Email Marketing RulesHow Tariff Messaging Can Make or Break Brand Loyalty
Posted on June 4, 2025
Chaotic tariff policies have disrupted businesses and cratered consumer confidence. According to The Conference Board, consumer expectations for the future are at a 13-year low, having fallen for the fifth consecutive month as of April. Separately, the preliminary reading of consumer sentiment in May dropped to the second-lowest on record since the survey began in 1960, according to the University of Michigan. Both called out consumers’ tariff concerns as the primary driver of those low readings. That has translated into spending and GDP growth projections being revised lower.
Brands clearly recognize the risks that tariffs pose to not only their business operations but their relationships with their customers. That’s why some brands have already started using their marketing programs to position themselves with their customers to try to minimize the impact of tariffs on their customer relationships—with more messaging to come in the months ahead.
And, of course, for brands that have minimal or no exposure to tariffs, there’s a huge opportunity to trumpet the stability of their prices during the months ahead when some of their competitors will be struggling.
The Last Word on May 2025
Posted on June 3, 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 7 Stages of AI Proficiency (Andy Crestodina)
How Geopolitical Tensions Are Impacting B2B Marketing Spend (MarketingProfs)
I’m a LinkedIn Executive. I See the Bottom Rung of the Career Ladder Breaking. (The New York Times)
Alphabet shares sink 8% after Apple’s Cue says AI will replace search engines (CNBC)
Google’s AI Adventure – One Year On (SEO for Google News)
Welcome to the Zero-Click Marketing Era! (Holistic Email Marketing)
What Repeat Behavior Really Means for Customer Loyalty (CMSWire)
The Art of Asking Smarter Questions (Harvard Business Review)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
You know what sucks?
Signing up for a “newsletter” that’s actually a sales promo sequence in disguise.
Don’t do this.
— Dylan @ GC⚡ (@growthcurrency.net) May 2, 2025 at 1:55 PM
The environmental cost of inference by hammering LLMs with thousands of terms to try and gauge brand visibility maddenly outweighs the value gleaned from it in my opinion.
There is a whole industry spinning up to do this right now and it makes me a bit sad.
— Mark Williams-Cook (@markwilliamscook.com) May 8, 2025 at 6:09 AM
On dating apps, when an email developer tells you she codes emails, for the love of god, do not ask her if she’s a spammer. EVERYONE says that, trying to be cute, and it’s actually kinda offensive. #emailgeeks #emailpeeps #emailmarketing #htmleemail #emailcode
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) May 28, 2025
Noteworthy subject lines
Vuori, 5/5 – Our Top 5 Mother’s Day Gifts
Bass Pro Shops, 5/30 – Save 10% On Special Father’s Day Gift Cards!
Gap Email 5/31 – Announcing Father’s Day gifts: 50% off
Huckberry, 5/28 – Gift For: Rich ’90s Dads
Uncommon Goods, 5/26 – How to customize Dad’s gift without going to the hardware store
BARK, 5/30 – This Pride Walk Kit is SERVING!
5/31 – Just Launched: 2025 Pride Month Collection
Fanatics.com, 5/17 – Celebrate Armed Forces Day in the Official MLB Collection!
IKEA Family, 5/1 – 📚College students, get a 20% off coupon two days only! 📚
Ann Douglas from Lonely Planet, 5/17 – The right way to pack for a trip
Victoria’s Secret, 5/8 – New Summer Color Drop—Bras of Summer
Urban Outfitters, 5/17 – summer fit check: jorts + graphic tees
Wayfair, 5/30 – PATIO TABLES – our top picks.
Everlane, 5/19 – A Little Ruching Goes a Luxe Way
Everlane, 5/10 – You Want Square Necklines
Duluth Trading, 5/28 – Room to Breathe In Ballroom Jeans
Adidas, 5/19 – Inspiring individuality in every step
MoMA Design Store, 5/28 – Bring Out Your Inner Kidult
Eddie Bauer, 5/10 – Looks That Go From Work To Play
Eddie Bauer, 5/30 – We Did A Little Shopping For You – See Your Picks!
Neiman Marcus, 5/8 – Tod’s woven tote in beautiful blue
Allrecipes Recall Alert, 5/5 – Recall Alert: Fresh Tomatoes
Levi’s®, 5/28 – Levii’s jeans, meet Levii’s tees
Lane Bryant, 5/28 – Last splash 💦 $35 SWIM (final hours)
Clinique Online, 5/28 – Our best summer body care 💦☀️
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
What Microsoft’s New Email Deliverability Rules Means for B2B Brands
Messaging & Content Strategies for Long-Lifespan Products
Microsoft’s New Email Deliverability Rules Make DMARC Essential
Gmail’s Email ‘Upgrades’ Are Actually a Step Backward
Understanding Email Deliverability: Key Factors & Key Issues
Are You Treating Your Digital Marketing Like Advertising?
Posted on June 2, 2025
Intrinsically, brands know that marketing and advertising are different functions with different goals and different strategies for achieving those goals. As different as they are, these two functions need to be coordinated. That’s why marketing and advertising are typically run out of the same group in most companies and overseen by the same executive officer.
However, perhaps because they’re increasingly organized under the same group, some brands are treating marketing like advertising. Chances are you regularly feel this when you personally receive email, SMS, and push messages that don’t reflect your interactions with those brands.
Operationally, there are several brand behaviors that tend to lead to marketing messages feeling like ads. Let’s talk about five of them.
What Microsoft’s New Email Deliverability Rules Means for B2B Brands
Posted on May 21, 2025
Microsoft’s new deliverability requirement will have an outsized effect on B2B marketers, with other additional recommendations also likely to impact them more than their B2C counterparts.
Let’s break down the new requirement and the four recommendations.
Messaging & Content Strategies for Long-Lifespan Products
Posted on May 19, 2025
For B2B and B2C brands that sell products with lifespans that stretch into multiple years like machinery and cars, devising a digital marketing content strategy can be difficult. They know they need to keep their customers engaged, but they often struggle with how to keep the conversation and relationship going between product replacement cycles.
For permission-based channels like email and SMS, it can be dangerous to not reach out to subscribers on at least a monthly basis. Less frequent messaging can zero out your email sender reputation, for instance. More broadly—and perhaps counterintuitively—it can be much, much harder to maintain permission when you message, say, every other month than twice a month, because you’re easier to forget. Plus, when your customer is back in the market to buy again, you want your brand to be top of mind.
Given those realities and those needs, brands need to have messaging frequencies of at least once a month, if not more frequent. But then there’s the struggle about what kind of content to send that acknowledges and respects long product replacement cycles.
Microsoft’s New Email Deliverability Rules Make DMARC Essential
Posted on May 12, 2025
Ever since Google and Yahoo jointly announced new deliverability requirements in late 2023, rumors have swirled that Microsoft would eventually join them. At long last, Microsoft announced new deliverability requirements, but only endorsed one of the four pillars of the Google-Yahoo announcement.
Let’s look at what Microsoft is requiring of senders and what impact it will have on marketers, bearing in mind that these changes will have an outsized impact on B2B marketers, which have much higher exposure to Microsoft as a mailbox provider.
Gmail’s Email ‘Upgrades’ Are Actually a Step Backward
Posted on May 8, 2025
Just like the saying, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” when you’re the biggest online advertising company in the world, everything starts to look like an ad. This thinking appears to be behind more and more of Google’s recent changes at Gmail.
Let’s examine three programs, starting with an older one that’s undergone big changes and ending with a brand new program.
Understanding Email Deliverability: Key Factors & Key Issues
Posted on May 7, 2025
Many marketers don’t give email deliverability much attention—that is, until they have a crisis on their hands that’s tanking their email marketing results. Still others have simply accepted their average or even below-average inbox placement rates because they think it’s normal or feel they can’t change it.
Across the email marketing industry, deliverability rates average 85%, according to Validity. However, the Oracle Digital Experience Agency clients who work with our Email Deliverability Services team have an average deliverability rate of 97%. For an email marketing program that generates $10 million in revenue annually, boosting its deliverability rate from 85% to 97% can mean up to $1.4 million in additional revenue.
How do we help our clients attain such high inbox placement rates? We do it by paying attention to…
The Last Word on March & April 2025
Posted on May 2, 2025
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Strengthening Email Ecosystem: Outlook’s New Requirements for High‐Volume Senders (Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Blog)
Segmentation Isn’t Just Strategy—It’s Empathy (Only Influencers)
The Tariff Theater: Commerce’s New Dark Pattern (Future Commerce)
OpenAI Is Building a Social Network (The Verge)
Into the Inbox: Email Statistics Report for 2025 (ZeroBounce)
20 Design Psychology Principles Every UX/UI Designer Should Know (Bootcamp)
Getting Email And Revenue On One Page: The Metrics Are Not Always Easy (MediaPost)
AI Won’t Replace These Skills: What Makes Email Marketers Irreplaceable? (Only Influencers)
Advertisers Urge GOP To Support Opt-Out Privacy Law (MediaPost)
Goodbye Clicks, Hello AI: Zero-Click Search Redefines Marketing (Bain & Co.)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
When is the last time you checked your unsubscribe link(s) ? pic.twitter.com/i1OE2DsspN
— Keith Kouzmanoff (@emailmp) March 11, 2025
As bad as Apple Intelligence is, if they released a built-in agent that automatically hit “Delete & Junk” for every political text I get, all would be forgiven.
— Paul Roetzer (@paulroetzer) March 9, 2025
Noteworthy subject lines
Guitar Center, 4/23 – Lock in up to 30% off before tariffs hit
Michaels, 4/22 – Design an on-trend tumbler for a lot less. ☀️ 🥤
Goldbelly, 3/10 – ☘️🌈 Eat Me, I’m Irish! ☘️🌈
Macy’s, 4/26 – The best Mother’s Day gifts for every budget 🌸
Eddie Bauer, 4/17 – Gifts For Here 🌼🎁🌷🛍️
Neiman Marcus, 4/28 – Make this Mother’s Day extra sparkly
Uncommon Goods, 4/12 – Don’t forget to check out our Mother’s Day gift guide 👀
Priceline, 4/17 – Your app savings + Momcation mode now loading!
Huckberry, 4/6 – Wedding Season Mode: Activated
Adidas, 3/21 – WHERE STARS MEET ⚽🇺🇸
Diesel, 4/22 – Festival Looks Celebs Can’t Stop Wearing
Williams Sonoma, 4/28 – Host the ultimate derby day with cocktails & more 🐎🍹
Airbirds, 4/3 – Spring Days Require Airy Shoes 🌳
Everlane, 4/14 – New Styles for Spring
CHANEL, 3/14 – The CHANEL Spring-Summer 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Duluth Trading, 3/25 – Nor’Wester Collection Tames Spring Spray
Neiman Marcus, 3/1 – Great Pairings: raffia bucket bags + sandals
Chubbies, 4/7 – Say goodbye to sunburns FOREVER
Adidas, 4/3 – Don’t Be a Fan later – adidas x Overtime collection
Gap, 3/22 – The Peter Rabbit Collection
Williams Sonoma, 4/26 – The spiral mixer your dough’s been waiting for
West Elm, 4/23 – Your home office transformation
Neiman Marcus, 3/29 – A fitted Balmain gown in pale pink
VS PINK, 3/21 – $25 Tees with Over 3,100 5-⭐ Reviews
VS PINK, 3/26 – “Where’d You Get That Dress?” -Everyone
Franky @ Tumblr, 4/30 – Let’s read a silly marketing email with mama
BARK, 3/21 – No Narcs Allowed In This Email 🌿
Macy’s, 4/23 – 15% off beauty EARLY ACCESS, in the app only
Fanatics.com, 3/21 – Score 30% Off When You Check out with Paze!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Subject Line Writing: 6 Trends that Are Driving Strategy Changes
The Unintended Consequences of Inbox Providers Ignoring Email Marketers
AI’s Impact on Digital Marketing Jobs: The Highest ROI Opportunity
Critical Apple Mail Changes & When They’ll Impact Marketers
Inbox Tabs Become Standard: What Marketers Need to Know
Email Marketing Trends for 2025: Proven Essentials
Is This the Beginning of the End of Big Social Media?
Subject Line Writing: 6 Trends that Are Driving Strategy Changes
Posted on April 29, 2025
Have your subject line writing strategies and tactics kept up with the times? Check and see if you’re accounting for these six changes in subject line writing:
1. Subject lines need to stand on their own.
2. Supplement your subject lines with solid preview text.
3. Subject lines should show contextuality, when it exists.
4. AI can help write subject lines.
5. Subject lines can include visual elements.
6. Subject lines should be voice-friendly.
For advice on how to adapt to each of these trends…
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
