By 2025, the number of worldwide email subscribers is expected to reach 4.6 billion, an increase of about 600,000 people from 2020’s figure of 4 billion. Furthermore, email has higher click-through rates compared to social media when it comes to digital advertising.

Marketers face a difficult task in breaking through the noise to reach this large, captive audience. View time optimization (VTO) provides a platform for companies to stand out and be seen when customers are actively involved. This article will discuss what VTO is, how it works, and what makes it a game-changer for email marketing. If you want your emails to stand out and your campaign to succeed, keep reading!

What Is View Time Optimization and How Does It Work?

View Time Optimization helps in managing the inbox, increasing relevance, and improving the email experience for consumers through prioritizing email communications that consumers have signed up for and wish to interact with.

The days of studying your open data to discover the “perfect” time to send email campaigns en masse are well behind with VTO. VTO calculates the best time to distribute emails to any inbox, including Gmail, Bing, Yahoo, Verizon.net, AOL, and Netscape Mail, to promote communication between brands, consumers, and prospects. As such, VTO prevents emails from being sent to current subscribers till they are able to access their mailbox. As a result, it shows up as a new message at the top of the screen.

These are the emails that customers would receive on a regular schedule from well-known brands, not advertisements that businesses pay to appear. The email’s content is unchanged, and the sole difference is the moment it is delivered.

How Are Privacy and User Information Handled With View Time Optimization?

View Time Optimization (VTO) does not track users and does not disclose or sell personal information with senders or brands. Nobody keeps track of when people open their inboxes manually, and the information isn’t used for targeted advertisements. Instead, using a simple, automatic queuing system, VTO enables businesses to send authorized emails to AOL Mail and Yahoo Mail subscribers when they open their mailbox. Neither the sender nor the brand has access to such signals or any personal information.

Is View Time Optimization Capable of Assisting Brands With Email Ad Placement?

No, View Time Optimization (VTO) improves the distribution of emails to a company’s subscribers – emails from current email campaigns which would’ve still been sent whether or not VTO was used. Access to users’ inboxes is not sold by VTO, and it does not assist marketers in sending spam or placing adverts. All anti-abuse and anti-spam measures are still in place. Unwanted emails can still be blocked or unsubscribed from. View Time Optimization is about making it easier for the companies (retailers, organizations, and so on) that users have subscribed to reach out to them more efficiently.

According to Verizon, VTO does not allow advertising to follow you directly. Instead, when a person goes into their email account, Verizon servers are notified, and the View Time Optimization tool delivers the ad that the company has already put up. Of course, this isn’t only for businesses who want to send you offers or try to persuade you to buy something.

This feature also looks promising for any company that sends out emails, such as newsletter companies, media outlets, and political campaigns. Verizon also stated that their Terms of Service now prohibit tracking pixels and other intrusive ad technology, implying that firms would be unable to use invasive ad-tech while still having access to View Time Optimization.

What Is the Difference Between View Time Optimization and Send Time Optimization?

Send Time Optimization (STO) is a popular email marketing technique, and View Time Optimization is a play on that. STO is not only utilized by Verizon but also by Mailchimp and a slew of other email marketing companies. It makes use of previously collected data about an email user to determine the optimal time to send them a new message. Send Time Optimization figures out when users are most likely to check their email and uses that information to assist marketers in timing their communications better.

However, platforms that offer View Time Optimization (VTO) monitors when users open their Gmail, Bing, Yahoo or AOL email clients, allowing the email to be delivered only when they are actively engaged with their inbox, removing the speculation from Send Time Optimization. If it appears right away, the research indicates that people are more inclined to open the email.

Senders have historically depended on monitoring the behavior of users to figure out when someone would open their email using STO. STO is designed to provide the sender adequate information to determine the best moment for their emails to be sent. However, STO is confronted with a variety of issues:

1. Timing:  The purpose of STO is to increase the probability of users discovering and engaging with an email despite the ever-increasing and overwhelming amount of data they are flooded with. Unfortunately, Send Time Optimization does not guarantee that an email will be sent when a person is viewing their inbox. As a result, countless STO-delivered campaigns go unnoticed and overlooked.
2. Privacy:  We believe that tracking users is unethical. As such, they’ve taken steps to prohibit it, including making some types of user tracking a breach of their Terms of Service. Although they were among the first prominent email services to do so and were an early adopter, they expect it will turn into a standard in the long run. STO’s effectiveness will be limited as a result, requiring the development of privacy-friendly options for advertisers.

What Are the Advantages of View Time Optimization?

It has never been a better time to improve your email deliverability. You’ll have access to the analytics you need to optimize your image and email performance throughout all mailbox providers, as well as VTO’s innovative technology, which positions your emails in excellent placements in major mailbox providers.

Businesses Email Marketing

This has the potential to revolutionize the game. According to Content Marketing Institute surveys, the average consumer’s inbox is continually flooded with advertising messages. In fact, according to the Institute, commercial email accounts for 87 percent of all emails received, yet because consumers receive so much, they can’t even delete it.

It’s a proven truth that recipients are more likely to open your email when they receive it while they’re actively going through their inbox, putting it front and center in their minds.

Benefits For Consumers

View Time Optimization allows us to cut down on the email noise, reduce non-relevant emails, and deliver an overall better experience for our mutual customers. View Time Optimization helps customers engage with relevant emails they’ve opted into right away, making it easier for them to organize and manage their inboxes.

What Are the Best Possible Ways to Use View Time Optimization?

While VTO may be used for a wide range of email campaigns, we suggest using it for re-engagement and win-back initiatives. Win-back initiatives are designed to reach out to recipients who are becoming less interested and identify the types of messages they’d like to get from you (if any).

You can be confident that the interaction you acquire on your win-back campaign is correct if you make sure your emails are positioned at the top with VTO. If you still don’t generate email engagement from subscribers or recipients after getting top placement, examine your distribution methods for those individuals and consider deleting them from those campaigns or your entire list.

Which Ad Agencies Are Offering View Time Optimization Services?

Since VTO is a relatively new concept, it’s offered by a limited number of firms. Here are a couple of ad agencies offering VTO:

Inbox Mailers 

Inbox Mailers is a tool designed by email marketing pioneers and veterans based on their own and their clients’ experiences with the technology. It was founded in response to the market’s need for technology and a platform to introduce the email marketing sector to companies that utilize email. Business owners, startups, and marketers are the focus of their technologies and distinctive solutions.

Inbox Mailers is a simple solution that uses View Time Optimization. As such, it lets businesses send prompted emails to subscribers while they’re already in their inbox when they’re most inclined to click. The platform is redefining mass mailing by putting a stop to “spray and pray” approaches and making it simple and affordable for marketers to improve their efforts with one-to-one, prompted deliveries.

Validity (Expensive)

Validity is the most well-known player in the field of consumer data quality. Tens of thousands of businesses use Validity’s services to manage data and boost customer engagement. They create cutting-edge tools that provide businesses around the world with high-quality data.

Recently, they’ve teamed up with Verizon Media to provide the next big thing in commercial email to email marketers. As such, customers of Validity for Email will be able to utilize VTO for their marketing campaigns.

Takeaway Points

As customers continue to work from home, they are spending plenty of time on the internet. This includes the surge in email browsing, which means more opportunities for email marketing. However, pushing through the clutter to reach this enormous, captive audience is a difficult undertaking for marketers. VTO gives businesses a chance to stand out and be noticed by their customers.

Throughout this article, we’ve covered what VTO is, how it works, and why it’s a game-changer for email marketing. Understanding the basics of this new feature will help you get the most out of it in your email campaigns!