Email Marketing Optimization Hacks & Case Studies (Infographic)

Although there are many marketing channels at your disposal, email is arguably the most powerful strategy for both B2B and B2C advertisers. This cost-effective solution enables you to reach potential customers in the place they visit every day—their inbox.

However, it’s not enough to just send emails from time to time. Your potential customers receive dozens of emails per day but open only a small part of them and engage with even fewer.

To provide you with the most accurate email marketing tips and help you get the most out of your email marketing campaign, we’ve created the infographic below to provide you with the most efficient hacks, supported by case studies.

Stats and Facts About Email Marketing Effectiveness (Editors Pick)

• By 2021, the number of business emails sent and received will exceed 319 billion.
• 73% of millennials would rather communicate their business matters via email.
• Email is 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than Twitter or Facebook.
• A CTA button instead of a text link in an email can increase conversion rates by 28%.
• The email marketing ROI is 3800%.

Tips and Techniques to Create Effective Email Campaigns

1. Subject Line

Usually, it’s the subject line that’s the deciding factor here if you don’t want your email to be deleted or marked as spam. For example, 47% of email marketing recipients open emails based on the subject line, and 69% of people report emails as spam based on the subject line. The trick is to create a subject line that will make people feel that the email will benefit them.

“Money Dashboard” created one of the best email marketing campaigns and boosted clicks by 228% by using a creative subject line. More specifically, they conveyed a sense of mystery for a survey invitation email. They tested these two subject lines: A) “What’s your opinion here (first name)?” and B) “Please put us out of our misery.”

The A/B split test showed a significant uplift in the treatment (B) over the control (A) for all segments. The B subject line managed to convey a sense of mystery and raise questions.

Another amazing email campaign tip is taken straight from Obama’s 2012 Presidential campaign. This campaign managed to raise $690 million. From “Dinner” to “Aloha” to “Say You’re with Me,” the campaign showed that the more casual the tone, the more money the email made. Consequently, “Hey” was the subject line that was most effective of all.

Tips for Email Marketing – Create a Killer Subject Line

• Keep it short: use 3–4 words
• Tell them what to expect and use action-oriented verbs
• Convey a sense of urgency but avoid using words like “miss” and “deals”
• Try to use emojis where applicable
• Don’t make false promises
• Use concise language
• Try to personalize the subject line

2. Preheader Text

The second among the most effective email marketing tips is to master the preheader text. That’s the piece of writing that additionally informs recipients about the content of your email. Just by using a preheader, open rates increase by 30%, while the optimized version can boost open rates by 45%.

Email Marketing Tips – Write Great Preheader Text

• Include the key content and be concise
• Don’t repeat the subject line
• Don’t include unclickable links
• Use between 40–100 characters
• Include a CTA

3. Sender Name

Studies have shown trusting the sender to be the most critical factor when it comes to whether or not the email will be opened. In fact, 68% of Americans open their emails based on the name they see in the “From” section. Email marketing statistics show that 42% of people around the world check the sender name when deciding whether to open an email. Consumers name a dedicated email address as the fourth most important trust factor.

Mindberry has leveraged this hack to create one of the best email marketing campaigns for the SEMI family hotel. They decided to use a personal sender name in addition to the company’s name. The split testing showed that this version had a much better performance, increasing the newsletter open rate by 57%.

Effective Email Marketing Tips – Leverage the Sender’s Name

• Keep the “From” name consistent with the sender’s email address
• Avoid using a no-reply address
• Don’t use a free webmail address
• If possible, use an email address with your business name in it

4. Segmentation

Your email list consists of different groups of people who have different interests and behavior. That’s why segmentation, or splitting the subscribers into groups, is one of the most effective email marketing techniques.

Email marketing examples have shown that, on average, brands who use segmentation see an increase of 39% in open rates, 24% in revenue, 24% in leads, 18% in transactions, 24% in deliverability, as well as 15% less spam.

Two email marketing case studies provide further proof of this technique. SheFinds boosted its open rate by 20% using list segmentation.

Similarly, SwayChic, the e-commerce store, managed to segment the customers based on the behavioral data they’d collected through extensive testing. Taking into consideration the days and times when engagement rates are highest, they created an email schedule, dividing the customers into three groups: 5 a.m., 10 a.m., and 5 p.m. The results of their efforts showed a 40% better open rate, 3x the revenue for each campaign, and 2x the average CTR.

Email Marketing Tips and Techniques for Professional Segmentation

• Segment your list by date, interest, and subscriber activity
• Avoid making segmentation complicated and time-consuming
• Attract first-time customers
• Re-engage an inactive group of subscribers
• Anticipate buyers’ needs
• Use geo-targeting

5. Personalization

Effective email marketing involves personalization, which is a proven technique for increasing the median ROI of 122%. More and more marketers realize the potential of this technique. 94% of them say personalization is essential for current and future success.

Dormify, the lifestyle retailer, personalized three automated email series: a welcome, a cart abandonment, and a post-purchase series. According to the email campaign’s case study, the company saw a 92% increase in revenue and twice as much conversion on average.

Email Marketing Tips About Personalization

• Segment your email list
• Individualize email messaging
• Send emails according to the subscriber’s behavior
• Leverage APIs
• Take advantage of integrations

6. Automation and Triggering

Automation involves setting up emails that are then automatically sent to a particular individual when that person meets a specific trigger. It’s cost-effective and always relevant to the recipient. Automated workflows are designed to nurture leads and increase conversions by 53%. What’s more, triggered emails get 95% higher open rates and drive 624% higher conversion responses.

One of the email retargeting case studies comes from Choxi.com, an e-commerce retail destination. The brand set up a series of triggered email campaigns targeting the “window shoppers.” The emails included the exact information the prospect was searching for. They also targeted the category browsers with personalized information about the category they browsed and specific category recommendations. The Homepage Browse campaign re-messaged shoppers who landed on the homepage but didn’t move further along the funnel. As a result, Choxi generated an extra $3 million in sales and a 47% average open rate.

Another email automation case study is from Zachys Wine & Liquor. The family-owned business is known for maintaining a strong relationship with their customers. When their e-commerce business took off, mail marketing had been an integral part of their strategy. Knowing that they were missing out on great opportunities to recapture their traffic, the company decided to use email marketing automation. They started a program with three triggers: abandoned search, abandoned cart, and abandoned product. Zachys Wine & Liquor’s e-commerce business accounts for 23% of the company’s revenue with 54% cumulative growth over the past 2.5 years.

Email Marketing Tips About Automation & Triggering

• Refresh your email list
• Test and measure to find the most effective method
• Include selective opt-outs

7. Buttons and Calls-to-Action

If you followed all optimization hacks until now, you probably have created a highly compelling and personalized email with a great subject line and relevant offer. But without an optimized call-to-action you’re likely to experience low click-through rates. Don’t believe us? Let’s go through some facts:

• Emails with one CTA have proved to increase clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%.
• Emails that include a social sharing button also perform well, translating into a 115% higher CTR.

Campaign Monitor redesigned the concept of writing marketing emails to subscribers and got a 127% increase in CTR. The new design featured prominent content elements, appealing design, and a stronger CTA in the form of a large, contrast button that immediately caught the eye of the reader.

Originally, Whirlpool’s emails contained four CTAs. Three of them were labeled “Learn More” and directed the customers to different pages for information. One CTA, labeled “See Details,” stood in the middle of the page and directed users to the discount that the campaign was designed for. According to one of their B2B email marketing case studies, after the adjustments, the three “Learn More” buttons were removed, leaving only the one CTA that aligned with the campaign’s goal. This tweak resulted in a 42% boost in clicks.

The CreateDebate case study underlines the importance of design in CTA optimization. A button needs to look clickable so that it initiates the desired action. CreateDebate had a homepage filled with various calls to action in the form of huge buttons that weren’t helping their efforts since the visitors didn’t understand what they should click on. After using just one optimized CTA that looked like a button they saw a 45% boost in clicks.

Email Marketing Tips – Incorporate Relevant CTAs

• Use actionable words and avoid wordiness
• Make your button text legible
• Create urgency
• Use bright colors
• Keep it above the fold

8. Images

Images make a message more attractive to recipients and provide branding opportunities that are often missed when using plain text. This comes from the fact that 55% of consumers turn on the images in the emails they receive. Similarly, 65% of people prefer emails to mostly contain images rather than mostly text.

Helzberg Diamonds added an arrow to their CTA button, which helped them increase clicks by 26%.

Effective Email Marketing Strategies – How to Include Images

• Make sure your images are at least 600 pixels wide
• Try and use 1–3 images and approximately 20 lines of text
• Avoid sending image-only emails
• Add an image description to all images included

9. Video

The best email marketing campaigns leverage the power of video marketing, which is why 51.9% of marketing experts name video as the type of content with the highest ROI. Plus, video persuades as much as 64% to make an online purchase. What’s more, 59% of business executives prefer consuming messages via video over written content. Finally, when used correctly, video has proved to drive a 200%–300% increase in CTR.

Implix, an online solution provider, has provided a business case for email marketing showing that video emails drive 5.6% higher open rates and a 96.38% higher CTR compared to non-video emails.

How to Do Email Marketing – Tips to Include Video in Emails like a Pro

• Keep it short
• Use the best image as a thumbnail
• Don’t embed a video in the email directly
• Use a Play button on top of a static image
• Take advantage of an animated GIF

10. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

One of the most common email marketing techniques to increase sales is conveying a sense of FOMO. FOMO makes your visitors eager to buy or take the action you want them to. Humans simply cannot resist this psychological trigger. For instance, subject lines that create a sense of urgency increase open rates by 22%. Similarly, Brits are 39% more likely to open an email if they fear missing out on a tremendous opportunity.

If you want to know how to write an email marketing campaign that will create FOMO, follow the example of Ticketmaster. The ticket sales company implemented a FOMO strategy to guarantee more ticket sales by targeting users who viewed a specific event but hadn’t made a purchase. They used a countdown timer to highlight the limited time potential customers had until the specific event they were interested in. Their effort resulted in a 7.46% boost in conversion rates.

How to Write Effective Email Campaigns That Create FOMO

• Use urgent words
• Use capitalization and exclamation points in the subject line
• Don’t write in ALL CAPS
• Include a specific deadline
• Use repetition to reinforce your message

11. Timing

Writing compelling email marketing copy is the cornerstone of a successful campaign. However, this means very little if you neglect the importance of proper timing. Therefore, it could be beneficial for your marketing efforts to know that people are most likely to open your emails between 8 p.m. and midnight. Also, 61% of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, while 15% of consumers want to receive promotional emails every day.

Learn how to write effective email marketing content straight from Harland Clarke’s playbook. Their case study shows that 26.9% of their emails were sent on a Wednesday, and they had an open rate of 15.6%. On the other hand, the 5.5% of emails that were sent on a Saturday had a 32.5% open rate.

Email Marketing Tips 2019 – Focus on the Timing

• Experiment with various times and test which performs best
• Be consistent

12. Mobile Responsiveness

If you don’t optimize your emails for mobile, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. On average, people spend 4.7 hours on their mobile devices every day, so the fact that 42% of email opens happen on a mobile device is not a surprise. Additionally, 70% of consumers delete emails that aren’t optimized for mobile devices.

When Crocs tested a responsive email design against the static desktop version, the first group showed an overall 7.66% lift in CTOR. Additionally, the mobile “read” engagement had an 8.82% boost for the responsive version over the desktop version.

Email Marketing Tips – How to Craft Mobile-Responsive Emails

• Use a single-column template
• Use a large font size
• Use small images
• Display a CTA that is at least 40 pixels square
• Avoid menu bars
• Test, test, test

13. Email Content

Boomerang has conducted extensive research to answer the question, how effective is email marketing content, and what really matters when it comes to content?

One of their core discoveries was that emails with content written at a third-grade reading level are 36% more likely to get a reply. Also, they found out that the optimal email length is between 50–125 words. Emails with content falling in this range get response rates above 50%. As to the response rates, Boomerang’s study showed that email marketing copy with slightly to moderately positive or negative words evokes 10%–15% more responses than neutral copy.

Email Marketing Tips – Write Compelling Copy

• Include 1–3 questions when possible
• Focus on the customers’ experience
• Write copy that meets the customers’ needs
• Keep it short and concise
• Be relevant

14. Email Formatting

We’ve come to the last hack used for crafting the best email marketing campaigns. Getting the formatting right can make or break the success of your email campaign. A HubSpot study confirmed that plain text email has a 25% higher open rate than HTML. Also, more than 60% of email clients block images by default. So while using visuals in your email is recommended, you should avoid hiding essential information in your images.

Email Marketing Tips – Format Your Email Right

• Use at least one image, but avoid using only images
• Use a short plain-text note coming from a real person on your team
• Use short paragraphs with relevant keywords
• Include bullet points

Final Words

These email marketing tips can take your strategy to the next level. Also, don’t forget that the key to successful email marketing is to plan well and analyze data to make improvements on your campaign. The hacks outlined here are proven to work, but we recommend that you continuously test to discover what works best with your target audience.