Optimizing Email Volume For Sitewide Engagement

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the problem of optimizing email volume for maximizing sitewide engagement of an online social networking service. Email volume optimization approaches published in the past have proposed optimization of email volume for maximization of engagement metrics which are impacted exclusively by email; for example, the number of sessions that begin with clicks on links within emails. The impact of email on such downstream engagement metrics can be estimated easily because of the ease of attribution of such an engagement event to an email. However, this framework is limited in its view of the ecosystem of the networking service which comprises of several tools and utilities that contribute towards delivering value to members; with email being just one such utility. Thus, in this paper we depart from previous approaches by exploring and optimizing the contribution of email to this ecosystem. In particular, we present and contrast the differential impact of email on sitewide engagement metrics for various types of users. We propose a new email volume optimization approach which maximizes sitewide engagement metrics, such as the total number of active users. This is in sharp contrast to the previous approaches whose objective has been maximization of downstream engagement metrics. We present details of our prediction function for predicting the impact of emails on a user's activeness on the mobile or web application. We describe how certain approximations to this prediction function can be made for solving the volume optimization problem, and present results from online A/B tests.