Email Marketing Rules5 Best Practices to Make Your Customer Experiences Truly Mobile-Friendly
Posted on November 12, 2021
Nearly every site is now responsive, and most emails are, too. But just because a brand is using responsive design doesn’t mean that they’re providing a mobile-friendly experience.
Responsive design functionality doesn’t take the place of mobile-friendly design principles. Brands need to use them both. Here are some easy-to-implement mobile-friendly best practices that companies should be following for their websites, emails, and other mobile content:
- Ensure that fonts are a legible size
- Make buttons and links finger-friendly
- Be selective about what elements are linked
- Use a single-column design
- Keep inclusive design principles in mind
For more on how to execute on each of those best practices…
Webbula: 2022 Email Marketing Predictions from the Email Experts
Posted on November 9, 2021
While marketers are deep into holiday planning and execution, as soon as the holiday madness ends, marketers will shift to making new year preparations. To get a sense of where email marketing is headed in 2022, Webbula reached out to me and 10 other email marketing experts:
- Shmuel Hershberg, Shyn Media
- Komal Helyer, Pure360
- Jeanne Jennings, Email Optimization Shop, Only Influencers
- Chris Marriott, Email Connect
- Lauren Meyer, SocketLabs
- Kath Pay, Holistic Email Marketing, Author
- Ryan Phelan, RPE Origin
- Tejas Pitkar, Netcore Cloud
- Dela Quist, Alchemy Worx
- Jenna Tiffany, Let’s Talk Strategy, Author
My predictions focus on Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection and the depreciation of third-party cookies. To see our predictions for the year ahead…
The Last Word on October 2021
Posted on November 4, 2021
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
The Trust Delusion: Consumers Have Less Faith in Brands Than Brands Think They Do (Email Insider)
8 Tips to Turn Subscribers into Loyalists (Only Influencers)
Post-Purchase Emails: 12 Ways to Drive Customer Loyalty in Ecommerce (Sendinblue)
Movable Ink Research: Analysis of iOS 15 Content Caching (Movable Ink)
The Best Fonts for Email: A Guide for Developers and Designers (Email on Acid)
Happy 50th Birthday, Email! (MAAWG)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Chart of the Day:@Apple’s advertising business has more than tripled its market share in the six months after it introduced privacy changes to iPhones that obstructed rivals, including @Facebook and @Google, from targeting ads at consumers.
*A Thread* pic.twitter.com/vhFFXOzHGa
— Patrick McGee (@PatrickMcGee_) October 17, 2021
@SYSCAbout — I code 📧 4 a living + I must say that your double opt-in message’s CTA button = #chefskiss
👌👌👌#emailgeeks pic.twitter.com/02X4M0grQ0— Courtney in Auckland 🇺🇸➡️🇳🇿 (@courtnEMAIL) October 5, 2021
Hooooly cow, event organizers! Please note that one email reminder per session during a 3-day virtual conference is too much. 28 emails in total since Monday. My inbox hurts. 🤕
— Lauren Meyer (@LaurenEmailGeek) October 8, 2021
18+ years since founding BrightWave & 2+ years since the Ansira acquisition,I am stepping away to take time off. Thank u to the great teammates, clients, partners & awesome #atlanta & #emailgeeks communities for the amazing journey. It’s been an honor & a lot of fun! Onward⬆️
— Simms Jenkins (@SimmsJenkins) October 4, 2021
Noteworthy subject lines
Uncommon Goods, 10/5 – 🏃 Get these back-in-stock gifts before they sell out again.
Nordstrom, 10/22 – Our top tips for holiday shopping success
Sears, 10/14 – It’s not too early 🌲 to shop for the holidays
Macy’s, 10/22 – Gifts galore! Prep for the holidays (they’re closer than you think) with the perfect presents
CVS Photo, 10/24 – Up to 60% Off Photo Cards – Get A Head Start For The Season!
Crate & Barrel, 10/20 – FIRST LOOK | Holiday gift guide 🎁
Banana Republic, 10/27 – Sneak Peek: Our Holiday Collection
Eddie Bauer, 10/18 – Your 2021 Holiday Gift Guide Is Here!
Best Buy Black Friday, 10/19 – Black Friday Deals start early this year.
Zales, 10/28 – Woohoo 🥳 Early Black Friday Specials Are Here
Belk, 10/24 – Black. Friday. NOW! 🙌 19.99 3-piece bedding sets
Williams Sonoma, 10/18 – We could use some holiday cookies right now…
Kohl’s, 10/15 – Welcome the holidays into your home.
Neiman Marcus, 10/20 – Hosting for the holidays?
Kohl’s, 10/9 – $10 off + Home Sale savings to get your space fall ready.
IKEA, 10/18 – Chad, set the table for a memorable meal
Crate & Barrel, 10/1 – Get cozy in the kitchen with new fall recipes and our fave products.
Michaels, 10/17 – You scored fifty percent off Halloween to decorate your space—or make it haunted! ✨
Petco, 10/14 – What will your dog be for Halloween?
ModCloth, 10/17 – 😱 Yikes! Halloween is almost gone! 😱
CVS Pharmacy, 10/7 – COVID-19 Booster Now Available for Select Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Recipients.
Big Lots, 10/25 – We’re hiring! Check out the perks!
Burlington, 10/5 – COATS ❗ COATS ❗ COATS ❗
Bass Pro Shops, 10/25 – Cold weather ahead? Columbia has you covered.
Nordstrom Rack, 10/9 – Up to 40% off UGG® for women, men & kids
Gap, 10/15 – Comfy, cuddly, cozy x infinity
IKEA, 10/8 – Chad, do you like gaming? Then you will love this.
Office Depot, 10/20 – Windows 11 is here! Time to upgrade
Express, 10/19 – What @sruthijayadevan wears to feel confident
VS PINK, 10/20 – @gianninagibelli & others in our signature styles
Gap, 10/25 – We’re celebrating Giving Tuesday – with Katy Perry
Crate & Barrel, 10/5 – NEW LEANNE FORD | the collab you love is back (!)
Patagonia, 10/20 – Shirts with purpose
Panera Bread, 10/20 – A climate positive future. 💚
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Litmus: 2021 State of Email Report
Alchemy Worx: 2021 Consumer Survey on Shopping Sentiment & Email Behavior
Creating Internal Digital Marketing Benchmarks that Work
Webbula: Email Marketing in 5-10 Years
How to Simplify Your Martech Stack: 3 Approaches
Why B2B Brands Face Unique—and Sometimes Self-Inflicted—Email Deliverability Challenges
Best Days to Send Email Marketing Campaigns This Holiday Season
The Fold in the Inbox: Hard Line, Soft Line, or Imaginary Line?
10 Common Email Marketing Mistakes that Are Easy to Fix
Posted on November 3, 2021
Email marketing is complicated. Deliverability is governed by numerous factors and subfactors. The potential for email rendering problems is mind-bogglingly large. And email technology and tactical issues continue to evolve. However, not everything in email is complex.
Some aspects are quite simple—and yet some companies still regularly struggle with them. In most cases, they’re probably just unaware of the problem or just how easy the fix is. In other cases, there has been turnover on their email team and expertise in the channel’s nuances has been lost. Whatever the reason, here are 10 common email marketing mistakes that are relatively simple to fix…
Litmus: 2021 State of Email Report
Posted on October 28, 2021
If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of changes in the email marketing industry, then Litmus’s 2021 State of Email Report is a must-read. The 43-page report is packed full of survey data and insights around 5 trends:
- Email marketing is increasingly critical to business success. There’s no question: Email has always been important. But now? It’s essential.
- Personalization and automation are must-haves. While not new, personalization and automation are no longer nice to
have someday. The time is now. - Privacy measures are forcing strategies to change. Industry trends to protect privacy are impacting marketing’s ability to
do personalization well. - Brands are looking to agile marketing to meet email demand. Production cycles are getting longer while volume
is increasing. Burnout is real. - Marketing must embrace the state of the world. Email programs are adjusting and even joining the conversations
with world events, tragedies, and changes.
I was fortunate to get a sneak peak at some of the key findings and to be invited to comment on them. My comments focused on those last 3 trends. To check out what I said, the comments from the other expert contributors, and all the survey results…
Alchemy Worx: 2021 Consumer Survey on Shopping Sentiment & Email Behavior
Posted on October 25, 2021
Alchemy Worx’ latest consumer survey delivers timely insights about consumer purchasing intent this holiday season and the factors that are impacting those purchasing decisions. Those factors include the email and web experiences created by brands, as well as issues like sustainability and inclusivity.
In addition to lots of great data, the report includes insights drawn from the findings from Dela Quist, Ada Barlatt, Komal Helyer, Andrew Kordek, and me. For example, I discuss how the survey results show that consumers have a clear expectation for the personalization of both email content and frequency. I also talk about the sea changes that are occurring with consumer values, as well as the gulf in those values between younger and older people.
For a full discussion of all the findings of the survey…
Creating Internal Digital Marketing Benchmarks that Work
Posted on October 22, 2021
Modern brands today are trying to benchmark their digital marketing campaigns to determine which ones are successful and inform improvements. But we find that many brands are often using their internal marketing benchmarks in an overly broad way.
Correcting this problem requires a more granular approach to digital marketing benchmarks, one that groups campaigns by various characteristics to attain the apples-to-apples comparison you’re looking for:
- Audience engagement level
- Audience size
- Goal or purpose
- The content stream you’re sending
- Seasonality
For each, you’ll likely have two to four tags by which you’ll sort your campaigns to facilitate accurate comparisons. Join Oracle Marketing Consulting’s Peter Briggs and Alexander Stegall as they dive into these characteristics, along with the tags you might use.
Webbula: Email Marketing in 5-10 Years
Posted on October 20, 2021
As part of their Ask the Experts series of video interviews, Webbula asked: “Where do you see email going in the next 5-10 years?”
I was happy to be among eight email experts selected to answer. For my part, I see see AI and machine learning playing a big role in marketers trying to send the right message to the right person at the right time via the right channel. I explain in more detail in a 2-minute video that’s in the Webbula post.
To watch my video response, as well as the answers from Chris Marriott, Tom Wozniak, and the other experts…
How to Simplify Your Martech Stack: 3 Approaches
Posted on October 15, 2021
Marketing technology stacks are very complicated. Like credit-card-fine-print complicated or teen-brain complicated. With very few exceptions, the marketers I speak with are eager for greater simplification, says Clint Kaiser, Head of Analytic & Strategic Services at Oracle Marketing Consulting.
They want to accomplish their marketing goals without having to navigate a spaghetti-works of tools that don’t always play together as well as advertised. Unfortunately, many are finding that they devote more and more time to sorting out the solutions rather than taking advantage of the benefits the tools are there to provide.
So how can marketers simplify things? We’ll help you answer that question by reviewing the pros and cons of the three approaches to building a martech stack:
- Option 1: Best-of-breed
- Option 2: The single provider
- Option 3: Best-of-suite
For a full discussion of each approach…
Why B2B Brands Face Unique—and Sometimes Self-Inflicted—Email Deliverability Challenges
Posted on October 13, 2021
Email deliverability can feel out of your control. This is perhaps especially true of B2B brands, which have traditionally struggled with the mercurial spam filtering behaviors of corporate email servers and the IT overlords that control them. However, with Google Workspace and Outlook 365 making serious inroads into the corporate email market, B2B email deliverability is behaving more and more like deliverability for B2C brands.
That means that inbox placement is increasingly unifying around 7 core email deliverability factors:
- Infrastructure: The servers, setup, and controls used by a company’s email service provider (ESP) are important, as is authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC).
- Volume: The higher your email volume and the more erratic your sending patterns, the more scrutiny you can expect from mailbox providers.
- Email Content: Instead of worrying about word choices, punctuation, and the balance of images and text in your emails, today you need to ensure your email code is safe and clean, and that you’re not linking to websites with poor reputations.
- Bounces & Spam Traps: Brands want to keep their hard bounce rates at 2% or under, and want to avoid adding spam traps to their lists.
- Spam Complaints: If more than 0.1% of a brand’s subscribers report their emails as spam, they may experience blocking or junking.
- Engagement: More than anything else, mailbox providers want to see senders’ subscribers opening, clicking, and otherwise engaging with their emails.
- Reputation: Each mailbox provider uses their own unique and secret weighting of the other six factors and their subfactors to create a reputation for each sender, which they attach to the IP addresses as well as the website domains used by the sender.
Given those factors, let’s talk about the unique behaviors of B2B brands that are the most likely to cause their emails to be junked or blocked, which can be expensive in terms of both opportunities lost and email deliverability remediation costs.
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
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