Eloqua Persona Development: Return Path Case Study

Jun 14, 2021

What is an Eloqua Persona?

Eloqua Personas are customer archetypes of typical, target users representing a group of people with shared behaviors, goals, pain points, and delighters (things that can make them happy).

Eloqua Personas are different from marketing segments in that they don’t just focus on demographics (the who and what), but expand more into shared goals, behaviours and contexts of use (the why and how).

Why use Eloqua Personas?

An Eloqua persona is created and described as a single person in order to allow a product, design, and development team a common reference point to “know them” as people, discuss the main user goals, check scenarios of use, and to create shared empathy (concern for their well being and needs) as they seek to build exceptional products and solutions for real people.

How to use an Eloqua Persona

Teams should know about the whole “family” of Eloqua personas, but focus their solutions on one or two primary Eloqua personas for their product. Considering the needs and context of their primary Eloqua personas in any and all designs and product prioritizations.

When to use an Eloqua Persona

Eloqua Personas are “living and breathing” representations of real people, real customers.  As those customers evolve, so should the representing Eloqua persona. As your team discovers new insights, listens to more customers, they should incorporate and update the Eloqua personas accordingly.  These people are meant to be a current snapshots for a lasting human reference and as such, should change over time as the realities of your customers and your products evolve.

Developing Eloqua Personas for Return Path

We above in mind we then went about developing Eloqua Personas through interviews with clients.  Below is the summary of what we came up with together…

Eloqua Persona 1

Max Riddell
VP of Marketing
Large B2C Company

I lead strategy and execution through my marketing team and am responsible for various areas of product marketing, PR, advertising, and direct marketing – email is only one channel.  Knowing what the competition is doing is important to me to develop benchmark criteria.

Eloqua Persona 11

I lead my team in setting the best-in-class marketing strategy which incorporates a solid, effective email program, and a clean brand reputation.

 
“Here’s our long-term plan”
– The Strategist
I hit the day with many things on my mind and strategic marketing decisions to make, so I don’t concern myself with the tactical email tasks like logging in to email measurement tools, though I might look at Inbox Measurement once a month for competitive insight. My email team communicates with our ESP and Return Path unless I need to be brought in to decide on a purchase. I can set best-in-class email strategies thanks to reports my team compiles from Return Path tools. These reports have unique and valuable data on our email program, our industry and our competitors that I can’t get anywhere else.

Email is our most trustworthy communications channel because we are reaching customers directly, and this shouldn’t be abused. Protecting our world class brand and ensuring a consistent and positive experience with our brand is very important, so any threats to our brand should be prevented or quickly taken down.

“Where’s that report?” – A quick review of a competitor’s email
I ask my team to report on the ROI of our email program each week, as well as the rates our emails are being delivered to the inbox, Time is limited, so visual reports with high-level data make it easy for me to understand how customers are responding to email, and how our program compares to the competition.

I was recently sent a competitor’s promotion email and I asked my team to show me what we know about it and why we aren’t doing something similar. They had the data and showed how the performance wasn’t as optimal for that campaign.

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
Frankly I’m either in meetings or on my Blackberry, checking Outlook email on my laptop at night and wrapping up a PowerPoint presentation.

Goals

  • Increase revenue
  • Build trust with customers
  • Data-driven future planning
  • Hit target goals and outperform competition
  • Better collaboration between our creative, IT, and email teams on our campaigns

Pain Points

  • Tracking email ROI
  • Insight into my competitor’s email campaign performance

Delighters

  • If I can easily see the email performance metrics that matter to me, on a real-time dashboard, I’d be a pretty happy camper!

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 5% – Inbox Insight 5% – Domain Assurance 2%

Eloqua Persona 2

Emily Smith
Email Marketing Manager
Large B2C Company

I am responsible for some strategic planning, but I am mainly responsible for the tactical creation and analysis of my company’s email. I manage a small team to implement and measure email performance and engagement, as well as create reports for leadership.

Eloqua Persona 12

I’m all about creating engaging emails for our customers, while also increasing ROI on our email program. I need to have a tight pulse on our performance.


“Get it planned. Deliver it. Make it better”
– Implement and Analyze Performance
I support our VP of Marketing in creating the email marketing plan for the year, and implementing it each week, We work with an ESP to send out 5 million emails a month. I manage the process of sending, tracking and reporting the results to my team. Every week we have new deals in our retail and online stores and our email newsletter provides our subscribers with the latest. If our emails don’t arrive, our customers won’t get the information they need and want.

Email is our most trustworthy communications channel because we are reaching customers directly, and this shouldn’t be abused. Protecting our world class brand and ensuring a consistent and positive experience with our brand is very important, so any threats to our brand should be prevented or quickly taken down.

“Deliverability matters most to me.” – Daily Analytics Tracking
If my email gets 85% deliverability, I know that I will see a solid ROI, but if my campaign gets only 60% deliverability, we see less ROI. Deliverability rates and ISP blocks can fluctuate a lot even in one day. Sometimes I will send a campaign in the morning that has a 95% deliverability and is only blocked at a few small ISPs, then I might send a different campaign that evening and deliverability will drop to 87% and my campaign will be blocked or bulked at a major ISP. I need help monitoring that, even a 1% disparity in deliverability can affect ROI.

Basically, if we get more email sent and delivered well, we get more money back.

“Get Whitelisted…” – Certification Value
We are not certified because the way we collect emails for our email lists causes us to run into problems with spam traps. Because we are a retailer, we collect email addresses at store locations and often people will give us bogus email addresses. I know being certified would help my deliverability incredibly, so I do not want to discount this option.

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
I jump around from Outlook email to the Return Path tools. I do use Epicurious and Facebook on my own time.

Goals

  • Monitor and improve deliverability
  • Track engagement
  • Quick and easy static reports
  • Links to real-time data views
  • Tracking email

Pain Points

  • Custom reports takes a lot of time
  • Insights into my competitor’s email performance
  • Building email list

Protection from

  • Fraudulent attacks on our emails and brand

Delighters

  • I’d like a live dashboard view and quick, single-click to share custom reports emailed to key stakeholders
  • A slick, mobile alert system could be very handy…

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 45% – Inbox Insight 20% – Inbox Preview 8% – Reputation Monitor 5% – Email Client Monitor 2%

Eloqua Persona 3

Olivia Fry
Email Marketing Analyst
(Deliverability Manager or Data Analyst)
Large B2C Company

I support the Email Marketing team. I work with multiple stakeholders on a multi-channel, B2C marketing environment. I focus on tracking the deliverability and problem-solving any issues that arise. I collaborate with my Email Marketing Manager and the IT operations team.

Eloqua Persona 13

I need to know and track all our email metrics and be able to easily communicate what’s working and what’s not to other people.


“Data-driven decisions.”
– See and track patterns in the data
I keep close track on the analytics or every email campaign. What I find in the data directly influences our team’s ability to optimize and problem solve any issues. I work with the IT opps guy on campaigns to ensure great deliverability for my campaigns. I manage our lists and segmentation. I decide with our manager what and when campaigns go out. I live and breathe email deliverability and statistics – and I really enjoy it.

“Automated alerts are very helpful” – Assistive Analytics
Getting notifications from the system is key to me doing my best job. Being able to set up custom notifications on what I want and when different thresholds are met really helps me feel confident that I won’t miss anything. If I am sent a notification, I need to know if this is high risk, medium risk, or low risk and to have the system help jump-start my analysis is great

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
Oh, jeeze… Well, I live and breath Excel and then, yeah, the Return Path tools. I naturally check email on Outlook and on my iPhone as well as Facebook, OpenTable and an occasional Anrgy Birds with my son.

Goals

  • Clear display of my email performance
  • Easy access to the raw data and exporting
  • Quick, custom reports for my manager
  • A scorecard or dashboard tracking key metrics that I select

Pain Points

  • Managing a ton of data coming at me
  • Not being alerted in time to respond

Delighters

  • It’d be great to have easy access to a clear picture of our performance, hopefully see everything in the “green” and know I’ll be alerted if anything goes awry.

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 40% – Reputation Monitor 30% – Inbox Insight 20% – Email Client Monitor 2% – Inbox Preview 8% – Certification 1% – Domain Assurance 0% – Postmaster Portal 0%

Eloqua Persona 4

Drew Ash
Deliverability Systems Administrator
Large B2C Company

I am responsible for the technical set up and deliverability performance of my company’s large email program. I also deal with abuse prevention, spam protection, and any spoofing or phishing that might happen overall or using our email IP’s.

Eloqua Persona 14

My number one priority is to make sure that our email gets into people’s inboxes. I’m also concerned about our overall data“ and email security.


“Get it to the inbox”
– Ensure deliverability
My job is to set up the systems, IPs, and work with vendors to ensure that our transactional and direct marketing emails get to our customers. I need to monitor those systems and respond to any issues as they happen.

The other day our Email Manager made a unique request to send out a larger than usual send to all our subscribers. I needed to make sure that our system was able to send it out in a staggered send. We did that, but unfortunately Yahoo blocked us due to some

“Security Monitor” – stay secure and know when you’re being attacked
Getting notifications from the system is key to me doing my best job. Being able to set up custom notifications on what I want and when different thresholds are met really helps me feel confident that I won’t miss anything. If I am sent a notification, I need to know if this is high risk, medium risk, or low risk and to have the system help jump-start my analysis is great

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
Command Line on my Linux box is pretty much my bread and butter. I fix things when needed through the config settings. Occasionally I need to review the Return Path dashboard for someone, but I prefer just getting email alerts. Outside of work, I like to chat with my friends in The WELL gathering or hit the local tech meetups.

Goals

  • Get the mail into the inbox
  • Be assured that all of our hardware, services, and systems are up and running 100% of the time, well 99.9% at least
  • Stay informed of new industry trends, reports, methods, and training, and also the current Anti-Spam federal and state laws

Pain Points

  • Getting blindsided by an issue or attack
  • Slow response due to not having the right information or proper procedures ready to implement

Delighters

  • Having all the blinking lights be green
  • Being informed by our tools and system and having an answer for anyone who asks me

 

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 20% – Reputation Monitor 5% – Inbox Insight 20% – Email Client Monitor 20% – Inbox Preview 20% – Certification 10% – Domain Assurance 5% – Postmaster Portal 0%

Eloqua Persona 5

Gary Bain
Operations Manager
Large B2C Company

I am new to the ins and outs of email marketing management. I am part of a smaller company with limited budget who just started up with an email marketing tool, and I’ve moved into this role through my experience in IT. We use an ESP but I need to know exactly why our mail isn’t getting through.

Eloqua Persona 15

We need help to get our email deliverability up to par. I need to know what to look for, why to look for it, and what to do to fix it.


“New to all this email stuff”
– Going from “green” to great
Previously I managed the company’s IT hardware and software. We have recently started an email marketing program and I’m now also in charge of managing that.

I know my way around technology, but this email world is new to me and I need to get a solid grasp on the issues and a solid toolset around deliverability and inbox issues. I just need to feel confident about what we are doing, the systems, reporting and that I’m not missing anything obvious.

“Get stable, then look to plan better” – Gain confidence and be future focused
I need to be able to manage the email database and also work with our email service provider to get what we need in place. I’m supposed to be able to test our email’s effectiveness and also provide weekly reports on our results.

Ultimately, once I get my feet under me, I’d ideally like to be able to have a solid, consistent deliverability percentage and then work to analyze our audience, report on trends and help my boss create some modelling for future planning.

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
Well, I tend to work with Microsoft tools, Outlook for email, Excel for reports and charting, Word for whatever. I do use the Command Line regularly. But what I really get into is my WOW Guild and some Facebook shenanigans here and there.

Goals

  • Get the mail into the inbox
  • Be assured that all of our hardware, services, and systems are up and running 100% of the time, well 99.9% at least
  • Stay informed of new industry trends, reports, methods, and training, and also the current Anti-Spam federal and state laws

Pain Points

  • Getting blindsided by an issue or attack
  • Slow response due to not having the right information or proper procedures ready to implement

Delighters

  • Having all the blinking lights be green
  • Being informed by our tools and system and having an answer for anyone who asks me

 

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 0% – Reputation Monitor 20% – Inbox Insight 0% – Email Client Monitor 0% – Inbox Preview 0% – Certification 5% – Domain Assurance 30% – Postmaster Portal 40%

Eloqua Persona 6

Randy Carr
Director of Security & Risk
Large Financial B2C Company

I am responsible for the company information security strategy, protecting us from external threats and also preventing fraud and brand abuse.

We are a growing company and the chance for increased attacks on our brand and phishing attempts keeps rising.


“Security is job #1”
– Protecting our company’s data and brand.
Working with our IT and email marketing team, I need to keep up high standards for our fraud prevention. We are very concerned about customer-targeted phishing attacks and any necessary takedown vendor relationships when needed.  I am daily getting alerts or checking Domain Secure as one of my key things to monitor. I’m pretty “data-geeky” and like to have the raw data available when I want it. I need to be kept up to date on current best practices and any changes in security and protection methods.

I know my way around technology, but this email world is new to me and I need to get a solid grasp on the issues and a solid toolset around deliverability and inbox issues. I just need to feel confident about what we are doing, the systems, reporting and that I’m not missing anything obvious.

“Take it down!” – Working with take down vendors
Rarely, but if needed, I need to work to take down a spam sender. We have worked hard to set up and monitor our thousands of domains – get them registered to authenticate our mail. We work with a takedown vendor to find the location or locations and then work to stop them.

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
Besides my constant email monitoring on my “crackberry“, I regularly use Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, our various custom system monitors, and the RP Monitoring tools.

Goals

  • Protect and manage user access to company data
  • Manage company security and compliance policies
  • Protect company and customer identity and assets

Pain Points

  • Keeping up with current security best practices. ・Fraud and eCrimes investigation

Delighters

  • If you can help visualize the data, like in a global heat map, and also make reporting easy, that would be ideal….

 

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 5% – Reputation Monitor 30% – Inbox Insight 0% – Email Client Monitor 0% – Inbox Preview 0% – Certification 0% – Domain Assurance 20% – Postmaster Portal 10%

Eloqua Persona 7

Angela Bell
Abuse Desk Manager
Large B2B Company

I am responsible for addressing any and all complaints such as email abuse and identity theft. I train and manage a small team of first responders and also manage the automated system responding to hackers and spammers.

Eloqua Persona 17

My day is all about putting out fires. To start to think about prevention is a little bit of a stretch, but would be great for sure.


“Monitoring Acceptable Use”
– Policing and first response
I am the pulse tracker for our Acceptable Use Policy and daily respond to any harmful attacks on our system or email IP’s. I make moment-by-moment judgments on whether to reset our automated, shut-down system or to make higher-level calls on how to respond to various threats or incidents.

Our job never stops. We must monitor potential abuse 24/7 on a very limited budget. It’s a big challenge, but for some reason I love it!

“Distributed” – Continual monitoring and communication
I have a distributed team of technical people. We monitor logs, manage automated scripts and have to communicate quickly and precisely when needed. We need to keep everything up and running continually.

Hackers and spammers never take a break. We need to be the first to know and the first to respond as soon as possible. Each second matters and how we communicate and make decisions based on the data is key.

“My Daily Tools” – The applications and services I regularly use
I’m pretty much responding to EVERYTHING in email – I use Outlook. Our support tickets and alerts come through email, I message my team on email.

Goals

  • Protect and manage user access to company data
  • Manage company security and compliance policies
  • Protect company and customer identity and assets

Pain Points

  • Our work is constant 24/7
  • Needs a smart and trustworthy alert system

Delighters

  • I need to know things are working well – clear visual confirmation.
  • Immediately knowing when – and it WILL come – there is an attack that my team can respond immediately and have all the data we need.
  • Heh, maybe knowing about a potential attack BEFORE it happens would be nice 😉

 

 

 

Solutions used (% of week): Inbox Monitor 20% – Reputation Monitor 10% – Inbox Insight 0% – Email Client Monitor 0% – Inbox Preview 0% – Certification 0% – Domain Assurance 10% – Postmaster Portal 10%

  Eloqua Persona 1 Eloqua Persona 2 Eloqua Persona 3 Eloqua Persona 4 Eloqua Persona 5 Eloqua Persona 6 Eloqua Persona 7
  Max R. Emily S. Olivia F. Drew A. Gary B. Randy S. Angela B.
  VP of Marketing Email Marketing Manager Email Marketing Analyst Deliverability Systems Administrator Operations Manager Dir. Security & Risk Mgmt. Abuse Desk Manager
Inbox Monitor 5% 45%       30%  
Reputation Monitor   5% 20% 10% 40%   50%
Inbox Insight Interested 20% 30% 5% Interested    
Email Client Monitor   2% 20%   20%    
Inbox Preview   8% 30%        
Certification   Interested Interested        
Email Brand Monitor Potential Potential Interested Potential Potential Interested Interested
Domain Secure / Protect       Interested   Interested Interested
Abuse Prevention       Potential   Interested Interested
Productivity         Interested   Interested

So there you have it – how to build Eloqua Personas and some real Eloqua Personas for you to look through!

I will follow up to this with how you can design Eloqua lead nurture programs based on this.

Eloqua Feature: Eloqua form spam protection

Eloqua Feature: Eloqua form spam protection

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