Email Marketing RulesAnswers to 4 Burning Questions about Gmail Supporting Responsive Design
Posted on September 30, 2016
As of the wee hours of this morning, Gmail began rolling out support for media queries across its webmail and iOS and Android email apps. This follows their Sept. 14 announcement about the change, which included developer documentation. And that Gmail announcement followed the announcement in August that Microsoft is partnering with Litmus to improve rendering in Outlook.
Gmail supporting responsive design raises four important questions:
- Do marketers need to use hybrid email design anymore?
- Do marketers need to inline CSS in their emails anymore?
- Can marketers now use interactive email elements in Gmail?
- What’s driving these changes at the inbox providers?
I answer each of those questions in my latest Marketing Land column.
>> Read my entire column on MarketingLand.com
Webinar: Top Tips to Drive More Conversions from Email
Posted on September 27, 2016
Over 50% of emails today are opened on mobile devices. Savvy email marketers are implementing a mobile first strategy focused on providing a consistent, personalized customer journey that drives both online and offline conversions from email, including calls and in-store visits.
Join me and my fellow panels—Sigstr VP of Customer Success David Duke and Invoca Director of Product Marketing Paul Rudwall—on Oct. 11 at 2pm ET as we discuss the newest and most effective tactics to drive more conversions from email, including:
- Tactics to create a mobile-first email experience
- Tales of success from leading email marketers
- Tools to measure all conversions from email, and get credit for all the calls that your email campaigns are driving
- Tips to leverage caller data, to provide better email segmentation and a more personalized customer journey
>> Register for the webinar
4 Kinds of Email Addresses That Are Damaging Your Deliverability
Posted on September 26, 2016
Email is a great medium for connecting with leads and customers. But when your list becomes bloated with bad addresses and inactive subscribers, your deliverability can be in serious jeopardy.
Here are four types of offending addresses and how to deal with each of them effectively:
- Invalid Email Addresses. These addresses are unmailable, which means they don’t match any existing email accounts.
- Spam Traps. All spam traps pose risks to marketers, but the most harmful are pristine spam traps—email addresses created by inbox providers and blacklisting organizations to identify spammers.
- Role-based Email Addresses. These include departmental addresses, such as “sales@company.com” or “events@company.com.”
- Inactive Subscribers. These fall into two categories: never-actives and chronic inactives. Never-actives are new subscribers who haven’t engaged with any of your emails; chronic inactives have opened and clicked through your messages in the past, but they have since ignored them for several months or longer.
For a detailed discussion of each of these…
>> Read the full article on MarketingProfs.com
30 Must-Subscribe Brands
Posted on September 21, 2016
Which brands do you think have the most inspiring email marketing programs? We asked more than 900 email marketers that question and then shared their top 25 must-subscribe brands in our 2016 State of Email Design report.
We also did video interviews with four speakers from The Email Design Conference, asking them to pick their must-subscribe brands and explain why. They named five more brands—bring our total to 30—and there were some clear themes around these brands doing personalization and interactivity really well.
To watch the video and see the list of must-subscribe brands…
>> Read the full post on the Litmus blog
Infographic: Many Email Marketing Mistakes Going Undetected
Posted on September 20, 2016
Our 2016 State of Email Production report found that 31.6% of marketers hadn’t halted a single email send in the past 12 months and that 49.4% hadn’t sent a single apology or correction email. At first, we were very impressed by these brands.
However, as we dug into the data, we became increasingly concerned. That’s because the marketers who weren’t halting or sending apologies appear to be significantly less sophisticated and fewer safeguards in place than marketers who were halting sends and sending apologies.
Our conclusion? Most marketers are making apology-worthy mistakes. But only half of them are aware of the mistakes they’re making.
In this infographic, we explore this issue and offer seven tips on how you can improve your visibility of email marketing mistakes.
>> View the infographic on the Litmus blog
Why You Shouldn’t Use Opens to Gauge Subject Line Success
Posted on September 16, 2016
Marketers understand that subject lines are incredibly important to the success of an email marketing program. However, what many marketers don’t understand is how to determine whether a subject line is successful or not.
You’ve probably heard people say that the goal of subject lines is to get opens; that the goal of an email’s body copy is to get clicks; and that the goal a landing page is to get conversions. That sounds really reasonable, but it’s misleading.
This kind of thinking leads marketers to believe that a higher open rate is better because it means they’ve opened the top of their funnel up wider and more people have seen their email’s message. And if more people enter the top of their funnel, then they have more opportunities to convince those people to take action. So they write subject lines with the aim of attracting as many openers as possible—often using vague, overly familiar, or even misleading subject lines to accomplish that.
But that’s an overly simplified view of how audiences work. It assumes that all opens are equal—and they’re not.
>>Read the entire post on the Litmus blog
Report: 2016 State of Email Design
Posted on September 8, 2016
Designing an email isn’t like designing a webpage or print piece. There are both limitations and opportunities around what you can do with email design, and it’s up to email designers and coders to master both of those.
In the inaugural State of Email Design report, which is based on the responses of more than 900 marketers, we take a detailed look at how marketers:
- Search for email inspiration
- Use brand guidelines
- Approach email design
- Use various design elements
- Use one-off email designs
- A/B test their emails
- Handle email redesigns
- Manage landing page responsibilities
Use the results in this report to benchmark your own email designs and design processes, to identify opportunities where you can improve, and as evidence to argue for the need to try out new email marketing tactics and strategies.
>> Download the free report
The (Largely Invisible) Key to Holiday Email Marketing Success
Posted on September 7, 2016
Most retailers are in serious planning mode for their holiday season promotional campaigns. We’ll start to see a sprinkling of holiday email marketing campaigns in the weeks ahead—and then holiday messaging will get going in earnest on Halloween and the days following.
In light of the planning that’s currently going on, Vaida Pakulyte of Strands asked me and five other experts for our best advice for retailers starting to create their holiday season campaigns. Here’s my advice:
Retailers that keep their messaging clear and compelling will do very well this holiday season. Simplicity wins when it comes to holiday broadcast messaging.
But increasingly, the biggest winners are determined by which brands have the best triggered emails–especially browse and cart abandonment emails. Targeting subscribers who browse without purchasing and add products to their cart without purchasing, respectively, these emails are incredibly effective at generating conversions.
Going into the holiday season, I highly recommend that you launch even simple versions of these emails, if you don’t currently have them. And if you’re already created these emails, then:
- Test them to make sure they still render and function as intended
- Look for opportunities to improve them through A/B testing between now and the end of October
- Consider adding seasonal imagery and messaging to make them more relevant to holiday shoppers
- Consider setting these emails to launch more quickly after abandonment since purchase consideration cycles are much faster during the holiday season
>> Read all the advice on the Strands blog
The Deeper Meaning Behind 5 Email Marketing Soundbites
Posted on September 6, 2016
While at The Email Design Conference in Boston a few weeks ago, I tweeted a lot of great email marketing soundbites from the sessions, and saw a bunch of great ones from the sessions in the track I wasn’t in. Twitter is fantastic at delivering soundbites like these, but it’s horrible at conveying the larger context and details orbiting around these soundbites.
In my latest Marketing Land column, I discuss the deeper meaning behind the following quotes from The Email Design Conference:
“The time when emails had to be pixel-perfect is way behind us.” —Eric Lepetit, Email Lead Engineer, Manager, Nest (@ericlepetitsf)
“I want to do business with a company that treats emailing me as a privilege, not a transaction.” —Andrea Mignolo, Head of Design & UX, Movable Ink (@pnts)
“An Amazon email in your inbox should feel like an Amazon box on your doorstep.” —Vicky Ge, Product Manager II, Email Automation and Outbound Marketing Systems, Amazon (@vickymakesstuff)
“The right button isn’t what’s popular. It’s what’s tested.” —Mike Nelson, Co-founder, Really Good Emails (@mevlow)
“F#@&ups are learning opportunities.” —Russell Patton, Senior Email Deployment Specialist, Archer>Malmo
For a dive into the greater meaning behind these email marketing soundbites…
>> Read my full column on MarketingLand.com
The Last Word on August 2016
Posted on September 1, 2016
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Everything You Wanted to Know About Email CTA Buttons (Really Good Emails)
Simple email subject lines are failing to engage consumers: stats (Econsultancy)
Teaching the Email Marketer How to Fish (Adobe)
An Alternative Theory (Rebelmail)
Engagement Rate Heralds Next Era Of Email Metrics (MediaPost)
Millennials + Email: How to Engage Email Natives (BrightWave)
Interview: Litmus CEO Paul Farnell on Microsoft partnership (EmailMarketingWeb)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@remybergsma: @litmusapp @kenburbary with Delta Airlines outage, people interviewed said ‘I didn’t receive an email with the news!’ Nuff said. #adobechat
@iamelliot: 9 times out of 10, the solution to any email dev problem is “just add another table” #emailgeeks #tables4dayz
@RodriguezCommaJ: Modular design requires buy-in from everyone. Copywriters, designers, and coders all need to know what modules they can use. #LitmusLive
@tdnvl: “An Amazon email in your inbox should feel like an Amazon box on your doorstep.” @vickymakesstuff #LitmusLive #emailMarketing
@tatianatmac: “Design is the rendering of intent.” –@jmspool via @pnts #LitmusLive
@Listrak: 1/3 of shoppers took advantage of BOPIS (buy online, pick-up in store) in 2015 holiday season #ListrakTrends
@bestofjess: “The most important things don’t show up in analytics. I want a graph of hand-written thank you notes received & karma earned.” #contentjam
Noteworthy subject lines
OnlineShoes.com, 8/13 — Get $60 off | Gold, silver or bronze deals
West Elm, 8/13 — First-Place Picks! See what made our list…
Aeropostale, 8/15 — Trending: Our Americana Shop
Earth Day Network, 8/18 — World Records We Shouldn’t Be Breaking
Verizon, 8/21 — Now that the games are over, catch up on the best movies
ToysRUs, 8/2 — Calling All Candidates!
American Apparel, 8/9 — WIN A $500 Gift Card + Model For Us
Sony, 8/9 — A+ Innovations | Perfect for Back to School
GapKids, 8/9 — Classroom-cool, after-school ready
Dunkin’ Donuts, 8/26 — The hotter the weather, the better these taste!
Neiman Marcus, 8/3 — Baby, it’s cold INSIDE: 20% off cashmere right now
Brooks Brothers, 8/18 — It’s hot out. But now for long.
Lands’ End, 8/9 — There’s no such things as a “good enough” cardigan to us
Anthropology, 8/16 — A favorite designer. A soon-to-be favorite dress.
Victoria’s Secret, 8/18 — The perfect pair
The Swiss Colony, 8/9 — Snack Softly…and Chew a Savory Stick
Chili’s, 8/18 — This deal will have you guacin’ on sunshine!
San Diego Zoo, 8/12 — Happy 100th Birthday to the San Diego Zoo!
SeaWorld Orlando, 8/16 — Can you handle the thrills of National Coaster Day?
Goodwill Industries, 8/27 — DIY Harry Potter Inspired Projects
Dell, 8/2 — Wait… Dell.com has amazing savings on electronics too? (On second thought, don’t wait.)
Drs. Foster & Smith, 8/15 — Your Pet is About to Miss Out : (
J.Crew, 8/13 — Pop quiz! Which button-up’s for you?
Moosejaw, 8/18 — Can you Anagram with the Best?
GapKids, 8/18 — 2 inches taller? Try cute PJs that fit
Horchow, 8/1 — Need inspiration? We’ve got that!
Kate Spade, 8/13 — like? love!
Neiman Marcus, 8/12 — #onlyatNM evening dresses from Sachin & Babi Noir
Target, 8/28 — It’s #TargetRunDay! Get 10% off your purchase.
FansEdge, 8/24 — Avoid #FOMO. 25% Off Is Almost Over.
REI, 8/9 — Introducing REI Garage
Applebee’s, 8/2 — Chad, Download Our App and Save!
Ikea, 8/9 — Chad, the new 2017 IKEA Catalog is here!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
The Untapped Opportunity for Weekend Promotional Emails
Why It’s More Likely Now that We’ll Be Able to FixOutlook
Marketing Tips to Drive Holiday Sales & Revenue
Teaching the Email Marketer How to Fish
Holiday Email Marketing: 4 Reasons to Start Planning Now!
Responsive-Aware Email Design’s Growing Appeal
Innovative Partner Interview with Movable Ink
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
