Markitors

12 Email Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know

In the ever-evolving world of email marketing, twelve industry leaders, including CMOs and founders, share their insights on terms that can make a significant difference in your campaigns. From the strategic use of A/B testing for email success to the importance of email list hygiene practices, this article unveils the less-common email marketing knowledge that can set you apart. Discover why these terms matter and how they can enhance your marketing strategy.

A/B Testing
CAN-SPAM Act
Graymail
Honeypots
Personalization Tokens
List Churn
Parasite Emails
Cost per Mile
Bacn
Permission Marketing
Throttling
Email List Hygiene

A/B Testing

A/B testing, or split testing, is becoming a less-used and more obscure email marketing term, given the rise and incorporation of AI, but I believe it’s one more marketers need to know and utilize.

It’s a vital tool for improving and optimizing your email marketing results. Whether you’re testing list segmentation responsiveness, subject line strength, or click-through button text, it’s an excellent tool to test the strength of arguably every part of your email marketing strategy and increase your chances of success.

Robert Foney
CMO, Healthmetryx , Inc.

CAN-SPAM Act

The CAN-SPAM Act is a less commonly known yet vital piece of legislation for every marketer to understand. Standing for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act,” this U.S. law sets rules for commercial emails, establishing requirements for commercial messages and giving recipients the right to stop any emails from being sent to them.

Understanding this law isn’t just about legal compliance; it’s about respect for your audience’s boundaries and earning their trust. Ignorance of CAN-SPAM can lead to costly fines, but more importantly, it can damage your brand’s reputation.

Understanding CAN-SPAM also allows for more effective email marketing strategies. The law requires all commercial emails to include a clear and noticeable unsubscribe link, allowing recipients to easily opt out of future emails. By giving your audience this choice, you are showing respect for their time and preferences, resulting in a more engaged and loyal subscriber base.

Tristan Harris
Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency

Graymail

One less common email marketing term that warrants more attention is graymail. Not to be confused with spam, graymail refers to legitimate emails that a recipient has opted to receive but doesn’t engage with, either due to lack of interest or overwhelming volume. Graymail can hurt a campaign’s overall performance metrics and deliverability because email providers may begin to categorize these messages as low-value or spammy.

By monitoring and managing graymail, marketers can improve their email performance and ensure their content reaches the inboxes of engaged and interested recipients.

Justin Cole
President and SEO Strategist, Tested Media

Honeypots

A term not many email marketers talk about, but should know, is honeypot. Think of it like a decoy email address that anti-spam groups set up. When a spammer finds and emails this address, they get tagged as a spammer. This is important because if you’re not careful about where you get your email addresses from, you could be at risk. Maybe you got a fake email from a bot, swapped lists with someone, or grabbed emails from websites. That’s where you might accidentally hit a honeypot.

Though honeypots are mainly for catching spammers, they can be used for other stuff too. Sometimes they’re old email accounts that aren’t active anymore. If a spammer sends to these, they get flagged. But honeypots aren’t all about trapping bad guys. They can actually help with security. They’re like lookouts, spotting troublemakers on networks.

Honeypots give email marketers information they can use and act like an early alert system. They come in various types, all aiming to spot and stop problems before your network or systems get hit.

Alan Redondo
Founder, Ardoz Digital

Personalization Tokens

From my perspective, personalization tokens are a lesser-known email marketing term that deserves more attention. These are dynamic placeholders in emails that automatically insert individualized information, like the recipient’s name or location.

Personalization tokens make emails feel more tailored and engaging. Marketers should use them creatively to boost open rates and click-through rates. When subscribers see their name in the subject line or content, it grabs their attention, fostering a sense of connection and relevance.

Danielle Roberts
Co Founder, Boomer Benefits

List Churn

We send emails (as newsletters) to our audience, and the less-common term that most marketers don’t know is List Churn. List churn measures the rate at which subscribers join and leave your email list over time.

This term is important because it highlights the need to maintain a healthy email list by continually adding engaged subscribers and removing inactive or disinterested ones. High list churn can negatively impact email engagement and deliverability.

Bhavik Sarkhedi
Growth Head and CMO, Content Whale

Parasite Emails

I have been using this term as it relates to parasite SEO. It is when a business pays another, larger company with a bigger subscriber list to include them as part of their email campaign. Normally, you would go with a similar industry so that the business’s offering fits the rest of the email content they are sending.

Jeff Michael
Ecommerce Business Owner, Supplement Warehouse

Cost per Mile

Cost per Mile (CPM) doesn’t involve the expense of transporting goods or people over a distance—well, not in the email marketing realm, at least. Here, the term refers to the cost of sending a thousand emails. Or, in marketing generally, it stands for the cost of one thousand impressions or views of a particular advertisement.

CPM empowers email marketers to evaluate the cost efficiency of their campaigns on a per-thousand-email basis, providing insights into the overall cost structure. This, in turn, enhances the precision of budget planning and cost estimation, helping allocate resources in a well-informed way.

Moreover, CPM can also be useful for comparing the cost of email campaigns with other advertising channels that use CPM as a pricing model. And these are good reasons for email marketers to know the term and use it as a metric in evaluating their campaigns.

Nina Paczka
Community Manager, Resume Now

Bacn

Bacn (pronounced like “bacon”) is a less common but important email marketing term. It refers to non-spam emails that, while not entirely unsolicited, can flood a user’s inbox. The term highlights the challenge of finding the right balance between email frequency and relevance.

Marketers need to understand that such emails are often the result of user interactions with websites, subscriptions, or services. It’s crucial for marketers to focus on delivering content that is not only expected but also relevant and valuable to enhance engagement and prevent irritation among recipients.

By recognizing and addressing Bacn, marketers can refine their strategies, improve audience segmentation, and ensure their emails are seen as welcome content in inboxes, thus building positive relationships and boosting email engagement and deliverability.

Brad Filliponi
Co-Founder, BoxBrownie.com

Permission Marketing

The term permission marketing is one that more marketers need to know.

I’ve seen a lot of other terms like “inbound marketing,” “content marketing,” and “social media marketing.” Those are all great terms, but they aren’t the ones that can help you get more conversions out of your email campaigns.

While those other types of marketing might be great for getting more people to your website or social media pages, they don’t necessarily help you convert those visitors into paying customers.

Permission marketing is different because it focuses on giving people who have already expressed interest in your product something they want—and then asking them if they want more.

Looking to increase engagement with your email campaigns? I recommend using permission marketing. It’s easier than ever today because there are so many tools available that make it easy for anyone to set up their own permission-based email list with little effort and even less cost!

Mac Steer
Owner and Director, Simify

Throttling

Throttling is a term in email marketing that’s really important for all email marketers to understand. It’s when you send out emails in large batches, not all at once. This helps ensure more emails actually reach people.

When I use throttling, I send emails in groups over time. This way, it doesn’t overwhelm email servers, and it reduces the chance of emails being marked as spam. It’s important because it helps make sure more people actually see our emails. Sending too many emails at once can cause problems, like bouncing back or getting blocked.

By spreading out the sending, we can monitor how well the emails are performing and make adjustments if needed. This strategy really helps improve the chances of our emails being read, which is key in email marketing.

Precious Abacan
Marketing Director, Softlist

Email List Hygiene

Email List Hygiene is a less common but crucial term in email marketing. It refers to regularly cleaning and maintaining your email subscriber list by removing invalid or disengaged addresses. This practice is vital for several reasons.

Keeping a clean list enhances your sender reputation and ensures your emails reach the inbox.

Removing inactive contacts saves money on email marketing services. Cleaning your list leads to higher engagement and open rates as you target a more responsive audience, and it also helps meet GDPR and CAN-SPAM Act requirements by respecting user preferences.

Remember, clean lists provide accurate data for better targeting and content relevance.

Lenna Zitter
Founder, Magellanic Digital

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email marketing email tips

How Email Marketing Can Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Twelve industry leaders, from founders to CEOs, have shared their exclusive tips on using email marketing to drive blog traffic. From curating weekly roundup emails to gaining insights from competitors’ emails, discover a spectrum of proven strategies that can transform your email campaigns into traffic-generating machines.

Curate Weekly Roundup Emails
Leverage Trending Topics
Intrigue with Teaser Snippets
Segment Audience for Festive Promos
Craft Relevant Conversational Emails
Share Unique Content Snippets
Feature Blog Content with Direct Links
Optimize Newsletter Timing
Engage with Email Series
Offer Helpful Advice, Avoid Sales Pitches
Personalize for Clear Email Messages
Gain Insights from Competitors’ Emails

Curate Weekly Roundup Emails

One highly effective email marketing strategy I’ve used for my personal finance blog is to send a weekly roundup email that summarizes and links to my best content from the past week.

The key is to make the email valuable to subscribers by curating only my most useful articles and insights. I craft attention-grabbing yet informative subject lines to get readers to open the email. Within the email, I include 3-5 brief summaries of blog posts, each with an eye-catching title and 1-2 sentences summarizing the key takeaways.

This works well because it provides readers with a convenient way to catch up on my latest content in one place. According to my email metrics, the weekly roundup has one of the highest open and click-through rates of any email I send. Many readers have told me they look forward to receiving it in their inbox each week. This email strategy has been a core part of growing my audience and traffic over the past year.

Brian Meiggs
Founder, My Millennial Guide

Leverage Trending Topics

Capitalizing on trending topics related to your niche is an effective strategy. For instance, if you run a tech blog and there’s a buzz about the latest iPhone, writing a comprehensive review or a related article and promoting it in your newsletter can be beneficial.

This strategy works because people are actively searching for that topic, and when they see an email related to it, they’re more likely to click through to read. I’ve used this tactic many times, and it consistently drives high traffic to my blog. The key here is relevance—your topic must resonate with your audience’s current interests.

David Rubie-Todd
Co-Founder and Marketing Head, Sticker It

Intrigue with Teaser Snippets

One effective tactic I use is including “teaser” snippets of my latest blog content in email newsletters. For example, I’ll take an interesting excerpt from a new post—two to three sentences maximum—and feature it in a prominent callout box. This piques readers’ interest without giving everything away.

I’ll include a strong CTA, like “Finish reading this post on our blog,” with a link to drive clicks to the full article. Segmenting my list allows me to tailor content previews to subscriber interests for higher engagement. Using this teaser copy in dedicated blog promo emails, as well as in my regular newsletters, boosts traffic.

Over time, I’ve discovered my most compelling hook sentences that spur readers to click through. This strategy has become a reliable channel for driving newsletter subscribers to visit and share my blog posts. Dialing in on intriguing content previews helps turn email followers into blog readers.

Vikrant Shaurya
CEO, Authors On Mission

Segment Audience for Festive Promos

At Connect Vending, we use audience segmentation to share curated, conversational, and bite-sized information through email marketing for maximum impact. The goal is to impress the reader adequately and encourage them to find more information about the topic with a clear CTA that takes them to the blog.

For example, as the festive season sets in, we initiate email campaigns giving a sneak peek into the best snacks and drinks to add to the workplace and invite readers to view our top picks on our website blogs. This approach has helped us build sustained interest in many festival season offerings and products.

Sam Roberts
Digital Marketing Manager, Connect Vending

Craft Relevant Conversational Emails

Emails and newsletters are an essential part of my content distribution strategy. I have seen the most engaged traffic coming to the blog via email. Therefore, when planning the content schedule and topics, I keep relevance at the top of my mind. This way, I can discuss these topics in the email content and make it conversational, not forced.

When creating blog content, I ensure that some of the blog articles are in-depth, comprehensive, and evergreen. I can redirect traffic to these blog posts even months or years after publishing. The frequent visitors of the blog can use these as guides, and new users are immediately directed to the most popular and insightful posts.

Another part of the blog content is extremely timely—must-read at that point. Users know to expect these types of posts and look forward to the emails to read the latest ones.

Merilyn Uudmae
Content Manager, Teamdash

Share Unique Content Snippets

Whenever I publish a new blog post, I send a short snippet to my email subscribers. In this snippet, I tell them what we’re discussing in our article, how our article is unique, and what they can take away from it. Think of it as a 50-word blog post.

This plays out in two ways: The reader either wants to learn more, so they view our full blog post, or they read our email snippet, gain some knowledge from it, and we build a reputation in the reader’s mind as an authority.

This only works if the content you’re publishing is truly unique and helpful, but personally, I drove over 5,000 unique visitors to my blog with this email marketing approach.

Scott Lieberman
Owner, Touchdown Money

Feature Blog Content with Direct Links

Highlighting blog content can be a powerful way to drive traffic to our blog via email marketing. We try to regularly feature our blog content in our emails by using teasers or summaries to pique interest and include prominent links that direct readers to the full blog posts on our website. Direct links are key, as they encourage our customers to click on them and explore.

Adding social sharing buttons in the emails makes it easy for subscribers to share our blog content on their social networks. This extends the reach of our blog beyond our email list, which means more eyes on your content.

Renan Ferreira
Head of Communications and Director of Sales, RealCraft

Optimize Newsletter Timing

Sending newsletters at the right time is very important in email marketing and is key to effectively driving traffic to your blog. I’ve learned that when and how often you send emails really matters for your newsletter’s success. You don’t want to fill up your subscribers’ inboxes too much—they’re already busy. If you send too many newsletters, people might start unsubscribing fast.

With the “right timing,” ‌sending emails between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. usually gets the most people opening them. But the best time can be different for different audiences. So, I recommend monitoring how your newsletter is doing. This means checking when people open your emails and click on links in them.

Keep track of these rates and adjust your sending times as your audience gets bigger. This helps make sure more people are reading and clicking even as you get more subscribers.

Alan Redondo
Founder, Ardoz Digital

Engage with Email Series

Break up your emails into different parts or series, each with different information. The first part can be a quick introduction to the blog; the second can detail what they will gain from the blog; the third part can explain why they should read it; and so on. Three to four parts should be sufficient.

This strategy has worked wonderfully for us in increasing the number of visitors to our blogs. Customers might ignore a standalone email, but with a series of emails, there’s a higher chance they’ll open them to see what they’re about. Sending each email at a certain interval ensures they’re not forgotten. Just make sure the title is intriguing and generates curiosity about what they will receive and why, so they know it’s to their benefit, and include the link to the blog.

Ravi Sharma
Founder and CEO, Webomaze

Offer Helpful Advice, Avoid Sales Pitches

When sending emails, provide helpful advice and avoid focusing on sales pitches. On your blog, share DIY tips and a wealth of information about your niche to attract traffic. Optimize your blog content for SEO to attract more traffic, shares, reposts, and backlinks.

Tammy Sons
CEO, TN Nursery

Personalize for Clear Email Messages

My pro tip for effective email marketing is to ensure the clarity of the message within a personalized framework.

We must understand that our customers have limited time, so our message should be concise and impactful. In reinventing our partners’ email campaigns, we blend interactive elements, such as countdowns, with brand-aligned graphic designs, ensuring responsiveness across various platforms.

We have also integrated multilingual adaptations, respecting language variations, including reading directions, characters, and more. This strategy has proven itself by providing a more personal experience, engaging customers in their next discovery on our partners’ websites.

Gabriel Kaam
CEO, KNR Agency

Gain Insights from Competitors’ Emails

Subscribing to your competitors’ emails is a specific tip for using email marketing to drive traffic to your blog. At TechNews, this strategy has provided incredible insights. By tracking their topics, frequency, automation strategies, and other features, you get a clear picture of what works in your industry. It’s akin to being a friendly spy, allowing you to see firsthand what engages their audience and then adapt those strategies to fit your unique style and content.

This approach has proven quite successful. Observing our competitors has allowed us to refine our email content, making it more relevant and engaging. We’ve adjusted our sending frequency based on what resonates with similar audiences, which has increased our email open rates and significantly boosted traffic to our blog. It’s a simple yet effective way to stay competitive and ensure your email marketing is as effective as possible.

Neil Hodgson-Coyle
COO, TechNews180

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email marketing

9 Email Marketing Trend Predictions for 2024

As we look towards the future of email marketing, we’ve gathered nine unique trend predictions from top industry professionals, including Chief Marketing Officers and Content Marketing Managers. From the rise of interactive elements in content to the advent of optimized email timing with smart tools, discover what these experts anticipate for the email marketing landscape in 2024.

Interactive Elements in Content
Return to Connections and Referrals
Community-Oriented Content
Death of Traditional Newsletters
AI Adoption in Email Marketing
Need for Laser-Targeted Content
AI-Driven Churn Prevention
Multi-Faceted Hyper-Personalization
Optimized Email Timing with Smart Tools

Interactive Elements in Content

In the 2024 email marketing landscape, a key trend is the integration of interactive elements into visual content, enabling brands to captivate audiences with engaging narratives. This strategic shift involves incorporating features such as clickable images, responsive sliders, and embedded videos for a dynamic and immersive experience.

Beyond enhancing user engagement, it fosters a personalized communication channel, providing valuable insights into user preferences. The trend’s adaptability across devices ensures a consistent and compelling user experience, empowering brands to convey messages effectively, strengthen customer relationships, and stay ahead in the evolving digital landscape through innovative email strategies.

Matt Gehring
Chief Marketing Officer, Dutch

Return to Connections and Referrals

With markets more saturated and buyers more discerning, I anticipate many moving away from the digital and social channels that worked so well in 2020, 2021, and 2022. 2023 has seen a leveling out of the market, with buyers slower to purchase. This requires a deeper level of differentiation, and recommendations from people you trust are hard to beat.

Annelise Worn
Business and Marketing Strategist, Annelise Worn

Community-Oriented Content

I think the trend that will take over email marketing is implementing more “Reddit-esque” content within every email. That means more questions and answers from the community, more individual stories, and more community building.

Rather than emails being a one-sided conversation, marketers will lean into the fact that people want to feel like they’re part of something bigger and find new ways to engage with their audience. Consumers no longer want to feel like they are being sold to; they want authentic interactions. As more businesses move towards AI, that level of authenticity and trust will drop.

But if you’re the business putting yourself out there as a group of actual humans with real experience, you’re going to set yourself apart from everyone else out there on the internet.

Garrett Carlson
Content Marketing Manager, The Loop Marketing

Death of Traditional Newsletters

The classic weekly or monthly newsletter that covers it all will continue to disappear. Email marketing will adopt trends we see across the industry, including hyper-personalization, individualization, and accelerated speed. Modern newsletters are the trigger for further 1:1 exchange. This means a marketing email must convey exactly one thought. Nothing more. And it needs to happen when it’s hot.

The word “newsletter” implies the news character of the content. The wait for five topics to cover in a weekly or monthly update contradicts this approach. As a result, modern email marketing will increase in frequency but decrease in content length.

Further, the website is no longer the primary click target. It’s much more effective and meaningful if a subscriber hits the “reply” button to start a conversation. Email marketing needs to be humanized and meet people’s media consumption behavior. Short, fast, and to the point—with a chance to interact personally.

Stephan Wenger
Founder and Editor, B2B Marketing World

AI Adoption in Leveraging User Data

In 2024, we foresee a unique trend that will revolutionize email marketing: the widespread adoption of AI.

While artificial intelligence has made its mark across various marketing channels, its impact on email marketing is set to be truly transformative. AI-powered algorithms will enable marketers to personalize email content at an unprecedented level, leveraging user data to deliver hyper-relevant messages and product recommendations. Predictive analytics will help refine send times, subject lines, and email design, leading to higher open rates and engagement.

AI-driven chatbots integrated into emails will enable real-time interactions and customer support. With AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data and adapt to individual preferences, email marketing will become more intuitive and effective than ever, making it the standout channel for AI-driven marketing strategies in 2024.

Sean Chaudhary
CEO, Alchemy Leads

Need for Laser-Targeted Content

The typical workday has become one of constant interruptions, especially as remote workers may feel the need to prove their productivity. This constant chirping of incoming emails, Slack/Teams updates, Zoom meetings, and more means the battle for attention is only getting more challenging.

This is not to say that email marketing is less effective, just that any offer or insight you send along better be laser-targeted, communicate value in 1-3 seconds, and not be about you or your product. Timing is everything.

Mike Teeling
Content Marketing Strategist

AI-Driven Churn Prevention

My bet is on hyper-personalization through AI in email marketing in 2024. We’ve seen AI work wonders, especially generative AI tools, with tasks like list segmentation and personalized emails, but I think it will be used more extensively in 2024. Imagine emails that predict future needs based on past purchases.

Moreover, AI will be an enormous factor in churn prevention. It won’t just identify at-risk customers; it’ll craft hyper-targeted emails, almost like a personal offering, to re-engage them. It will also optimize campaigns—not just for devices and screens, but for individual preferences. It’s not just about responsive design; it’s about responsive content. Get ready for emails so tailored, it’s like they were handpicked just for you. This is how AI is going to change email marketing.

Swapnil Kumar
Growth and Marketing Manager, Smartlead

Multi-Faceted Hyper-Personalization

In 2024, I foresee a significant shift towards hyper-personalization in email marketing. Companies and marketers will leverage advanced AI and machine-learning technologies to craft highly individualized content tailored to each subscriber.

Moreover, interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and shoppable features directly within emails will be integrated to boost user engagement. However, with growing concerns about privacy, it’s crucial to prioritize compliance with data protection regulations and establish trust with subscribers. Additionally, the seamless integration of video content within emails will emerge as a powerful tool for storytelling and product showcasing, fundamentally transforming how we connect with our audience.

Overall, 2024 is poised to be an exciting year for email marketing, where ingenuity, personalization, and adherence to regulations will be the keys to campaign success.

Kelley Bridenbaugh
Marketing Manager, Karma Water

Optimized Email Timing with Smart Tools

In 2024, using smart-tools to choose when to send emails will be a big deal in email marketing. These tools will look closely at when people like to read their emails. Then, they’ll send emails at the best times for each group of readers. This way, people get emails right when they are ready to read them, which means they’ll probably pay more attention to what we send.

Marco Genaro Palma
Content Marketing Manager, PRLab

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7 Things You Didn’t Know Email Marketing Automation Could Do for You

To shed light on the unexpected benefits of email marketing automation, we’ve gathered insights from seven industry professionals, including CEOs and Digital Marketing Managers. From the enhancement of communication through sentiment analysis to the improvement of conversions with a “warm leads” list, discover the surprising capabilities of email marketing automation.

Effective Tagging Helps Segment Subscribers
Sentiment Analysis Enhances Communication
Personalization Boosts Engagement and Conversions
Monitoring Customer Preferences Increases Sales
Reminders Reduce Cart Abandonment
Cross-Selling Campaigns Skyrocket Profits
“Warm Leads” List Improves Conversions

Effective Tagging Helps Segment Subscribers

I discovered how to use “tags” to exclude some subscribers from certain messaging, which made my email campaigns much more effective and easier to keep track of. Before implementing tags, there were a few times where I sent new subscribers random broadcasts that weren’t very relevant to them, likely resulting in a few unsubscribes.

Now, I automatejust tagging subscribers after they’ve completed the welcome sequence, and I only send new broadcasts to the segment of people who’ve completed the entire sequence. I understand the annoyance of receiving too many emails from the same sender, especially with no real context, so I was pleased to see how easy it was to set up the automation.

Chloe Brittain
Creator, Monday Roadmap

Sentiment Analysis Enhances Communication

Adding sentiment analysis to our email marketing and editing tools has enhanced our interaction with our audience. It helps us understand the nuances of their responses to better tailor the follow-up messages. In this way, we do our part in bridging the gap between automated efficiency and mindful communication, and elevate our members’ online experience.

Nataly Abousaleh, Marketing Manager

Personalization Boosts Engagement and Conversions

One aspect of email marketing automation that I initially underestimated was its potential for personalization. When I incorporated email marketing automation into our strategies at CodeDesign, I discovered how remarkably it could enhance personalization and its subsequent impact.

Email marketing automation allowed us to segment our audience based on their behavior, interests, and demographics. This enabled us to send highly targeted and relevant content to each segment. The result was a substantial increase in engagement, click-through rates, and ultimately, conversions. By tailoring our messages to individual preferences and behaviors, we achieved a level of personalization that significantly boosted the effectiveness of our email marketing campaigns.

The power of email marketing automation in personalization cannot be overstated. It has not only improved our campaign performance but also fostered stronger customer relationships and loyalty.

Bruno Gavino
Founder, CEO, CodeDesign

Monitoring Customer Preferences Increases Sales

I didn’t know email-marketing automation could monitor what products my customers are most attracted to. When I did this, I found out that these same customers who opened my “Tech Gadgets” emails clicked more smartphone-related links than others.

Therefore, I began writing more letters on smartphones, and my sales for these products really grew. Understanding more about a customer’s preferences enabled me to tailor my emails towards each interest and resulted in more sales of certain products, which made my marketing strategy efficient.

Fahad Khan
Digital Marketing Manager, Ubuy India

Reminders Reduce Cart Abandonment

It’s no secret that most people who visit your website for the first time buy nothing. AI can help you get more people to your site with keyword analysis, but that doesn’t help with conversion rates. I had much more trouble with the fact that 80% of customers almost bought something.

Customers go as far as putting things in the shopping cart but don’t complete the checkout process. AI can track user activity on your website to see what customers browsed, what they bought, what they put in the shopping cart, and what they abandoned. Leverage this data by setting up a clever email campaign for cart abandoners! AI will send out an automated email reminding them to complete the purchase.

Research shows a single email can boost conversion by 10%, and three reminders can boost those numbers by 79%!

Brandon Rubinshtein
Founder, Howdy

Cross-Selling Campaigns Skyrocket Profits

We were not using email marketing automation for cross-sell campaigns. Our entire focus was on lead nurturing and win-back campaigns. Cross-selling skyrocketed our profits and retention rates.

We could use the emails to let our customers know about our other services and products. Although we had to spend some time on data analysis, it was worth it. It allowed us to personalize content for cross-sell campaigns based on customer preferences.

Perry Zheng
Founder and CEO, Pallas

“Warm Leads” List Improves Conversions

Before delving deep into email marketing automation, I wasn’t aware that I could efficiently segment and nurture my audience by automatically placing them in a “warm leads” list.

This feature was transformative. Instead of manually sifting through subscribers, automation did the heavy lifting, ensuring those showing purchase intent were appropriately engaged.

This not only streamlined our communication efforts but also enhanced the user experience, leading to a noticeable uptick in conversions. For budding entrepreneurs, harnessing such subtle yet impactful tools can significantly elevate your marketing game.

The text provided did not contain any email-like introductions or sign-offs, so no changes were necessary.

Tobias Liebsch
Co-Founder, Fintalent.io

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email marketing email tips

10 Dos and Don’ts When Sending a Mass Email

To help you master the art of mass email campaigns, we’ve gathered ten invaluable tips from top industry professionals, including Email Marketers and Marketing Managers. From taking a comprehensive approach to email campaigns to optimizing for mobile and limiting media content, discover the dos and don’ts of mass email marketing from those in the know.

Take a Comprehensive Approach to Email Campaigns
Check Links Before Sending
Enhance Engagement with Exclusion Lists
Avoid False Personalization in Emails
Prioritize Targeted Email Campaigns
Obtain Consent
Implement Segmentation and Clear CTAs
Monitor KPIs, Avoid Complex Emails
Personalize Based on Behavior and Test Emails
Optimize for Mobile, Limit Media Content

Take a Comprehensive Approach to Email Campaigns

Ensure that you are emailing contacts who have given their consent. Personalize the email as much as you can because no one, including me, likes generic, template-like emails.

Conduct proper testing before sending any campaigns. This includes testing the links, spelling, images, subject line, and contact list, among other elements. Always include the unsubscribe/opt-out option in your email.

As for a “don’t,” avoid emailing a large list all at once, as it may increase bounce rates. Instead, segment the audience into multiple lists or use the email marketing tool’s option to split and send. Refrain from spamming users by sending too many emails, as it might affect your domain’s reputation.

Don’t only optimize the email for desktop; always check responsiveness before sending out an email. If the domain is new, don’t start campaigns before fully setting up the domain. This includes domain verification and domain warm-up.

Sreejith Sreekumar
Email Marketer, Changing Tree

Check Links Before Sending

Always—and I really mean always—check if all the links in the email are functioning as they should. I’ve learned this the hard way, with some of my biggest mistakes stemming from unchecked or broken links. Nothing diminishes the impact of a well-drafted email more than a link leading nowhere or, worse, somewhere unintended.

So, before you hit send, take a few moments to double-check those links. I usually send myself a test email and open each link in incognito mode to double-check.

Madhav Bhandari
Head of Marketing, Early Stage Marketing

Enhance Engagement with Exclusion Lists

A consistent practice that I keep at the forefront of all my marketing email campaigns is utilizing exclusion lists. Exclusion lists can be composed of contacts who have recently opened an email, emails that have bounced, etc. By implementing exclusion lists in all email sends, this enhances email engagement and metrics, while also not bombarding your database with too many emails.

Jon Wilson
Marketing Manager, RumbleOn

Avoid False Personalization in Emails

One key “don’t” for sending a mass email campaign—and this bugs me so much, let alone how the recipient must feel when receiving the email—is to avoid being overly enthusiastic and attempting to create a false sense of personalization. Trying too hard to make a mass email seem like a one-on-one conversation can come across as inauthentic and cringe-worthy to recipients. I shiver just thinking about these types of emails!

It’s important to be transparent about the fact that it’s a mass email while still crafting it in a way that feels relevant and valuable to the entire audience. Authenticity in your messaging is crucial for building trust and engagement with your subscribers.

Tim Woda
Founder, White Peak

Prioritize Targeted Email Campaigns

One major “don’t” for sending mass email campaigns is not having targeted campaigns. As a digital marketing agency, when taking over new clients’ email marketing campaigns, we have observed many of the pitfalls inexperienced marketers can fall into.

Many inexperienced marketers prioritize numbers over engagement. In pursuit of a larger reach, they often overlook the importance of precise targeting, a potentially detrimental practice. Such an approach can lead to dire consequences, including email domain blacklisting, as users will mark your emails as spam, elevated bounce rates, and a damaging blow to your company’s reputation. In the long term, ineffectively targeted emails often end up in recipients’ spam folders, reducing your visibility and trustworthiness.

Email marketing campaigns, like any marketing campaign, should be properly targeted to ensure your content is reaching the right people. This, in turn, amplifies engagement and elevates the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Jordan Bridge
Digital Marketing Executive and Cyber Security Officer, Growthlabs

Obtain Consent

Email marketing is a robust and cost-effective strategy for businesses to communicate with their audience. But to do so successfully, you must consider these crucial do’s and don’ts.

One of the fundamental principles of email marketing is the segmentation of your email list. Avoid sending mass emails to your entire database without considering the diverse interests and preferences of your subscribers.

Never send emails to individuals who haven’t opted in or provided explicit consent to receive messages from you. This not only damages your brand’s reputation, but it can also have legal implications.

Swapnil Kumar
Growth and Marketing Manager, Smartlead

Implement Segmentation and Clear CTAs

Implement segmentation in your email campaigns to ensure that the content applies to the different segments of your audience. This will likely enhance engagement and conversion rates.

Never neglect to include a clear and compelling call to action (CTA) in your emails. A CTA guides recipients on the next steps, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or another desired action, thereby increasing the chances of achieving the campaign’s objectives.

Chris Stott
Director, Seven Marketing

Monitor KPIs, Avoid Complex Emails

To run a successful mass email campaign, monitor key insights and metrics. Track and analyze crucial KPIs like opens, conversions, and click-through rates. These insights help you make critical decisions about what you can improve and what to do next.

But don’t add complex code or video in the email body. Emails work best when they’re simple. Avoid complex code or videos directly in emails; they might not work well for everyone. Instead, keep it clean. If there’s a great video, show a picture and link to it. Simple emails get more clicks and keep inboxes happy.

Ajay Prasad
Founder and President, GMR Web Team

Personalize Based on Behavior and Test Emails

In my experience with mass-email campaigns, it’s crucial to segment and personalize emails based on the recipient’s preferences and behavior. This ensures that the content is relevant and also helps to increase engagement.

Before hitting the send button, I always make it a point to test the email for any errors, broken links, or formatting issues. The subject line needs to be compelling to boost open rates. Besides that, it’s essential never to send out mass emails without an easy-to-find unsubscribe option. Not only is this a best practice, but it’s also legally mandated in many places. Of course, do not overwhelm recipients with too many emails, which can lead to annoyance and increased unsubscribe rates.

Oksana Sydorchuk
Marketing Manager, Right People Group

Optimize for Mobile, Limit Media Content

Optimize emails for mobile devices because many people regularly check their mobile inboxes. Keep the subject line short (three to five words). Plus, ensure the email is concise and easily readable on small screens.

Make sure to avoid overwhelming your audience with images and media content. They can increase the chances of hitting the spam box. It’s better to stick to classical text mail for sending mass emails.

Shivbhadrasinh Gohil
CMO and Co-Founder, Meetanshi

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Cyber Monday Email Frenzy: How to Stand Out Amongst the Rest

To help your Cyber Monday promotions stand out, we’ve gathered eight top-notch email marketing tips from industry leaders, including CEOs and directors. From embracing email marketing fundamentals to standing out by being a helpful resource, these insights will give you the edge you need in the competitive Cyber Monday landscape.

Embrace Email Marketing Fundamentals
Craft Magnetic Subject Lines
Offer Unique Deals and Regular Updates
Employ Advanced Segmentation Techniques
Maximize Impact with Personalization and Urgency
Design for Quick and Effective Communication
Adopt a Contrarian Approach
Stand Out by Being a Helpful Resource

Embrace Email Marketing Fundamentals

It truly comes down to fundamentals.

Cyber Monday should not be when you send your first email campaign. Instead, ensure you communicate regularly with your email audiences well before a critical event. Beforehand, know what your audiences like, what motivates them, and what they want to know from you.

Getting someone to open an email is crucial. At Pinnacle, we leverage a few email tools (like Litmus) to help us identify best practices to stand out in the sea of subject lines.

Make sure the email pays off the effort of your audience engaging with you. Educate them, give them something special, or offer up a promotion. However, make sure you showcase value, energy, and connection. You want your audience to come back.

With every other brand trying to capitalize on a trending day, ask yourself: am I providing value or just adding to the volume?

Amy Cantwell
Vice President of Media Strategy and Owned Media, Pinnacle Advertising

Craft Magnetic Subject Lines

With Cyber Monday email marketing, your subject line is your secret weapon. Craft attention-grabbing subject lines that create a sense of urgency and excitement. Use words like “exclusive,” “limited time,” or “one-day-only” to convey the urgency of the Cyber Monday deal.

Include personalized touches, like the recipient’s name, to make it feel tailored.

We sent emails with subject lines like “Your Exclusive Cyber Monday Deal, [Recipient’s Name]!” This small change led to a 40% increase in email open rates and a 25% boost in conversion rates. Remember, the subject line is the gateway to your offer, so make it magnetic.

Himanshu Sharma
CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Offer Unique Deals and Regular Updates

My best tip to stand out amongst the rest for Cyber Monday specifically, is to offer something unique—a separate promotion from Black Friday is key in getting and keeping your audience’s attention. Use a catchy subject line, and then make it as easy as possible for your customers to get the deal!

Also, it’s always a great idea to send two (or three, if you’re also using SMS) separate communications: one in the morning introducing the offer, and one in the afternoon or evening with “last chance” messaging!

Andrea Pohlmann
Lead Strategist

Employ Advanced Segmentation Techniques

Absolutely, my top recommendation for excelling in email marketing during Cyber Monday promotions is to employ advanced segmentation techniques. Segment your email list based on past purchasing behavior, product interest, or engagement level.

This allows you to deliver highly targeted and relevant offers to each subgroup, increasing the likelihood of conversions. By doing so, you differentiate your brand in a crowded market, providing a personalized experience that stands out and drives results.

Chris Stott
Director, Seven Marketing

Maximize Impact with Personalization and Urgency

The best way to maximize your Cyber Monday impact is by using personalized and urgent email marketing strategies. Address clients by providing personalized subject lines and names, add exclusive offers on your services or products, and include a countdown timer for urgency. Create memorable messages to ensure your promotions stand out effectively.

By following this tip, you can capture attention and drive conversions, making your Cyber Monday emails unforgettable and leading to increased engagement and sales.

Ajay Prasad
Founder and President, GMR Web Team

Design for Quick and Effective Communication

Time is of the essence during these big sale days. People are flooded with emails and only have a minute or two to glance at each. So, apart from a catchy subject line that conveys something that benefits them, ensure your email design is visually appealing and highlights the key points straightaway.

Consider using bold fonts for the offer details and a clear call-to-action. A simple “Shop Now” button with a link to your Cyber Monday deals page can be very effective. Remember, the goal is to convey the maximum information in the minimum time!

David Rubie-Todd
Co-Founder and Marketing Head, Sticker It

Adopt a Contrarian Approach

To distinguish your email marketing efforts during competitive times, consider adopting a contrarian approach that challenges conventional wisdom. For instance, you could launch an email campaign titled “What Not to Buy on Cyber Monday,” discussing why the perceived savings may not justify the urgency.

Follow this by highlighting how your specific offer provides customers with substantial savings without the pressure. This unique angle not only captures attention but also positions your brand as a thoughtful alternative in a crowded marketplace.

Jason Vaught
Director of Content, SmashBrand

Stand Out by Being a Helpful Resource

Be different. Throw the guidebooks out the window and start fresh. Focus on finding something relevant to your industry that is useful and helpful to your customers, and send that. Don’t just blast special promotions; be a resource. The idea is for them to pay attention and keep you in mind.

Christopher Olson
CFO, Surfside Services

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6 Giving Tuesday Email Strategies that Actually Worked

To help you maximize your “Giving Tuesday” email strategy, we asked six experienced CEOs, founders, and marketing managers to share their most successful tactics. From promoting a unified nonprofit message to leveraging nostalgia and data, discover the top six strategies that have proven to boost donations and engagement in the past.

Promote a Unified Nonprofit Message
Boost Donations with Authentic Storytelling
Run a Personalized Matching Challenge
Use the “Impact Story” Strategy
Recognize Donors with a Roll Call
Leverage Nostalgia and Data

Promote a Unified Nonprofit Message

At Share Detroit, our mission is to support the missions of over 360 nonprofits in our area. During Giving Tuesday and throughout the holiday season, we do this by creating content and messaging that all Detroit area nonprofits can use to promote their mission work and be a powerful part of a larger community of nonprofits.

With this common branding and messaging, led by Share Detroit, we know that supporting all nonprofits with consistent messaging and collaboration allows everyone to be seen and attracts more support from our community of caring neighbors, clubs, religious groups, and corporate foundations. Our advice is to collaborate and promote a unified message to receive more visibility, which will lead to more support.

Karly Moore
Director of Nonprofit and Community Impact, SHARE Detroit

Boost Donations with Authentic Storytelling

Personalized storytelling is a Giving Tuesday email strategy that has delivered remarkable results. Emails crafted to share impactful, real-life stories of those positively affected by donations have led to a 45% increase in engagement and a 30% boost in donations.

For instance, consider a nonprofit organization that, instead of generic appeals, sends out emails featuring stories of individuals whose lives had been transformed through their programs. These heartfelt narratives resonated with donors, inspiring them to contribute.

In essence, this strategy elevated Giving Tuesday campaigns from mere requests for funds to powerful, emotion-driven connections. Weaving authentic stories into emails taps into the empathy of supporters, driving higher engagement and donations.

Himanshu Sharma
CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Run a Personalized Matching Challenge

The Personalized Matching Challenge was an email approach for Giving Tuesday that proved to be very effective. In this method, personalized emails were sent to supporters to inform them that the director of the group would match their donations.

This not only made their money go further, but it also gave the effort a more personal feel. By emphasizing “I will match your donation,” a feeling of trust and urgency was created, which encouraged supporters to act quickly.

As a result, a lot more money was donated because people wanted to maximize their contributions. Additionally, the level of engagement increased when donors shared the campaign enthusiastically on social media, encouraging their networks to participate in this unique, limited-time opportunity.

Carl Panepinto
Marketing Manager, Easy Allied Health

Use the “Impact Story” Strategy

The “Impact Story” strategy has proven highly effective in the past as a “Giving Tuesday” email strategy. Instead of merely requesting donations, a compelling story that illustrated the impact of our organization’s work in the real world was shared. This narrative highlighted an individual or community that had benefited directly from our efforts.

This strategy resonated with supporters because it created an emotional connection between them and the cause. They could observe the tangible impact of their contributions. Vivid images, personal testimonials, and progress metrics were included in the email to increase engagement.

The outcome? Donations and participation soared. Not only did donors donate, but they also became part of a meaningful narrative. Sharing the results of supporters’ efforts resulted in a sense of satisfaction and a stronger desire to continue supporting the cause. This strategy transformed ‘Giving Tuesday’ into a day of genuine giving and connection.

Martin Seeley
CEO, Mattress Next Day

Recognize Donors with a Roll Call

One Giving Tuesday email strategy that has worked well for us in the past is what we call “The Donor Roll Call.”

This particular strategy involves reaching out to your current donor list and emphasizing their impact on the organization, thanking them by name for their continued support. In this email, it’s important to highlight how your donors have made a difference and why their gifts are so important.

Rehana Aslam
Marketing Assistant, Instantly API

Leverage Nostalgia and Data

One “Giving Tuesday” during the early days of my startup journey, I recall we leveraged a heartfelt, nostalgia-driven email strategy. I called it the “Remember When” campaign.

Do you remember your first bicycle? The feeling of freedom, the wind in your hair? We drew a metaphorical connection between that innocent joy and the change a single donation could bring. We incorporated visuals from our startup’s early days, a tiny room, three people, and a dream—juxtaposed with where we were 10 years down the line, serving thousands. Stats were sprinkled in, showing a 120% growth in user engagement and how 70% of our milestones were community-backed.

The results? A whopping 45% spike in donations compared to the previous year. It’s amazing what a stroll down memory lane, coupled with hard data, can do for engagement. Isn’t it fascinating how emotions and numbers, when strung together rightly, can craft magic?

Ankit Prakash
Founder, Sprout24

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Should You Still Send Plain-Text Versions of Your Emails?

To shed light on the relevance of plain-text emails in today’s digital age, we asked eight professionals, including marketing managers and founders, to share their insights. From the potential resurgence of plain-text emails to how the recipient and purpose guide email style, discover the diverse perspectives on this topic.

Potential Resurgence of Plain-Text Emails
Authenticity Through Plain-Text Emails
Deliverability and Accessibility as Plain-Text’s Strengths
Enhancing Deliverability and Authenticity
Accessibility Advocacy in Plain-Text Emails
Audience and Goals Determine Email Format
Legal and Ethical Imperatives for Plain-Text
Recipient and Purpose Guide Email Style

Potential Resurgence of Plain-Text Emails

Email marketing platforms typically include a text version with every HTML sent, with no additional effort required. However, the question arises—is the plain-text version seen and used? Likely not, which may lead to platforms discontinuing this feature.

Consider the “view online” text link found at the top of many emails. Initially, this was included so recipients could read their email online if it wasn’t rendering correctly in their email client. Over time, it became almost obsolete as reports showed minimal clicks.

However, with the rise of mobile device usage for reading emails, these links experienced a resurgence in clicks.

Could a similar trend occur with plain-text emails? It’s uncertain. But for now, there’s no compelling reason to stop including them with your HTML versions.

Jeanne Jennings
Email Marketing Strategy, Consultant, Trainer, Speaker, and Published Author, Email Optimization Shop

Authenticity Through Plain-Text Emails

There are technical reasons for choosing plain-text emails over HTML-based ones, but there is also a psychological rationale to consider.

In today’s saturated landscape of sales and marketing emails, where graphics and HTML formatting are ubiquitous, a plain-text email, accompanied by compelling copy, can create a more authentic and personalized experience for the recipient.

Our minds have developed an association between heavy graphics and excessive formatting with advertisements, whether encountered on websites, through direct mail, or in email promotions. As a result, a plain-text email stands out from the crowd, presenting a more human touch that resonates with the recipient on a deeper level.

Nikhil Prasad
Marketing Manager, Fello

Deliverability and Accessibility as Plain-Text’s Strengths

Absolutely, sending plain-text versions of emails is a must, as deliverability is an enormous factor. Many corporate email filters suspect HTML-heavy emails and push them straight to the spam or promotions folder.

Plain-text emails have a better chance of bypassing these filters, so your message lands directly in the recipient’s primary inbox. We also have to think of accessibility. Visually impaired recipients might use screen readers, which work best with plain-text content.

Jon Mazza
Head of Marketing, DealPad

Enhancing Deliverability and Authenticity

Yes, plain-text versions of your emails should still be sent alongside HTML versions. Plain-text emails tend to bypass spam filters more often, increasing the chances of reaching the recipient’s inbox.

By including both versions, a wider audience is catered to, deliverability is improved, and the professionalism and authenticity of your communication is enhanced.

Jorie Wisnefski
Marketing Manager, Urban Machine

Accessibility Advocacy in Plain-Text Emails

For accessibility, it is recommended to still send the plain-text version of emails. HTML emails may not be as clear to the recipient for various reasons, such as device settings or user preferences.

In addition, plain text is a more inclusive form of email. Some visually impaired individuals use screen tools to aid them in reading messages. Communicating to attain understanding is the goal. If email is the available tool presented, then all possible ways to make it effective must be tried.

Tristan Harris
Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency

Audience and Goals Determine Email Format

It really comes down to your goals and audience. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business, your audience needs to see visuals of what you’re selling, so sending plain-text emails would be a bad move. But if you’re offering some kind of personalized service or sharing industry insights, plain text works just fine.

In fact, it works better because you want to talk and act like a human and not as a commercial brand. We’ve seen impressive results with plain text because our content has fewer bells and whistles and more authenticity, so it helps us stay true to our brand.

Ewen Finser
Founder, The Digital Merchant

Legal and Ethical Imperatives for Plain-Text

The answer is a resounding yes—including plain-text versions is still crucial. When considering the accessibility of your emails, plain-text versions play a vital role. Not all recipients use email clients that support HTML formatting, and some individuals rely on assistive technologies like screen readers to consume content.

By sending a plain-text version alongside your HTML version, you ensure that your message is accessible to everyone, regardless of the technology they use or any visual impairments they might have.

Accessibility is not only a matter of ethical responsibility but also a legal requirement in many regions. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States emphasize the need for digital content, including emails, to be accessible to individuals with disabilities. Failure to comply with these regulations could result in legal consequences for businesses and organizations.

Harsh Verma
SEO Head, CodeDesign

Recipient and Purpose Guide Email Style

Deciding this depends on who your email is going to and why you’re sending it!

Plain-text emails are great for cold outreach and any other email where your goal is to be personable and direct. On the other hand, if you’re looking to send out drip campaigns or promotions, a more visually appealing email is what we recommend.

Both plain and rich-text emails have a great place in marketing and e-commerce business management. Another easy way to determine which email style to use is to consider the sender: a corporation/brand or an individual?

If your email would perform best coming from an individual, plain-text is the better choice. If it would perform best coming from a brand, then a rich, polished email design is the better choice!

Chelsea Evans-Flower
Owner, Scott Social

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7 Mistakes to Avoid When A/B Testing Email Campaigns

To help you avoid common pitfalls in A/B testing email marketing campaigns, we’ve gathered insights from seven industry professionals, including directors and founders. From avoiding changing multiple variables simultaneously to limiting wholesale adjustments, these experts share the top mistakes to steer clear of for successful campaign testing.

Avoid Changing Multiple Variables Simultaneously
Consider Audience Behavior and Seasonal Effects
Account for Timing in Email Campaigns
Steer Clear of One-Variable Dependence
Don’t Direct All Traffic to Same Page
Allow Sufficient Time for Testing
Limit Wholesale Adjustments

Avoid Changing Multiple Variables Simultaneously

One critical mistake to avoid when A/B testing email marketing campaigns is changing multiple variables at once. Early in Click Intelligence’s journey, this error was made during a campaign. Both the email subject line and the call-to-action (CTA) button color were altered for the A/B test. When a significant difference in open and click-through rates was noticed, it was puzzling. Was the change due to the subject line, the CTA button color, or a combination of both?

By adjusting multiple elements simultaneously, the waters of the test results become muddied, making it challenging to pinpoint which change influenced the outcome. For precise, actionable insights, always change one variable at a time. This ensures clarity in results, allowing for informed, data-driven decisions in future campaigns.

Simon Brisk, Director, Click Intelligence

Consider Audience Behavior and Seasonal Effects

That one mistake is not considering the “time-sensitive nature” of your audience’s behavior and its impact.

Many experimenters send an A variant of the email on Monday and a B variant on Wednesday, which can impact the open rate. Not because there’s a problem with the content itself, but because people might be more receptive to emails at the beginning of the week, or perhaps they’re more active in the middle of the week.

Also, depending on your industry, there might be seasonal effects. Retailers experience this heavily around the holidays. If you test an email in December vs. January, user behavior might differ due to the holiday shopping mood in December.

Testing both email variants on the same day and time and repeating tests across varied periods for consistency is essential to overcome the time-sensitive issues.

Daniyal Alam
Growth Marketer, Talk Home

Account for Timing in Email Campaigns

Disregarding timing factors is a common mistake in overseeing email campaigns.

Once, two email designs were tested at completely different times of the day. The results were skewed, and it was realized that it wasn’t just the design affecting engagement, but also when the email hit the subscribers’ inboxes. Mornings might be better for some, evenings for others. Mixing up timing variables with content ones gave misleading feedback.

Therefore, it’s important to always ensure you’re comparing like with like, especially when timing plays such a pivotal role in engagement.

Talita Moraes
CMO, Tarotoo

Steer Clear of One-Variable Dependence

When wielding the A/B-testing wand in the realm of email marketing, steer clear of the “One-Trick Pony” pitfall. Believe it or not, around 60% of marketers fall into this trap, according to the Data Wizards Guild.

Picture this—Unicorn Co. sent out two email versions, switching only the subject line. Bingo, they struck gold with a higher open rate! But beware, dear marketer, relying solely on a single variable like subject lines is like hoping a lone ingredient makes a gourmet meal.

To truly rock the A/B stage, spice things up! Tweak subject lines AND content, throw in call-to-action curveballs, and maybe even switch up the sender’s name. It’s like crafting a symphony—every note counts. So, no more one-hit wonders—let’s compose an A/B masterpiece!

Himanshu Sharma
CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Don’t Direct All Traffic to Same Page

One of the biggest mistakes you want to avoid when running an A-B test on an email marketing campaign is sending all the traffic to the same landing page. Take the time to create two versions of the same landing page and send the A traffic to one and the B traffic to the other. You’ll be surprised how different the results can be based on the messaging of your email.

Adam White
Founder, SquidVision

Allow Sufficient Time for Testing

One significant error to avoid in A/B testing for email marketing campaigns is prematurely forming conclusions based on insufficient testing time. Rushing the testing phase can lead to skewed results and misguided decisions.

For instance, evaluating responses within the initial hours may neglect variations in recipient engagement due to factors like time zones or varying open times. To ensure the credibility of your findings, it’s essential to allocate an appropriate testing duration. This timeframe should encompass a substantial portion of your target audience, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of their interactions with the email content.

By patiently allowing the test to run its course, you can gather statistically significant data, resulting in dependable insights. These insights can then be leveraged to fine-tune future email marketing campaigns effectively.

Casey Preston
CRO and Founder, Stratosphere

Avoid Wholesale Adjustments

The biggest mistake I see when A/B testing emails is that people change their emails too much, then can’t pinpoint why their performance has improved or worsened.

If you are going to A/B test, start off with a few minor changes individually, e.g., the email layout or headline. What you can often see is that people will make wholesale changes to the content of the email and the headline, so they often become completely different emails. This makes it difficult to nail down the reason for performance changes.

Elliot Rushton
Freelance Marketer, EPR Marketing

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7 Examples of Gamification in Email Marketing

To help you understand the potential of gamification in email marketing, we’ve gathered seven unique examples from industry leaders. From CEOs to marketing managers, they’ve shared their insights on how to engage and entertain subscribers. From sending “Choose Your Own Adventure” emails to entertaining with a spin-to-win wheel feature, discover innovative ways to gamify your email marketing strategy.

Send “Choose Your Own Adventure” Emails
Boost Engagement with Email Treasure Hunts
Test Audience Knowledge with Pop Quizzes
Stimulate Competition with Leaderboards
Turn Tasks into Missions and Challenges
Engage Subscribers with Interactive Elements
Entertain with Spin-to-Win Wheel Feature

Send “Choose Your Own Adventure” Emails

Creating immersive and personalized experiences is key in today’s digital marketing landscape. One effective strategy is the use of “choose your own adventure” emails. These are interactive emails offering customers a range of options, each leading to a different outcome, such as a unique offer or tailored product recommendation.

This not only encourages active engagement but also reveals valuable insights into customer preferences. Adopting this style transforms emails from simple communication tools into interactive experiences. This approach drives higher customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Scott Reid
Founder and Chief Optimizer, Ecommerce Optimizers

Boost Engagement with Email Treasure Hunts

A savvy e-commerce wizard named “Ace Deals & Wheels” wanted to boost engagement with their subscribers. Their secret weapon? Gamification!

According to a study by Campaign Monitor, gamified emails can increase click rates by a whopping 42%! Ace Deals & Wheels crafted an interactive email treasure hunt. Subscribers became modern-day Indiana Jones, hunting for hidden discounts within the email labyrinth.

Real-life proof? The click-through rate skyrocketed like a rocket on a sugar rush! As subscribers reveled in the thrilling quest, sales and brand loyalty revved up like a sports car on an open highway! So, level up your email marketing game with gamification. May the clicks be ever in your favor!

Himanshu Sharma
CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Test Audience Knowledge with Pop Quizzes

Even when faced with subjects we don’t fully comprehend, there’s an inherent drive to confirm whether we are right or wrong. In email marketing, we can capitalize on this by designing pop quizzes that encourage people to test their knowledge. Through these quizzes, we gain valuable insights that can be utilized for future re-marketing opportunities.

Jason Vaught
Director of Content, SmashBrand

Stimulate Competition with Leaderboards

Adding a leaderboard to your email marketing can serve as an example of gamification. A leaderboard is a list of subscribers who have engaged the most with your emails, including those who have opened your emails, clicked on links, or shared your emails with others.

Incorporating a leaderboard into your emails can stimulate competition among subscribers, encouraging them to strive for the top spot. This strategy can enhance engagement with your emails, thereby improving open rates, click-through rates, and social media shares.

Brenton Thomas
CEO, Twibi

Turn Tasks into Missions and Challenges

It’s funny how using a different word can spark different behaviors. Instead of asking the reader to take certain steps or perform an action, turn it into a mission or the steps into a challenge, and watch some magic happen. Challenges can feed people’s need to feel like they are making progress and building competency toward some desired outcome.

There is also an inherent winning feeling if you finish a challenge that just going through a list of bulleted items can’t quite match. Make them feel like heroes in your campaign. Alternatively, let them help write the story by giving them a chance to choose their own adventure along the way. They get to decide which parts of the challenge to tackle, and you get an easy way to gain insights, segment the audience, and better serve them with your next email.

Valary Oleinik
Chief Disruptor, valary with a why

Engage Subscribers with Interactive Elements

Gamification can be enhanced by adding interactive elements like scratch cards or spin-to-win wheels to emails. In contrast to a typical promotional email, this approach creates an engaging experience.

Suppose, as a retailer, you want to promote a new product line or seasonal sale with gamified emails. Your customers interact with the game, anticipating their reward, which could be discounts, special offers, or free gifts. Gamification boosts engagement and click-through rates, fostering a positive brand association and increasing conversion and customer loyalty.

Overall, it creates a more interactive and rewarding experience for subscribers, elevating the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Oksana Sydorchuk
Marketing Manager, Right People Group

Entertain with Spin-to-Win Wheel Feature

Incorporating a Spin-to-Win Wheel feature is one way to use gamification in email marketing. This interactive element is included within the email, allowing subscribers to click on it and participate in a fun activity, like spinning a virtual wheel.

When a subscriber clicks on the wheel, it starts spinning, and then stops at a random position, revealing the prize they’ve won. The prizes can vary, such as exclusive discounts, special offers, freebies, or even the chance to win a grand prize.

David Bui
Director and Business Specialist, Schmicko

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8 Best Practices for “Thank You for Your Purchase” Emails

Crafting the perfect “Thank you for your purchase” email can be a challenge. To help you navigate this, we’ve gathered eight best practices from founders, CEOs, and other marketing professionals. From personalizing your thank you email to offering incentives, discover the insights these experts have shared.

Personalize Your Thank You Email
Keep It Human
Send a Message from the CEO
Address Customer by Name and Purchase
Promote Further Action
Include a Feedback Survey
Highlight the Product Benefits
Offer Incentives

Personalize Your Thank You Email

Running a digital marketing agency has led to the realization that the key to a powerful “Thank you for your purchase” email lies in its personal touch.

A client once launched a line of artisanal teas. A buyer’s comment about her love for chamomile tea during a previous interaction was remembered, and a thank-you email acknowledging her preference was crafted. “We hope this chamomile blend brings a touch of serenity to your evenings!”

This detail, though small, showed care beyond the transaction, making the communication more memorable. Experiences like this illustrate how tailoring messages can truly elevate customer engagement.

Ryan Steinolfson
Founder, Accelerate Marketing

Keep It Human

When thanking your customers, make sure that you keep it human, sincere, and, as much as possible, personalized.

Where possible, create segments for efficiency so you can send out a few versions of your email blast to different audiences. Explore, too, the features of your email tool, like including the recipient’s name in the subject line or in the opening part of your message.

A thank-you note forms part of a customer’s experience of their purchase and a channel for feedback. It is also the perfect opportunity for you to build and strengthen your relationship with them.

Tristan Harris
Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency

Send a Message from the CEO

Working with hundreds of e-commerce brands has shown that a best practice when crafting a “Thank you for your purchase” message to customers is to send an automated, yet personalized, message from the founder or CEO.

This can be achieved by creating a secondary sending address from the founder or CEO and creating the message as plain text instead of a typical graphical marketing message. This approach gives the customer the impression that the founder or CEO took the time to send them a one-off message thanking them for their purchase.

Steve Dinelli
Founder, MarketerInterview.com

Address Customer by Name and Purchase

Addressing the customer by name and mentioning the specific product or service they purchased is important. Tailoring the language to their specific interests is also beneficial. For instance, if the customer is a frequent buyer of the products, this could be mentioned.

Also, try to be timely, clear and concise, and informative.

Brenton Thomas
CEO, Twibi

Promote Further Action

You can even use your thank-you emails to promote further action. All you need to do is insert a call-to-action button that invites a customer to participate in further engagement. You can ask them to check out more products or leave a review for the ones they’ve purchased.

The CTA can even lead them to your blog posts, sign up for your newsletter, or enable them to follow your social media channels. This email is an opportunity for you to encourage further engagement, and a call-to-action button is the best way to persuade your customers to act.

Ariav Cohen
VP of Marketing and Sales, Proprep

Include a Feedback Survey

This is an excellent opportunity to provide a feedback survey so that you can get a feel for your customers’ experience with things like checking out, pricing, and navigating your website. When analyzing how your customers have responded to your feedback survey, you can recognize what they like as well as what improvements need to be made.

Miles Beckett
Co-Founder and CEO, Flossy

Highlight the Product Benefits

Understand the importance of choosing the right [product/service] to meet your needs efficiently. It’s crucial to comprehend all the amazing advantages the new [product/service name] provides. [Explain the top 2-3 characteristics or benefits in detail]. It’s believed that it will surpass your expectations.

Cindi Keller
Communications Coordinator, The Criminal Defense Firm

Offer Incentives

A best practice when crafting a “thank you for your purchase” message to customers includes an incentive or special offer that rewards them for their loyalty.

One example of this could be providing them with a discount code to offer free online shipping on their next order. This is effective as it encourages customers to re-engage with your business, thereby improving customer retention and satisfaction. Additionally, it may also prompt additional purchases from returning customers due to the exclusive nature of the offer.

Julia Kelly
Managing Partner, Rigits

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email marketing email tips

10 Best Practices for Your Next Email Drip Campaign

To help you craft an effective email drip campaign, we’ve gathered insights from top professionals in marketing and sales. From providing small, actionable information to using tracking URLs for targeted content, here are the top 10 best practices shared by our experts. Dive in to learn more about these strategies and how they can enhance your email marketing efforts.

Offer Option to Opt Out
Provide Small, Actionable Information
Guide Customers with the Right Content
Segment Your Audience for Increased Engagement
Use Clear, Concise Messaging
Provide Consistent, High-Quality Material
Engage Leads with Storytelling
Prioritize Personalization and Consistency
Optimize Emails for Mobile Devices
Use Tracking URLs for Targeted Content

Offer Option to Opt Out

There’s no denying that your main goal with a drip campaign is to get the readers to take action. You’re either selling a product, a service, or even just an idea.

Building your email list should be a top priority, and the more engaged your audience is, the better your campaigns tend to do.

However, not everyone wants to be bombarded with newsletters about how your cart is about to close and they need to act quickly. Even though they want to remain loyal, this might not be the time for them to spend their money. With that in mind, a really good practice is to give everyone a chance to opt out of those emails.

In other words, give everyone an out. It’s much better to lose a few bucks on this campaign than to lose a potential client forever.

Robert Burns
Marketing Director, Oxygen Plus

Provide Small, Actionable Information

One of the best practices that has worked for us is providing small, actionable information in each email. This proves highly beneficial for both prospects and businesses.

This approach not only helps to build trust over time but also establishes a perception of authority. By consistently delivering valuable content, prospects are more likely to open promotional emails, leading to increased engagement and conversions.

Avinash Kumar
Team Lead – Digital Marketing, RepuGen

Guide Customers with the Right Content

The key to a successful drip campaign is guiding customers toward conversion. But figuring out what content to send them can be tough. My favorite technique for this is to start by looking at your existing clients who have already taken the desired action.

Think about what information, resources, or assurances they needed at each stage to feel confident in taking that action. Use that insight to plan your drip campaign and send the right content at the right time.

Oksana Sydorchuk
Marketing Manager, Right People Group

Segment Your Audience for Increased Engagement

This means dividing your audience into various segments based on their preferences, behavior, or demographics. Not everyone on your mailing list has the same needs or interests.

By personalizing your emails to cater to each segment’s unique needs, you increase the chances of engagement. It not only displays empathy but also ensures that your content resonates with your audience, making your campaign more successful. Remember, relevance is key in email marketing, and segmentation is a powerful tool to achieve it.

Ray Schultz
VP Marketing, Liquid Rubber

Use Clear, Concise Messaging

One of the best practices in email drip campaigns is directing your readers through clear, concise messaging.

It starts with an identified goal for the campaign and predetermined objectives for each email. There are also various levels of consideration when executing, such as getting them hooked through the power of creativity, creating an impactful copy as you introduce your campaign, and stirring a connection with your audience by thoroughly presenting how your offering is relevant and how it can be beneficial to them. And in this entire process, remember that time and timing are key, too.

But the top consideration remains to be capturing them with clear, concise messaging that is apparent as early as in your email subject and immediately sustained in your headline.

Tristan Harris
Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency

Provide Consistent, High-Quality Material

Providing value and staying relevant throughout the series of emails is a good strategy for developing an effective email drip campaign. Focus on solving problems or exploring topics that are of interest to your intended readers.

Start slow, but gain traction by sending out increasingly valuable emails. In addition, you should monitor the time and frequency of your emails to find the optimal balance between being remembered and annoying your readers. Providing consistent, high-quality material has been shown to strengthen connections, earn people’s trust, and encourage them to take the desired behaviors more often.

Mike Lees
Chief Marketing Officer, LeaseAccelerator

Engage Leads with Storytelling

Storytelling is an excellent approach to interacting with and establishing relationships with leads via email drip campaigns. Humans enjoy tales, and one study found that when we read or listen to one, our brains transform into email copywriters. This active area of our brain allows us to feel and experience what the characters are going through.

Incorporating anecdotes into email copywriting allows subscribers to see themselves in the circumstance being described. Because email copywriting appeals to their emotions, it can help persuade them to take the desired action after reading the email.

Adam Crossling
Head of Marketing, Zenzero

Prioritize Personalization and Consistency

Personalization is key in an email drip campaign. It helps your audience understand that these consistent efforts from your brand are only for them. This makes them more receptive to the content you share and increases the likelihood of engagement.

So, practice consistency with whatever personalization techniques and elements you put to use. Remember, if even one of your emails fails at this stage, your potential customer will lose focus and appreciation and probably disengage from the entire effort. At this point, you’ll have to start from square one all over again.

Ariav Cohen
VP of Marketing and Sales, Proprep

Optimize Emails for Mobile Devices

The #1 tip that I have for effective email drip campaigns is to always optimize for mobile devices. More often than not, our email campaigns are created on anything but a mobile device, so it can be easy to overlook that the majority of people check and read their emails on their phones nowadays.

Any goals that you have of driving sales, nurturing leads, or increasing engagement can quickly become deflated if a large portion of your audience can’t view and understand your campaign with ease. Use responsive design, concise text, and clear call-to-action buttons to improve the user experience on mobile devices.

In most cases, a mobile-friendly design layout offers more effective ways to communicate the focus of your campaign, and with more creative potential than traditional emails.

Sean Coffey
Marketing Manager, Regency Fire

Use Tracking URLs for Targeted Content

A tracking URL allows you to see who clicks on your CTA among your subscribers. More significantly, it provides you with information on the various sites and actions that your subscribers do on your website after clicking on your CTA.

The data gathered by your tracking URL enables you and your marketing team to provide more targeted content to these subscribers. This allows you to move them down your marketing funnel and convert them into customers.

Kim Leary
Creative Director, squibble

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email marketing

How to Design a Webinar Invitation Email

To help you create an effective webinar invitation email, we asked seven industry experts, including CEOs, founders, and marketing strategists, for their top tips. From highlighting webinar benefits to emphasizing key details, discover the essential advice these professionals shared to make your invitation stand out and drive attendance.

Highlight Webinar Benefits
Focus on the Value Proposition
Engage with Interactive Questions
Incorporate Visual Elements
Craft a Catchy Subject Line
Personalize and Add Humor
Emphasize the Key Details

Highlight Webinar Benefits

When crafting your webinar invitation email, it’s important to focus on the benefits that the webinar will provide to your target audience. Your email should clearly explain how participating in the webinar can help attendees solve their problems and achieve their goals.

Highlight the key points you’ll be discussing during the webinar and why they are relevant to them. By emphasizing the ways in which your audience can benefit from tuning in, you will increase the likelihood that they will open and click on your webinar invitation email.

Marcos Isaias, Founder and CEO, Misaias

Focus on the Value Proposition

One critical tip for designing a webinar invitation email is to focus on the value proposition. Clearly articulate what attendees will gain from the webinar right at the beginning of the email. This could be learning a new skill, gaining insights into an industry trend, or understanding how to solve a pressing problem.

Use powerful, compelling language and design elements to highlight this key takeaway, making it the centerpiece of your invitation. In addition to this, don’t forget to make the registration process as straightforward as possible. After all, a compelling invitation is only effective if it encourages easy action.

Kevin Hall, Marketing Operations, Webserv

Engage with Interactive Questions

Always use your webinar invitation emails to start a conversation with the subscribers. For example, you can ask them to submit questions to be included in the agenda. For Growth Chats, we use interactive forms inside emails to ask registrants about what they’d like to ask the guests and give those questions priority in the live Q&A.

Aquibur Rahman, CEO, Mailmodo

Incorporate Visual Elements

In my experience as a marketer, adding visuals greatly enhances the effectiveness of a webinar invitation email. The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text, so images, infographics, and videos can quickly draw attention and effectively communicate your message.

One instance that particularly stands out is when we designed an invitation for a client’s e-commerce seminar. We included a captivating, colorful infographic showing the growth of e-commerce over the years. It visually portrayed what the attendees would learn, hence sparking curiosity.

The click-through rate for this email was significantly higher than our text-based versions. So, integrating visual elements not only piques interest but also bridges the gap between the recipient and the content.

Josh “Snow” Elizetxe, Founder, Customer Feedback

Craft a Catchy Subject Line

A good tip for a webinar invitation email is to write a catchy and relevant subject line. Your subject line should catch your recipients’ eye and make them curious about your webinar.

Also, showing the value of attending your webinar should be one of the main motives. You can use different ways to make your subject line more interesting. Use questions, numbers, emojis, or names to make it more effective for the recipients. You’ll get more people to open your email and sign up for your webinar as a result. Just focus on the aspect one will notice at first glance.

Ilan Nass, Chief Revenue Officer, Taktical

Personalize and Add Humor

Want your webinar invitation email to stand out like a unicorn in a field of horses? Here’s a tip that’ll have attendees RSVPing faster than you can say “webinarlicious”! Personalization is key, my friend. No one wants to feel like they’re just another name on a long list.

Address your recipients by name and use data points to make it extra special. For example, “Hey John, we noticed you’re a marketing whiz who loves all things SEO!” But wait, there’s more! Sprinkle some humor in there too. A witty subject line or a clever pun can make your email irresistible.

Imagine this gem: “Unleash Your Webinar Superpowers! Join us for an hour of knowledge bombs and virtual high-fives!” So, remember: personalized, humorous, and packed with value. That’s the recipe for a webinar invitation email that gets RSVPs flying in like confetti.

Himanshu Sharma, CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Emphasize the Key Details First

Make sure the details come first. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer—If you’re getting an email about a webinar, the first thing you want to know is the date, the time, and the title. Everything else is bonus information that may help in swaying a decision.

Use a headline font and brand colors to direct your customer’s eyes to the title. Add bolding to paragraph fonts to display the date prominently and unbold the font when presenting the time. Consider adding the name of the person presenting and their title if it is someone who holds prominence in the industry. This can be done by creating a custom header graphic or simply editing the email text to emphasize the details as described.

Lauren Murdock, Marketing Strategist, Raka Health

email tips

9 Best Practices for Promoting Affiliate Links in Your Email Marketing

To help you effectively promote affiliate links in your email marketing campaigns, we’ve gathered insights from ten marketing professionals, including founders, CEOs, and marketing managers. From adding authenticity and humor to offering exclusive bonuses, these experts share their top nine best practices for promoting affiliate links in your email marketing campaigns.

Add Authenticity and Humor
Be Transparent
Share Personal Product Experiences
Leverage the Post-Script Section
Build Trust by Providing Value
Ensure Contextual Relevance
Utilize Trigger-Based Campaigns
Integrate Affiliate Links Naturally
Offer Exclusive Bonuses

Add Authenticity and Humor

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek best practice for promoting affiliate links in email marketing campaigns: Be as authentic as a unicorn riding a unicycle. Blend your affiliate links seamlessly into your content, making readers think, “Wait, did they just slide in an affiliate link? Sneaky, yet impressive!”

Share your personal experience with products, dropping the bombshell that you might receive a small commission. Offer exclusive bonuses or discounts to make subscribers feel like they’ve found a secret treasure chest. Segment your email list, serving relevant offers based on readers’ interests.

Analyze and optimize click-through and conversion rates, experimenting with humorous subject lines, irresistible CTAs, and captivating email formats. Embrace your inner humor and watch those affiliate links soar, while your emails entertain and conversions flourish.

Ntinyari Kimathi, Founder, XLURU.com

Be Transparent

If there’s one thing I would underscore, it would be this: transparency is key. Make sure to always disclose your affiliate relationships to maintain trust with your subscribers. Weave your affiliate links organically into useful content—don’t just drop a link without context. Keep emails interesting, engaging, and above all, valuable.

That way, your subscribers will be excited to open your emails, increasing the chances they’ll click on your affiliate links. And remember, the most successful affiliate marketers are the ones who add value first, sell second.

Melanie Balke, CEO and Founder, The Email Marketers

Share Personal Product Experiences

In affiliate email marketing, being real and trustworthy is key. You are not just selling stuff, you are sharing valuable content to help your subscribers solve a problem. Make it really useful, insightful, and relatable. Don’t just say “This product is great”—explain why.

When you talk about affiliate products, get personal. Tell your readers how you used it and how you personally benefited from it. This real-life experience makes the product more genuine and sparks enough curiosity to encourage your readers to click that link.

Juliet Dreamhunter, Founder, Juliety

Leverage the Post-Script Section

One best practice for promoting affiliate links in your email marketing campaigns is leveraging the power of the post-script section, the “P.S.”

Why the P.S., you may ask? Often, when people skim through emails, the P.S. catches their attention. It’s like a bonus after the main content and arouses curiosity. You can take advantage of this to give one last persuasive nudge about your affiliate product or service.

When using the P.S. section, keep it concise and compelling. Use it to reiterate the benefits of the affiliate product, share a powerful testimonial, or highlight a limited-time offer. Link the product or service directly in the P.S. to make it as easy as possible for readers to access it.

Remember, even while using this strategy, transparency is key. Always disclose that it’s an affiliate link to maintain trust with your subscribers. An honest, strategically placed P.S. can boost your click-through rates and foster a loyal and engaged audience.

Will Gill, Event Entertainer, DJ Will Gill

Build Trust by Providing Value

Building a loyal audience comes before you can make your audience buy from your affiliate links. And when it comes to email marketing campaigns, you need to go the extra mile and focus only on giving value before you even talk about your products.

Putting value on the top will help you win the trust of your audience. The audience will automatically connect with your business and brand if you can solve their problem. So, provide value and build a following of loyal audience. Once you do that, whether you are starting an email marketing campaign or not, your audience will buy from your affiliate links.

Ilan Nass, Chief Revenue Officer, Taktical

Ensure Contextual Relevance

One best practice stands out above the rest: contextual relevance. Ensuring that the affiliate links you include are contextually aligned with your content and offer products or services you genuinely support is paramount.

Contextual relevance not only increases the chances of capturing your audience’s interest but also enhances their trust in your recommendations. By featuring products or services that you would personally subscribe to, you convey authenticity and credibility.

Additionally, it is worth considering the power of offers. Affiliate programs that provide a “no-brainer” offer, such as a free item or a substantial discount code, can further entice your audience.

Finally, transparent labeling of affiliate links is a personal preference I appreciate. While not explicitly required, being honest and upfront about affiliate links fosters trust.

Rafael Sarim Özdemir, Founder and CEO, Zendog Labs

Utilize Trigger-Based Campaigns

The core concept of trigger-based email marketing campaigns is to send emails automatically based on particular client activities called triggers. Trigger emails are sent to the audience based on their behavior.

The majority of trigger emails fall into two categories: segment-based and event-based. When your subscribers satisfy certain parameters, segment-based trigger emails are sent, whereas event-based trigger emails are sent when they opt-in or make a purchase.

Trigger emails are used to provide consumers with assistance and nurturing so that they can reap the maximum benefits of a product or service. They are also used to deliver vital updates and to inspire positive behaviors.

Triggers are extremely efficient for marketing affiliate links since they track the behavior of clients and send customized triggers to them, causing them to perform the desired action like clicking on the links and making a purchase.

Marco Andolfatto, Chief Underwriting Officer, Apollo Cover

Integrate Affiliate Links Naturally

Natural integration of affiliate links in your email marketing campaigns is vital for maintaining a positive user experience and establishing credibility. By seamlessly incorporating relevant recommendations within valuable content, you can enhance engagement and increase the likelihood of conversions.

Techniques such as contextual storytelling, value-driven recommendations, and personal endorsements contribute to a more authentic and trustworthy approach. Natural integration benefits both you and your subscribers by providing valuable information while also presenting affiliate products as genuine solutions.

Natural integration benefits both you and your subscribers. It enhances the user experience by providing valuable content beyond promotional messages. Your subscribers will appreciate the informative and engaging emails, resulting in higher engagement rates and reduced chances of them unsubscribing.

Sreejith Sreekumar, Email Marketer, Changing Tree

Offer Exclusive Bonuses

When you’re promoting affiliate links to your email list, you can add even more value to your subscribers by offering an exclusive bonus for purchasing through your affiliate link.

For example, you can offer one of your related products as a bonus, an hour of your time for some personalized strategies, or even store credit they can use in the future.

Offering a bonus for using your affiliate link shows your subscribers that you stand behind the product that you are promoting, and that even though you’re promoting someone else’s resource, you are still invested in helping them make the most of it.

Anna Crosby, Owner, Geni Collective

email marketing email tips

12 Ways You Can Use AI in Email Marketing

Discover how AI can revolutionize your email marketing strategy with insights from 12 industry experts, including CEOs, Vice Presidents, and Marketing Managers. From streamlining copywriting to maximizing efficiency with email tools, these professionals share their tried-and-true methods for enhancing email campaigns with artificial intelligence.

Streamline Copywriting
Boost Engagement With AI-Based Videos
Brainstorm Content With Assistance
Gain Powerful Product Recommendations
Amplify Relevance via Combined Tactics
Improve Retargeting
Optimize A/B Testing
Discover In-Depth Email Analytics
Automate Behavior-Triggered Campaigns
Boost Open Rates with Improved Subject Lines
Enhance Engagement with Personalization
Maximize Efficiency with Email Tools

Streamline Copywriting

While I’ve found so many ways in which AI can be used in email marketing, there’s one that I completely love and have incorporated in my email marketing campaigns: copywriting.

I love the idea of just entering a bunch of keywords into ChatGPT or Jasper, for instance, and having my email copy ready to be sent. What makes it even more fun is that you can try different input ideas to make the output better. Like you can let the tool know who you’re writing it for, what’s the purpose of the mail, what’s supposed to be the tone of the mail, and so on and so forth.

It’s a genuine recommendation from me to use these tools; leverage the power of AI into your email marketing campaigns because if you’re not doing so, you’re falling behind. We all know it’s very important to stay ahead when you’re in marketing. Plus, it makes your work so much simpler and gets it done so much quicker.

Aquibur Rahman, CEO, Mailmodo

Boost Engagement With AI-Based Videos

Not every email you send out can be action- or product-based — some are purely informative. For emails that fit the latter description, and despite evolving debate, I believe that including videos makes them more engaging. AI-based videos have been a pleasant surprise and add to the experience of opening emails.

As the cost of AI-based video production is lower, creating them is more profitable compared to hiring a professional video team. And your emails’ open rates will show a positive impact.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Paraphrasing Tool

Brainstorm Content With Assistance

As an email marketer, coming up with creative content consistently can get tedious. I’ve used AI to assist me with brainstorming ideas for content or copy.

For example, I’ve asked AI to come up with detailed descriptions for particular customer segmentations in order to know how to talk to or market to a specific group of customers. After I get the description back from AI, I’m able to see how I can modify my marketing language to appeal to each customer segment.

Whenever I use AI for email marketing, I’ve never used what AI puts out verbatim; I always tweak it to align with the brand voice or expound. Using AI to trigger various brainstorming processes has helped me tremendously by saving time for me and my clients.

Amanda Luke, Owner, Email and Mobile Marketing Freelancer and Consultant, ACL Digital Marketing

Gain Powerful Product Recommendations

I have incorporated AI into my email marketing by using product recommendations powered by machine learning. This allows me to provide recipients with tailored product offers based on their previous purchases or preferences.

I recommend that other email marketers try this as it can increase relevance and engagement, leading to higher click-through rates and conversions. The AI-powered algorithm can quickly and accurately identify the products that are most likely to interest each individual recipient, so it can save a lot of time compared to manually curating product recommendations for every email.

Ryan Hetrick, CEO, Epiphany Wellness

Amplify Relevance via Combined Tactics

We use AI in our email marketing with AI-powered tools to help us create more personalized and relevant emails. I recommend that all email marketers try to incorporate AI into their email marketing campaigns, to create more personalized and relevant emails, which can lead to improved results.

Here are some specific examples of how AI can be used in email marketing:

Segment your email list based on user behavior, interests, and demographics.
Personalize email subject lines, content, and calls to action.
Determine the best time to send emails.
Retarget people who have already visited your website or opened your emails.

Brenton Thomas, CEO, Twibi

Improve Retargeting

One innovative method we’ve employed in our email marketing strategy is AI-based email retargeting. If a potential customer opens an email but doesn’t take the desired action, our AI system cues us in. We then send a carefully personalized follow-up email, to re-engage their interest.

For instance, we once had a client who showed interest in our premium packages but didn’t complete the purchase. Our AI system flagged this, allowing us to send a targeted email, offering a limited-time discount. This method ultimately converted the lead.

So, for my fellow email marketers, I highly recommend incorporating AI into your strategies. It can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates, making your campaigns more effective and profitable.

Alexandru Contes, Co-founder, ReviewGrower

Optimize A/B Testing

If you’re into email marketing, you’ve probably heard of A/B testing. I believe AI can improve this process by automating and improving the testing and optimization workflow, which is a widespread practice.

Subject lines, images, CTA buttons, and email layouts are just some aspects that may be examined by AI algorithms to identify which works best in an email marketing campaign. Artificial intelligence systems can rapidly determine the optimal permutations of these aspects that yield the highest engagement and conversion rates by automatically producing and testing numerous variants of each.

By automating A/B testing, email marketers can save time and effort while continuously improving the effectiveness of their efforts. Marketers may learn about client preferences and adjust email campaigns accordingly with the help of AI algorithms that reveal why certain variants performed better than others.

Timothy Allen, Sr. Corporate Investigator, Corporate Investigation Consulting

Discover In-Depth Email Analytics

I can say from personal experience that using AI-driven email performance analytics provides marketers with a wealth of data to examine the success of their email campaigns. While measures like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates are helpful, the patterns and levels of interaction with a brand’s content that can be gleaned through AI algorithms are much more so.

Email data such as time spent reading, scroll depth, email forwarding, and social media sharing can be analyzed by AI systems. Having access to these supplementary analytics allows for a deeper dive into consumer interaction and the identification of weak spots in email layout, content placement, and overall campaign strategy.

Email marketers can improve campaign performance, boost engagement, and get more results by evaluating detailed email data and acting on the insights they reveal.

Tiffany Hafler, Marketing Manager, FORTIS Medical Billing

Automate Behavior-Triggered Campaigns

In my opinion, the development of behavior-triggered email campaigns is made possible by AI-driven predictive email segmentation. AI systems can discover specific triggers, such as abandoned carts, website surfing patterns, or email interactions, by studying client behaviors in real-time.

Email marketers can automate the sending of tailored emails to the appropriate customer subset based on the occurrence of certain triggers. When a customer abandons their cart, for instance, an email system driven by AI can immediately send a reminder of the items and an incentive to complete the purchase.

Predictive segmentation-based behavior trigger emails have been shown to increase consumer engagement and purchases. They take advantage of AI algorithms’ capacity to spot opportune moments for communication, which boosts open, click-through, and conversion rates.

Cindi Keller, Communications Coordinator, The Criminal Defense Firm

Boost Open Rates with Improved Subject Lines

We’ve leveraged AI to enhance our email marketing strategy, particularly by creating more compelling subject lines. Recently, we were struggling to craft a catchy subject line for a promotional email. We fed the AI some basic information about our offer. It spit out a subject line that was intriguing yet informative.

To our surprise, that email had the highest open rate we’d ever achieved. The reason why I recommend this to other email marketers is that AI can help you come up with fresh, unique subject lines that hook your audience. It’s like having a creative powerhouse at your fingertips, saving you time while optimizing your results.

Thomas Giarraputo, Vice President, Executive Cleaning Services

Enhance Engagement with Personalization

I’ve incorporated AI into my email marketing by leveraging personalized subject lines and content. By using AI to personalize emails, we can improve open rates significantly. Additionally, personalization enables us to tailor the experience for each subscriber based on their preferences and interests, which increases engagement and conversions.

I recommend other email marketers try this because personalization can help them create a unique experience for their subscribers, build stronger relationships, and increase conversions. Additionally, it allows email marketers to quickly collect data and insights which can be used to optimize future campaigns.

Darryl Stevens, CEO, Digitech Web Design

Maximize Efficiency with Email Tools

Incorporating AI into email marketing has been a game-changer for maximizing efficiency and personalization. I have adopted AI-powered algorithms to analyze user behavior and preferences, allowing for dynamic content customization.

I recommend other email marketers implement automated email segmentation and personalization based on user interactions, interests, and demographics.

By utilizing AI-driven tools, marketers can automate creating targeted email campaigns, improving open, click-through, and conversion rates. AI can analyze vast data and generate actionable insights to optimize email content, subject lines, and send times for different audience segments.

This level of personalization enhances the user experience and increases the likelihood of driving meaningful engagement and conversions.

AI-powered email marketing tools can also provide real-time analytics and performance metrics, enabling marketers to make data-driven decisions and optimize their email campaigns.

Shane McEvoy, MD, Flycast Media

email marketing

12 Email Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know

A/B Testing

CAN-SPAM Act

Graymail

Honeypots

Personalization Tokens

List Churn

Parasite Emails

Cost per Mile

Bacn

Permission Marketing

Throttling

Email List Hygiene

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Optimized Email Timing with Smart Tools

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Effective Tagging Helps Segment Subscribers

Sentiment Analysis Enhances Communication

Personalization Boosts Engagement and Conversions

Monitoring Customer Preferences Increases Sales

Reminders Reduce Cart Abandonment

Cross-Selling Campaigns Skyrocket Profits

“Warm Leads” List Improves Conversions

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10 Dos and Don’ts When Sending a Mass Email

Take a Comprehensive Approach to Email Campaigns

Check Links Before Sending

Enhance Engagement with Exclusion Lists

Avoid False Personalization in Emails

Prioritize Targeted Email Campaigns

Obtain Consent

Implement Segmentation and Clear CTAs

Monitor KPIs, Avoid Complex Emails

Personalize Based on Behavior and Test Emails

Optimize for Mobile, Limit Media Content

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Cyber Monday Email Frenzy: How to Stand Out Amongst the Rest

Embrace Email Marketing Fundamentals

Craft Magnetic Subject Lines

Offer Unique Deals and Regular Updates

Employ Advanced Segmentation Techniques

Maximize Impact with Personalization and Urgency

Design for Quick and Effective Communication

Adopt a Contrarian Approach

Stand Out by Being a Helpful Resource

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