Email Marketing RulesSurvive the AI Takeover of Search — 5 Moves Every Brand Must Make
Posted on August 13, 2025
Traditional search—and Google, in particular—is under serious threat of being dislodged as the starting point for many buyers’ journeys. In January, ChatGPT and other alternatives drove Google’s search engine market share below 90% for the first time since 2015, according to Statcounter. And the sharks are circling more aggressively now, with both OpenAI and Perplexity set to release browsers to compete with Google’s market-leading Chrome, and with at least a dozen AI startups also vying to gobble up some of Google’s market share.
To be fair, the biggest loser here isn’t Google, which has introduced its own generative AI search results in the form of AI Overviews. The biggest losers are website operators, who are having their content regurgitated by generative AI engines in exchange for a source link (sometimes) and are seeing their web visitor traffic plunge.
For instance, research shows that website traffic from Google has declined between 30% and 70% depending on the search terms used because of AI Overviews, according to AI magazine. That’s in line with Ahrefs research showing that an AI Overview in a search results correlates with a 34.5% lower clickthrough rate on average for the top-ranking page, compared to similar informational keywords without an AI Overview.
And the worst is yet to come. “Your website doesn’t need to go away,” says Chris Andrew, CEO & Co-founder of Scrunch, “but 90% of its human traffic will.”
Welcome Email Best Practices
Posted on August 11, 2025
When someone signs up to receive your promotional emails, it marks the start of what is hopefully a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Start it off right by sending the most effective welcome email possible.
Here are nine best practices to follow:
- Send welcomes immediately.
- Use a marketing-appropriate sender name.
- Use a high-value call-to-action.
- Keep your copy and design focused.
- Use a welcome email series.
- Send different welcomes based on acquisition source.
- Craft user-friendly welcomes.
- QA and optimize your welcomes often.
- Seasonally update your welcomes.
For a full discussion of each of those recommendations…
The Limitations of B2B Email Marketing Benchmarks
Posted on August 5, 2025
Email marketers put too much stock in external benchmarks, which can give them a distorted view of their performance and cause them to make ill-informed strategic and tactical mistakes. That was the core message of my closing keynote for MarketingProfs’ Modern Email Marketing Essentials.
Let’s explore that issue and what B2B marketers can do instead.
The Last Word on July 2025
Posted on August 4, 2025
A roundup of digital marketing and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us (The New York Times)(gift article)
Q2 2025 Email Patterns, Trends, and Outliers (Really Good Emails)
Rory Sutherland on the Fat Tail of Marketing (Future Commerce)
The Perfect Storm: How Two Major Industry Changes Impacted Email Engagement (Validity)
Your Favorite Model? Thanks to AI, They Might Not Be Real (CNN)
Yahoo Mail to Absorb Comcast Subscriber Mailboxes (Spam Resource)
Perplexity’s Comet Browser Challenges Chrome With AI-First Internet Experience (CMSWire)
OpenAI to Release Web Browser in Challenge to Google Chrome (Reuters)
Inside the Media’s Traffic Apocalypse (New York Magazine)
Nike Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Misleading Email Marketing (EmailExpert)
Movable Ink Announces Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by STG (Movable Ink)
Ziff David Acquires Email Industries, Organizer of Inbox Expo (Ziff Davis)
Can Bloomingdale’s Bring the Magic Back to Department Stores? (McKinsey & Co.)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Most consumers are seeing AI summaries in search results
📊 Subscribe to the Chart of the Day newsletter: https://t.co/9JA7P0G9dT#ChartoftheDay #newsletter #AI #search pic.twitter.com/kILtVkRxZ3
— EMARKETER (@eMarketer) July 25, 2025
Sam Altman says it’s insane that banks still accept voice prints for authentication.
AI has already broken most of the systems we use to prove who we are, and we’re sleepwalking into a synthetic fraud crisis.
“Right now it’s a voice call. Soon it’s gonna be video. It’ll be… pic.twitter.com/iqMaCjQpKG
— vitrupo (@vitrupo) July 23, 2025
Noteworthy subject lines
YETI, 7/17 – Support Kerr County, Texas.
Abercrombie, 7/24 – Have a Euro summer.
Levi’s, 7/19 – How to maximize your staple pieces
Spirit Halloween, 7/24 – 🚨 Krampus RETURNS
Dell Technologies, 7/9 – Black Friday in July savings inside.
Home Depot, 7/2 – Ready for the 4th of July? ♨️🎆😎
AutoZone, 7/4 – 🇺🇸 Road Trips & Rocket’s Red Glare – Let’s Go
Harley-Davidson, 7/4 – Freedom rides on two wheels
IKEA Family, 7/14 – Cramming. Not good for studying or for storage.
IKEA Family, 7/21 – Declutter your dorm with IKEA designers! 📚 🙌 😎
Wayfair, 7/20 – ⏱️Plus DORM DEALS ⏱️ Less than 24 HOURS ⏱️
Michaels, 7/22 – 🌈 ✏️ 🍎 Make back-to-school a celebration with awesome supplies and DIYs
DSW, 7/18 – It takes a village: 20% off for teachers & parents >>>
Staples, 7/3 – Got your 🧑🏫📝? Activate for 30% back today!
J.Crew, 7/21 – Too hot to think? Wear these dresses…
Duluth Trading, 7/20 – 25% OFF Heat-Beatin’ Gear!
Chubbies, 7/7 – Trunks So Good, You’ll Skip the Shirt
Uncommon Goods, 7/21 – The coolest backyard this summer? Yours.
VS PINK, 7/29 – We Live for a Comfy-Cute Moment
DSW, 7/21 – INSIDE: 6 NEW Fall Trends 👠👟🐆🤎🍂
Michaels, 7/8 – Warning: may cause extreme home envy! 😍
Williams Sonoma, 7/28 – Introducing Lotus: professional-grade appliances for your kitchen
Victoria’s Secret, 7/24 – Bras So Good, We Sell 1 Every 5 Seconds
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 7/17 – Closing Soon at The Met
Fanatics.com, 7/29 – Take a Fanatics survey for a chance to win $100 in FanCash!
Fandango, 7/3 – The Rotten Tomatoes App Is Here 🎉
Gap App Exclusive, 7/24 – We’re thanking you with 50% off
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
How to Use AI Subject Line and Copywriting Tools Successfully
Key Lead Nurturing Campaigns by Industry
The AI ROI Killer Lurking in Your Architecture: Data Access Charges
How One Button Can Reduce Email Unsubscribes by 80%
The Unsubscribe Experience Is Part of CX. Treat It That Way.
How to Use AI Subject Line and Copywriting Tools Successfully
Posted on July 29, 2025
Machine learning tools like Persado and Jacquard were writing promotional email subject lines and other copy long before generative AI came along. But unlike genAI, which is primarily about saving time, machine learning-powered copywriting tools are all about increasing performance.
What words and phrases should I use to communicate most effectively? That is the question these tools have sought to answer by analyzing years-worth of campaigns and connecting higher performance with certain words and lower performance with others.
Key Lead Nurturing Campaigns by Industry
Posted on July 25, 2025
Some lead nurturing campaigns are fairly universal, easily finding an effective role in nearly any business. However, most industries have unique products and customer behaviors that can benefit from their own specific nurture flows.
Let’s discuss some important nurture campaigns that are common in the following industries:
- Financial services
- Logistics & distribution
- Manufacturing
- Sports & entertainment
The AI ROI Killer Lurking in Your Architecture: Data Access Charges
Posted on July 15, 2025
Even when you have a first-rate artificial intelligence solution, so much of your success with it comes down to the data you have to fuel it.
- Do you have quality data to drive the AI solution?
- Do you have the necessary depth of quality data to drive the AI solution?
- Do you have all the necessary data consolidated to drive the AI solution?
- Have you transformed the data so it’s interoperable?
- Is the data available in a timely fashion?
We’ve found that those are a few of the most common reasons why AI solutions fail. However, there’s another major pitfall to look out for that won’t cause your AI solution to not work, but will cause it to underdeliver on its return on investment. That pitfall is the cost structure to access all the data your AI solution needs.
How One Button Can Reduce Email Unsubscribes by 80%
Posted on July 10, 2025
Is email marketing’s return on investment too difficult to calculate? I join Email After Hours Podcast hosts Guy Hanson and Danielle Gallant to tackle that question and many others surrounding performance measurement. In fact, we tackled so many questions that the conversation was split into two episodes.
In part 2 of our conversation, we discuss:
- If ROI is too hard to measure, what other metrics should email marketers use instead?
- Why a 120:1 ROI is huge red flag
- What happens when marketers fail to demonstrate ROI?
- Huge opportunities during the signup process and unsubscribe process
- Whether high email marketing budgets correlate to higher performance
- Why have some marketing budgets shifted to advertising
- How can B2B companies prove out email ROI?
- The one bit of marketing jargon I would banish into oblivion
Listen to the Email After Hours Podcast wherever you get your podcasts or…
The Last Word on June 2025
Posted on July 7, 2025
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
The Toughest Love Letter Ever to Marketing Leaders (CMSWire)
The CMO’s Comeback: Aligning the C-suite to Drive Customer-Centric Growth (McKinsey & Co.)
AI Is Making a Major Impact on Email Marketing Teams, Report Finds (MarTech)
Inbox Evolution: 10 Must-Know Trends from the 2025 RGE Survey Thingy (Really Good Emails)
The 3 Big Factors in Subscriber Growth (Andy Crestodina)
ChatGPT “Absolutely Wrecked” at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977 (Futurism)
How to Use Generative AI For Analytics (Trust Insights)
How AI-Driven Sentiment Analysis Improves Email Copy (Benchmark Email)
Yahoo Mail Rolls Out New ‘Catch Up’ Feature to Help Users Tackle Inbox Overload (Yahoo)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Need y’all’s help.
Been running a guerrilla campaign to get the acronym GEO associated with Goose Egg Omelets.
It’s a fun, easy project: whenever you see GEO appear on the Internet, just leave a comment about Goose Egg Omelets. Soon enough, the AI models will get it 😎
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish.bsky.social) Jun 12, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Noteworthy subject lines
IKEA Family, 6/9 – 5 ways to make your home safer for National Safety Month
Redbubble, 6/9 – 25% Off Sitewide: Support LGBTQIA+ Artists 🏳️🌈
REI, 6/18 – Outside with Pride collection—ft. artist Lisa Congdon 🏳️🌈
Urban Outfitters, 6/27 – UO Celebrates Pride: Exclusive Vinyl Drop 🏳️🌈
Art.com, 6/1 – 30% Off to Celebrate the Art of Pride
Goldbelly, 6/23 – 🇺🇸🥩July 4th Grill Sale: Wagyu Steaks, Pacific Salmon + Wisconsin Brats!
Williams Sonoma, 6/20 – Red, white & SAVE! Up to 75% Off + Extra 20% Off Clearance
Staples, 6/29 – STARTS NOW: 30% back on your school supply list ✅✅✅
West Elm, 6/11 – 🎓 Head off to college in style with Pottery Barn Dorm
IKEA Family, 6/18 – Your college list, all packed up.
Bass Pro Shops, 6/14 – Celebrating Our U.S. Army’s 250th Birthday
J.Crew, 6/23 – Three new outfits that say ”I’m on vacation”
kate spade, 6/9 – Three ways to wear the Duo bag
REI, 6/6 – Earn a bonus when you buy a gift card of $100+
Art.com, 6/23 – A Solstice Celebration – 25% Off Sitewide
Duluth | Heat Dome Deal, 6/24 – $29.50 BBQ Shirts To Beat The Heat Dome
Patagonia, 6/9 – All-day sun protection for any activity
Chubbies, 6/25 – Chafe Season? Never Heard of Her
kate spade, 6/27 – No such thing as too many sundresses
Clinique Online, 6/14 – The new bronzed neutral = elevated summer glow.
Macy’s, 6/26 – 40-50% off sandals we ❤️ for every occasion
Urban Outfitters, 6/9 – 🦞 it’s (coastal) summer 🦞
kate spade, 6/6 – ➿ Meet the Loop bag ➿
Gap, 6/8 – Playtime, curated by us + email bonus 20% off
Nintendo, 6/5 – Power up with Nintendo Switch 2, available now!
YETI, 6/29 – New Smaller Sizes Of The Easy Access Rachero™ Backpack
Gap, 6/6 – The Gap × Malbon Collection
Crate & Barrel, 6/24 – This acclaimed chef’s new collection just dropped 👀
Overstock, 6/17 – Introducing the EFFY collection 💎
Allrecipes Dinner Tonight, 6/15 – This One Butter Brand Isn’t Worth Your Money
Everlane, 6/2 – “The Most Comfortable Pants I Own”
Crate & Kids, 6/8 – “I love this bed in their room!”
Burlington | Loyalty, 6/25 – You’re invited! Join our FREE loyalty program!
IKEA Family, 6/16 – Chad, have you unlocked your first reward yet?
LinkedIn, 6/25 – The Path to Agentic AI: A Collaborative Approach is starting soon. Joshua Ballantine and 2703 others will be there.
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
The Million-Dollar Opportunity You’re Missing
Lead Nurture Campaigns Every B2B Brand Needs
An Email ‘Newsletter’ Can Be Almost Anything. That’s a Good Thing.
Why Your AI Solutions May Not Be Working as Expected
How Tariff Messaging Can Make or Break Brand Loyalty
The Unsubscribe Experience Is Part of CX. Treat It That Way.
Posted on July 2, 2025
Clicking the Unsubscribe link in marketing emails has been maligned for decades—and not entirely for bad reasons. When no longer wanting to get emails you signed up for, clicking the Unsubscribe link can lead to confusing multi-click processes, which sometimes include double-negative question-and-option selections. In the worst cases, you have to log in just to access the unsubscribe page.
When no longer wanting to receive unsolicited emails, clicking the Unsubscribe link “just confirms that your email address is active and you’ll get even more spam,” we’ve been endlessly told, which is a legit concern considering the open buying and selling of lists. Making matters worse, The Wall Street Journal reported that 1 in 644 unsubscribe clicks leads to potentially malicious websites, according to DNSFilter. While that doesn’t sound like much of a risk, no one wants to end up on a malicious site that compromises their device or personal information.
Of course, an alternative to the sender-provided Unsubscribe link is the Spam button (unless you’re using Microsoft Outlook—more on that later). Clicking the Spam button is safe, takes just one click, and always works. However, it’s been such an easy and frequently used alternative to unsubscribing that Gmail and Yahoo Mail launched new requirements and made changes to their interfaces to try to get clearer signals on whether their users are clicking the Spam button out of convenience or because a sender’s emails are actually spam. They’ve done this by requiring senders to include list-unsubscribe headers in their emails, which support native Unsubscribe links that appear next to the sender’s name in the inbox.
Here’s my advice on when to use each of these three opt-out mechanisms, and what it means for marketers.
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
