Email is the communication cornerstone of modern marketing, with around 4.37 billion daily users. It goes without saying that your brand communication should stand out to catch the user’s eye in the ever-clogged inboxes, and you can achieve this with well-targeted, optimized, and automated email campaigns.
Email optimization ensures what you do fits your grand narrative, hitting the right email recipients with the right message at the right time. But, as with many things in marketing, it’s easier said than done.
Email optimization requires knowledge and experience, but it’s not impossible either. We will provide you with step-by-step email optimization guidelines for successful email campaigns – and we are starting right now.
What is Email Optimization?
With over 90% of users checking their inbox daily, providing them with the content they value is crucial. According to HubSpot, 72% of successful companies use email marketing optimization to develop proper email communication with potential customers and improve their open rates and CTR.
Here are the five essential email campaign practices:
- Write subjects that encourage users to open your emails
- Provide personalized content that suits clients’ needs
- Segment the email list to improve targeting
- Implement responsive templates to improve the UX
- Add clear CTAs to convert more email recipients on the spot
Proper email marketing optimization streamlines email outreach and minimizes mundane tasks for your outreach team. According to Invespcro, 80% of marketers improve their lead generation with automated email campaigns.
Personalized messaging will make users morally invested in your brand and thus more likely to buy from you. Likewise, it will boost your brand awareness and allow you to keep potential customers engaged or re-engage them with trigger email campaigns.
How to Master Email Marketing (2023)
6 Crucial Elements of Email Marketing Optimization
There are many types of email campaigns for different audiences: newsletters, welcome messages, seasonal campaigns, post-purchase drip, B2B and B2C mailings, etc. Which automated email campaigns to choose depends on your audience and campaign goals.
However, any email optimization has some important routines you can’t avoid:
1. Create an Email List
Precise targeting is one of the most crucial steps of triggered email campaigns. You need to select your subscribers into small target audience groups.
If you add too many unrelated people to your automated email campaigns, you get a lower chance that they will open your messages – according to MailChimp research, the average open rate varies between 15% and 23% – which will affect your sender’s reputation, potentially sending more and more of your emails to the spam folder.
We recommend you update the email list once a few months, removing hard-bounced addresses (if some emails keep bouncing back for more than 4-5 months, it can be considered a hard bounce). You can use any email optimization tool for this task or manually remove users from the list.
Likewise, keep track of soft bounces in your email optimization and never buy a third-party subscriber list for your email marketing campaigns unless you want unengaged audiences and spam traps.
Last but not least, give your subscribers the right to unsubscribe from you. Counterintuitively, it is one of the best email marketing optimization techniques. If people don’t want to get emails from you, it’s better to let them leave. Otherwise, unengaged subscribers may flag your emails as spam, destroying your sender’s reputation.
2. Write Intriguing Subject Lines
Eye-catching subject lines will definitely increase the open rate for email campaigns, as it is one of the few things users consider when deciding whether to open an email.
At the same time, make sure your subject lines are short enough so mobile users can see them in full. The optimal length of a subject line is around 40-50 characters, with the top-performing subjects being around 6-10 words long.
Beware of spam trigger words during email optimization. Modern email spam filters aren’t fluent in sarcasm, so they react to trigger words like free, cash, act now, cheap, etc. If you want to get creative with ideas for email campaigns, choose other catchy yet safe wording.
We also encourage you to stick with the lower-case letters in email subject line optimization. Write your email subject just like you write a header for the article. Don’t write in ALL CAPS, as it can scare away users.
Source: The Muse
The Muse letter is a fine example of a catchy subject that encourages users to open the message. When a subscriber sees that they are invited to something by their favorite job-hunting site, they are naturally interested in opening the letter. The brand creates a sense of urgency, so users want to see what they get: an invitation to online activity, a job request, or early access to a new feature.
3. Add Branded Visuals
It’s easy to overdo the image part in triggered email campaigns, so make sure your email design is eye-catching yet fits your corporate branding and tells a story.
Likewise, pay attention to the following technical factors of email image optimization:
- Ensure that the image has a web-friendly RGB color scheme. Don’t use the CMYK scheme.
- Keep the image size less than 1 Mb. Remember that some users may have poor internet connection. Make sure that even those users can see the pictures in your email by adding images with the 100-600 Kb size. For the same reason, add ALT tags to images.
- Keep the default ratio. Don’t stretch or squeeze the picture. Use responsive templates rather than adjusting the picture based on users’ devices.
- Use popular formats like JPEG, PNG, or GIF. Avoid using rare formats such as BMP, ESP, or AI in massive email outreach campaigns.
Top High-Converting Email Design Tips in 2023
4. Craft Compelling Email Copy
Here’s how to create email campaigns that win the user’s heart:
- Set correct expectations. Ensure that the subject and mail copy match. The main message should explore the theme started in the subject.
- Proofread the text with email optimization tools. Check for grammar and spelling errors so you always look unprofessional. Run your content through multiple spell checkers to ensure your text is error-free.
- Don’t use sales-heavy language. Overusing marketing words increases the chances the email will be perceived as spam or flagged by spam filters. That’s why the best email campaigns don’t have heavy marketing wording.
- Use a single CTA at the end of the message. Show users what they need to do: subscribe to socials, visit your website, or buy some target product. Gently lead them to the target action throughout the message of your automated email campaigns.
We recommend keeping your text structured and short, as it is one of the finest email marketing optimization techniques. If you need to describe something in detail, ask users to follow the link in the message and read the related article. Provide your readers with more opportunities to get to know your product.
Source: TubeBuddy
The latest Black Friday letter from TubeBuddy is an example of how to optimize email copy. They start the letter with the subject “BIG changes to YouTube monetization,” encouraging users to open the email. Later, they briefly explain new updates and ask users to try the Premium version of their tool to improve their YouTube creator journey.
5. Take Care of Technical Details
Keep an eye on technical details in your automated email campaigns, especially rendering on mobile devices and desktops.
Stick to the following email marketing optimization practices:
- Check links and shorten them if possible. Broken links are one of the most common mistakes in email optimization.
- Test messages on multiple clients before sending them to actual users. Create a few email addresses and connect them to different mailing clients. Check whether your message looks good on those mobile and desktop clients.
- Use responsive templates. Use responsive templates to ensure all users get the same top-notch experiences with your email letters.
- Use basic web-safe fonts. Web-safe fonts like Arial or Times New Roman will make your emails visible on old devices.
Don’t be afraid of bold email campaign ideas – just make sure you’ve done the technical part of email optimization and are legally compliant.
6. Monitor Your Email Marketing Performance
Use email marketing automation software to make sure you’ve reached your email optimization goals. Track engagement and conversions daily as the two most important metrics in email marketing and run A/B tests to test and adopt the best practices.
Email Marketing Optimization: How To Improve Your Email Performance With A Free Dashboard
Email Marketing Extravaganza at MailCon Show in New York
MailCon is back with a one-day email performance and deliverability conference on July 28th in New York City.
Every attendee will get:
- Productive email marketing sessions reinforced with panels and workshops addressing the most pressing topics for mailers
- Speaking and exhibition opportunities
- Connecting with renowned email marketing professionals and experts
And here’s why MailCon is the coolest email marketing event you can attend:
Here are some of the topics you’ll get covered on July 28th:
- Brand Safety & Better Subscriptions: What You Need to Know, by Ebenezer Anjorin, Lead Product Manager at Google Workspace
- Email Deliverability Starts Where Best Practices Fall Short, by Adrian W. from Email Angels
- The Importance of Securing Your Email Infrastructure and How to Do It, by Kevin A. McGrail, CEO of Peregrine Computer Consultants Corporation, and LB Blair, Head of Deliverability at Email Industries.
- Future-Proof Your Brand Like Beyoncé: Integrating Email & Social Media for Iconic Digital Presence, by Carlos Gil from GetResponse
- Insights from the expertise of renowned email deliverability consultants like Trey Bennett, Keith Kouzmanoff, Jakub Olexa, and more
- Expert panel on navigating the complexities of consumer privacy and compliance regulations, by Eric J. Troutman, Puja J. Amin, and Brittany Andres
- Marketing Crossfire session hosted by Channel Automation™ and featuring industry thought leaders
And so much more!
Get your tickets now before they sell out!
For those new, here’s everything you need to know about MailCon in just 90 seconds:
Discover MailCon in 90 Seconds
Frequently Asked Questions
What is one of the benefits of using templates for your email marketing campaigns?
Ready-made email marketing templates will save you the time you would otherwise spend designing your emails and ensuring their technical consistency.
What are the most common types of email marketing campaigns?
The most common emails are those you can use for wide audiences. These are welcome emails, promotional emails, newsletters, and re-engagement emails. And if you are a seller, then also transactional and cart abandonment emails.
What are the best days to send email campaigns?
The general idea (based on the empirical evidence) is that the best times to send email campaigns are around 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. However, much depends on your campaign and audience. Likewise, audience habits may change, so you may have to change the timing accordingly.
