How do you segment subscribers for these emails?

Segmentation of our subscriber lists are based on a reader’s region [and time zone]. If you live in Hong Kong you’ll be getting the email at a different time than someone living in London. — Eva Scazzero, associate product manager, Quartz

What has been your most engaged or most successful email? How do you measure success? What made this email work?

The most important key performance indicator is the total number of active subscribers we have per newsletter. We measure engagement based on a user’s open rate. We consider those who are consistently engaged with our emails, “active”. This metric comes from a belief that our content is worthy of being opened, and if it’s not we force ourselves to think about how we might improve. — Eva Scazzero, associate product manager, Quartz

Some of the recent Obsessions with high open rates include AIM, Pantone, The nostalgia economy, FICO, Jellyfish, and Concrete. Besides open rates, we look at the qualitative feedback we get from users who are replying to the email, or interacting on Twitter. Some topics provoke more conversation than others (dowsing actually proved a bit contentious) but if I get even one response that says “I didn’t think I was going to be interested in this topic, but I learned some fascinating things” I count that as a successful email. — jessanne collins, Obsession email editor

What are the goals of the Quartz Obsession?

The goal of the Quartz Obsession newsletter is to provide readers with a deep dive into a fascinating corner of the global economy. We dig into phenomenons and surface stories that readers didn’t know they cared about. This happened to me when I read our email about Maple Syrup. — Eva Scazzero, associate product manager, Quartz

What is the hardest part of designing for news? How do you think that it differs from other industries? What are your unique challenges?

I would argue the integrity standards in journalism brings up interesting questions in our design process, more than in other industries. For example, how quickly image credits load may affect the perceived legitimacy of the story.

Strategizing for significant long-term growth while maintaining day-to-day product quality can be challenging. We invest heavily in deepening the loyalty of our existing readers and see value in that. As a product manager I’m aggressive about prioritizing the most urgent user-facing issues first before dealing with the backlog of email improvements.

One practical strategy we use to balance our short-term projects with our longer-term plans is by making space and time for design and editorial teams to meet. This is the best way our products are going to evolve, and we support that by adjusting our email product roadmap based on unanticipated needs or ideas. — Eva Scazzero, associate product manager, Quartz