Email Marketing Best Practices | 15 Essential Tips for Success

How to Measure Send Strategy Success

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There’s no doubting that email marketing gets results, but it’s essential to know how to measure them.

There are a whole host of useful metrics out there that can help with this. They act as a window into your email performance, and help to identify areas for improvement, too.

Below, you’ll find the key metrics each budding email marketer should know about – and when they’re most useful!

When it comes to email marketing metrics, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Collecting data is easier now than ever before, giving you plenty of opportunities for analysis.

But not every metric is going to be relevant to your business. Try taking a step back and asking yourself what you want your emails to achieve. This will help you to decide the best way of measuring your success.

And if you want to see those metrics skyrocket, our 11 email marketing best practices are sure to help. We’ll give you a full breakdown of these so you know exactly how to get the best out of your email sends.

Further Reading

If you want to get started with email marketing, but aren’t sure which provider is best for you, check out our comparison of the best email marketing services.

Looking for something more specific? We’ve also broken the platforms down into the best email marketing services for ecommerce and the best email marketing services for small businesses so you can find the right one for your brand.

You can also find a guide to creating an ecommerce marketing strategy.

Email Marketing: 15 Best Practices

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Getting email marketing right isn’t something that happens without a little elbow grease.

Turning your emails into valuable conversions will be a gradual process. We know getting started can be the hardest part, but our 15 email marketing tips will help you whip your send strategy into shape.

1. Give Your Users a Warm Welcome

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Signing up to an email list is like visiting a restaurant for the first time – you don’t know what you’re going to get until you sit down and place your order. Email works on the same principle, and your welcome email is the first dish your users will sample.

A friendly welcoming email is the first step in building a trusting relationship with your customers. It helps to:

• Reintroduce your business – this is the first impression your subscribers will have of you, and it’s the perfect chance to reintroduce yourself. Remind your users what it is you do and what you can offer them. It’ll put them at ease, and stop them from reporting your following emails as spam.
• Set their expectations – your welcome email is also a chance for you to tell your users what they can expect from you. Use it as an opportunity to signpost when they might receive their next email, and maybe even give them a hint of what it might contain.
• Engage them – welcome emails typically have a 50% open rate, so this is the ideal opportunity to drum up some excitement and get your users engaged. Make sure you’ve got a convincing CTA in there too, so they know exactly where to go after your introduction wins them over.

2. Optimize your Sending Time

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Your welcome email might be your first send, but it (hopefully) won’t be your last.

If you haven’t given much thought to the exact timing of your following emails, or even how frequently you’re going to send them, don’t worry. Plenty of people make the same mistake, but these two things are crucial to how well your emails perform.

So, when is the best time to get your emails seen? 

Studies show that 11 am on Tuesday mornings is when users are most engaged. Mondays and Wednesdays come in a close second place, but one thing’s for certain – the further through the week you go, the lower your open rates will be. And when the weekend rolls around, your chances of a successful conversion dwindle even further.

The key takeaway? Send your emails earlier in the week if you want to perk up your marketing metrics and score more opens.

Consistency is key. Once you’ve chosen your ideal sending time, stick with it. Not only will your users come to expect your emails, but it also boosts your reputation so inbox providers don’t automatically label everything you send as spam.

Some email marketing platforms, like Mailchimp, take the stress out of this by offering a send-time optimization (STO) feature. This means they’ll work out the best time for your emails to land in your subscribers’ inboxes so you don’t have to.

3. Harness the Power of Personalization

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Now that your emails are going to start making a regular appearance in your users’ inboxes, it’s time to really get to know your subscribers.

Imagine that you receive two letters through the mail.

The first one is addressed to ‘The Occupier’, whilst the second has your name printed clearly at the top. We know which one we’d be more likely to open first!

The same can be said for emails. Subject lines that are personalized generally have an open rate that is 50% higher than those that aren’t, while personalized CTAs also convert 202% better than their generic alternatives. These stats alone prove that it’s definitely worth getting personal with your users.

But email marketing is ever-evolving, and nowadays, including your user’s name in your email copy is an industry standard. If you want to reap the rewards of personalization, you’ll need to dig a little deeper.

The best email marketers make the most of their database by sending emails based on a user’s previous actions. Maybe a user clicked on a link, but didn’t convert – this is the perfect opportunity to send them a retargeting email, designed to convince them to take that next step. This is just what ASOS has done below.

You don’t even need to wait for your users to interact with your brand to tailor your sends. If you collect various data points like age, location, and gender through your email subscription process, you’ll be able to segment users based on these characteristics. From here, it’s simple to adjust your sends so that they have a higher chance of appealing to a specific demographic.

62.26% of users experience feelings of happiness and excitement when they receive a personalized email – and happier customers are more likely to convert. A successful send strategy starts with building trust between your business and your database, and personalization is a surefire way to score top marks here.

4. Keep Your Email List Clean

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Deliverability certainly isn’t the most glamorous part of email marketing, but it’s one of the most important elements. What good is spending hours creating emails if no one gets to see them?

Maintaining your email list hygiene is crucial if you want to get your emails into inboxes and avoid those pesky bounces.

So what is list hygiene?

This is the practice of cleaning old or inactive subscribers from your email list. Don’t worry, you won’t need to roll your sleeves up and crack out the disinfectant – it’s not that kind of cleaning.

Keeping an eye on your subscribers’ behavior is a good way to monitor your list’s overall health. We’re talking about opens, clicks, and conversions. These are the metrics that ISPs dig into when deciding whether your email should be allowed a spot in the inbox or not.

When it comes down to it, keeping your list clean is quite simple. Prioritize users who open your emails and click on your links regularly, but unsubscribe those who don’t demonstrate regular engagement. Your list size might get smaller, but this isn’t a bad thing. When it comes to improving your email deliverability rates, quality comes before quantity.

Advice From the Expert

Following best practices with your content will only get you so far when it comes to getting in the inbox – the major ISPs are looking for an engaged subscriber base who are opening and reading your emails. So make sure you’re maintaining a healthy list by removing users when they stop engaging, and setting the expectations of new users when they sign up for your emails. Buying a list of subscribers may seem like an easy route, but this will likely cripple your domain’s reputation!

Ben Griffiths CRM Manager at Survey Compare

Find Out More

• Learn about how to get email lists for marketing if you need help getting started curating your email lists

5. Give Users an Out

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There comes a point in every email journey where users disengage with what you’re sending. This is natural, and you shouldn’t take it personally! But you should make sure there’s an easy way for these users to unsubscribe.

If there’s no clear way for users to opt out of your emails, not only will they hang around and bring your OR and CTR down, but they might do something worse – hit that big old ‘Report Spam’ button at the top of almost every email inbox. There are email marketing laws that apply to spam, so best to keep Johnny Law off you by following standard practices.

Luckily, featuring a clear unsubscribe link minimizes this risk. Most emails include this at the bottom of their emails in the footer, although you might find some at the top by the logo too.

Remember, your users shouldn’t have to search too hard to find your unsubscribe link. Unsubscribes aren’t your enemy, and in the long run, they’ll improve your email performance and deliverability. Plus, you can always get them back another day with a win back email.

Find Out More

• Need help with your unsubscribe emails? Check out our pick of the best unsubscribe email examples to inspire you.

6. Make Sure Your Emails Render Correctly

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Is there anything more annoying than receiving an email with HTML errors or broken image links all over the place?

These aren’t huge mistakes, but they can seriously affect your customer’s experience, and make your emails appear unprofessional. Plus, they give both your users and the ISPs a reason to question the credibility of your business.

Checking how your emails render on mobile devices is also important. Around half of internet traffic is mobile, so it pays to make sure your emails look good no matter where your users are accessing them. The ISPs will appreciate this too, and you’ll have a higher chance of avoiding that dreaded spam tag.

Most email marketing software platforms allow you to test your emails before you send them, so you can double-check they render properly and don’t contain any errors. If your chosen software doesn’t offer this, Litmus is a great alternative – it even offers a free seven-day trial, so you can try it out before you invest.

7. Hook Users With Your Subject Line

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You’ve heard the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, right? Well, with your emails, this kind of thinking goes straight out the window. In the world of ferocious inbox competition, the one thing your users are going to judge is your subject line.

It’s the main thing that controls your open rate, determining whether your subscribers open your email or scroll right by it.

Writing a good subject line can be tricky, especially because they’re so short. The average subject line should be no longer than nine to 10 words, or around 41 characters.

But don’t panic – there are a few rules you can follow to get the most out of your limited space.

• Get to the point – cut out unnecessary words where you can, and always go for the simplest way of saying something. Fight against the urge to overcomplicate. The only thing you’ll do is lose your user’s attention!
• Use powerful language – the words you choose are important. Keep them short and direct for the biggest impact. Using words like ‘now’ and ‘today’ inspire urgency, whilst promoting a ‘free’ tool acts as a great hook. Questions are also powerful ways of encouraging users to open.
• Don’t shout – if you don’t want to find yourself in the spam folder, don’t overuse exclamation points, and stick to lowercase. Instead of making your email stand out in the inbox, users will go out of their way to avoid opening it.
• Make use of the preheader – your preheader is a good way to extend your subject line and give more detail on your email without spilling over the character limit.
• Personalize – including first names and user locations is easier than ever, and that’s not all. The data you collect can give you an insight into the specific needs of your customers so you can tailor your sends to them. If you make them feel special, they’ll be intrigued enough to open your emails.
• Don’t mislead users – overpromising or outright dishonesty is not the way to build lasting relationships with potential customers. Sure, it might make them open your email, but when they realize you can’t deliver, they’ll disengage – and might even report you as spam at the same time.

8. Keep your Design Consistent With Your Brand

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Designing your emails is, arguably, the best part of setting up email marketing. It’s the perfect opportunity to stretch your creativity and capture your users’ attention with your artistic abilities.

But before you get carried away, remember that your emails aren’t separate from the rest of your business – they’re an extension of it.

Most of your email database will have signed up through your website, which is where your brand shines through in all of your color and layout choices. Your emails should mirror this, and align with your brand personality, so that your customers feel confident that they’re dealing with the same people throughout the whole of their user journey. Plus, brand consistency boosts your credibility and professionalism – two things that are key to successful email marketing.

9. Keep Your Copy Snappy

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Did you know that, on average, recipients spend less than 14 seconds reading an email? That’s not a lot of time to convince them to take the plunge and become one of your paying customers. So it’s important that you use your time wisely and nail your copy.

Many of the same principles that make a good subject line will also come in handy when finetuning your email copy.

1. Be concise… but that doesn’t mean boring

Having fun with your message, and even sharing personal stories with your email list, is a great way to remind readers that you aren’t a robot.

2. Break it up

Use logical paragraphs and keep them short. This means your recipient doesn’t have to work too hard to understand what you’re trying to say.

3. Address your users’ pain points

Your product or service should offer them something new, or provide a solution to an old problem. Acknowledge this, and show why clicking on your email is a good idea.

4. Get into your reader’s mind

You might be surprised to know that psychology can be very effective in email copy. Fear of missing out (FOMO), social proof, and color association are just some of the ways you can influence your reader.

5. Get visual 

Why say something when you can show it? Images break up your copy and add a burst of color, helping readers to maintain focus. But make sure you have an even balance of text and pictures – your email shouldn’t be a comic strip.

6. Make the most of CTAs

Your CTAs need to be effective in their design and their placement. Keeping them short and action-driven will make readers more likely to click them. Positioning them regularly throughout your email will also give your reader multiple chances to convert. Take a look at our top tips if you want to learn how to write high-impact CTAs. Or learn how to write great marketing emails.

10. Test, Test, and Test again

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This is the golden rule of email marketing.

It’s unlikely that you’ll get everything right the first time, especially when you’re still learning and getting to know your audience. That’s what makes A/B testing such an important tool.

A/B testing is every email marketer’s best friend. It involves sending two versions, or variants, of an email to your database. Half of them – the ‘A’ group – will receive the normal email. The other half – the ‘B’ variants – will be sent an alternative template. Sending them alongside each other gives you the chance to compare their metrics and see which performs better, keeping your content fresh and up-to-date.

It’s a proven way to find out what content your email list enjoys and engages with best.

And that’s not the only advantage of testing regularly. If some of your most important metrics have taken an unexplained dip, running a series of tests can help you to refresh and revitalize content without having to risk your overall performance. If it isn’t already, testing should be part of your usual email marketing processes.

All of our favorite email marketing platforms allow some degree of testing, but Mailchimp gives you the most freedom over what you can test, including your subject lines, content, and send time optimization. We’d recommend taking a look at our in-depth review if you plan to get creative with your A/B testings.

11. Automate and Audit

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As your business grows, so will your email marketing. But just like an award-winning chef can’t cook every dish that leaves their kitchen, you’ll need some help to manage all of those email sends.

This is where sending automation is worth the investment. All email marketing platforms offer some automated features, allowing you to create an email journey for your subscribers. This means they can funnel through without you needing to manually hit the send button, saving you tons of time and allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

Although automation is perfect for a growing business and doesn’t require constant attention, it will need some maintenance now and again. We’d advise you to plan regular audits to check that your emails are still performing well, and that there aren’t any problems with your sequences. Learn more about email automation here.

12. Understand Your Target Audience

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If you want people to open, enjoy, and engage with your emails then you need to get to know them.

Understanding who your target audience is, how they behave online, and what content they want to receive is crucial.

Luckily, there are plenty of ways you can begin to understand your target audience without having to turn up at their front door. You can:

• Conduct market research to see what types of email communications do and don’t work within your demographics.
• Create buyer personas to dig deeper into characteristics of  your target audience such as age, location, interests, and shopping habits.
• Analyze existing customer data. Which demographics are currently opening your emails? Which are unsubscribing?
• Monitor social media and relevant online communities to see what your target audience are talking about online and what content they are interested in.
• Conduct surveys and interviews with your target demographics to ask them directly what they are looking for from their email subscriptions.

13. Segment Your Email List

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You don’t necessarily want to send the same content to everyone, which is where list segmentation comes in.

A great email marketing tip is to segment your list in order to ensure you’re sending relevant content to every subscriber.

For example, if you sell outdoor clothing internationally, you may want to segment your list via location. That’s because customers in London in November will be looking for totally different items from customers in Sydney at the same time.

Different ways you can segment your email list include:

• Demographics such as age or gender.
• Geography including where they are based and the currency they shop in.
• Behavior and the activity they undertake on your website.
• Purchase history and the products and services they are already actively interested in.

14. Optimize Email Design for Mobile Devices

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More and more people are opening emails on their mobile phones. In fact, 1.7 billion users use their smartphone to check their emails. What does this mean for your email marketing? That your emails need to be designed for mobile devices that’s what.

When optimizing your email design for mobile you need to opt for a responsive layout, this means the design will adapt to whatever screen size it’s being viewed on.

We recommend sticking to a one-column design for mobile emails, allowing users to easily scroll through your content, and keep the design simple and avoid overcrowding on the page.

Ensure your CTA is clear and easy to identify and keep your image sizes small so that they load quickly and clearly.

15. Stay Up-to-Date With Email Marketing Trends

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The final tip in our list of email marketing best practices is to stay up-to-date with all of the latest email marketing trends and updates.

The online world is always changing and you don’t want to find yourself falling behind your competitors because you haven’t taken the time to stay informed.

Consider following relevant industry blogs and publications (and keep your eye on Website Builder Guide for all the latest email marketing tips and tricks), and attend webinars and conferences based on email marketing.

You can also join online communities and forums where you’ll find other people discussing latest industry reports and trends and you’ll be able to gain valuable insight into what is and isn’t working for other brands too.

While you certainly don’t need to jump on every email marketing trend that comes around, don’t be scared to try new things and evaluate whether or not it works for you.

15 Email Marketing Best Practices: Summary

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Like all marketing channels, email can take some time to get right. But once you do, it’s a time-saving way to grow and connect with your subscribers whilst driving real value for your business.

Our 15 email marketing best practices will help you get off to a strong start. Here’s a quick recap of them all so you can begin implementing them into your send strategy right away:

1. Give your users a warm welcome – use your welcome email to make the most of their early engagement and secure those conversions.
2. Optimize your send time – sending at the right time is the lever you need to pull to make your open rate and click-through rate soar.
3. Harness the power of personalization – making users feel special is the best way to build brand loyalty and increase your conversions.
4. Keep your email list clean – this will help you avoid the junk folder and boost your performance metrics so your emails actually get into the inbox.
5. Give users an out – make sure your unsubscribe link is clear so unengaged users don’t hang around and drag your engagement metrics down.
6. Make sure emails render correctly – this will reduce the risk of users marking your emails as spam and sending them to the bin or junk folder.
7. Hook users with your subject line – subject lines are the one barrier between your users and potential conversions, so make sure to use a variety of tactics to stand out from the competition and generate more opens.
8. Keep your design consistent with your brand – your emails are still part of your brand, so their design should mirror this, reinforcing your authenticity.
9. Keep your copy snappy – keep it short, snappy, and action-driven. If it’s the length of War and Peace, they’ll never get round to clicking those all-important CTAs.
10. Test, test, and test again – testing lets you experiment with your sends minus the risk, so you can find the content your audience likes best.
11. Automate and audit – as your business grows, this will become more important, allowing you to focus on other areas of your brand whilst your emails run themselves.
12. Understand your target audience – get to know who they are and what content they want to receive.
13. Segment your email list – you don’t have to send everyone the same content, segment your list to send hyper-targeted emails.
14. Optimize email design for mobile devices – make sure your emails can be opened and enjoyed on mobile devices.
15. Stay up-to-date with email marketing trends – sign up to industry publications and forums to keep on top of all the latest trends, tools, and updates.

Investing in email marketing is an exciting step in your business journey, and there’s tons fo advice to draw on. For even more tips we recommend checking out our list of email marketing strategy examples next! We’re excited to see how your database grows, so take a deep breath and get sending!