Email Marketing RulesThe 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.
The Million-Dollar Opportunity You’re Missing
Posted on June 27, 2025
Is email marketing’s return on investment as good as many claim or is it a myth? 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 1 of our conversation, we discuss:
- Why the famous “36:1 ROI” metric might be misleading—and how to create more accurate measurements
- What keeps brands from pursuing higher returns
- How to tailor ROI calculations based on your program type: revenue-focused, lead-focused, engagement-focused, or retention-focused
- Why traditional attribution models fail to capture email’s full impact—especially for multi-channel retailers
- Why marketers need to become more comfortable with proxies and less-precise forms of measurement
- The hidden impact of deliverability on ROI—and why 85% inbox placement could mean leaving significant revenue on the table
- How inclusive design and accessibility improvements drive long-term ROI benefits beyond serving permanently disabled users
Listen to the Email After Hours Podcast wherever you get your podcasts or…
Lead Nurture Campaigns Every B2B Brand Needs
Posted on June 20, 2025
Lead nurture campaigns are automated digital marketing flows that are designed to respond to interest by prospects by delivering content that educates, persuades, or otherwise nudges them farther down the funnel and closer to conversion. Because of that goal of movement down the funnel, different nurture campaigns are aligned with different stages of the funnel and are generally triggered by the transition from one funnel stage to another.
Let’s talk about four nurture campaigns that every B2B brand needs to efficiently move prospects through the sales funnel.
An Email ‘Newsletter’ Can Be Almost Anything. That’s a Good Thing.
Posted on June 18, 2025
What is an email newsletter? That’s a serious question. Think about it for a minute. What is an email newsletter?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and here’s what I came up with:
An email newsletter is a message format that mostly contains non-promotional content that’s of interest to a particular audience.
That’s as specific as I could get—and I fully acknowledge there’s a mostly in there. That’s because newsletters generally do include overtly promotional content (such as ads) at least occasionally, if not regularly. That’s fine, but the defining characteristic of a newsletter is that a strong majority of the content isn’t overtly selling.
Since that’s the defining characteristic, let’s talk first about what that content is doing.
Why Your AI Solutions May Not Be Working as Expected
Posted on June 10, 2025
Every organization is excited about the potential of AI to improve their operations, but many are finding it difficult to make AI at scale a reality. If your brand is struggling to achieve what they expected with AI, answering these questions can help you identify common reasons for AI failures.
How 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.
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
