Email Marketing RulesDesigning for Impact: Our Top Digital Marketing Creative Tips
Posted on May 12, 2026
Campaign design is constantly evolving, driven by tech and inbox innovations, changing consumer preferences, and the growing need to capture attention and serve customers well. In practice, those shifts don’t show up in big strategic overhauls. Performance is shaped by the details. Campaigns underperform because of small creative decisions that compound—things like layout, hierarchy, interactivity, and mobile usability.
That’s why we pulled together the 2026 Digital Marketing Lookbook, which highlights 20 standout campaigns from among the hundreds of thousands that our team sees each year. Across those campaigns, we identified seven creative trends we think are driving performance. And because we think there’s always room for improvement, we shared 79 pieces of advice on potential improvements to those campaigns, both from the experts in our Creative Studio and from Athena by Zeta™, our superintelligent agent.
With so much inspiration and information packed into the Lookbook, we wanted the opportunity to unpack it at greater length. That’s exactly what we did in the on-demand webinar below. In it, we talk more about our inclusion criteria, dive into five of the creative trends, and spotlight several campaigns in the Lookbook, along with additional on-trend campaigns.
The Last Word on April 2026
Posted on May 11, 2026
A roundup of digital marketing and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Unspam 2026 recap (Really Good Emails)
Gap’s Chief Entertainment Officer Must Deliver More than Viral Moments (EMarketer)
Massachusetts Officially Proclaims April 23 as Email Day in Honor of Email Pioneer Ray Tomlinson (ZeroBounce)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Visible AI in marketing is four times more likely to cost brands trust than build it
📊Subscribe to the Chart of the Day newsletter: https://t.co/9PwiRisjmq#ChartoftheDay #newsletter #AI #marketing #brands pic.twitter.com/wP7PMQIkFN
— EMARKETER (@eMarketer) April 10, 2026
Noteworthy subject lines
PINK 🦋Big Spring Sale, 4/12 – Today Only: $25 Sweats When You Buy 3
Fandango, 4/3 – Your Friday Movie Premiere 🍄🪐
IKEA Family, 4/29 – Easy ways to celebrate Earth Month 🌎
Neiman Marcus, 4/28 – The Roundup: Mother’s Day Gifts
YETI, 4/10 – Find Must-Have Gifts For Mom
Michaels, 4/28 – 🧑🚀 Get up to 50% off gifts for out-of-this-world Moms →
Williams-Sonoma, 4/12 – For Mom, with love 💝
NFLShop.com, 4/12 – 🌷Soft Colors. Strong Team Pride.
Wayfair, 4/2 – G-A-R-A-G-E-S-T-O-R-A-G-E-C-A-B-I-N-E-T-S
Clinique Online, 4/13 – Get 3 free gifts when you spend $65
Top Deals at GameStop, 4/12 – Buy a Switch 2 & Super Mario Galaxy 1+2 for $499 🌟💸
Abercrombie & Fitch, 4/2 – Extra 20% OFF purchases of $125+* in the app with code: AF20.
Olive Garden, 4/13 – Delivery. Is. Now. FREE!
Nintendo, 4/16 – Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream brings the series back to life
Bass Pro Shops, 4/13 – Enter The Dream Boat Giveaway
Huckberry, 4/28 – What to Wear From Relwen Spring ’26
MASS MoCA, 4/8 – Summer starts here!
Patagonia, 4/6 – Breathable tech tees that won’t leave you sticky
Wayfair, 4/28 – Our best gazebo deals
Gap, 4/23 – Basquiat. On you.
Huckberry, 4/10 – Mike Tyson Said It Best
Patriots Member Services, 4/23 – NFL Draft Tonight!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
2026 Digital Marketing Lookbook
In Defense of Mother’s Day Opt-Outs (and Empathy in Marketing)
Email Marketing Underperforming? Let’s Troubleshoot It
Posted on May 7, 2026
While no one has claimed email marketing is dying for many, many years, some marketers have become increasingly concerned with performance declines, despite the channel generating returns on investment that are often at least twice as high as most other channels. If your organization is concerned about your email marketing performance, here are some of the root causes we’ve been seeing with our clients that go beyond the usual economic or competitive pressures.
First Quarter 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report
Posted on May 5, 2026
Zeta Global’s latest Marketing Benchmark report shares aggregated data on SMS click rates and on email sends, open rates, click rates, click-to-open rates, and unsubscribe rates from Jan. 1 through Mar. 31, 2026, including year-over-year changes. The email benchmarks are broken down by industry (e.g., retail; travel, hospitality & entertainment; financial services & insurance; and media) and by email type (e.g., promotional and triggered).
The report also includes:
- Commentary and context from our digital marketing experts so you can understand performance changes
- Tips on how to use benchmarks effectively
- Discussions of the latest inbox provider changes from Gmail and Yahoo Mail and how they affect marketers
To get the report via a free, no-form download…
The Last Word on March 2026
Posted on April 9, 2026
A roundup of digital marketing and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
The AI-Search Adoption Survey: 6 Charts Show Where (and How) People Search (Digital Marketing Tips
First Take on The Forrester Wave Email Marketing Service Providers 2026 (Email Vendor Selection)
6 Post-Purchase Moments that Shape Customer Lifetime Value (Holistic Email Academy)
Amazon Wins Court Order to Block Perplexity’s AI Shopping Agent (CNBC)
What’s an ‘E-shaped’ Economy — and Where Do You Fit in It? (MarketWatch)
This Is What Work Looks Like in a (Not So) Future World (VKTR)
Interactive Emails: Pros and Cons, Tips & Examples [2026] (Moosend)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
When there is little effort, you get sarcastic humor from me. pic.twitter.com/8C8ToHXNuQ
— Keith Kouzmanoff (@emailmp) March 31, 2026
Noteworthy subject lines
Really Good Emails, 3/17 – You’ve earned 12 fake points and our respect
Goldbelly, 3/19 – Peep This 💐🐇🐣 Top Easter Eats
Williams Sonoma, 3/26 – Sweet details for a joyful Easter 🐰🌸
Michaels, 3/31 – We’ve got it: NEW! PEEPS x Hello Kitty and Friends Easter collection 🐤 🎉
Nintendo, 3/10 – Happy MAR10 Day!
Burlington, 3/6 – Happy National Dress Day!
Goldbelly, 3/13 – Pi Day Pie Sale ENDS TOMORROW! 🥧
IKEA Family, 3/9 – Lost an hour 🥱? Gain big savings on sleep essentials 🛏️!
NFLShop.com, 3/20 – Perfect Layers For Changing Weather 🌿
Wayfair 3/15 – Your vertical garden need-to-knows 👉
Overstock, 3/12 – Make your patio pop ✨
West Elm, 3/26 – A functional entryway
IKEA Family, 3/2 – Sofa savings you’ll want to sit down for 🛋️
IKEA Family, 3/22 – Water-saving tips your wallet will soak up
Allrecipes Tonight, 3/12 – The Only Hot Dogs You Should Buy
Priceline, 3/9 – Hack #3: These filters = savings!
Chubbies After Party, 3/26 – Introducing Chubbies AFTERPARTY
adidas CONFIRMED, 3/22 – The wolf awakens
Duluth | Underwear Sale, 3/30 – ALL. UNDERWEAR. ON. SALE.
Home Depot, 3/25 – FIFA World Cup 2026™ 🏆Experience It IRL
PINK, 3/19 – NEW Desert Looks Loading 🌵🤠🎶
Urban Outfitters, 3/19 – BAGGU + UO 🍒 Cherry Land Collection
adidas, 3/15 – Explore the new Bob Marley collection
Quiksilver, 3/10 – New Collab Alert
Nitya from Lonely Planet, 3/10 – You’re invited: Become a Founding App Member!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
What Makes Enterprise Email Marketing Different
Less Copy, More Clicks: 9 Proven Ways to Improve Marketing Message Performance
How Marketers Can Adapt to Gmail’s ‘Manage Subscriptions’
Litmus Live: Omnichannel Subscribers + Email Accessibility Mistakes
How Ethical Are Your Digital Marketing Tactics?
Don’t Discount These Four Trends Driving Innovation in Restaurant & Hospitality
3-Year Anniversary of the 4th Edition of ‘Email Marketing Rules’
2026 Digital Marketing Lookbook
Posted on April 3, 2026
Zeta Global’s third annual Lookbook chronicles the latest design trends and spotlights 20 standout campaigns from among the tens of thousands our Creative Services team reads each year.
For each featured campaign, we point out all the ways they’re innovating and worth emulating, whether it’s in terms of design, development, copywriting, strategy, or omnichannel orchestration. And because great marketing is never finished, we also highlight opportunities for each campaign from both our Creative Services team and Athena, Zeta’s superintelligent agent.
Along the way, you’ll see clear trends emerge, such as the power of:
- Clear messaging and easy-to-follow layouts
- Visually led storytelling, where imagery takes the lead driving clarity and engagement
- Engaging content, including polls and non-promotional content
- Organic, human-centered visual design that builds authenticity
- Social proof that validates the brand’s community
- Cross-channel coordination of messaging
- Real-time automation aligned to subscriber behavior
We invite you to explore these campaigns on your own or, even better, with your digital marketing team. As you do, consider not just what inspires you, but what you can test, scale, and operationalize to elevate your own customer experience in 2026.
>> Get inspired
In Defense of Mother’s Day Opt-Outs (and Empathy in Marketing)
Posted on April 2, 2026
Being empathetic is hard. If it were easy, then every brand would do it. Because it takes time and effort, that often means getting approval from your boss, who may not see the ROI in catering to the sensitivities of sometimes relatively small segments of customers.
A great case in point is Mother’s Day opt-outs, where brands give their subscribers the opportunity to be suppressed from receiving Mother’s Day promotions. Here’s a dramatization of how you might respond to your boss if they’re not seeing the value in providing this option.
What Makes Enterprise Email Marketing Different
Posted on March 31, 2026
Enterprise email marketing and SMB email marketing use the same protocols, the same inbox providers, the same basic formats. But the operational reality behind them is so different that organizations scaling from mid-market to enterprise often discover their tools, processes, and team structures need to be rebuilt from the foundation up.
This post by Knak dives into the critical elements that allow SMB email programs to grow to enterprise scale, covering:
- Signs you’ve outgrown your email marketing tools
- Brand governance and speed in enterprise email
- Why email creation is the enterprise bottleneck
- Proportional governance for enterprise email programs
- Measuring business outcomes, not campaign metrics
Less Copy, More Clicks: 9 Proven Ways to Improve Marketing Message Performance
Posted on March 27, 2026
Attention is scarce. Performance is everything.
Marketers invest heavily in identity resolution, predictive intelligence, and real-time activation to reach the right consumers. But even the most sophisticated targeting can underperform if the message itself creates friction.
In permission-based channels like email, SMS, RCS, and push, you have already earned access. The subscriber opted in. The real challenge is not breaking through the noise, but converting attention into action. That requires discipline.
Concise, value-driven messaging consistently outperforms bloated creative because it respects time, sharpens intent, and drives faster decisions. In our client’s campaigns across retail, financial services, and travel, Zeta’s Creative Studio team repeatedly sees that clarity increases click-through rates, reduces drop-off, and improves downstream conversion.
When real-time signals identify high-intent prospects, brevity becomes a force multiplier.
Here are nine practical ways to craft promotional messages that convert.
How Marketers Can Adapt to Gmail’s ‘Manage Subscriptions’
Posted on March 23, 2026
“Received too many emails” has perennially been one of the top reasons consumers unsubscribe. Google is clearly trying to address this complaint with the “Manage Subscriptions” functionality it launched in Gmail last year and rolled out over the course of subsequent months. However, the functionality is hampered by flaws that limit its usefulness for consumers, while at the same time arbitrarily punishing some 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
GVP of CRM Strategy
Zeta Global
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
