Email Marketing Rules5 Steps to Optimize Web Modals & Boost Visitor Engagement
Posted on July 22, 2024
Popups, popovers, slide-ins, lightboxes, and other web modals are powerful because they demand attention. That’s why so many brands use them to drive email signups, SMS opt-ins, lead generation content downloads, event registrations, and other audience-building efforts.
However, when modals demand too much attention too loudly or too often, they can be incredibly annoying. That can lead to an increase in site abandonment, and even keep consumers from returning if they anticipate being harassed by modals every time they visit.
Once you’ve determined the goal of your modal and crafted messaging that’s aligned with that goal, use these five modal characteristics to maximize its performance while minimizing its annoyance.
Third Quarter 2024 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
Posted on July 15, 2024
The holiday season doesn’t have an off-season. Having a successful holiday season means executing a successful year-round strategy. Oracle’s Holiday Marketing Quarterly gives you a quarter-by-quarter plan for how to achieve more during this critical time of the year.
The third quarter is focused on the final prep for the start of the holiday season. In this Holiday Marketing Quarterly, we’ll cover:
- Campaign Planning
- Workload Management
- Contingency Planning
- Audience Optimization
- Performance Monitoring Plans
- Solidifying Your MarTech Stack
For the full checklist…
>> Get the Holiday Marketing Quarterly for free via a no-form download
The Last Word on June 2024
Posted on July 10, 2024
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
DMARC: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Word to the Wise)
Yahoo Mail Redesigns the Inbox for a Cleaner, Smarter, and Simpler Experience (Yahoo)
How AI Amplifies ‘Fauxthenticity’ (Only Influencers)
Bot or Not: Understanding Email Bot Clicks (Braze)
The Generational Email Effect (Exclaimer)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
The only perspective on AI that matters pic.twitter.com/FSkGIeirRv
— Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) June 2, 2024
Ever received an email with a subject line that awkwardly cuts off? 🫣
It’s the longest day of the year, so *naturally* we’re thinking about long subject lines. (Happy #SummerSolstice to those who observe! ☀️) pic.twitter.com/El1joQ79YZ
— Litmus (@litmusapp) June 20, 2024
Noteworthy subject lines
Gap, 6/18 – The Team USA Collection
J.Crew, 6/4 – Summer 2024 with USA Swimming
Columbia, 6/21 – Celebrate the 4th with new Americana gear!
Michaels, 6/19 – ❤️🤍💙 Welcome summer with patriotic party supplies and DIYs! ❤️🤍💙
Uncommon Goods, 6/17 – How to WOW on July 4th
IKEA Family, 6/3 – How are you celebrating Pride Month?
Redbubble, 6/20 – Let’s talk about Pride 🌈
Crate & Barrel, 6/16 – Get your order as fast as 7 (!!) days →
IKEA Family, 6/10 – Coming soon: the IKEA Grad Bash 2024!
Bed Bath & Beyond, 6/ 5 – Massive Markdowns on Gifts for Grads 🎓
Columbia, 6/2 – Gift dad the best, from $ to $$$.
Clinique Online, 6/16 – Dermatological solutions for summer 💪☀️
The Company Store, 6/5 – 😴🧊 Sleep Cool & Save: Up to 35% Off
Superdry, 6/4 – New Arrivals in Crochet
Levi’s, 6/21 – (Officially) summer styling’ 😎
REI, 6/27 – Hiking & backpacking deals, ready for summer
AutoZone, 6/20 – Is your vehicle read for the heat?
Spirit Halloween, 6/5 – 🙌 Spirit Halloween is hiring!
Crate & Barrel, 6/19 – Couches worth canceling plans for →
Scout from BARK, 6/25 – FOUND: a FREE Fi Collar to keep your pup safe
Chubbies, 6/21 – ⏰⏰⏰
VS PINK, 6/3 – All 👚 Of 👛 This 👙 Buy 2, Get 1 FREE
Everlane, 6/27 – Blue Da Ba Dee Da Ba Di
Allbirds, 6/5 – Top-To-Bottom Black
J.Crew, 6/27 – Get to know our summer best sellers
Huckberry, 6/27 – Now Trending: “Carmy” Style
Disney Store, 6/17 – 🐝What’s the buzz? New Disney Winnie the Pooh arrivals!
Chubbies, 6/27 – The 🐻 is back.
kate spade, 6/21 – Now on sale: the Dumpling collection
Urban Outfitters, 6/21 – UO EXCLUSIVE: Gracie Abrams 💜
adidas CONFIRMED, 6/27 – adidas Originals x JJJJound
Allrecipes The Scoop, 6/25 – Never Peel Eggs Again with This Hack
Bass Pro Shops, 6/24 – Now’s The Time To Redeem Your Gift Card!
IKEA Family, 6/7 – Let’s say ‘Hej’ on WhatsApp!📱
Macy’s, 6/25 – 40-50% off sandals only in the app
Patagonia, 6/21 – Patagonia Films on YouTube
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Digital Marketing in 2030: Major Changes & How to Adapt [with on-demand webinar]
How to Identify & Create More Great Customers
Leadership & Fatherhood: An Inspiring Father’s Day Tribute
Things I’ve Read about Email Marketing that Are Simply Wrong
What Email Marketers Should Be Upset About
Evolving Your Account-Based Marketing Program [with on-demand webinar]
Apple & Yahoo Back 2 Worrisome Trends for Email Marketers
Posted on July 8, 2024
Marketers have reasons to be concerned by the upcoming inbox changes that were announced by Apple on June 10 and Yahoo on June 11. Those changes entail Apple adding tabs to Apple Mail, and both Apple and Yahoo adding AI-generated summaries to emails.
Let’s talk in more detail about each and what the concerns are.
Digital Marketing in 2030: Major Changes & How to Adapt [with on-demand webinar]
Posted on June 26, 2024
Big changes are coming over the next several years that will affect how digital marketers connect with and build strong relationships with their customers and prospects. Generative AI will be a huge driver of these changes, creating both massive opportunities and massive disruptions to the status quo.
We see these changes as falling into three major buckets:
- Shifts in the Media Landscape, where some digital channels will see declining use by consumers and brands, while other channels see growth and become increasingly important
- Shifts in the Regulatory & Platform Landscape, where privacy and other restrictions imposed by state and federal laws and by digital platform providers (e.g., Apple, Google, Yahoo) will complicate audience tracking efforts, but build consumer trust by reducing privacy abuses
- Shifts in the Operational & Technological Landscape, where strategic choices and tech stack decisions either complicate or ease the efforts of brands to adapt to current and new challenges
How to Identify & Create More Great Customers
Posted on June 25, 2024
Every B2B company wants more customers. But even more than that, you want great customers. You want customers who are loyal and spend a lot with you. It’s the old 80-20 rule, where 20% of your customers are likely generating 80% of your revenue. Ideally, you’d like to grow that 20%, because increasing it even a little has a huge effect on your business.
Most brands start by asking themselves…
Leadership & Fatherhood: An Inspiring Father’s Day Tribute
Posted on June 17, 2024
As a father of three boys (12, 15, and 27), including one with special needs, fatherhood has been a defining influence on my life. So, I am thrilled to join some of the dads at Stripo in sharing how being a parent has influenced my leadership style.
For me, being a dad and a primary caregiver has helped me develop three skills that might have otherwise taken me longer. For instance, I’ve learned to prioritize. I can’t always do everything that’s asked of me, or that I’d like to do. Not being able to do it all helps me decide what’s really important.
It’s also made me a better communicator. Short, clear requests and instructions lead to less confusion and better outcomes. That’s a learning that carries over nicely to email marketing, too.
And lastly, being a dad has made me more flexible and empathetic. Even with solid, way-in-advance planning, sometimes things go sideways. Life happens. It happens to me, it happens to my colleagues, and it happens to my industry friends. We have an unofficial motto in our family: Don’t make it worse. When others are struggling and I can’t directly help, I try to do my best to adapt, go with the flow, and not make the situation more difficult for them. How can we pivot, adapt, delay, or reduce the expectations around what we’re working on? Sometimes the goal becomes just to get through.
For all the great, heartfelt advice on the intersection of parenthood and leadership…
Things I’ve Read about Email Marketing that Are Simply Wrong
Posted on June 14, 2024
The web has always been a dicey place to get email marketing advice. Too many people incorrectly think that email marketing hasn’t changed much over the years, so outdated information tends to get recirculated over and over and over.
Based on the rise in factual inaccuracies I’ve been seeing in recent months, I think generative AI may be making this problem worse. That’s because LLMs are trained on this outdated information and it appears some folks are using GenAI to provide background for their articles.
Rather than share all of the inaccurate and confusing statements I’ve seen lately (and potentially reinforce that bad information in future training for generative AI models), I’ll focus on the truth of how email marketing works.
What Email Marketers Should Be Upset About
Posted on June 10, 2024
There’s no shortage of things in email marketing to be irritated about. The lack of email coding standards, the inconsistent email rendering, the partial support for CSS-based interactivity, the partial support of AMP for email, inconsistent implementations of dark mode, how expensive BIMI VMCs are,… Marketers have also been perpetually frustrated by the big differences between spam filtering algorithms at the major inbox providers—although Google and Yahoo recently agreed on deliverability standards, and Microsoft is considering signing on as well. So, that’s a huge win for email marketers.
While all of those things are frustrating, there aren’t many things to be truly upset about. After all, email marketing allows massive audience reach, enjoys unrivaled consumer acceptance, supports rich and personalized messaging, and generates an incredibly strong return on investment, particularly when compared to other channels.
While there aren’t many things to be upset about, there are a few. Please indulge my rant.
The Last Word on May 2024
Posted on June 7, 2024
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
RGE’s Dark Mode Collection (Really Good Emails)
Accessibility Report 2024 (Email Markup Consortium)
We Test Everything: Long vs. Short Copy (Alchemy Worx)
Gmail App on Android Can Soon Summarize Your Emails (SamMobile)
Welcome to the AI Dystopia No One Asked for, Courtesy of Silicon Valley (CNN)
Google’s Broken Link to the Web (Platformer)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Did you know, if Princess Leia had just emailed the Death Star plans, that movie would have been over in 10 minutes?
Happy Star Wars Day!
May the Fourth be with you! pic.twitter.com/h1Vd11QHNd— Shawn Sutherland, 4X SF Cert, 1X Ranger (@DataMedicine) May 5, 2024
Bad developer! No, no! We don’t force light mode on the subscriber…. Ever. Dark mode in email is not an inconvenience – it’s your job. #emailgeeks #emaildarkmode #darkmode #emailpeeps #emaildeveloper #htmlemail #emailcode #dontdothis #itsyourjob pic.twitter.com/Se9izp7GoR
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) May 17, 2024
Noteworthy subject lines
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5/3 – May Events
Michaels, 5/2 – Make Mom something special (start now before it’s too late)! ⏳
Macy’s, 5/12 – Still need a gift for Mom? Hurry, extra 25% off ends tonight
Fanatics.com, 5/12 – From Diapers to the Dugouts >> Happy Mother’s Day!
kate spade Outlet, 5/3 – One for mom, one for… you!
IKEA Family, 5/9 – ⏰ Hurry! Exclusive 15% off for first 10,000 students! 🎓
Olive Garden, 5/28 – Graduation time?
YETI, 5/12 – Free Father’s Day Custom
Big Lots, 5/22 – Memorial Day Sale PLUS 20% Off $100+ on patio!
HP.com, 5/27 – On this day, we remember
Eddie Bauer, 5/22 – 50% Off Summer Hiking Faves 🥾🌲☀️ Exclusions Apply
Levi’s®, 5/13 – Sun’s out, Levi’s® on ☀️
Moosejaw, 5/22 – It’s beach time. Grab some new swimwear and gear and get going.
Chubbies, 5/13 – Welcome to the Swim Truck Hall of Fame
Eddie Bauer, 5/25 – Get Summer-Ready With Our UPF Collection ☀️🌊
Columbia, 5/23 – Your summer gear checklist is here.✔️✔️
J.Crew, 5/23 – White denim, just $85, today only! We never do this…
HP.com, 5/28 – Reliable. Recyclable. Responsible. Original HP Ink
Williams Sonoma, 5/12 – Discover the retro-inspired designs of SMEG Dolce & Gabbana Blu Mediterraneo Collection
Zara, 5/13 – New Romantic: Massimo Dutti collection
FIGS, 5/28 – First Ever ScrubSmock™
Neiman Marcus, 5/23 – Etro’s latest dress in full color. Take a peek
Magic: The Gathering, 5/28 – 💥You’ve got a preview card!💥
Goldbelly, 5/28 – 🍑Georgia Peach Season is Here!🍑
Spirit Halloween, 5/15 – 💚🖤 Say it three times 💚🖤
Peloton, 5/12 – Train your body to become more efficient at burning calories
Art.com, 5/19 – 🤷🏻♀️ Don’t know which frame to choose?
Everlane, 5/3 – We Saw You in the Comments
REI, 5/13 – See what gear won our Editors’ Choice Awards
Bass Pro Shops, 5/12 – A message from our friend, Eva Shockey!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Digital Marketing Domination podcast: Optimizing Email Campaigns
Email Annotations & Schema: ‘Automatic Extraction’ & Controlling Your Preview Content
Voice Assistants Reading Emails: How to Create Voice-Friendly Campaigns
Pressure Builds for New US Privacy Law as State Laws Pile Up
The Right Success Metrics? Depends on Your Email Marketing Business Model
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
