9 Expert Tips to Improve Email Marketing Performance

As email geeks, we love to obsess over exciting email designs and funky new coding tricks. But the real reason we send emails? To build relationships that drive business results.

To make email marketing work as a channel, you need to perform in three main areas: Deliverability, engagement, and value.

That’s why we hosted a Litmus Talks webinar called “Embrace the Email Performance Trifecta and See Major Results.” Together, we honed in on the elements that have the most impact when it comes to reaching the inbox, encouraging consistent engagement, and sending relevant emails your subscribers actually want to read.

Read on for nine ways to improve your email performance, and catch all their insights on-demand with the full webinar.

How to improve your email marketing performance 

So, how do you improve your email marketing performance?

Email is still one of the best marketing channels for ROI—for every $1 email marketers spend on email, they receive $36 in return—so if you’re not seeing the full potential of what email can do for you, you may want to try some of these tips from experts from Constant Contact, HubSpot, and Mailchimp:

1. Go beyond open rates as your engagement metric

Engagement is a key aspect of making it to the inbox. It signals that you are a legitimate sender subscribers want to hear from.

But popular as they may be, open rates aren’t the email metric that accurately indicates that’s happening.

“A lot of people take open rate as the most important thing to look at, but it’s not the only metric you should care about,” says Paxton Nicholas, Deliverability Ops Team Lead from HubSpot. “You should also be looking at other human signals to see how you’re performing and engaging with you.”

That’s partially because Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection now impacts more than 53% of email market share, and inflates open rates for those who’ve opted in. On top of that, Nicholas says many people don’t realize that open rates can be inflated by bots. (For the record, soft bounces and emails opened in preview mode should not impact opens).

“Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection blocks email marketers from seeing whether or not someone has actually opened an email, or having any detailed information about that subscriber and how they engage,” says Jess Materna, Director of Product Marketing here at Litmus. “Open rate has become a challenging metric to look at on its own, because the data just isn’t there.”

Even before Apple’s policy change, open rates have always been more of a vanity metric.

The mark of a high-performing email isn’t how many opens it receives but how much revenue it generates. While opens and clicks are a great place to start as you look at your performance, you want to understand your email marketing program’s impact on the bottom line.

Instead of relying on open rates, look at engagement markers that show the email actually got into the inbox and generated real human interaction. These include:

• Click-through rates
• Unsubscribe rates
• Email replies
• Read rates
• Sales and revenue

“Pay attention to the behavior that happened after it was opened–not just that it was opened,” adds Jess.

2. Prioritize quality over quantity with your list-building efforts

Email is a permission-based marketing channel. Subscribers have raised their hands and agreed to hear from you.

When you start with that already-engaged audience, it will send more positive signals to your internet service provider (ISP) and help your email get delivered more often.

What about if you’re just getting started?

“The biggest myth out there is that buying an email list is a good way to jump start your email marketing, and that’s just going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you,” says Dave Charest, Director, Small Business Success, Constant Contact. “The reason why email is one of the best marketing channels is that it’s permission-based. You want to send relevant, valuable emails to your subscribers.”

We’ll say it louder for the people in the back: Don’t buy an email list.

Instead of focusing on the size of your list, Charest says your ability to improve email marketing and campaign performance ultimately comes down to sending quality content that adds value to the subscriber.

This definition of value should be based on:

• Where subscribers are in their customer journey
• The nature of your business (and what that means for subscribers)
• How often you can deliver real value in your message (which can be educational, inspirational, or revenue-related)
• Adhering to the expectations you’ve set up front about how often subscribers will hear from you

“It comes down to making sure you have the right engaged contacts in your distribution list,” says Materna. “It’s much better to have a more engaged list that’s smaller than a large list full of people who couldn’t care less.”

3. Inbox recognition > subject line optimization

As inboxes get more cluttered, instant inbox recognition and credibility are critical. Consider implementing BIMI (short for Brand Indicators for Message Identification). BIMI allows you to display a sender logo alongside your messages in the inbox, when verified under a set of BIMI specifications.

And, as a text record that lives on your servers, BIMI works right alongside SPF, DMARC, and DKIM to signal to email clients that you are you, and aids in email deliverability.

Subject lines tend to rise to the top of the list in conversations about ways to improve email marketing, but Charest says it’s important to remember that they’re just one element of a successful email.

Your from name—combined with whether or not your subscribers actually want to hear from you—is actually more important. That’s why we change up our from name based on the type of email newsletter here at Litmus, so that our subscribers know what to expect inside.

“Subject lines are the big thing that we do to get your email opened, but it’s really about engaging with people and the relationships you build that matter more,” says Charest. “Who the email is from is just as important as whatever subject line you come up with.”

Building a positive relationship with your subscribers starts with a consistent cadence of emails that are relevant to their interests. You want them to see that an email is from you and open it no matter what’s inside or how snappy your subject line copy is.

4. Go back to the basics on email deliverability

Email deliverability is complex, with many moving parts, says John Wolf, Director of Product Management, Mailchimp.

“There’s no silver bullet that will ensure deliverability, whether it’s sender score, avoiding spam filters, or IP address management. You have to do a lot of things right to set the foundation for success.”

For example, the number of IPs you use (or don’t) doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

“If you’re sending and people are opening your emails, you are going to have a much better time sending from one IP,” says Nicholas. “But, if you have very few engagements or a lot of negative engagement, throwing more IPs at the problem isn’t the answer.”

Each expert recommended that your domains are authenticated and that you’re following infrastructure best practices, including your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.

“There’s a lot of technical elements you can work with, but what matters the most is making sure your email actually gets to the right place and to the right people,” says Charest. “Our team is constantly monitoring for suspicious activity, following authentication best practices, and watching block lists and other bad actors.”

The real solution? Look at the source of your contacts, your lists, and cater to the people who really want to get your emails.

“The same things that drive engagement will drive better deliverability. Focus on creating value for the customers who really want to hear from you, and delivering content they want to consume,” says Wolf.

5. Embrace the Gmail Promotions tab

Email marketers love to freak out over their inbox placement—but if you really stop and think about it, your messages belong in promotional folders like Gmail’s Promotions tab.

Subscribers know that’s where to find your message, so embrace it. You could take steps to recommend that subscribers move your email over to their primary inbox… but why?

When subscribers browse the Promotions tab, they’re in the mindset to take action and buy something. If you can do more to encourage people to look for your email, want it and anticipate it, Charest says that’s more important than trying to game your way into a different folder.

Form a plan to send consistently, at whatever cadence and frequency works for your business.

(You can also check where you’ll land in Gmail before you send with our Litmus Gmail Tabs check tool).

6. Take your data if you move ESPs

If you move ESPs, Nicholas says it’s critical to bring your data with you.

“One of the most common pitfalls I run into are customers that move onto our platform but don’t bring their data with them,” says Nicholas. “You want all of those signals, including your negative metrics like unsubscribes, which are really valuable. These tell you when someone last engaged with you, and that’s a great base to filter your list and target the people that actually want to hear from you.”

Export email performance metrics like:

• Engagement: Opens, clicks, and replies
• Deliverability: Spam complaint reports
• Unsubscribes: Your opt-out list

Says Nicholas, “These influence your ability to filter and target the folks who are engaging. That’s key to boosting deliverability.”

7. Clean your email lists quarterly

You should willingly remove unengaged subscribers from your list at least once a quarter, to protect your email deliverability.

But how do you deal with internal stakeholders who think that a bigger list is better? Educate people on the downside of neglecting your email list hygiene and continuing to send to those who don’t respond.

Charest recommends this strategy:

• Use double opt-in to keep invalid email addresses from getting on your list in the first place.
• Create dynamic segments. Show what your email campaigns get from your “most engaged” subscribers compared to the “least engaged.”
• Look at the ROI. In all likelihood, you’ll find that there’s not a lot of money associated with reaching out to the disengaged subscribers on your list.
• Create a sunset policy for unengaged subscribers that suppresses or removes them if they stop interacting with your email campaigns.

“I highly recommend a sunset policy for keeping your email list clean,” says Nicholas. “For us, we’re not going to send emails to someone if they haven’t opened the past twenty campaigns. There’s a huge benefit to that, which is you’re going to have a much better chance of delivering into the inbox with a more engaged list.”

8. Practice email list segmentation for better engagement

Promotional emails related to a sale or an offer may make sense for your business, but they can also be easily ignored if the timing isn’t right.

“You want to send to your list consistently, because that’s what’s going to pay off in the long run,” says Charest. “But not everybody is ready to buy all the time. Send two types of emails: Promotional emails that are in relation to a sale, but also non-promotional emails. This is where you’re really thinking about the audience and what they want to see from you.”

Balance your campaigns with non-promotional emails that can help subscribers use your product or service to solve a problem. This combination messaging can help keep your business top of mind and subscribers engaged without bombarding them with sales messages.

You want your email campaigns to be:

• Relevant: Personalizing your emails with “first name” merge tags is great, but what will really keep subscribers engaged is making sure every email is relevant to their interests. That means thinking through segments by geography or past purchase behavior. If you’re a global brand, for example, then sending a “beat the winter blues” email in January won’t make any sense to subscribers in the southern hemisphere.
• Valuable: Why are you sending this email in the first place? Because your subscribers should see some value for it—and not just a deal or discount.
• Sales-Driven: Mix up the types of emails you send, including those that drive community, engagement, and sales.

“It comes back to relevance, value, and sales. I think about not just what’s a relevant offer to my entire audience, but about tailoring that offer to a certain segment of my list,” says Wolf. “The more you can segment your list, the more likely you’re delivering relevant offers and content every single time.”

In this example from our save-the-date email for Litmus Live 2019, we sent different follow-up emails based on which geographic location subscribers clicked. Subscribers already told us what they wanted to hear more about based on their behavior; it was our job to listen.

If you’re not sure where to start with list segmentation, go through your contacts based on how or where they subscribed to your list in the first place. “Your ESP should be able to tell you which form a subscriber came in through,” says Nicholas. “Figure out what they actually subscribed for in the first place and give them content based on that for better engagement.”

9. Add value to your emails with interactivity and personalization

“We’re all so focused on what is measurable as email marketers, but sometimes, we underestimate what emotion can do,” says Wolf. “It’s important to think about your brand and the relationships you have with your customers and prospects. Being deliberate about building your brand and how it is expressed through your email design goes a long way toward building engagement, even if it’s less easily measured.”

Experiment with interactive email elements, tools like countdown timers, live polls, surveys, or similar functionality that invites participation. Or, try animation and GIFs to add some life to your emails.

Interactions give your audiences an opportunity to engage, which improves their relationship with you while at the same time providing you insight as to how they engage with your emails.

Elements in your design, from graphics to animations give your emails that extra touch that makes them more compelling and more memorable.

“These elements make you pay attention just a little bit more,” says Charest. “When you have a sale or other event going on, adding an exciting element can help drive interest. If you can get out of the mindset of just getting an email out the door, and starting to experiment with different ways to add beauty or interest to your emails, that is critical.”

Increase open rates and click-through rates for every email campaign

These nine tips can improve your email marketing from the perspective of your subscribers–and make every email campaign more impactful. Don’t forget to conduct email testing before you hit send so you know your email delivers the impression (and hopefully, the results) you intend. Learn more >