing features you can get as a Phonexa user. As for the other features, most of them are packed into E-Delivery, our proprietary email and SMS marketing platform.

One of the strongest use cases for E-Delivery is remarketing leads that you’re buying or selling through automated email or SMS marketing campaigns. For leads and phone calls that aren’t sold, you can provide them with a personalised follow-up email that will keep them in the funnel. This is especially valuable for complex industries, such as finance and insurance, where sales cycles are longer..

Whether you’re using Phonexa’s LMS Sync, Call Logic, or Lynx, you can send emails and SMS in real-time to any lead who has provided consent for these types of communication.

• Pull in purchased and validated leads for nurturing
• Configure your Call Logic numbers to send text messages to opted-in contacts
• Coordinate lead, call, and email marketing data for comprehensive coverage
• Use dozens of reports to track the performance of your email marketing campaigns

Last but not least, you can use Opt-Intel alongside E-Delivery to create suppression lists for emails you don’t want to interact with, whether because of compliance concerns, potential CAN-SPAM violations, or simply because the lead has shown to be low-quality.

Read also: Why Do Companies Choose Inexpensive Leads?

Your All-in-One Performance Marketing Software Suite

Regardless of whether you’re buying leads, selling leads, generating leads for your own business, or you’re an affiliate network, you can benefit immensely from a software suite that allows you to synergise all your campaigns and coordinate them within a single dashboard.

Phonexa does it, providing you with eight tools for lead and phone call management – all under one roof, so you don’t have to juggle between reports and systems. Using Phonexa as a go-to lead management platform means gaining comprehensive reporting, full control over your campaigns, and seamless data flows between various marketing channels.

Here’s how Phonexa helps businesses grow by automating reports and routines:

No less importantly, you get exhaustive insights into every single lead, traffic source, and campaign. From tracking to distributing to analysing leads and phone calls to predicting future outcomes, you’ve got it all in one place, a convenience you’ll be happy to discover.

Get Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software suite at a single price:

Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the advantages of email verification and email validation?

By validating and verifying the email of the leads you’re buying or selling, you can increase the cost-effectiveness of your business, improve email deliverability, reduce bounce rates, and – overall – make sure the leads in question are worth your time, money, and effort.

On top of that, if you’re using a lead management system like Phonexa, you can set up the system to automatically reject the leads that don’t pass email validation or email verification.

How do I verify a lead’s email address?

There are several methods and levels to verify the validity of a lead’s email address. With Phonexa, you can go as deeply as you’d like without paying for information you won’t use.

You can:

• Verify the validity of the lead’s email address and domain at £0.0005 per check
• Analyse emails into Valid, Risky, and Toxic at £0.003 per check
•  Score emails based on parameters such as deliverability status and recent behaviour.

All checks are performed automatically, and then the system either accepts or rejects the lead or flags it for manual review. Likewise, you can verify email addresses.

What specific email data can you verify?

With iClear, you can validate the lead’s email and domain for errors and typos, as well as run them against third-party databases to identify whether the lead’s email is deliverable, disposable, spam trap, etc. Overall, you can check every bit of trackable data.

While cost-per-lead (CPL) tends to steal the spotlight, cost per mille (CPM) is often overlooked during ad strategy planning. CPM can be a gamble—after all, there’s no assurance that impressions will translate into real sales.

So why are companies still investing in CPM campaigns across platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, or The Trade Desk? Isn’t that a risky move?

CPM is a win for affiliates, but where does that leave advertisers?

As it happens, CPM marketing, widely known as the CPM pricing model, can be a smart move in the right scenario: when you know your audience, have strong creative assets, and can accurately measure your campaign’s performance.

Sounds a bit tricky, doesn’t it?

Let’s break down CPM marketing from the ground up—covering when to use it, how it works, and when models like cost-per-lead (CPL) or cost-per-sale (CPS) are the better bet.

Book a free demo to discover how Phonexa can optimise your ad spend using real-time data and analytics.

What Is CPM in Digital Advertising?

CPM, or cost per mille, refers to the price an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad impressions. Platforms like Google Ads or affiliate publishers display these ads to a target audience. In email marketing, CPM can also refer to 1,000 emails sent or opened by subscribers.

How the CPM Marketing Model Works

CPM campaigns function differently depending on the channel. Whether you’re bidding in real-time via platforms like Google Ads or working directly with a publisher, the approach and outcomes can vary significantly.

Option 1. CPM Campaign in Google Ads

To start a CPM campaign in Google Ads, pick an objective that allows CPM bidding. Then select your preferred ad formats, placements, target audiences, and schedule, and set your CPM bid—the amount you’re prepared to pay per 1,000 impressions.

Google Ads then conducts an auction considering CPM bids and ad relevance to decide which ads to show. Winning ads appear across the Google Display Network or YouTube, and the winning advertiser pays their CPM bid. While each ad slot has only one winner, multiple slots on the same page can feature ads from different winners.

CPM vs. vCPM Pricing Models in Google Ads

A key option in Google Ads is the vCPM model, where you only pay when at least 50% of your ad is visible for a minimum of 1 second (for display ads) or 2 seconds (for video ads). Unlike traditional CPM pricing that charges for every served ad—even those barely seen—vCPM focuses on actual viewability.

Overview of Google Ads Types and Their Pricing Models

Overview of Google Ads Pricing Models

Running CPM campaigns on platforms like Google Ads or Meta Ads means you’re effectively leasing ad space on websites and apps, albeit indirectly. The key benefit of programmatic advertising through Google Ads is the ability to reach any desired audience without manually hunting for publishers across various locations.

You can also collaborate directly with publishers, a strategy that often works well when targeting niche audiences or local markets. For instance, running display ads through micro- and nano-influencers tends to be significantly more budget-friendly.

Option 2. CPM Marketing Campaign Through Direct Affiliate Partnerships

Direct CPM marketing tends to be more cost-efficient since it eliminates platform commission fees. For context, Google Ads charges a commission of 32% for AdSense for Content and 49% for AdSense for Search.

Executing a direct CPM marketing campaign involves selecting the appropriate publisher and negotiating details such as ad format, placement, and impression measurement. A key advantage is the ability to handpick specific websites and ad locations.

Regarding cost efficiency, the CPM rate in direct partnerships typically settles between the publisher’s asking price and the advertiser’s offer. Advertisers aim for lower CPMs, while affiliates seek to maximise earnings from ad placements.

Comparing Google Ads and Direct Affiliate Partnerships

Typical CPM Rates on Various Platforms

Several factors influence the actual CPM rate, including platform type, industry, geographic location, campaign goals, competitive landscape, and more. For instance, Facebook’s CPM can start under a dollar in less competitive areas but rise to tens of dollars in high-demand regions and premium industry sectors.

Also check out: The Definitive Guide to Facebook Affiliate Marketing in 2025

Top Five Influencers on CPM Pricing

Marketers aim to reduce CPM costs while reaching audiences with strong intent. Achieving this balance requires a grasp of supply and demand dynamics, seasonal fluctuations, geographic targeting, and other key factors that influence ad pricing.

Improving your ad creative quality, precise targeting, and overall relevance can boost ad display frequency without the need to increase your bid.

Is CPM a Wise Choice for Marketers, or Does It Carry Too Much Risk?

Having covered the fundamentals of CPM, a key question arises: Is CPM riskier than other models like CPC, CPL, or CPA? If so, are there scenarios where paying for impressions makes more sense than paying for clicks, leads, or specific actions such as app installs or downloads?

In the realm of affiliate marketing, CPM represents the highest risk for advertisers but is generally the safest bet for affiliates and affiliate networks.

The reality is that publishers often don’t prioritise whether ad impressions lead to clicks, leads, or sales since they earn revenue regardless. Advertisers, on the other hand, pay for every impression, whether it is seen or ignored by users. Although the vCPM (viewable CPM) model helps mitigate some risk by charging only for impressions that meet visibility standards, it still offers no absolute guarantees.

Book a demo to learn how Phonexa can help you track impressions, drive leads, and elevate your lead acquisition strategy.

Drawbacks of CPM Pricing

Strategies to Lower Your CPM Costs

How Phonexa Can Help Make Your CPM Campaigns More Profitable

The great news is that many CPM risks—particularly those related to limited data—can be reduced or even eliminated using Phonexa’s performance and affiliate marketing software suite. This technology reveals detailed insights about your leads, including demographics, psychographics, purchase history, the ads that generated them, and other key customer journey information.

Here’s how LMS Sync can connect your CPM campaigns to real results:

1. Add Phonexa-specific tracking IDs to your ad URLs when launching CPM campaigns on platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, or through affiliates.
2. Build a dedicated landing page, embed Phonexa’s JavaScript tracking script, and link your ads to this page.
3. Use the LMS Sync dashboard to monitor which publisher impressions result in lead conversions.

Though LMS Sync’s main function is to capture comprehensive web lead data, it also highlights which publishers’ impressions actually convert into leads, helping you identify those generating lots of impressions but few or no leads.

Beyond LMS Sync, HitMetrix helps monitor post-impression user engagement on your landing pages—tracking scrolls, clicks, taps, and detecting friction points, such as click errors, bounces, rapid browsing, or mouse exits. The suite also includes session replay tools to visualise user journeys for deeper analysis and optimisation.

Lastly, leverage Phonexa’s predictive modelling software to forecast your campaigns’ future performance. Using AI-powered algorithms, it analyses past campaign data to deliver reliable, data-driven predictions about how different campaign configurations will likely perform.

Before tackling underperforming elements in your CPM campaigns, exploring new audiences, or entering untapped markets, you can safely simulate your strategies in a risk-free environment.

Predictive modelling allows you to focus your resources on campaigns and settings that work, rather than wasting time on ineffective ones. You’ll gain clear insights on the optimal timing and placement of your ads—and if things aren’t perfect yet, you can keep adjusting and testing until you achieve maximum impact.

Take a product tour to discover how Phonexa’s eight integrated performance marketing solutions work together for CPM and lead generation success.

Understanding CPM in Email Marketing

CPM pricing extends beyond ad campaigns into email marketing, where it represents the cost of sending 1,000 emails, often based on the number of emails opened rather than the total number sent. The core concept remains the same: CPM in email marketing emphasises brand awareness, with advertisers paying publishers or ad networks to feature their promotional content within newsletters.

Occasionally, CPM refers to the amount that advertisers or marketers pay email service providers (ESPs), such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or SendGrid, for sending emails. However, this is a delivery or operational cost, not the expense of advertising itself.

Ways Phonexa Helps Reduce Your Email Marketing CPM

By leveraging LMS Sync or Call Logic within Phonexa, you gain deep insights into your lead generation efforts, including which ads generate leads and how these leads interact with your website and calls.

What about nurturing your leads through remarketing with E-Delivery?

Since many leads don’t convert immediately, having a solid follow-up approach is essential. Integrating E-Delivery into Phonexa’s platform enables you to engage and nurture unconverted leads with targeted emails or SMS messages sent precisely when they’re most effective.

Elevate Your Performance & Affiliate Marketing

Whether you use CPM pricing or prefer lower-risk models like PPL or PPS, Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software suite—covering email, social media, referral, affiliate, call, SMS, and more—offers powerful tools to boost your marketing efforts.

Phonexa offers a range of powerful features, including:

• Comprehensive insights into clicks, web leads, and phone call tracking
• Real-time campaign reporting and analytics
• A centralised dashboard consolidating key data from all your campaigns

Get Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software suite at a single price (online price calculator):

Build your plan today, or take a product tour to discover how Phonexa can enhance your performance marketing efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the meaning of CPM in marketing?

CPM, short for cost per mille, indicates the cost of one thousand ad impressions (views) or occasionally the cost of sending one thousand emails that feature an advertiser’s promotional content. The CPM marketing approach emphasises building brand awareness rather than driving immediate leads or sales, aiming at the uppermost stage of the marketing funnel.

How do you calculate CPM?

Typically, publishers or ad networks present their CPM rates upfront. For instance, if the CPM rate is £50, you pay £50 for every 1,000 ad impressions. You can reduce this rate by refining your audience targeting or negotiating terms with the publisher.

What qualifies as a good CPM?

The definition of a good CPM varies based on the ad placement and target audience. CPM rates typically range from £0.50 to about £3 for general audiences, while premium placements may cost over £15. In email marketing, CPM can climb to £50 or higher.

At their core, marketing emails have transformed into personalised, dynamic tools that drive engagement and even direct conversions. Generic messages no longer cut it—you need compelling, visually engaging content tailored to your audience’s needs and position in the sales funnel.

Continue reading to find out how personalised email marketing could enhance your business strategy.

Why Personalised Email Marketing Is a Game Changer

Did you know that personalised email marketing delivers an average return of $36 for every dollar spent? Moreover, 89% of marketers cite email as their top lead generation tool, and 79% rank it among their top three marketing channels. Nearly 60% of consumers are influenced by personalisation when making purchase decisions.

Below are the top strategic advantages of leveraging email personalisation:

Take a product tour and discover how Phonexa empowers personalised email marketing to reach its fullest potential.

Understanding Email Personalisation

Using information such as demographics, interaction history, funnel position, and personal preferences, email personalisation in email marketing aims to satisfy subscriber expectations. This allows you to craft messages tailored to each recipient, rather than sending generic mass emails.

Did you know personalisation can cut lead acquisition costs by up to 50%, boost marketing efficiency by 10–30%, and increase revenue by 5–15%? You achieve this by addressing recipients by name, customising subject lines and content to their interests, and sending at optimal times.

Explore these key benefits of email personalisation:

When email content is personalised, consumers are ten times more likely to become high-value customers who make 15 or more purchases yearly. Eighty per cent of consumers also like brands that customise their experience.

Business buyers share their views on personalised email marketing:

Best Practices for Personalised Email Marketing

Beyond content personalisation, outcomes can be improved by sending trigger emails depending on user behaviours, such as VIP customer-specific loyalty offers or cart abandonment notifications.

Personalised Subject Lines

Subject lines are the first chance to catch your recipient’s eye. Make them personal by including the recipient’s name, special offers, or clear calls to action to increase relevance and appeal. For instance, “Get Your Exclusive Deal Now” feels more engaging than a generic “Click Here”.

Sender’s Name

Emails sent from a real person, such as “[email protected]”, appear more personal and increase the likelihood of recipient engagement.

Recommendations

Leverage data from multiple marketing channels to build detailed customer profiles and customise your emails and offers accordingly. For example, if a customer purchases solar panels, suggest complementary products like portable chargers to enrich their experience.

Behavioural Triggers

Trigger personalised emails based on typical user actions such as account creation, purchases, or cart abandonment. These timely messages strengthen your relationship with customers.

Additionally, celebrate milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, or your company’s anniversary, and schedule emails to arrive at optimal times by using analytics for best results.

Dynamic & Localised Content

Add real-time elements, such as countdown timers for special offers or live tracking for shipments, to your emails. Customise your messages to reflect your audience’s cultural and regional context by including local events, using local currencies, and adapting the tone accordingly.

5 Excellent Examples of Personalised Email Campaigns

1. Product Recommendations

This example showcases a typical product recommendation email tailored from the customer’s browsing and cart abandonment activity, incentivising with free shipping to prompt purchase consideration.

Source: Brooklinen

2. Personalised Welcome Emails

Welcome emails set the tone for your relationship. Use the subscriber’s first name, send emails promptly after sign-up, and include custom fields or dynamic content to create a warm, tailored greeting.

Source: Wix

3. Personalised Content

Boost engagement and blog traffic by sending personalised content recommendations based on your audience’s interests and behaviour. Automate newsletters to deliver relevant material consistently.

For example, PayPal highlights a special offer and a ‘Become a Pro’ option, prompting users to explore tailored financial products.

Source: PayPal

4. Birthdays and Anniversaries

Sending personalised emails on birthdays or anniversaries helps deepen customer loyalty by making recipients feel appreciated. Enhance these messages with tailored offers reflecting their preferences or past purchases.

Take a look at this email personalisation example from BodyMindLife:

Source: BodyMindLife

6. Reactivation Emails

Reactivation emails focus on reconnecting with inactive subscribers who might have lost touch with your brand. Strategically timing these emails can revive past customers and help maintain a healthy email list.

Here’s an example of a reactivation email:

This reactivation email successfully revives customer interest by including a personal note that adds warmth and reassurance. Thoughtful CTAs and visually appealing elements further capture attention, encouraging engagement with the brand’s products.

Test and Optimise Your Email Personalisation with Phonexa

For businesses that depend on email marketing, ensuring your campaigns work seamlessly alongside other marketing channels is essential. Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software delivers an integrated ecosystem combining performance and affiliate marketing for full-spectrum coverage.

Our proprietary platform, E-Delivery, guarantees 100% email deliverability, precise subscription segmentation, A/B testing capabilities, advanced automation features, and seamless integrations with seven other Phonexa solutions, as well as leading CRM and lead management tools.

Using E-Delivery ensures your emails reach the right audience at the perfect moment, while providing valuable insights into subscriber engagement and interactions across other Phonexa tools. This leads to increased clicks, conversions, and sales.

Build your plan today, or book a free demo to discover how E-Delivery can enhance your email marketing efforts.

While E-Delivery is a powerful tool for email marketing, maximising your results requires a unified strategy across all traffic channels. You need a complete ecosystem managing web, call, and email leads — exactly what Phonexa delivers.

Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean:

Get Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software suite at a single price:

Build your plan today, or book a demo to unlock the full power of Phonexa’s all-in-one platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is email personalisation?

Personalised emails customise content for each recipient based on their preferences, past behaviours, and interactions. This can involve addressing recipients by name, suggesting products they may be interested in, and delivering content that aligns with their interests.

How can I make my emails more personalised?

Make your emails more personalised by using the recipient’s name, referencing their previous purchases or interactions, and customising content based on what they’re looking for. You can also add dynamic content blocks that change depending on user data and behaviour.

What’s the difference between email segmentation and email personalisation?

Email segmentation involves grouping your email subscribers based on factors like demographics or purchase history, whereas email personalisation focuses on crafting content that deeply resonates with each individual within those segments.

As an affiliate marketer operating in the UK, you’re likely looking to tap into diverse strategies to bring in more prospects and maximise their value effectively. If that sounds like you, SMS affiliate marketing might be an overlooked gem that could elevate your performance, particularly if you’re involved in pay-per-call campaigns targeting local UK customers.

While SMS messages may not necessarily be the first thing that comes to mind as an affiliate marketing strategy, they can help you reach audiences in a more elaborate way. Don’t downplay its potential, though. SMS marketing has incredibly high engagement. Industry norms usually refer to more than 90% open rates, surpassing other online mediums, including email.

With a well-planned SMS affiliate marketing strategy, you can:

• Establish personalized, direct communication channels with the audience
• Reach subscribers when they will be most interested in offers or information
• Grow your affiliate revenue while discovering more about the behavior and preferences of your customer base

Adding SMS marketing to your affiliate marketing strategy can be relatively simple, potentially creating significant new revenue streams and ensuring a smooth omnichannel experience for your audience.

Read on to discover the fundamentals of SMS affiliate marketing, such as integrating it most effectively with your other affiliate campaigns and remaining completely compliant in the UK.

Expand your multi-channel approach: Download your free email deliverability guide to help synergize email and SMS marketing campaigns.

How SMS Affiliate Marketing Works: Key Considerations

SMS affiliate marketing is much like other forms of affiliate marketing, except that it involves mobile network operators and SMS gateway or service providers, both of which affect the success of your SMS affiliate marketing campaigns.

Key Roles in SMS Affiliate Marketing:

Choosing a reliable SMS service provider and knowing mobile network dynamics are important to deliver your messages on time. Poor deliverability wastes money and potential. For more on delivering messages into the inbox, examine overall best practices for SMS deliverability, with UK regulation always considered.

Essentially, SMS affiliate marketing is like the basic mechanism of performance-based promotion. Sales or traffic are brought by affiliates using SMS, and they receive commissions. However, its functioning and, more significantly, its regulatory framework in the UK are vastly different from content, email, SEO, or social media affiliate marketing.

SMS Affiliate Marketing vs Other Channels:

Here are examples from popular niches:

One essential, non-dismissible element that unites all these examples is the opt-out. This is required under PECR in the UK and regulated by the ICO. Maintaining clean lists and letting customers unsubscribe is critical to ensure compliance and keep your sender reputation.

Effective SMS marketing, though, is so much more than compliance.

Let’s explore how to drive targeted SMS traffic to your affiliate products in this market.

Crafting Your SMS Marketing Strategy: 7 Key Steps

Regardless of whether Peer-to-Peer (P2P) or Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS messaging is used, inserting the inbox keys into the keyboard is not enough; there should be conversions and clicks to target. This means a unified SMS marketing plan should exist despite the available affiliate programs. The regulatory legislation and customer expectations require an individualized approach.

There are seven steps to achieving a successful and compliant SMS marketing campaign:

Step 1. Find Out Your Target Audience

If you already have active online affiliate channels – a website, blog, or social media presence – you can identify your target buyers (especially so if you use an affiliate tracking software). Given that you already know a lot about your target audience and prospective customers, you only need to plan your messaging carefully and ensure the messages resonate with your audience. 

SMS messaging has several key differences:

• Limited character count: SMS messages are subject to a character limit (typically 160 characters with GSM-7 encoding). Your call to action and main message must be compelling within this constraint, unless you use multi-part messages explicitly (at an increased cost).
• Instant response: SMS elicits an immediate response. Recipients will respond immediately or not respond. Anticipate fast response or create campaigns (like flash sales) that capitalize on instant response.
• Compliance: UK SMS marketing is firmly controlled by GDPR and PECR, under ICO oversight. Opt-in, clear positive consent is needed *before* sending out marketing messages. [See ICO Electronic Marketing Guidance]

For instance, time-sensitive customers seeking flash sales or time-limited offers are an ideal target audience for SMS. Conversely, complex B2B promotions may not be suitable for this channel, but reminders for appointments or event reminders might be beneficial. Effective distinctions can be made based on strong data analysis, aided by the appropriate affiliate marketing software.

Step 2. Define Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Identifying your target receivers’ needs enables you to create an excellent USP specifically for the SMS channel, or adapt your own USP into this format. Clarity of expression is important here – you’ve generally only got 160 characters to convey value and stimulate action. 

Here are some marketing SMS examples:

• Finance: Hi George, Get 5% cashback on grocery shopping with the Premier Rewards credit card. Apply by [Date] & claim £50 bonus! [affiliate link]. Reply STOP to opt out.
• Insurance: Hi Michael, Secure your family’s future. Receive tailored life insurance quotes from SecureLife, used by 100k+ Brits: [affiliate link]. Reply STOP to opt out.

You will likely be unable to fit all benefits in a single SMS. Emphasize the most effective benefits that position your offer differently in the market. Leverage creative materials or suggested copy from your advertisers or affiliate networks because they typically know what converts for their specific offers.

Step 3. Choose the Right SMS Affiliate Program

When incorporating SMS into your strategy, ask yourself if your current affiliate offers or programs are suitable for SMS promotion in this market. If not, or if you want unique SMS offers, seek out programs designed to fulfill these needs, being extremely selective on suitability.

Key features for an SMS affiliate program:

• • Relevant creatives: Look for platforms that provide SMS templates or examples that have been proven effective with local populations. This is a sign that advertisers understand the channel and the audience.
  • Strong tracking & reporting: SMS tracking is different from web or email tracking. Ensure that the program utilizes robust technology capable of tracking SMS clicks and conversions precisely, ideally as an integration within Phonexa or another platform.

• Explicit Compliance Focus (UK Essential): Critically examine the program terms under traffic sources, allowed SMS practices, and niche restrictions. Verify their compliance with UK legislation (GDPR & PECR). Avoid programs with ambiguous or non-compliant terms. [Refer to PECR Legislation]

Other than these facts, verify the program offers competitive commissions, easy payment methods (e.g., GBP payouts), and a reasonable cookie duration to capture delayed conversions.

Step 4. Develop Compliant SMS Sequences

With your USP and aware of your chosen affiliate program’s limitations, create a series of nurturing SMS messages to guide subscribers towards conversion. Occasionally, one SMS may not be enough; timely sequences are the essence of sustainable lead generation and relationship development, always with respect to consent and frequency restrictions.

Here’s an example of an SMS sequence for car insurance:

Note: Frequency and content should be tested and adjusted based on response from the audience and campaign goals, always for the benefit of user experience and compliance.

Step 5. Optimise SMS Campaigns for Maximum Engagement

Since SMS advertising is expensive (growth is obvious, per global trends), there is competition for customers’ attention via text. To win, optimize for engagement using best practices, always in line with compliance:

Step 6. Automate Your SMS Affiliate Marketing

Monitoring, analyzing, and optimising SMS campaigns, particularly when dealing with numerous traffic sources and compliance, is impossible without specialized software. Serious affiliates greatly appreciate full-fledged SMS solutions natively integrated with web, email, and call tracking platforms – preferably in one software suite for an end-to-end perspective.

This is where solutions such as  E-Delivery, Phonexa’s SMS and email marketing software, come in. It provides performance-marketing-oriented features that help with campaign management on a savvy basis while being compatible with Phonexa’s broader suite.

Here’s what Phonexa’s E-Delivery is about:

• Granular segmentation: Examine customer sources, SMS behavior patterns, and path-to-conversions. This aids in facilitating micro-segmentation and highly personalized messaging appropriate to audience segments.
• Advanced reporting: Have access to real-time and summary reports (campaign performance, delivery rates, recipient engagement) to quickly optimize poorly performing campaigns and scale up successful ones.
• A/B testing functionality: Systematically test different SMS copy, CTAs, send times, or offers (often comparing several templates simultaneously) to determine what works best with your audience.

 Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa. 

Step 7. Coordinate SMS with Your Other Affiliate Marketing Channels

The final step in your SMS marketing strategy is coordinating your text campaigns with other marketing channels. And this is where E-Delivery shines.

• E-Delivery synergises with Opt-Intel, a suppression list management solution that helps keep your SMS list clean and active, which is critical with the GDPR/PECR ruling.

• E-Delivery unifies data streams with Phonexa’s other solutions, creating a single view of performance across campaigns.

Phonexa aims to provide this converged ecosystem, consolidating the key affiliate marketing tech stack into one platform, closing data gaps, and enabling affiliates to maximize campaign performance across all touchpoints of relevance.

Get Phonexa’s eight proprietary solutions at a single price (online price calculator):

Ready to take your affiliate business to the next level? Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best SMS marketing strategies for affiliate marketing?

Successful strategies usually have triggered messages (such as a reminder of an abandoned cart, if compliant opt-in) and correctly designed drip campaigns to engage leads. However, the strict foundation, especially when business is done in regulated exchanges like the UK, is strict compliance with such regulations as GDPR and PECR – clear opt-in consent before sending *any* marketing SMS and providing easy opt-out at all times. A relevant, valued, timely message to a fully opted-in base is essential.

What are the best ways to get SMS traffic compliantly?

Build your SMS list ethically by obtaining explicit, informed opt-in consent from individuals, particularly adhering to regulations like GDPR/PECR if targeting relevant markets (like the UK). This can be done via website forms (with clear checkboxes, *not* pre-ticked), dedicated landing pages, social media lead ads (with compliant consent mechanisms), or offline methods (ensuring clear consent language). Never purchase mobile number lists. You can drive traffic from your website, blog, social media, and webinars, but the consent mechanism must always comply with applicable regulations.

How do you effectively drive traffic to your affiliate links in SMS messages?

Aside from compliance, drive clicks by sending targeted messages at the optimal times (test for your audience), tailoring where appropriate and compliant, offering real value (special offers, useful information), and creating a clear, good call-to-action (CTA) within the character limit.

How do you choose an affiliate program for SMS marketing?

Review the following potential programs critically: commission structure (and payment currency, e.g., GBP if necessary), offer pertinence to your target market, quality of creative material (SMS examples), reliability of tracking software, unambiguous limitations, and above all, visible understanding and compliance with applicable compliance laws for your target audience (e.g., UK GDPR/PECR). Enquire directly of potential partners about their compliance policy for the markets you work within.