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5 Common Mistakes You May Face While Designing An Email

Ever since emails progressed from plain text emails in the late ‘90s, the emphasis went from what you convey in your email copy to how you convey it in your email design. Email design has become an essential factor to consider when measuring user experience. Email design not only improves the visual quality of your email but also aids greatly in making it accessible. Hence, when it comes to email design it is important to steer clear of common pitfalls and easy-to-avoid design faux-pas.

This article shall focus on listing the most common mistakes you may face while designing an email.

Mistake #1: Claustrophic 600px email width

While email was beginning to be used as a communication channel for the masses in the late 90s, the maximum display screen width was 1024×768. So email designers had a limited screen width of 600px to design their emails. Later on, with the increasing demand for responsive email designs, it was considered a best practice to keep a maximum width of 600px to ensure the email looked crisp on retina displays. Modern technology has progressed to the extent that modern mobile devices have a 1080×1920 resolution, so the designers are free to utilize the additional space.

Yet many email designers today also, commit the mistake of creating an email of 600px. This results in an email of 600px with white borders on either side. This is a huge turn off from the visual perspective.

Correction: Stick to placing content in a width of 600px but create a full-width email wherein the background extend till the screen width. In the below email example by Harley Davidson, the black background stretches through the entire width of the screen while the content is present in the middle.  

Mistake #2: Not Adopting a Mobile-first Approach

As per the latest Litmus Email Client Market Share, at least 43% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Yet, most marketers still prefer to create a main desktop layout and resize the elements to fit in a mobile layout. While this may reduce the overall time and efforts invested, you are compromising on the user experience.

Correction: By adopting a mobile-first approach to your email designs, you understand the importance of different element placement. Once you have an effective mobile layout, you can extrapolate it for a desktop view. In the email example below by Nordstrom, the desktop view has the navigation menu whereas, for the mobile view, the menu is hidden behind a hamburger menu giving more importance to the hero image.

Nordstrom Desktop View

Nordstrom Mobile View

Mistake #3: Inconsistent Branding

Branding is your digital visiting card for your business. It helps your customers to recognize your emails. While this is very rare in this modern era, but still some designers forgot to maintain consistency across different communication channels. When someone opens an email, the attention first goes to the brand logo, the hero image and finally email copy. If you don’t manage to strike a chord with your subscriber even then, it will not be read.

Correction: Your email should have branding elements to maintain consistency such as  brand logos, consistent header, and footer. As seen in the example email below from Fitbit, they use the brand logo and the colors used are the same from the website.

Mistake #4: Not maintaining a text to image ratio

The adoption of HTML for sending emails opened up the gates to creating visually attractive emails using colors, paragraphing, and images. Ironically, some email designers get blinded in the pursuit to create an attractive email and forget the importance of text in email design. As a result, you have an email that is a single image that has all the important information. The downside to this is that such emails are considered spammy and hence ISPs & email clients tend to block images. So instead of seeing an email like the one below.

You get an email as seen below.

 

Corrections: Always maintain an 80:20 text to image ratio. This not only helps you avoid the ISP filters but also helps create context even if the images are disabled. Always use images that provide relevance to the adjoining text.

Mistake #5: Not implementing a visual hierarchy

People from left-to-right reading countries, such as English, Spanish, etc tend to follow a ‘F’ pattern while reading any literature. So, it is important to place the most vital information such as brand logo, Hero Image, email headline, salutations in the beginning of the email followed by secondary information. 

Corrections: The goal of this is to hook the attention of the subscriber in the beginning itself and carry it ahead throughout the email. This is called visual hierarchy. The three prominent layouts used in email designs are:

Single Column

Double Column

Zig zag Pattern

Wrapping Up

Email design may look easy but a lot of preparation goes behind creating an email. Steer clear from the above mentioned mistakes for email design and contact us at [email protected] for any email template production queries.

How To Create Awesome Email That Blows Away Everyone’s Mind

Emails have been around for 4 decades as a communication channel and every marketer understands its importance as a marketing channel whether it is for a B2B or B2C model. While communication using other marketing channels are possible, none provide the ease and effectiveness that comes with sending an email to all your subscribers collectively. Sending an email alone does not make it effective; what matters is what you communicate within your emails using different elements of an email such as subject lines, email copy, email design layout, email footer, call-to-action button, etc.
If you looking for creating an awesome email that blows away everyone’s mind, you are at the correct place.

What kind of emails are preferred by subscribers?

  • The combination of the subject line and preheader text that hints about the email copy
  • Email copy is easily scannable by the subscribers for important information
  • The customer-centric approach instead of sales-oriented tone
  • Consistency across the different channels
  • Grammatically correct and proofread email copy. More than half (59%) of Britons would avoid doing business with a company who made obvious spelling or grammar mistakes. (Source)
  • Has a story to it instead of a robotic tone
  • Has an accessible design across devices and screens
  • Actionable Call-to-action

How to create Awesome HTML emails design layouts?

Most modern brands send emails that are HTML based and CSS formatted. The advantage such emails have over plain text emails are the ability to add colors, images, experiment with typography & layouts.

Let’s take an example of how to create an effective yet appealing HTML email. The following email by Cotton Bureau is an engaging email owing to multiple factors.

See full Email

Logo & Hero Image

Let’s begin at the top. As soon as you see the email, the first thing your eyes land on are the logo

And the hero image

The logo placement at the top of the email helps your subscribers make the association easily. Additionally, a prominent hero image that is relevant to the email copy conveys the context of your email copy. By placing both on a dark background makes the images pop out and catch attention.

Email Copy

Below the hero image, there is a short copy that communicates what was being hinted by the hero image.

This is where the typography comes into play. A certain portion of the email is highlighted using different font color and formatting.

Email Layout Design

The next section is a silent yet most impactful part in the email i.e. the layout.

The email design layout dictates the placement of each element in the email in order to guide the eyes of the subscribers. As you may have noticed, from the beginning of the email, your eyes automatically travel between the different elements owing to the layout.
Generally, there are 2 main types of layouts used in emails:

  1. Single Column: The most common layout used by email designers owing to simplicity. Your eyes travel from the top to bottom in a standard path without being redirected anywhere. In the email below by Tovala, each element is placed sequentially below the previous element that promotes easy reading.
  2. Two Columns: As the name suggests, this layout has two columns and the email elements are arranged accordingly in each column. There are two subvariants of a two column layout.
    1. F shaped Layout: Going by the ‘F’ shaped eye scan path adopted by most people globally, this layout assists the scan path. In the email example below by Tock, the image is on one side with relevant content beside it.

      See full Email

    2. Zig Zag path: An adaptation of the ‘F’ scan path, the elements in this layout are arranged in a zig-zag pattern that breaks the monotony of the design looked like a stacked pile of content.

No points of guessing but which email layout design Cotton Bureau was flaunting in the example above?

Call to action button & copy

Next set of email elements, test out the effectiveness of your email but they themselves contribute to the effectiveness and in turn the conversion potential of the email. Call-to-action redirects the subscriber to a landing page where they are informed further about the message conveyed in the email. As the name suggests, the call-to-action should actually call the subscriber to take action. A subscriber will only take action if they are aware of what they can expect on clicking the button. Unfortunately, most marketers tend to be ignorant about this and tend to stick to standard call-to-actions such as:

  1. Submit
  2. Learn more
  3. Know more
  4. Click here

A strong and effective call to action should circle around the statement “I want to _____”
For example:
For a limited duration trial, the subscriber has the following statement “I want to start my trial” and so the call to action would be ‘Start my trial’.
CTA button color matters to an extent as different color have different significance in different cultures and you don’t want to offend the sentiments.
In the email example of Cotton Bureau, the call to action is ‘Shop all shirts!’ and has a contrasting color compared to the white background.

Email Footer

The last of the element in an effective email is the footer. Footer is ironically the most ignored part of an email by subscribers as well as marketers. Yet the email footer is as important as rest of the email elements as it carries the links for unsubscribe and change of preferences along with a physical address of the sender. This greatly helps from the deliverability point of view, as the subscriber can easily unsubscribe if they wish to unfollow your emails and this saves you from a SPAM complaint. Additionally, the change of preferences also reduces the chances of the subscribers unsubscribing out of email fatigue.
As you can see in the image below, the footer of the email carries the mailing address, a gentle reminder of the reason for subscription and the opportunity to either change their preferences or unsubscribe.

Bonus Content

How to craft Awesome plain text emails?

Plain text emails are equivalent to sending an SMS to your subscribers. In case you wondering who still sends plain text emails to their subscribers, 62% of email marketers admitted to sending a plain text version of their HTML to their subscribers and 16% prefer to send only Plain text emails.

Plain text emails have their own advantages:

  • Lesser chances of the emails being flagged SPAM
  • An easier alternative for those subscribers on low mobile coverage or high data charges
  • Most B2B marketers still prefer it since most B2B emails are read on Microsoft Outlook (which is notorious for wreaking havoc with HTML emails)
  • Sounds more personally written

Sending an effective plain text email is based on 4 crucial things:

  1. Message
  2. Timing
  3. Call-to-action
  4. Tracking

So we share with you tips to craft an awesome plain text email.

  1. Make use of whitespace: Plain Text email doesn’t mean you cannot make it look attractive. Instead of writing a single paragraph worth of email copy, split it into smaller sections and add ample of whitespace in order to provide breathing space within the email and help your subscribers to scan through the content as shown below in the email by Litmus.
  2. Don’t clutter with too many links: As in the case of HTML emails where too many CTA buttons can confuse the subscriber, adding too many links in your plain text email might generate confusion
  3. Simple and minimalistic: The charm of an email lies in the minimalism achieved. Include the information that is necessary, highlight the Call-to-action with certain symbols as ‘embellishments’.
  4. Always A/B test your tone: Based on your brand’s personality your email copy also needs to match. You may not understand what your subscribers want but you can A/B test understand what your subscribers prefer to receive.

Final Thoughts

As we stated earlier, sending an email alone doesn’t make it effective but the communication makes it effective. Whether you plan to send a plain text or a feature rich HTML email, the above-stated tips can help you delight your customers while engaging with them. To receive such insightful advice in the inbox, subscribe to our blog.

Why Email Triggers & Automations Are Essential For Ecommerce

Email is a proven channel for generating revenue. For every $1 you invest in an email campaign, the average returns can be as high as $42. If you have an eCommerce presence, then it’s essential to conduct email marketing – By 2022, 333 billion emails are expected to be sent each day. Despite such huge numbers, not every email that gets sent out is equal. There’s a huge gap between the effectiveness of the two main types of emails that exist in the world.

Two Types Of Marketing Emails

The first type of email we can call the “campaign” email. This type of email could include your typical email newsletter, a holiday promotion, or announcements on new products you’ve added to your shop. You can think of any email that is sent at one time, to everyone, or a segment of your list, as a campaign email. These emails are one-off emails that you create depending on the goal of the campaign.

On the other hand, we have “trigger” emails. These are very different for one specific reason – a trigger email is sent out in response to a trigger condition set-off by something your subscribers or customers did. This trigger condition can be as simple as subscribing or for abandoning a product before check out and is set by you. Since it is a reaction to an action taken by your recipients, it is much more relevant & timely than any campaign email. These trigger campaigns are automated to send commonly used email series such as welcome emails, order placed emails, shipping details, etc.

On average, trigger emails produce 24x more revenue per send when compared to campaign emails. Wow!

Not sold on trigger emails yet?

Why Is Email Trigger Essential?

Trigger emails also beat campaign emails on efficiency. An automated trigger only needs to be set up once. Once you enable it, it will continue to generate revenue until you turn it off. Let’s use the Welcome Email Series as an example.

A Welcome Email Series is a very common and profitable automated trigger email flow. It starts whenever a new person subscribes to your email marketing. Generally, this type of email series will contain 2-5 emails spread out over a few days or weeks. You can think of it as an opportunity to automatically introduce people to your brand and entice them to make that first purchase.

Merchants see success with this email when they share valuable content such as tutorials on how to use products, user-generated content, promotions, or curated recommendations based on the subscribers’ interests.

Once you’ve set up your Welcome Email Series flow, your email service provider will send the welcome emails on your behalf every time someone subscribes. Contrast that with the typical newsletter email, which takes time to put together and is often only sent out once.

And then there’s also the open rate difference. The average open rate for a welcome email is 91.43% which is 76.6% higher when compared to standard newsletters (21.33%). This makes sense – remember, your customers taking a specific action sends a trigger email. In many cases, customers expect to receive these trigger emails from you and will check their inbox for them.

Increasing your open rate will have a big impact on your conversions because doing so will bring more people into the top of your funnel. More opens will naturally result in more clicks, and most importantly; it will lead to more conversions.

Takeaways

  • Two types of marketing emails: (i) Campaign Emails (ii) Triggered Emails
  • Campaign emails are ideal for making announcements and sending custom promotions
  • Triggered emails are only sent automatically when the prospect has taken a pre-defined action
  • Welcome emails have an average open rate of 91.43% and Email newsletter have an open rate of 21.33%
  • The time invested in creating a triggered email might be greater than for marketing email, but in the longer run, triggered emails are more efficient.

Wrapping Up

Automated trigger emails are the secret weapon in a merchant’s digital marketing arsenal. They’re proven to generate more revenue per email than newsletters, product announcements, holiday promos, and any other type of campaign email. Because they’re based on your customer’s specific actions, they result in higher open rates. And you only need to set them up once to see increased conversions and revenue, which means less time building emails and more time communicating with your best customers.

Author Bio

Patrick Heer is Customer Success Manager for RareLogic Division in Coherent Path. Rare.io is a predictive email marketing solution for eCommerce with features such as Recommendation engine, Smart Timing, Customer segmentation, and Automated emails. Check them out here.

Related Articles

  1. Email Automation for beginners
  2. Role of Transactional email in Ecommerce
  3. Tips to create a welcome email series

Marketing Emails Dissected: A Designer’s POV

Emails are the breadwinner for most marketers when competed against different marketing channels for the most return on investment. Not only do you have the power to reach out to your prospect with the aid of only their email address, but you also have the power to craft email copy that is personalized based on the recipients’ collected data. Earlier, marketers used to send an email with an assumption that their subscribers may like it. Thanks to data-driven email marketing, you send relevant and timely emails that your subscribers are expecting. 

One question may pop in your mind, what construes as an effective marketing email that not only engages with the subscriber but also helps in converting them into eventual paying customers. This article is going to dissect an email and explain the anatomy of a well-performing email. 

What are the barebones of an email?

If you browse through the most marketing emails that you may have received, you may notice patterns. On breaking down a perfect marketing email, you come to realize that a basic marketing email can be broken down into the following parts:

  • Subject Line
  • Pre-header Text
  • Header
    • Hero Image
  • Body Copy 
    • Layout
    • Typography
    • Call to action
  • Footer
    • Email Signature
    • Unsubscribe Link

Let us study each part in detail.

The subject line

The email subject line is equivalent to your attire for a social event. If it is too eccentric, people might avoid further interaction and if it is generic, you fail to stand out from the crowd. The purpose of the subject line is to set an expectation of what the email will convey. This, although, doesn’t mean you have the freedom to write paragraphs as your subject line. Most email clients have a limitation on the number of characters they can display as the subject line.  

Gmail displays 70 chars maximum of your subject line. The rest of the subject line is truncated as visible in the example below.

Apple Mail displays 60 chars of a subject line.

On the other hand, Gmail mobile restricts itself to display only 53 characters

So your subject lines need to be crafted such that it doesn’t exceed 53 characters or shouldn’t lose context when truncated. 

Takeaway: Keep your subject lines between 53-70 characters and make them contextual.

What if your subject line is not enough to convey sufficient information to make the first impression? That’s where pre-header comes to rescue.

The pre-header

Pre-header or preview text is an excerpt from your email that is displayed with the subject line by most email clients. The purpose of doing so was to display the first sentence from the email copy to the subscriber before they open the email. Marketers have been using it to continue what was left out in the subject line. 

From a design point of view, the preview text can be an actual excerpt from your email or create a custom one that is not visible when the email is opened. 

In the example below by Neil Patel, the pre-header text is taken from the email itself.

In the example below by Codeacademy, the pre-header is a custom message that is not visible when the email is opened. 

 

Takeaway: Even if limited email clients display the preview text, it is good practice to include it.

Once you manage to hook on your subscriber with the subject line and preview text, it is time to move into the meat of your email i.e. the email body.

Email Body

The star of your email campaign is the body copy. This is where you tell a story, engage your subscribers, nurture & educate them, suggest relevant products or services, convert them with an actionable call-to-action.

 

The star of your email campaign is the body copy. This is where you tell a story, engage your subscribers, nurture & educate them, suggest relevant products or services, convert them with an actionable call-to-action.

Layout

The email layout is a vital aspect of email design as it dictates the placement of different email elements and also the interaction of the subscriber with each element. Most marketing emails follow either a single column layout like the following email by North Smartglasses.

Or split the content into two sections called the ‘Two-column layout’. In the example below by GoDaddy, the second section is divided into two portions to reduce the overall email length, while giving justice to both portions.

Another version of the Two-column layout that draws the benefit of visually segregating individual sections is the zig-zag pattern. In the email example below by Yeti, individual sections have alternating patterns of image and text mixed in to give equal importance to each section.

Header

The first fold of your email is the section that gets the maximum attention. Coming from reading the subject line, the subscriber will be looking for the continuation of the suspense generated. The level of attention gradually decreases as the subscriber reaches the bottom of the email. So, the header must carry the most vital information or must be engaging enough to maintain the attention capture till the end.

In the welcome email example below by Barilla, the first fold has multiple elements but your attention immediately goes to the image with the brand logo and the word ‘Welcome’ spelled using cooked spaghetti. The image is vital to leave a lasting impression about what brand it is and what is their specialty. The image in the first fold is called the Hero image and its purpose is to convey what would have taken a paragraph of words to explain the email’s intent.

Takeaway: Whether you choose to feature a hero image or not is your brand’s decision, yet it is important to feature your brand logo, a view online link, and the most important information in the first fold to set the conversation rolling.

Email Copy / Typography

The textual portion of your email is the email copy. From a designer’s point of view, you need to take care of the typography. Typography is the technique of arranging the text in order to be easily legible as well as readable. Typography includes the fonts used, font size, line height, line spacing and alignment to an extent. As the best practices, it is advisable to stick to the system compatible fonts and any fancy fonts should be only used in an image. The ideal font size for email copy is 14px with 21px line spacing. 

In the below example by Damp, the brand logo has a unique character in it and so it is placed as an image. The rest of the copy is placed as a selectable text.

 

Wrapping Up

No matter what kind of emails you’re sending, the goal is to have them opened, read and responded to. If that’s not the goal, I challenge you to ask yourself why you’re sending the email in the first place.

It’s time to send better emails. I can’t wait to read yours.

Retargeting & Email Marketing – How this Combo can Flatter Your Potential Customers

The channels for customer acquisition and customer retention are the two important aspects to consider when planning a marketing strategy. As per a survey done by emarketer, email is the most preferred source for both customer acquisition and retention, followed by search marketing (both), Paid Advertising (Customer Retention) and Social Media (both).

(Source)

In this world of cut-throat competition when getting customer attention has become more challenging than ever for marketers, brands are most of the time found engaging in too much information overdrive. Incrementing email sending frequency and bombarding your subscribers with too many emails shall not only worsen the existing situation, as it shall also lead to an increase in the email unsubscribes.

Solution: A study by MarketTarget reveals that 80% of shoppers would switch stores or brands when offered a compelling promotion. Email retargeting strategy adopted by email marketers help streamline your message across different mediums (as per the existing interaction level with a customer)and can help the information you share to stay on top of the customer mind.

Email Retargeting: Why it is Inevitable?

When a prospective customer abandons any interaction midway (courtesy. filling a form, cart abandonment, browsing products or even bouncing from your web pages within seconds), it doesn’t mean that all love’s lost. It is observed that only 2% of web traffic converts on their first visit to the website.

With proper retargeting strategy, brands can still touch base with the ‘lost’ customers – by displaying a correct message on different sites that the customer is browsing on, to psychologically triggering an action.

How it Works

Email retargeting functions similar to conventional site retargeting, allows you to target email subscribers instead of web visitors. You can track when any of your subscribers open your email by placing a tracking pixel or tracking cookies within the email body. This can be followed up by custom ads that shall be displayed on certain websites that they may be browsing through. This eliminates the ‘unsubscribes’ lead by excessive email send frequency.

Functions of Email Retargeting

Email is a digital passport to most of the interaction you do on the World Wide Web. From purchasing a new device to making a reservation to practically anything where any kind of service is availed, an email address is mandatory. So among all the different retargeting channels, email seems to be a necessity for ‘observing’ your customers’ online behavior.

A tracking pixel or tracking cookie placed in the email, are like a line of code that is installed in your subscriber’s devices, and it stores any miscellaneous information such as opens, time spent, user engagement heatmap, etc. This allows advertisers to figure out which internet users have previously opened specific emails, viewed them and create appropriate audience segmentation.

Potentials unlocked via Audience Segmentation

Based on the information stored via the tracking cookie, we can segment the audience in different categories. These categories define who is to be targeted and shown ads in which channel.

Search Retargeting

Search retargeting builds an audience segment based on people’s search information. Based on the browsing behavior, brands can then target relevant display ads all around the web.

Cart Abandonment Email Retargeting

A consumer abandoning a shopping cart is the most heart-breaking thing for any marketer. But with correct triggered events set in the retargeting process, the customer can be reconciled with the cart.

Dynamic retargeting can be used to display real-time ads that feature the specific abandoned products. With the right retargeting strategy, shopping cart abandonment can become a vital tool helping different leads in progressing further in the sales funnel.

Social Audience Building

Social audience builds an audience segment based on people’s social interactions. Based on the tracking link shared via social media platforms or email, for example. This way, those engaging with your social audience can be focused on. This is beneficial for brands or individuals with large social media followings.

Moreover, targeting options are available in top social media platforms such as Facebook Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences, Google’s Customer Match and LinkedIn’s Advertisers.

A view of Facebook’s Custom Audience

How this functions

You need to upload an emailing list onto the respective platform. The social media compares your data with email addresses of the users on their social network. Those email addresses that do not match any user database are discarded to maintain end-user privacy.

According to WordStream, the match types between Google, Facebook, and Twitter are approximately:

  • Google = 50.4%
  • Facebook = 48.99%
  • Twitter = 10.2%

Reasons why Facebook and Google have higher match rate compared to Twitter are:

  1. With rising sales of Android devices, Gmail ID is very high.
  2. In case of Facebook, user base and affiliations made sure that the match rate is the highest.

Re-Engagement Retargeting

Email retargeting tactics can also be used for those customers who have been dormant for a long duration. Based on the last email opened by them, the display ads can be targeted to re-engage with them. Based on the level of interaction, the customer has with the ad; you can decide to upsell, cross-sell or down-sell your product/services.

The retargeting ads also give targeted visitors a quick way to take advantage of the promotion instead of having to go back to the original email and click the link there.

Please note that this will only work with web-based email providers like Gmail and Hotmail, and you want to make sure that the email recipient is allowing images to show in the email you send.

Targeting without cookie

Almost 56% of emails are opened in mobile devices. The native browsers don’t support cookie-based tracking as regular cookies may expire or get deleted relatively quickly. This has led to a new trend of retargeting without depending on cookies; it’s called Fingerprint Retargeting.

It involves the creation of a user persona through different pieces of data such as browser types, installed software, time zones, IP addresses, and more. By creating different temporary identifier numbers based on collected data, a well-tuned CRM shall create a user persona and help in streamlining ads across multiple devices.

Setting up a foolproof Email Retargeting plan

Wait!!! Leaping headfirst with your email retargeting plan is like jumping onto wet concrete; you shall get trapped and gradually sink. Like any other marketing strategy, retargeting is not a one-size-fits-all concept. You shall need to chalk certain criteria and create your strategy around it.

  1. Identify different retargeting platforms such as Adroll, Retargeting, and Klientboost.
  2. Segment the audience based on the retargeting goals. It could be based on the different stages of your sales funnel or even on the pages of your website which receive most visits.
  3. Create display ads according to the target audience. Are your visitors spending more time on your product section than the order section? Are you experiencing more cart abandonments? Is the number of lead conversion low? Should it be a promotional or conversion-oriented campaign?
  4. Include an analytics UTM code to analyze the click rates of an ad.
  5. Budget allocation: Ads functions on bidding. The more budget you set, the more visible it shall be. But you need to strike a balance. Allocate more for the niche audience segment. Spending $2.00 per click for a sales qualified lead is much better than spending $0.25 per click for all marketing qualified leads.
  6. Analysis: Once your process for retargeting is set, it is time to fine-tune it. Take time to dive further into your ad’s metrics. Tweak your ads based on the clicks and spending per day. You can set a frequency cap so that your subscriber doesn’t suffer from banner blindness.
  7. Experiment with different retargeting ads. Visitors who subscribed to your blog can be converted by offering a free download. For those bouncing back from your order page can be shown ads offering discounts or free proposal trial. For promotions within your email campaigns, you can further create an additional ad set for the subscribers who have opened the specific email to increase the reach.

Email Retargeting: A Real-world Implementation

Stuart searches for wristwatches on one of the search engines from his desktop and lands on your website. Seeing your range of offered wristwatches, he understands that he shall need more information. He subscribes to your newsletter. The retargeting cookie is stored on his computer.

A welcome email graces his inbox immediately. He opens it in his desktop, and immediately, a targeting cookie is installed on his system. The temporary identification number is updated informing that Stuart has opened the welcome email and he is added to audience segment who have:

  1. Interest in watches
  2. Subscribed and opened an email

Now he surfs different websites for personal or work-related searches. Owning the installed cookies (& the budget set by you), the ad space on affiliated websites shall display ads of wrist watches.

You add Stuart’s email address on Facebook Custom Audience. So next time Stuart logs into his Facebook account, he sees your ad and decides to interact with it. He is redirected to your product selection page. At this moment, the cookie is updated. His audience segmentation has one more condition:

  1. Interested in watches
  2. Opened an email
  3. Interacted with a social ad

He browses through the products, and he adds a watch in the cart and poof!!! He disappears by abandoning the cart. The cookie is updated, and he receives a cart abandonment email, and meanwhile, the display ads changes to show his cart products and special discount offer for him.

He clicks either the email or the display ad and completes the transaction. A burn pixel (explained later) at the post-transaction page ensures that he is no longer shown the same ads again. His cookie information changes and the display ads change to display products that go well with Stuart’s new watch.

Best Practices for Email Retargeting Performance Optimization

  1. Polish your Segments: No two persons shall remain engaged for the same duration. Observe the behavioral pattern to understand the needs of the customer. For instance, for someone who is a marketing qualified lead for long, you can focus on displaying ads for discount promotion; for someone who has often been purchasing, you can focus on serving ads of relevant products.
  2. Prevent Banner Blindness: Did you know? On looking straight, your eyes see the tip of your nose every time, but the brain tends to ‘ignore’ it. Similarly, if your customers are shown ads frequently, then there are chances that they shall, unknowingly, start overlooking the ads. Set a frequency cap regarding when, where and how many times the ads shall be displayed.
  3. Experiment with different CTA: The main motive behind an ad is for the customer to engage with it. So your ad must have a crisp and precise CTA copy.
  4. Weed out non-performing ads : Be selective about the ads, based on their performance, and allocate the resources to your best performers.
  5. Include a Burn Pixel: Nothing is more annoying than watching an ad for getting a discount on your first purchase even after you have achieved it. On adding a snippet of code (called Burn pixel) on your post-transaction page, users who make a purchase shall no longer see a specific ad. This way, they can be catered better display ads. Better safe than sorry.
  6. Targeting based on Demography, Geography, & Context: Customizing your targeting based on different parameters helps you dish out better ads specific to a demographic element.

Takeaways:

  1. Email is the most preferred marketing channel for both Customer retention and acquisition.
  2. Email retargeting is viable option compared to increasing email frequency.
  3. Email retargeting works on the concept of a tracking pixel placed in the email which stores miscellaneous information.
  4. For an efficient email retargeting process, it is important for set up proper Audience segmentation.
  5. Facebook has the largest percentage of user match up.
  6. With 52% email opened in mobile devices, email marketers also need to focus on non-cookie based or Fingerprint targeting process.
  7. Set up a frequency cap to avoid banner blindness.
  8. Include a burn pixel to avoid redisplaying same ads to converted subscribers.

Final Thoughts

Marketers consider retargeting a perfect tool for touching base with your targeted audience outside the domain of emails. AdRoll prides in stating that there is $10 earned for every $1 spent. Have you used email retargeting earlier? Share your views in the comment section.

Email Automation – A Guide To Timely Yet Relevant And Personalized Emails

Man’s attachment to the feeling of getting a hand-written letter lead to the adoption of emails as an electronic counterpart of it in the late 90s. There is something that makes you feel attached to the sender when receiving an email that is addressed to you and holds a conversation that is relevant to you. Hence, marketers aim to provide a good user experience in their marketing or promotional emails but manually personalizing every email is not physically possible.

Thankfully, the need for timely messages that are relevant for the correct audience can be easily achieved with email automation. Email automation is a tool developed to automatically send specific emails based on the trigger condition and the workflow logic. This helps email marketers eliminate the need to manually send repetitive emails such as welcome emails, transactional emails or time-bound emails such as re-order reminders or anniversary emails.

This article shall cover the basics of email automation, how to use it increase your returns, different integrations you need while setting email automation and some of the best practices to follow.

How Email Automation can help

Email automation is not an invention of the past year but instead, it is an integral part of most email service providers for years. One-off promotional emails or email newsletters have to be manually designed and sent to your subscribers as individual campaigns, every time the need arises. Email automation, on the other hand,  only need to be set-up once and it shall automatically send the specific email to an individual when they satisfy a trigger condition.

Even though the time invested in the entire process of setting an email automation series, right from conceptualizing to the final execution of the workflow, is comparatively greater than in case of creating a one-off marketing email, the returns are in form of better engagements. In fact, automated welcome series have generated 86% higher open rates, a 196% increase in click-through rates, and 320% more revenue than the standard promotional emails.

Since email automations only send the emails that you configure, the amount of personalization becomes your call. Using personalization tags and smart segmentation criteria, you can make the automated emails sound less robotic.

Some more ways that email automation is beneficial compared to conventional emails are:

  • The subscriber gets relevant emails: The automation will only send a specific email when the pre-requisite action is taken by the customer. So, provided that the subject line and the email copy is relevant to the action taken, the subscriber should expect the email. The more relevant emails you send, the more are the chances of the subscriber to convert.
  • Brand and Trust Building: Someone will subscribe to your emails when they are assured that you may have the solution to the problem they currently face and they would like to know more. They expect the answer to “how to solve this?” instead of “why this happened?”.
  • When such subscriber is sent lead nurturing emails that would progressively provide solution while demonstrating your products or services playing the pivotal role in the solution, it builds trust in them.
  • When you ask for a review a short while after they make a purchase, it shows that you consider them a valuable part of your business and that extends what your brand represents. This helps you build your brand personality.
  • Retains customer and makes them loyal: Emails are all about having the correct information for the correct audience, received at the correct time. When they receive a helpful ‘how-to’ or ‘feature comparison’ email, that would help them take the desired action, they feel delighted and might recommend to others. Moreover, since they receive personalized assistance and real-time communication with email automation, they are more prone to become long-term loyal customers.
  • Motivates the customer to take the desired action: All the email workflows are planned with a starting condition, end condition, and periodical testing for calculating the progress. Except for the re-engagement series, entrance in all other email automation series indicates that the subscribers are engaged enough to progressed further down the sales funnel.

Different Integrations You Need While Setting Email Automation

Email automation is a tool in your marketing toolbox but not the only one. It needs to communicate with other tools and process the information received from different touchpoints, compare it with existing trigger conditions and send associated emails. So you need any of the following tools integrated with your email automation platform.

Lead Collection tools

A list of engaged subscribers is the fuel on which your email automation runs on. In order to have a constant influx of subscribers, you need to collect their email addresses and this is where you need a lead collection tool. The method for email list building can be anything but some of the tools you can use are:

  • Pop-up optin
  • Landing pages
  • Facebook ads
  • Sidebar widgets
  • Sign up forms

Customer Relation Manager (CRM) tools

Now that you have arranged a tool to periodically collect email addresses from your visitors, you need to save it in a central location. CRMs are like the database bank for your marketing needs as it stores the customer information, updates it on any new changes, and purges entries of any unsubscribes. You can configure the automation tool to monitor any changes to the tags for an individual subscriber and send an appropriate email.

Performance Tracking and Analytics tools

Is your email automation performing well? There is only one way to determine that i.e. when you used tracking tools to monitor the email performance and your website visits as well. Most ESPs provide tracking and email metrics for individual campaigns while website analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Moz, and SemRush can help you track visitor performances.

Email Testing Tools

Emails are read on multiple devices nowadays and it is vital to ensure that your emails are rendered in all the screens the way you visualized it. With the help of tools such as Litmus and Email on Acid, you can test your email templates across different clients under different conditions to make sure that you don’t run into rendering issues.

Email Automation Best Practices

 

  • Chart out the different stages of your customer journey: The passage between different email automations depends on the success criteria of each. By charting out the customer journey, you can define the different stages as well as progression criteria for each stage.
  • Have a strong content: Lead nurturing is an important type of email automation and the longest email automation cycle in email marketing. While email helps you reach your prospective audience, you need content to engage with them and eventually convert them. Whether it is the downloadable resource, the link to your blog, an infographic or even your email copy, make sure the content is engaging enough for the subscriber.
  • Implement social listening: While emails are effective in story-telling, your prospect may be more vocal on social media. Hone your social listening skills to place a thumb on the pulse regarding what your subscribers are talking about your brand.
  • Periodically optimize your drip campaigns: Drip campaigns should act as a reservoir of knowledge for your subscribers and without periodic updation to the information provided, the email campaigns will start going stale. It is a good practice to sit down and analyze your drip campaigns to update the content
  • Encourage Sharing: Your subscribers are prospects for not only increasing your business but also to increasing your subscriber base. Either in the customer delight stage or periodically in any other automation series, you can motivate the subscriber to recommend your email amongst their peers.
  • Don’t follow the herd: Email automation is an essential part of any marketing strategy but not to an extent that you start automating just for the sake of it. Perform a deep analysis of your email campaigns and target one part of your campaign at a time.

Wrapping Up

Email automation is not something that you can achieve overnight. It is something you need upfront planning and execution requires constant testing of the email workflow logic. Yet the benefits you reap from your email automation campaigns can overcompensate the efforts needed. Always chart your email marketing strategy, list out all the emails you need at every stage, create appropriate email workflow logic and constant tweak till you hit the right note. We have created an ebook exclusively to help you with everything related to email automation. Download your copy here.

Data-Driven Email Marketing: How to use Customer Data Innovatively

In this age of technology, people’s actions are a goldmine of information. Be it searching for something, watching a display ad from the search term, visiting a website, or the interaction they have on a website, everything generates a plethora of information. How a marketer manages to put the data defines the success of their email marketing campaign. 

You may be wondering where to look for the data, how to separate data from the noise, how to understand it, and use it in your email marketing campaign. 

In this article, we shall explain what data-driven email marketing is, how it helps you grow, common mistakes while dealing with data-driven email marketing, and how to use data innovatively to improve your email campaigns.

What is data-driven email marketing?

Marketers started adopting emails as a marketing communication channel in the late ’90s. Due to this, emails became a channel for people to receive unsolicited marketing messages, and this lead to the implementation of various norms and country-specific laws. The purpose of these laws was to regulate marketing emails and turning email marketing into a permission-based marketing channel. So, people only subscribed to those brands that drew their curiosity, and marketers started using personalization as a tactic to retain subscribers. A good user experience via emails kept the subscribers loyal, and the contrary caused them to unsubscribe.

Hence, data-driven email marketing is all about using the data you already have and the data you can collect, through consumer interactions and engagements, to predict future behaviors. This benefits the subscriber as they get a customized experience in the emails, all thanks to personalization and segmentation.

Benefits of data-driven email marketing

The customers and marketers both enjoy the fruits borne from using data-driven email marketing. The subscribers get useful and relevant information that interests them and the marketer, i.e., you, gain a loyal customer that constantly engages with your emails and is qualified for conversion. We send out a weekly email newsletter that provides useful information about the different events of the email marketing industry & is tailored to the data collected (You can be a part of our list by filling the form below). The following are some of the benefits we have observed:

  • The clarity in Communication: Marketing depends on creating relevant buyer personas based on the collected data. The more information you have at hand, the easier it becomes to segment your subscribers. This way, the subscriber will only receive emails about their interest (and some promotional emails related to their interests).
  • Better personalization: From a better understanding of your audience, you can send the right message to the right audience at the most opportune time. Additionally, the right amount of personalization can strike the right chords and aid in better conversions.
  • Lesser SPAM complaints: The level of refinement in your buyer’s persona helps you identify the correct audience, and when you approach them with something of their interests, the chance of being SPAM  reduces. Moreover, the existing subscribers are going to be engaged as long as the email content interests them, and this can lead to a reduced churn rate.
  • Multiple Channel Engagement: The engagement via the collected data is not just limited to emails. By providing a customized experience, based on the collected data, across all channels, you ensure consistent messaging that is aligned to subscribers’ interest and reaches them at the correct time.

Where marketers go wrong with data-driven marketing

  1. Not anticipating the data size: Right from the location, time spent on the page to the cursor movement of an individual visitor, all form of data is available with the help of the right tools. Most marketers tend to be overwhelmed by the size of the data collected and stick to the commonly used metrics and demographics. You need to break the data in smaller, manageable chunks and segregating the data that is valuable for your campaigns.
  2. Oversee everywhere; Focus nowhere: It is a common mistake when it comes to implementing data-driven email marketing. Data collection is not solely about creating various data points and tracking them. It is also about collecting the data and using it to leverage better email content as well as context. You need to distribute work and responsibilities such a way that you are focussed on collecting the relevant data and utilizing the data contextually.
  3. Inconsistent Data collection and analysis: Marketers sometimes tend to utilize the data collection activity until the demand exists for it in the next email campaign. Once the campaign is sent, data collection is put on a slow burner until needed again. It needs to be a continuous process that should be used to re-target customers, welcome new customers, and improve the experience for existing customers.
  4. Losing sight of the end goal: Collecting the highest amount of data is not the goal of a data-driven marketing campaign. Depending on what your end goal is, you need to align your data collection efforts. If the goal is ROI, the data collected should reflect the LTV of customers. If the goal is customer engagement, the data collected should reflect the links clicks, the request for quotation, form submission, etc.
  5. Only you are using the data: Marketing is a joint effort, and slack (not the app) from anyone can affect the performance. You need to educate your team about the actionable metrics, as well as how it is to be measured. Your team needs to understand the importance of the different metrics and associate them with business goals.
  6. Considering that it is too-late: Many of you may be wondering that is it feasible to implement data-driven email marketing into your strategies now. Marketers tend to avoid implementation owing to the fear of beginning from scratch. That is not the case as you have already been collecting data and need to understand how to leverage it better.

Making your emails data-driven

Implementing data into your email marketing campaigns doesn’t mean you need to start from scratch. You would surely need to make minor modifications, but nothing that will break the layout. Here are some of the ways that you can make your emails more data-driven.

A welcome email (or series) that collects demographic data

It is a universal agreement that welcome emails are to welcome a new subscriber to your mailing list, and it is an opportunity to gather information other than their name. You can offer an incentive such as a discount coupon or a downloadable resource and ask for demographic information such as location, interests, avg budget for their purchase, etc.

Broaden your vision to a multi-channel approach

As we stated earlier, data-driven email marketing can help other marketing channels, so it would greatly help you if you track customer interactions from those channels also. Some of the most common places to collect data from the metrics are:

  • Emails: Opens, Clicks, Conversions

  • Website: Number of visits, pages viewed

  • Landing page: Form filled, Downloads, Signups

  • Blog: Time spent, CTA clicked, Comments

  • Social Media: Engagements, Likes, Shares

  • Video: View times, Timestamp of avg viewer duration, Ads clicked

  • Display Ads: Clicks, Bounce

Create a central database

An email marketing campaign involves using multiple tools for different purposes. You should be using a CRM for storing customer information, an ESP to send the emails, a heatmap tool to monitor visits to the page, and a tool to monitor the analytics. Depending on how much you spend monthly, all the tools might be integrated into a single platform, or you use individual tools. Either way, it is essential that all the tools ‘talk’ to each other seamlessly, and the data is collected at a central point, i.e. CRM. This not only helps you track the progress from your email campaigns but also other touchpoints such as social media.

Map out how to utilize the data

When someone subscribes, you utilize the sign-up information to personalize the welcome email. To create further engagement, you offer them a freebie. Provided they download it, you send them a review email after a few days. Later on, you send them a link to a webinar that you are conducting that aligns with the subscribers’ interest. After a few days, you send them a link to the consolidated transcript of the webinar. 

In the above email series, as you can see, the subscriber is provided customized experience based on their actions. You need to map out the way you shall utilize the data before you jump onto creating email campaigns.

Periodically offer subscribers to update preferences

Times change, and the needs of the subscribers may change. There is no way to sense that if you do not provide them a chance to change their preference. This helps the subscribers in only receiving the emails that they are interested in; while benefits you by improving email deliverability with reduced unsubscription rates. Learn about the importance of email deliverability and how to make your emails land.

In the example below by Content Marketing Institute, the email prominently displays a link for unsubscribing as well as changing the preferences.

Use only the effective data in your email by A/B test

You may predict what step the subscriber may take, but you cannot say for sure. That’s where the results of your A/B test will help you. By testing two variants of the same element in your email, you can pinpoint what works better for your audience. Progressively testing out multiple elements will grant you a practical template layout. 

Utilize the demographic data to send one-off emails

Demographic data such as age, location, date of joining are premium data that is not only easy to collect but also great to personalize the email content around. Making your subscribers feel special on their birthday by sending a birthday greeting or reminding them about renewing the subscription to a product they purchase (as seen in the example below by Rockin’ Wellness) can make them feel special. This grows down the line and contributes heavily to the loyalty they have towards your brand.

Wrapping Up

As you may be aware by now, data-driven email marketing is not a new thing but only a better adoption of data in your emails. The effectiveness of your marketing success depends on the quality of the data collected and your implementation of it. You are not alone in this endeavor, our QeInbox team of experts is qualified in performing email template audit, and managing your campaign on your behalf to help you email better. Drop an email at [email protected] to ask for assistance.

Email Security and Actionable Steps to Protect MailChimp Data

Let’s face it, building an email list can be a long and excruciating process. It takes technical know-how, some writing acumen, and a whole lot of determination. That’s why there are thousands of blogs and videos giving you “the best” tips and tricks to build a list faster than anyone else. It’s a lot of work, but for most companies the payoff is still worth all the effort. Even with dozens of marketing channels available, emails are still king in the digital realm. The Email has the highest conversion rate, it outperforms social media for lead generation by 40% and typically provides a $38 return on investment for every $1 spent. And most importantly, email is likely the core communication channel for your entire organization. 

So just consider how you would feel if all the data and information, that you collected using lead generation methods, were all wiped out in a manner of seconds? And you couldn’t get it back. For Mailchimp users, this experience is an on-going one.

Know Your Risks

Mailchimp is one of the top email automation platforms on the planet. In 2017 they claimed to have over 20 million customers and have begun acquiring companies in the hopes of expanding their offerings. This continued success is fantastic for Mailchimp devouts but also makes everyone a more attractive target for cybercriminals. Think of all the personal and sensitive information you have collected on existing and potential customers. Names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords (which people often used in other places), and maybe even billing or credit card info. This is a goldmine of data for people who know how to grab it and use it to their advantage. 

Security experts see an explosive growth of cyber attackson small businesses, with 70% being targeted during 2018. Incidents of ransomware are also on a dramatic rise with a 500% increase over this time last year. Although these stats apply to websites, cybercriminals are moving into other software applications, like email automation, and Mailchimp is not immune. Mailchimp recently had to crack down on criminals hacking into accounts and sending malware-laced emails.

There is another, more innocent way your Mailchimp world can come crashing down the human error. And the most common scenario is accidentally deleting something (like your email list), which unfortunately you may not be able to recover. This is precisely what happened to Chanie Hyde at BugHerd. She accidentally deleted 40,000 emails when she was cleaning up her lists. But you can also lose data when you make changes to other areas of Mailchimp. And unless you have a manual backup of this data, it’s gone for good after a deletion.

One of the misconceptions about cloud platforms is that they “save everything,” which isn’t entirely true. The majority of Software-as-a-Service companies follow something called the “Shared Responsibility Model” when it comes to data protection. This means Mailchimp protects the infrastructure that powers its software. However, you are responsible for backing up and securing your own account-level data.

We know it sounds dire; hackers are after you, the cloud isn’t the safety net you thought it was, and all your data can be wiped in a heartbeat. There is hope, though. Thankfully some simple strategies can ensure your Mailchimp account is secure and can be restored with just a few keystrokes.

How to Protect Yourself

Keep Your Account on Lockdown: We all do it; create simple, easy to remember passwords. And we mentioned earlier about how people reuse the same ones over and over again. Sure, this shortcut helps you in your day-to-day, but it’s also a big help for hackers as well. With weak passwords, your account is vulnerable in a few ways. People can gain access by social engineering, brute force, or a dictionary blast. As a refresher, here are the best practices for creating a solid password:

  1. Make a password at least 12 characters long
  2. Use a random mix of uppercase & lowercase letters, and include numbers or symbols 
  3. DO NOT use any names of family members, friends or pets 
  4. DO NOT use birth dates, phone numbers, postal codes or any other numbers associated with you 
  5. DO NOT let web browsers “remember” you passwords 
  6. Make a password impossible to remember

We understand this causes more work, especially when having to create unique passwords for all users. To help with this, we recommend using a password manager like 1Password or LastPass. 

Be Strict About Who Has Access:  A password is as personal as your house keys. Give it up and you compromise your safety. Never ever share a password or use a common login. Each user should be given their own account. Again, it’s common sense, but something many of us are still guilty of doing. 

Be Careful About Integration Access: Using third-party apps can make your life WAY easier, helping with everything from analytics, to billing, design, and more. However, it’s worth auditing and reviewing what level of access you are trading for these benefits. Every time you add an integration, you are increasing the risk that your data ‘could’ be manipulated or edited in a manner out of your control. We are not saying these third-party apps have nefarious intentions, but we have seen occasions where some third-party software made changes on their end, and it wreaked havoc on the main account’s data and settings. It’s worth understanding the ways the apps you currently use (or would like to use) can access your data. 

Use Two-Factor Authentication: It would be great to guarantee your account’s security, with all the above safeguards in place, but that’s not realistic. The possibility exists that someone can steal your password and compromise your account. With two-step authentication, which involves generating a unique code on your mobile device, you can ensure that only verified people are accessing your Mailchimp account.

Backup Your Data: All the above tactics will help mitigate the chances of nefarious parties hijacking your email list. Yet, it still won’t prevent humans from making mistakes and causing a data disaster. Many account owners choose to backup manually by saving dozens of CSV files. This method has its limitations, though, as you won’t be able to save all key data. And importing all the raw data back into Mailchimp can be time-consuming.

The easiest solution is a third-party application, like Rewind, which automates the entire process. You can save time as well as eliminate the stress of trying to get everything back the way it was and is free for accounts with under 4000 subscribers.

Conclusion

Your Mailchimp list may be one of the most important digital assets you have.  Having security and backup strategies in place is the best insurance policy. A quick recap:

  • Use unique and strong passwords
  • Only give access to the right people
  • Always review and audit third-party integrations
  • Use two-factor authentication 
  • Have a backup strategy in place 

It may take extra work to keep your account protected. But it’s worth the headaches caused by a cyber attack and weeks or months it may take to recover.

Dasha Shakov is a Product Marketing Manager at Rewind. You can connect with her on Linkedin.

Email Design Best Practices and What Impacts User Engagement

Email started off as an interdepartmental communication channel that only supported the Unicode text. In the late 90s, email became a mainstream marketing channel and adopted HTML formatting. This opened up new opportunities for email marketers to beautify their promotional and marketing emails to draw their customers’ attention. Further addition of CSS animation by 2014 and the demand for responsive emails made email marketers put more emphasis on the visual attractiveness of their emails.

In this article, we shall look into the email design best practices and understand which email design impacts user engagement.

Things to focus on when considering email design

Most marketers tend to mistake email design to be using the correct images and colors in the email whereas email design involves everything from having the correct From Name, subject line & pre-header text placement, color schemes to even what you convey in the footer. The following list is the things to consider when designing emails:

Brand Personality

Your emails are an extension of your brand and the design needs to reflect it using your brand personality. Your emails need to have a conversation with your subscribers instead of just informing them. So, from the tone to the brand colors to how you sign off, your brand personality needs to be evident. A good brand personality also keeps your emails from being considered SPAM.

Pre-header & Subject Line

Email clients such as Gmail, iOS, and Outlook will display a small snippet of text from your email as a pre-header text. Most marketers tend to miss out on the opportunity in adding a personal flavor in the pre-header text. You can either use the pre-header text to complete something that was left out in the subject line or use it as an individual email element.

Litmus uses its pre-header to explain further what was hinted in their subject lines.

MailChart, on the other hand, uses personalization tags to make it more one to one interaction.

Email Layout

The email layout determines the placement of the elements in your email design. The email layout relies heavily on the visual hierarchy and you can have separate layouts for the same email depending on the screen width of the user’s device. Keep an 80:20 text to image balance in your email design for good user experience as well as avoid SPAM traps.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a baseline for any email design. While misinterpreted of only applicable to someone with a disability, accessibility in an email greatly boosts the user experience as well as makes it easy for someone to easily scan through the email while collecting valuable information. Read how to create an accessible email in our blog post.

Visual Aspect

Images are the pictorial version of your email copy and can communicate more while occupying less space. Any discrepancy in the visual aspect of email design such as stretching or blurred images can easily be detected by your readers and should be avoided with constant tested on multiple devices. Provide background colors and appropriate alt-text to all your images, use high definition but compressed retina-images to avoid image tearing or blurring.

Copy formatting

Not only is what you convey in your email copy important but how you convey it. A properly formatted email copy is a vital part of the email design. Copy formatting is not just restricted to short sentences, paragraphs but includes typography such as line spacing, line breaks, bullets.

Email Footer design

An email footer is where people sign-off but it is not only for that purpose. An email footer should include the physical address of the organization, contact details, reason why subscribers are receiving your emails, as well as the social profiles for them to engage with your brand on respective platforms.

Email Design Best Practices

Be Responsive

Even though it is 2019 and most people check their emails on handheld devices, marketers still do not understand the importance of creating responsive emails. Responsive emails adjust the email content based on the screen width of the devices. This can be the thin line between good user experience and an unsubscribe due to ruined user experience.

Use High Resolution but Compressed Images

As we stated earlier, using blurred or stretched images can drop the visual appeal of your emails. On the other hand, the more defined your image is, the larger will the file size be and longer it will take for an email client to download it. Opt for a lossless compression method to get optimum visuals without sacrificing on the file size. Additionally, use a background color and appropriate alt-text so that your subscriber can be engaged while the image loads.
While including images in your emails consider the following parameters:

  • Image size: The file size should be as small as possible without sacrificing quality.
  • Consider image width and height: When you specify the exact image size while coding your emails, you will maintain the structure of the email even when the images don’t load.

Have a color palette

Every color instigates a specific emotion within you. Red can convey urgency, blue can convey serenity, and green can calm you. But you cannot use colors as per your liking. Have a color palette where you can specify the brand colors as well as the shades that you are already using on other platforms and use them in your emails as well for consistency.

GIFs are still a thing

Animated GIFs are still a boon for marketers to fit in multiple images without affecting the screen length. You can replicate the feel of a video without exceeding the file size or coding headache of including an actual video. Ideally, your GIF shouldn’t exceed 1MB file size for the optimum experience.

Play with Fonts

Most email clients support system standard fonts such as Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana. Any 3rd party fonts can be used in your emails, provided that email-safe fallback font is specified for it. For those fonts that are too fancy for any fallback fonts, it is better to use them in images.

Place elements based on the eye-scan path

In every left to right reading country, the eye-scan begins from the top-left corner of your email and progressively narrows to the center. Hence, following an inverted pyramid placement, you make optimum use of the space by placing your brand logo along with any other relevant information such as sales announcements and call-to-actions in the middle..

In the example above by Really Good Emails, the top portion has the brand logo followed by a personalized image promoting their Unspam conference. The element placements emulate an inverted pyramid.

Design with Minimal distractions

The simpler your emails are, the easier it would be for someone to scan across and collect important information. Always follow a visual hierarchy while placing email elements in the email design. Avoid placing any distractions such as flashy GIFs or contrasting colors unless it is for the call-to-action button.

Always A/B test

You may not always have a finger on your subscriber’s pulse when it comes to email design preferences. It is a good practice to A/B test different elements in your email design for the effectiveness instead of assuming. Also, test your email design before sending to your subscribers.

Wrapping Up

The above-mentioned best practices are not commandments but more of a guideline for you to adapt to your existing email design and create your own style. Email design best practices constantly change and at the end of the day, what would matter is you find what works for your brand on the basis of testing, learning and implement the learnings. If you need help with innovative email designs, check out our template library or send an email to [email protected] for custom email design requirements.