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Do you read every single email you get?

If you are not a highly-driven reading addict, it is quite possible that you don’t. There might be many emails you leave unopened or send straight to the bin.

What do you think is it that attracts you enough to open an email and intend to read it?

Read on to see the 11 best practices on how to write effective email subject lines that will intrigue your intended audience into opening and engaging with your campaigns.

Key Takeaways

What Are the Two Purposes of Good Email Subject Lines?

A good email subject line serves two primary purposes:

A weak, uninteresting or unrelated email subject line may lead the recipient to ignore your email, delete it, or even mark it as spam. By optimising your email subject lines, you can increase the chances of your emails being opened, read, and engaged or eventually leading the recipient into taking action.

10 Tips on How to Write Good Email Subject Lines

1. Know Your Audience

That’s the first rule of marketing—knowing who you’re talking to. 

Without knowing who your targeted audience is, there’s no way you can understand their desires, needs, struggles, and how to address and approach them.

Knowing who you’re addressing and why will help you craft more effective subject lines while saving you from wasting time and resources.

2. Don’t Mislead, Don’t Be Spammy, Don’t Be Clickbaity

Making false promises or giving out misinformation in your email subject lines is a sure way to ruin a good relationship with your customers and end up in the spam folder. Not to mention that you might encounter soaring unsubscribe rates.

Spam filters consistently examine certain indicators that suggest an email could be spam and typically search for suspicious language associated with scams and schemes.

Exaggerated use of exclamation marks (!!!!!), outlandish claims and promises (100% guaranteed, earn £100 million in one hour), excessive use of currency signs, and specific word choices often used in scammy contexts (no hidden charges) are some of the examples that might earn you a place in the spam folder and ruin your email sender’s reputation.

3. Set the Expectations Right with Clear Subject Lines

A clear email subject line helps the recipient quickly understand what the email is about and what they should expect to find inside. It is more likely to be read and understood than one that is vague, complex and confusing.

Your email subject line should convey clearly what the email is about. Avoid using vague or ambiguous language that could confuse or mislead the recipient. Making what to expect from the email’s content clear with the right subject line will go a long way in building trust in your audience.

4. Keep Your Subject Lines Short and Sweet

Here’s what you should know about email marketing:

So, as with clarity, shortness is a must for effective email subject lines.

Of course, you can check your campaign reports to see what your target audience uses to optimise your subject line lengths accordingly. But considering that 41% of email campaign views are from mobile devices, it’s best to stick to shorter email subject lines.

5. Show Your Brand’s Personality

It’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your brand’s tone of voice before getting to crafting your subject lines.

The tone employed in communication plays a pivotal role, and deviating from the expected tone can jeopardise the brand-customer relationship and potentially result in a loss of future business.

Conversely, maintaining a clear and consistent tone that aligns with your brand image and meets customer expectations fosters a lasting relationship. This approach to writing email subject lines ensures ongoing engagement and satisfaction for both parties involved.

6. Use Emojis Carefully

Using emojis in your email subject lines can be fun and help you grab attention in those overcrowded inboxes. However, there’s a catch. Using emojis in your subject lines can cause problems if:

Don’t let these discourage you from ever using emojis, though. They are handy for keeping the subject line short when used at the right subject line at the right time.

7. Ask Questions?

Questions naturally stimulate curiosity and encourage recipients to open the email to find the answer. Additionally, questions can help to establish a sense of relevance by addressing the recipient’s needs or interests. 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is important to ensure that the question is relevant to the content of the email.

Don’t be that person; don’t deceive people with clickbait. It can work and make the recipient open the link for once, but you do not want an annoyed audience that will mark you as spam and won’t read another email from you. 

8. Use Numbers and Listicles

Including specific numbers, such as percentages or quantities, makes a subject line more eye-catching and conveys a sense of importance. Meanwhile, using lists can help organise your content and make it easier for readers to understand the main point of your message quickly.

“The Best Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing Performance”

“Your Black Friday Email Marketing Strategy in 8 Steps 👑”

Which of these two subject lines would you most like to open? 

Most people would choose the one with the number because it tells the reader what to expect from the email’s content.

Depending on your industry, brand, and the purpose of the emails, you can use numbers in the subject lines in different ways. In eCommerce, numbers in subject lines are used heavily to promote sales like Ubisoft is doing this example:

Promotional marketing email from Ubisoft Store. The email subject line is “Save up to 75% during Black Friday Sale!”.

Or look at this newsletter from the singer-songwriter Lorde, where she is celebrating and reminiscing about the 10th anniversary of her debut album:

Newsletter from the singer-songwriter Lorde. The email subject line is “Pure Heroine turns 10”.

All in all, email subject lines with hard numbers are likely to get more engagement and increase the chances of your emails being opened and read.

9. Personalise (But Don’t Overuse)

Personalised emails are a great way to ensure you strike a chord with your audience and leave a lasting impression.

How do you personalise email subject lines?

Simple. You just need to use the data fields to use the personal information you have about the customer, which they have given you willingly and knowingly. We’re talking about their name, location, purchasing or browsing history, preferences, etc.

Incorporating personalisation in the subject lines is a great way to get the audience’s attention if it’s actually useful for the recipient.

Let’s say you are a platform selling event tickets, and there’s a ballet festival happening in London. You send an email to users in the area telling them about this not-to-miss event happening in their city. Now, someone can take their lover on a date or go with their music-lover grandma.

Personalised emails like the one above work because it’s focused on considering the context. The chances of someone living in Berlin caring about a ballet festival in London are low. In other words, this context requires personalisation.

So what do we mean by “don’t overuse personalisation”?

But suppose you use personalised subject lines for every single email you send. In that case, people are going to get used to this strategy and get frustrated. Consider using the recipient’s name in the subject line.

In real-life conversations, we say someone’s name if we want their undivided attention. But if you keep saying their name every time you see them, you become “the office weirdo”. It’s annoying at best and creepy at worst.

Beware of the context and what you’re trying to achieve.

10. A/B Test Your Subject Lines

If knowing who you’re talking to is the first rule of marketing, then always running A/B tests is the second rule.

Different customer segments respond differently, trends change, and what works today may not work tomorrow. The only way to know your subject lines’ effectiveness is by running split tests.

By split testing your email subject lines, you can determine which email subject line is more effective at capturing the reader’s attention and leading them to open the mail.

You can start testing your email subject lines with these:

A/B testing email subject lines will help you gain insight into what stimulates and resonates with your audience and optimise your messaging strategy.

Maximise Impact with Preview Texts

While subject lines have character limits, the power of preview texts should not be overlooked. These brief descriptors complement your subject lines, offering a unique opportunity to extend your message beyond limits.

Look at this email from Retail Sector and tell me honestly if you would open it. I know I didn’t.

Email subject line is “Kingfisher lowers profit guidance amid slight sales drop”. The preview text that can be seen on the screen is “This email is best viewed in modern bro…”

“This email is best viewed in modern browser-based email clients.” is not the way to convince someone to read your email.

Now, look at this example from Think with Google:

Email subject line is “How AI-powered ads drive growth”. The preview text is “Google’s GM of Ads gives a preview”.

The subject line tells me it’s about AI and online advertising, and the preview text tells me Google’s own General Manager of Ads will explain how it works. Together, they give the context and tell me all I need to know to open the email. It’s simple, and it’s good.

Now That You Know How to Write Good Email Subject Lines

Armed with these insights, take a proactive step in enhancing your email campaigns. Experiment with the provided tips, tailor them to your unique audience and observe the responses. Remember, the key lies in briefness, intrigue, and relevance to your content. 

With regular practice, you’ll get the hang of creating attention-grabbing subject lines that boost the success of your email campaigns.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on May 31, 2023, and was updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness on November 22, 2023.

When executed with finesse, gamification has the power to elevate the mundane, injecting a dose of excitement into the everyday.

In this captivating exploration, we unravel the stories behind three extraordinary gamification marketing examples that have captivated audiences and left an indelible mark on us.

Interested in using gamification? Download Segmentify’s FREE guide for practical tips and insights!

Taylor Swift Dominates Google with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) Puzzle

The singer-songwriter’s love for Easter Eggs is nothing new to her fans.

And for the release of the re-recorded version of her much-beloved pop album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), she took things up a notch.

With a cryptic message (of course) with a video to accompany it, on September 19, Swift sent her fans on a scavenger hunt to Google:

“You can tell me when the *search* is over… if the high was worth the pain. 😎”

The hunt began when the users searched “Taylor Swift” on Google, uncovering a blue vault at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on the vault, you were faced with a new puzzle—a set of scrambled letters. Google explained that there were 89 puzzles to be completed. If Swifties could solve a collective total of 33 million puzzles (Taylor Swift is 33), the “From the Vault” track titles would be revealed.

For each puzzle, a hint was given. Some examples:

Swift proved to the world once again that she’s a mastermind when it comes to marketing and that community-building is the backbone of any marketing strategy.

The 89 puzzles were created based on Swift’s career and art and, of course, her inner jokes with her fans. Swifties teamed up creating spreadsheets to get the results (and the reward that is the song titles) as quickly as possible.

A fan account reported that “Taylor Swift” had over 1 million searches in the United States alone on September 19, according to Google Trends. Justin Curto from Vulture reported that search interest in her name more than tripled in a single hour.

Of course, not everyone can afford to create a massive puzzle in collaboration with Google. But what does this brilliant gamification example tell us?

For your target audience to care about the gamification experiences you create, you need a willing audience—a community. First, get people invested in your story. Then, use gamification to keep them engaged and interested.

Pizza Hut Adds a Delicious Spin to Your House Party

Pizza Hut’s Pizza Pursuit game, developed with Hasbro, is a wonderful gamification example built to increase customer loyalty.

It’s a simple digital trivia game: Customers scan the QR codes on Pizza Hut pizza boxes and, subsequently, are presented with a series of trivia questions about a wide range of topics spanning from geography to pizza.

And since any game is even more fun when there’s competition, players can challenge their family and friends and show off their knowledge while trying to win the big prize—$10,000.

The Drum explains that both Pizza Hut and Hasbro reached a wider audience, and both benefited from this:

What do you get out of this gamification example?

Prev Wants You to Solve Their Riddles Three, If the Discount Code You Wish to See

Prev, born from the fusion of “plant” and “revolution”, is a fashion brand dedicated to using plant-based materials. Fueled by a deep commitment to animal welfare, human health, and environmental sustainability, Prev aims to phase out artificial leather and materials derived from animals.

Prev’s weekly newsletter banner. The design is black text on white background. On the left is “The Plant Revolution” text with dynamic letter change. On the right is “The Plant-Powered Newsletter”, circling the brand logo reminiscent of a flower.
Source: Prev Newsletter

Prev uses its weekly newsletter to educate subscribers about sustainable fashion and veganism, alert readers about the newest articles on the brand’s website, and notify customers about its latest products.

But Prev is on this because of its simple yet effective use of gamification. Each week, the readers are asked to answer a riddle, where the answer is a discount code. But of course, the brand knows how persuasive the FOMO effect can be, so the discount codes are limited to a certain number of customers.

This particular riddle was one of my favourites:

In the year 330 B.C., its name was heard,
For two millennia, its location was stirred.
A city sleeping beneath the deep sea,
Was its place a secret or just a tale to be?

And some riddles, in the true spirit of community creation, are about the brand itself:

As an up-and-coming brand, Prev doesn’t go for flashy gamification examples. But father focuses on community-building and works to keep this community’s interest ignited.

Wrapping Up

Gamification examples examined in this article show that gamification is not just an engaging way to interact with customers: Gamification also serves as a powerful tool for achieving various marketing objectives.

Whether you’re the Queen of Pop Music herself, a pizza giant, or a conscious fashion brand, gamification can be your key to customer hearts and marketing success.

Now, go forth and gamify!

What happens to the email campaigns you send? Do they get lost in the digital abyss? 

How do you keep track of them?

Or are you keeping track of them?

Join us for an adventure exploring the essential email marketing KPIs for a fruitful email marketing strategy

But be careful, some of these metrics are not what they seem! There are hidden traps along the way 🤫

Key Takeaways

Why Track and Analyse Email Marketing KPIs?

Email marketing key performance indicators, or email KPIs, are invaluable tools for assessing the effectiveness of your email campaigns. By diligently monitoring these metrics, you gain critical insights into various aspects of your email marketing efforts.

But why is it so crucial to track and analyse email marketing KPIs?

Email marketing KPIs allow you to measure the impact of your campaigns with precision. They provide a clear snapshot of how well specific components perform, such as subject lines, content, and design. This detailed feedback lets you identify what’s working and what isn’t, empowering you to make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

Tracking email KPIs helps you understand your audience better. It reveals their preferences, behaviour, and engagement levels, allowing you to tailor your messages to their needs and interests. This level of email personalisation can significantly boost the relevance and effectiveness of your emails.

Email marketing KPIs serve as early warning systems. By closely monitoring these metrics, you can promptly detect any issues or trends that might negatively impact your campaigns. This proactive approach enables you to make timely adjustments, preventing potential damage to your sender reputation and overall campaign success.

Which Email Marketing KPIs to Track?

Time to explore the specifics of which email marketing KPIs to track for email marketing excellence! 

1. Delivery Rate

Delivery Rate, the percentage of emails delivered, is perhaps the most important email marketing KPI since it answers the question, “Did my intended audience receive the campaign?

Because if your email campaigns are not reaching their intended inboxes or going directly to the spam, there is no point to your emails’ contents. If you see a sudden dip in your delivery rates, you must act quickly to find out why.

2. Open Rate

Open Rate is the percentage of email recipients who opened a particular email. It’s calculated by dividing the number of email opens by the total number of delivered emails.

Most email marketers still go above and beyond to optimise their subject lines for greater open rates. While tracking open rate provides insight into the initial engagement with your content, it can be a highly deceptive metric.

Read more: Email Subject Line Testing Best Practices

Because high open rates don’t guarantee that the recipient read or acted upon the email’s content. For a more comprehensive assessment of your campaign’s effectiveness, it’s crucial to consider other KPIs alongside the open rate.

3. Click-Through Rate

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of recipients who clicked at least one of the links in the email campaign they received. 

Tracking CTR provides a direct measure of engagement and helps evaluate the effectiveness of email content and call-to-action (CTA) strategies. Monitoring CTR is also instrumental in A/B testing, enabling you to test different design and content elements and optimise engagement.

However, focusing solely on CTR might be misleading, as it doesn’t consider the actual conversion or the quality of clicks. If the recipient clicks on the Instagram icon at the bottom of the page and not the “Shop Now” button for your latest Black Friday campaign, is it still as important? 

That’s why it’s essential to complement CTR analysis with other metrics to gain a more comprehensive view of campaign success.

4. Clicks by Link

Clicks by Link measures the percentage of recipients clicking on a particular link within an email. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks on that specific link by the total clicks in the email.

This is perhaps one of the most important email marketing KPIs you should track to gain granular insights into the performance of individual links and understand which elements of your emails are driving engagement.

This metric offers a clearer, more detailed picture of a campaign’s success, allowing for precise optimisation and tailoring of content to maximise results.

5. Bounce Rate

There are over 4 billion email addresses today, with many people having more than one. Unsurprisingly, not all of them are active. Who among us has never abandoned ship when the flood of subscriptions and junk mail gets too much?

There are two types of Bounce Rates you should consider:

Removing these problematic addresses, especially for hard bounces, is essential for maintaining a high-quality email list and ensuring that campaigns reach their intended audience.

6. Unsubscribe Rate

The Unsubscribe Rate is the percentage of recipients who opt out of an email list, calculated by dividing the number of unsubscribes by the total delivered emails. 

Many marketers perceive email unsubscribe rate negatively, yet it isn’t the boogeyman of email marketing KPIs. Tracking unsubscribe rate helps you maintain a healthy and engaged subscriber base, ensuring your emails are reaching an audience genuinely interested in their content.

Regularly monitoring and optimising this metric can lead to more effective campaigns and stronger, long-term customer relationships.

7. Forwarding Rate and Social Shares

Forwarding Rate and Social Shares gauge the extent to which recipients share your email content. This is calculated by tracking the number of times an email is forwarded or shared on social media.

Monitoring this helps you assess the impact of your emails on brand awareness and audience growth. Encouraging readers to share content increases brand exposure and attracts new contacts, fostering list growth and lead generation.

Including social sharing buttons simplifies this process, making it easier for recipients to amplify your content across their networks, ultimately contributing to greater brand visibility and reach.

8. Spam Complaints

Spam Complaints reflect the percentage of recipients who mark an email as spam, calculated by dividing the number of complaints by the total delivered emails.

This KPI has both immediate and long-term implications. It can affect email marketing effectiveness and, more critically, your email sender’s reputation. 

High spam complaint rates can significantly reduce email deliverability. Industry averages typically stay below 0.01%, so exceeding this threshold signals the need to build trust and optimise email content.

You should avoid using spam-related terms in subject lines and reduce email frequency to mitigate spam complaints. A clean email list, along with proactive list-building practices, is vital for maintaining a strong sender reputation and ensuring email success.

9. Most and Least Engaged Subscribers

The “Most and Least Engaged Subscribers” metric identifies the segments of your email list with the highest and lowest levels of engagement. It’s calculated by assessing open rates, click-through rates, and overall interaction with email campaigns.

Understanding these groups is pivotal for effective email segmentation. The most engaged subscribers are likelier to respond to promotions. In contrast, the least engaged might benefit from re-engagement campaigns or different content strategies.

By targeting each segment with relevant content, you can enhance overall campaign performance and nurture stronger connections with their audience.

10. List Growth Rate

List Growth Rate measures the speed at which your email subscriber list is expanding and is calculated by comparing the number of new subscribers to the overall list size.

You should track this KPI because it indicates the health and sustainability of your email marketing efforts. A positive growth rate signifies an increasing audience, more leads, and a broader reach.

How to Improve Email Marketing KPIs

1. Optimise Your Email Subject Lines

An email subject line serves as the recipient’s first impression of your email. It’s where they make the decision to open the email or not.

These subject lines shouldn’t be too long and should summarise the whole email. It should be eye-catching and make the person want to learn more about what is to come. Using emojis can be helpful since you can show a facial expression with one emoji; the colours are also eye-catching.

To summarise, these are the main points that email marketers should consider:

2. Segment Your Email List

Email segmentation is a prerequisite for any email marketing strategy at this point. Inboxes everywhere flood with hundreds of emails every day. Suppose you want better results for the email marketing KPIs you’re tracking. In that case, you need to ensure your campaigns captivate your intended audience.

The campaign’s relevance holds the key to garnering your audience’s active engagement, which can only be achieved with the proper segmentation strategy. The primary email segmentation strategies are based on demographic, geographic, email engagement, and behavioural segmentation.

3. Personalise Your Emails

The era of generic, one-size-fits-all emails is behind us. Today, your subscribers hunger for content that speaks to their unique preferences and desires.

Fostering a robust bond between a brand and its audience necessitates meaningful interactions. Personalised emails provide a direct avenue to realise this objective. You can foster connections that transcend the digital divide by harnessing the power of data, technology, and creativity.

4. Keep Your Emails Short and Sweet

Your email should be brief. Keep the critical messages near the top of the email because interest in email content decreases as it goes below the fold. By optimising your headlines, you will reach out to more readers to read your whole email. Keep a headline’s opening two words informative since they are the most significant.

Get straight to the point if you want to keep your readers reading your email. Decide if it’s worthwhile to include any drawn-out introductions or pleasantries because most readers will skip them. Avoid including any crucial information in the introduction if it is required.

5. Send Test Emails Before Sending Out the Campaigns

Sending test emails before launching campaigns is a critical step in email marketing. These test emails allow you to catch and rectify various issues that could impact your email’s performance and KPIs.

This preview can identify and address problems such as broken links, typos, incorrect subject lines, display irregularities, broken designs, untracked links, and grammatical errors.

However, it’s vital to recognise that what appears perfect may not necessarily align with your subscribers’ preferences due to rendering differences. Ensuring that your emails are well-structured and rendered correctly for every recipient is paramount to achieving success in email marketing.

Wrapping Up

Tracking email marketing KPIs is an indispensable practice for achieving success in email campaigns. These key performance indicators provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your emails, enabling data-driven decision-making.

From open rates and CTRs to forwarding and spam complaints, monitoring these metrics helps maintain email sender’s reputation and ensures content relevance. Marketers should also focus on engaging the most and least active subscribers and regularly send test emails to identify and rectify issues.

By keeping a close eye on these KPIs, you can optimise your email marketing strategy and build strong, lasting connections with your audience.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on January 4, 2023, and was updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness on November 10, 2023.

Insights gathered from an SEO campaign are very rarely shared in “real-time” with the email marketing or social selling channels and instead form part of the siloed data for SEO. Similarly, insights or trends created offline in your bricks-and-mortar very rarely re-merchandise a PDP page or a trigger email.

According to market research firm IDC, companies lose 20-30 % in revenue every year due to data inefficiencies. 

Do that mental arithmetic right now: What is 30% of your sales worth? Dollarise it and get an exact sum before going further in the article.

Equipped with your exact figure, let us explore what data silos are, their impact on eCommerce operations, and how to interconnect data to increase efficiency in the eCommerce landscape.

Key Takeaways

What Are Data Silos?

Data silos are insulated management systems that cannot work with other systems or are running parallel to one another but never connect.

In the eCommerce context, data silos can arise from various sources, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, inventory management systems, marketing platforms, and sales databases.

These silos often occur due to different systems being implemented at various stages of a business’s growth. Still, they most commonly are created because every channel and tool on the site is working separately from each other trying to deliver just one goal.

The Impact of Data Silos on eCommerce

Data silos hinder eCommerce businesses in several ways, impacting operational efficiency and hindering growth opportunities. Here are some key challenges associated with data silos:

Incomplete Customer Profiles

Customer data scattered across multiple systems prevents businesses from gaining a holistic view of their customers. This fragmentation inhibits personalised marketing efforts, targeted cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

Inefficient Inventory Management

Disconnected inventory systems can lead to inaccurate stock levels, resulting in missed sales opportunities or overselling products. Timely inventory updates and accurate demand forecasting are critical for meeting customer expectations and optimising resources.

Siloed Analytics and Reporting

When data is scattered across various systems, generating comprehensive reports and performing meaningful analyses becomes time-consuming and complex. This can hinder decision-making and prevent businesses from identifying trends or implementing data-driven strategies.

Poor Collaboration and Communication

Data silos limit effective communication and collaboration between teams. Departments working in isolation may duplicate efforts, leading to inefficiencies and disjointed customer experiences. 

How to Break Down Data Silos

By embracing strategies for interconnectivity and data integration, you can unlock new levels of efficiency and break through the barriers of data silos. Here are some critical steps to consider:

Centralise Data Storage

Establish a centralised data repository or a data warehouse that consolidates information from various sources. This allows for easier data access and enables cross-system analysis.

Implement Data Integration Solutions

Deploy data integration tools that facilitate the seamless flow of information between different systems. These solutions can extract, transform, and load data in a standardised format, ensuring consistency and accuracy across the organisation.

Embrace Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

APIs enable systems to communicate and share data in real-time. By integrating APIs into existing software systems, businesses can facilitate data exchange between departments and external platforms, promoting efficient data flow.

Invest in Master Data Management (MDM)

MDM solutions help establish a single, trusted source of truth by consolidating and standardising data across multiple systems. MDM enhances data quality, improves data governance, and ensures consistent information throughout the organisation.

Cultivate a Data-Driven Culture

Encourage cross-functional collaboration and data sharing within the organisation. Foster a mindset where data is seen as a valuable asset that drives decision-making and informs business strategies.

Leverage Data Analytics and Business Intelligence

Utilise robust analytics and reporting tools to derive meaningful insights from interconnected data. Advanced analytics can uncover patterns, trends, and customer behaviours that drive better decision-making and optimise e-commerce operations. 

Breaking Down Data Silos: Should You Do It?

Identifying where the data is siloed and also ways to connect to it is just the first step of breaking down data silos.

Actioning it will take budget, time, and risk, which are the three leading killers of growth within today’s eCommerce industry.

So, what’s the alternative and is this worth it?

Let’s say your business brings in 500k each month in sales, so 30% is 12000 of a lost opportunity, and also, outside of revenue loss, you have growing unsubscribe rates and wasted hours on failed Facebook, Google, and email campaigns.

Now let’s add the cost of all the tools and data sources you have that create data but dump it all into silos:

Each tool I’ve listed is more than likely disconnected from the following tool, which means there are 17 data silos full of rich data that can make you a lot more sales.

In other words, you are sitting on a rich data source but not utilising it correctly.

And what’s the point of collecting all this data if you cannot use it?

Connected Commerce with Segmentify

Segmentify is a growth and customer engagement platform built around an immensely powerful hybrid engine that combines self-learning AI with rule-based systems.

This platform, in just five working days without budget, developers or risk, will connect your complete online customer journey and use an uninterrupted data flow. Give them another ten days, and they will connect your offline brick-and-mortar as well.

Here is an example of what Connected Commerce should look like:

Connected eCommerce chart.

Segmentify refines your data by combining data from different sources:

The Segmentify platform then uses the real-time insights to deliver the right product to your customers across multiple touchpoints.

Let me explain a little deeper where the vast majority of eCommerce businesses are going wrong and how, with the use of Segmentify, you can quickly rectify this problem and deliver.

First Step: Identify Your Customer Personas

To identify your customer personas, you first need to answer some questions:

What makes each customer unique? What are their current and future needs? How do you analyse them? What data is necessary, and where is it currently in the business?

Let’s go over some example personas.

1. Janet the First-Time Visitor

Janet lands on your PDP by clicking on a Facebook or Google ad, through a PPC campaign or her best friend sent her a direct link.

What data has Janet shared with you so far? 

She then leaves the page and exits the site. So where is this data held, and how do you use it to make more sales?

90% reading this will say the data is held in the Facebook Silo or the SEO Silo, and only the person in charge of that channel will ever have access to it. Ask yourself this: How will this data ever be used to drive sales on the site or used for retention purposes?

2. John the Secret Assassin

John hates being sold to, so when he goes onto eCommerce sites, he goes straight to the search box to get just what he needs and leaves the site.

So, John types in “soks” in the search box and your super-duper on-site search tool, which costs you over 700 bucks a month, can expertly correct his spelling and deliver his “socks”, and he leaves happy that you haven’t sold him two products.

But you can upsell to John.

So, how do you use data to upsell John with the search box?

Is it even possible to get a visitor using the search box to buy a second product? Or are you just going to admit defeat and let him leave with one purchase and an admiration for your super spelling service?

How do I turn the search box, which generates about 15% of my revenue on mobile, into a personal shopper that can upsell John and not disrupt his thought process or journey?

Also, how do I take the limited data John has given me and use it somewhere else to grow sales?

John is now part of the sock insights you need to use in your SEO strategy, email campaigns and Meta ads.

That’s how John’s on-site search data helps you upsell.

3. Mary the Loyal Customer

Mary, a loyal customer, returns to the website regularly. And today, she accessed the site via a link on Facebook.

Mary is looking at shoes this week, and since she’s a loyal customer, you know a lot about Mary: Her clothing size, favourite colour, budget, location and even what the weather is like where she is.

Right now, she is browsing party shoes to make her stand out and sparkle in the crowd.

So, she lands on the PDP page from Facebook, and you just deliver her a related products widget and maybe a recently viewed widget. 

If she finalises a purchase, a push notification is triggered with a “Thank you for your purchase” message. What if she abandons her cart? Well, that triggers a cart abandonment email reminder.

Look at the Connected Commerce approach from Segmentify to Mary’s journey.

Using Segmentify, you can deliver Mary the following:

Wrapping Up

Data silos can hinder growth, efficiency, and customer experiences for the eCommerce industry.

Breaking down these silos and interconnecting data systems is crucial for thriving in today’s competitive landscape.

By centralising data storage, implementing integration solutions, embracing APIs, and fostering a data-driven culture, you can unlock the full potential of your data, optimise operations, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Embracing interconnected data is not only a pathway to efficiency but also a driver of growth and success.

Don’t let time and budget constraints be the barrier to your growth. Let’s take a deep dive into your business together and deliver a strategy that unlocks your data and delivers growth.

Test the ROI before committing to anything. 

Consumers are expected to spend nearly $900 this Christmas season! For marketers, this really is no surprise.

After all, Christmas is the biggest shopping season of the year.

“Of the $875 consumers plan to spend, approximately $620 will be spent on gifts. Consumers are also budgeting another $255 for seasonal items like decorations, candy or food,” reports NRF.

So, how do you use this information?

American consumer holiday spending plans from 2018-2023 are shown on a graph. The five-year average is $866. The data source is the NRF and Prosper Insights & Analytics October 2023 Consumer Holiday Survey.

The good news is email marketing is an exceptionally useful marketing channel for Christmas marketing.

The bad news is everyone knows that. So, all your current and potential customers’ inboxes are full of promotional Christmas emails.

Standing out from the November-December crowd can be tricky, but boy, is it rewarding when done right! That’s why I wanted to examine some of the best Christmas email examples I’ve seen.

Clinique: Gamification, Data Collection, and Customer Segmentation

Countdowns are an excellent way to create excitement and anticipation for special occasions. And one might be as bold to say that counting down to Christmas is as sweet as the event itself.

Clinique turns the countdown to Christmas into a little game by combining the traditional advent calendar with gamification marketing dynamics.

Email subject line: 👋🏽 Bye, Day 1 Treat 🍭 Get your Holiday Cheer Kit. ENDS TONIGHT.

The subject line already hints at this email being part of a series and lets you know that whatever is inside, it’s a limited-time offer.

The email content tells you all the rest:

Clinique Christmas email campaign.
Source

There’s going to be “12 days of treats”, where each day, Clinique will have a special treat for you. But you have to act quickly because the offer ends tonight! And we marketers know very well how effective the FOMO can be.

For this particular day’s treat, you get to choose between two product bundles: Clinique Glow Moisturiser set or The De-ageing set. Whatever bundle you choose, you get a holiday cheer kit with five more products.

And Clinique is clearly playing the long game here.

Clinique Christmas email campaign.
Source

While this is a cute and engaging Christmas email campaign, the end goal here goes beyond the holiday season.

By offering two different bundles to choose from, the brand acknowledges that its customer base is made up of different demographics and has different concerns. Young versus old, dry and dull skin versus anti-ageing.

This helps Clinique collect customer data without ever being too invasive.

For campaigns such as this one, people usually sign up for the brand’s newsletter to be able to take part in it. Which means the brand wouldn’t have their age info.

However, setting up the email campaign this way tells Clinique which customer segment each shopper belongs to. Clinique can then use this information to personalise any future campaigns.

This 12-day-long Christmas email campaign by Clinique is an excellent example of how you can use a seasonal campaign to build customer loyalty and increase lifetime value.

Uncommon Goods: Clever Email Copy

Uncommon Goods knows that picking out gifts for your loved ones can sometimes be stressful. Finding the perfect gift for that one person is already difficult without counting the traffic, the lines at the stores, and the dense crowds seemingly spawning out of nothing wherever you go.

Uncommon Goods is all too well aware of this and wants you to relax and enjoy the pre-holidays:

Email subject line: 📺🍷🛀💤🎉<—you, enjoying life

Preheader text: because you just finished holiday shopping

Holiday shopping can sometimes feel like it’s something you need to get over with, so Uncommon Goods’ email copy tells you that pants are optional. How great is that?

Uncommon Goods Christmas email campaign.
Source

Other than highlighting their solution (online gift shopping) to a big pain point (the hassle of holiday shopping), the rest of the email is pretty standard: A gift guide showing gifts for him and her, their bestsellers, and personalised gift options.

One thing I loved in this gift guide is that they encourage you to treat yourself with their “We found these for you” selections.

Traditional Christmas campaigns are not your enemy; Uncommon Goods’ email is a perfect example. Good copywriting can hit the bull’s eye just as fine.

Barnes & Noble: Post-Christmas Campaign

Post-Christmas is a relatively quiet period for eCommerce, especially compared to the chaos of the pre-Christmas weeks.

While it’s not a common practice, you can use post-Christmas campaigns to drive sales. In Barnes & Noble’s case, they use a post-Christmas email campaign to guide customers to their physical shops.

Email subject line: 50% Off All Hardcovers in Stores!

Barnes & Noble post-Christmas email campaign.
Source

The email design is pretty simple, as “50% off on all hardcovers” is enough to get one excited. Barnes & Nobles is using the calm post-holiday period to get customers to spend money and is doing that by incentivising them to come to the physical stores.

And if you’re anything like me, leaving the bookstore with just one book has repeatedly proven impossible, with or without a sale.

Barnes & Nobles’ email campaign is an excellent example showing that you don’t have to limit yourself to a traditional timeline. You can take advantage of the quiet post-Christmas period to get your customers’ attention.

Wrapping Up

Your Christmas can be merry and bright, too! These email examples are a great place to start.

Remember always to consider these three when planning your Christmas email campaigns:

Push notifications are an indispensable part of app engagement.

Because they are just so good at getting the users’ attention, push notifications let you directly reach and re-engage app users even when they are not actively using the app.

Though getting the users to opt-in for push notifications can be a bit tricky, there’s always a way. 

This article will explore how you can maximise your push notification opt-ins.

Key Takeaways

What’s a Push Notification Opt-In?

Push notification opt-ins are in-app messages that allow users to sign up for push notifications.

How Do I Calculate the Push Notification Opt-In Rate?

The push notification opt-in rate is the percentage of devices where app push notifications are active, either through user consent or default settings, compared to the overall count of mobile app users.

You can calculate the push notification opt-in rate as follows:

Push Notification Opt-In Rate = (Push-Enabled Users / All App Users)*100

Absolute Must-Knows About Push Notification Opt-Ins

In contrast to Android devices, where push notifications are automatically enabled (with the option to disable them), iOS users are required to grant consent initially by responding to Apple’s built-in permission request.

At least, that’s how it was until Google released Android 13.

It’s a different world now: If a user instals your app on a device that runs Android 13 or higher, your app’s notifications are off by default. 

What does this mean?

The default iOS push notification permission message that reads “MyApp” would like to send you notifications. Notifications may include alerts, sounds, and icon badges. These can be configured in Settings. Choice buttons are “Don’t Allow” and “Allow”.

If you’re targeting older versions of Android systems, the initial opt-in rate will be much higher for Android devices than iOS devices.

Then this is what will happen:

Over time, both iOS and Android platforms will ultimately achieve a similar percentage of subscribed users. iOS will achieve this by persuading users to opt-in, whereas Android will do so by demonstrating the value of high-quality notifications, which dissuades users from opting out.

And if you’re targeting Android 13 or higher or iOS, you need to work on increasing your opt-in rates. 

When presented with standard permission requests, most users decline permission even before they’ve had a chance to experience the app and comprehend the potential benefits of push notifications.

Push Notification Opt-In Best Practices

1. Highlight the product value

Many users are hesitant to grant push notification permissions due to a fear of receiving spam or irrelevant messages. To overcome this hurdle, you should craft your messaging to reduce the perceived risks and highlight the rewards:

A study by ngrow shows that sending the push notification opt-in request after showing user onboarding slides highlighting the product value increases the opt-in rate by 10% compared to sending the opt-in request right at the beginning of onboarding.
Source: ngrow

You can significantly increase opt-in rates by effectively conveying the value of your push notifications and addressing user concerns. It’s all about creating a win-win situation where users see the benefits of subscribing while feeling confident that their privacy and preferences will be respected.

2. Show the push notification opt-in message at a high-intent moment

A high-intent moment is that specific point in a user’s interaction with your app when they are most engaged, motivated, and receptive to your message. It’s the moment when your users are actively seeking value or are deeply immersed in your app’s features or content.

High-intent moments can vary depending on the nature of your app, but they typically revolve around key interactions or milestones within your app.

Apple’s policy dictates that the native permission prompt for push notifications will only be displayed once to users. This means you have a single shot to secure their opt-in. 

3 different stages of an app screen are shown. The first screen shows a product page with an “Add to Cart” button. The second screen shows the order confirmation screen with a “View Order Details” button. The third screen shows a pop-up with “Allow” and “Don’t Allow” buttons: When will my package arrive? Turn on your notifications for live updates about your order!
The order confirmation screen is a high-intent moment example for an eCommerce app.

A well-timed request respects the user’s experience and enhances the overall effectiveness of your push notification strategy. It’s not just about asking for permission; it’s about asking at the right time for a mutually beneficial outcome.

3. Prepare a special pre-permission screen

While the opt-in prompt itself is standard and unalterable, you do have some room for creativity and customisation by focusing on what’s known as the “pre-permission screen”.

The pre-permission screen is a preliminary screen that appears before the native push notification permission prompt on mobile devices.

It’s an opportunity for you to provide users with context and additional information about why they should opt in for push notifications.

A pre-permission screen:

Key elements of a pre-permission screen

4. Personalise the pre-permission screen

As we’ve established, the pre-permission screen plays a crucial role in optimising push notification opt-ins. To further enhance its effectiveness, it’s essential to personalise this screen for individual users.

Personalisation not only makes your message more relevant but also increases the likelihood of users granting permission.

By the time you present the pre-permission screen, you should have collected valuable data on user behaviour, preferences, and interactions within your app. (Remember our conversation about waiting for the high-intent moment!)

You can personalise your pre-permission screen based on these three customer segmentation criteria:

To implement personalisation effectively, consider using dynamic content within the pre-permission screen based on the user’s data profile. This may involve adjusting text, images, or CTAs to match their characteristics and behaviour.

5. A/B test and optimise

Once you’ve created your pre-permission screen and personalised it to cater to your users’ preferences, the journey towards improving push notification opt-ins is not over. The final piece of the puzzle is continuous optimisation through A/B testing.

Here’s how to refine your approach:

Remember that A/B testing is an ongoing process. What works today may not be as effective tomorrow.

You can maintain high push notification opt-in rates by continuously optimising your pre-permission screen based on user feedback and data-driven insights and provide a more engaging user experience.

6. Don’t spam the users who opted-in

Once users have opted in for your push notifications, upholding their trust and maintaining a positive user experience is vital. To achieve this, avoid spamming your users and follow these key principles:

Respecting your users’ preferences and delivering valuable, well-targeted content will not only keep them engaged but also encourage them to remain subscribed to your push notifications. A thoughtful approach ensures a win-win situation for both you and your users.

Or you could always follow Duolingo’s example 🤷‍♀️

The very first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Fast forward to today, email has become a powerful marketing tool.

But with great power comes great saturation.

People receive countless emails every day. And they won’t care about more than half of those enough to open them because they are irrelevant. But what if we could somehow increase the emails’ relevancy to the receiver? How can we do that?

A relevant email campaign is more likely to encourage the recipient to engage with its content and will paint a positive image of the brand in their minds. The way to increase an email campaign’s relevancy? It lies in email segmentation.

This article will explain what email segmentation is, how it benefits marketers like you, and how to do email segmentation.

Key Takeaways

What is Email Segmentation?

Email segmentation divides and groups email subscribers into smaller categories using predetermined criteria.

While the said predetermined criteria are subject to change based on the industry, brand and marketing goals, there are some frequently used email segmentation best practices every marketer should know about.

Download FREE Playbook: Email Marketing Personalisation

The whole point of email segmentation is to personalise emails. And that’s because personalised emails help build a long-lasting brand-consumer relationship.

Let’s dig deeper:

Benefits of Email Segmentation

Higher Open Rates

An email campaign’s relevance to the recipient is one of the most crucial elements in determining whether they open the email.

That’s because each subscriber is different. Each has a different perception of and expectation from your brand. But since you can’t target each individual one by one, you find common denominators and segment your email list based on those.

The real beauty of email segmentation is that the more time you spend on email segmentation, the more data you gather, the more detailed your customer segments become, and the more relevant your marketing communications become.

And in the end, more relevancy translates into higher email open rates.

Increased Engagement

Just as each subscriber is different, they will be at a different point in the customer lifecycle; hence, it’s important to consider the customer lifecycle when segmenting your email list to ensure and increase engagement.

The goal here is to talk to them at the appropriate time about the appropriate subject. Have they just joined your newsletter list or created a new account? Send them a welcome email. Is the renewal time for their subscription coming closer? Remind them about renewing their subscription.

With email segmentation, you can ensure the recipient knows each email has a distinct purpose.

Improved Deliverability

The math is simple:

As pointed out above, email segmentation gets better and more precise as time passes and you collect more data, increasing email open rates and user engagement. As a result, email service providers (ESPs) begin to view you as a trustworthy and reputable email sender.

High email deliverability means your emails are less likely to be marked as spam, which means the money you’re paying your ESP becomes more than worth it. The result is that email segmentation helps increase conversions.

How to Do Email Segmentation

Here are the five main ways to segment your email lists:

1. Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation relies on factors such as age, gender, marital status, family size, income, education level, and job. The easiest and most hassle-free way to collect this information is through newsletter subscription forms.

However, be mindful of what information you need because long sign-up forms can discourage users from completing them.

2. Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation involves segmenting your email list based on the geographical location of your subscribers. This type of segmentation allows for tailoring email content and promotions to specific regions, ensuring that your messages are relevant and engaging to recipients in different areas.

You can use geographic segmentation to drive customers to the closest brick-and-mortar store if that’s your goal. You already have their address information, remember?

3. Email Engagement

Segmentation by email engagement means segmenting your subscribers by how and how much they are interacting with your email campaigns.

And this is a fairly easy email segmentation strategy since all ESPs automatically track email marketing metrics like open rates and CTRs. Segmenting your email list based on subscribers’ engagement levels will increase your chances of conversion since you’ll be able to recognise users with the highest engagement levels.

Related reading: Email Subject Line A/B Testing Best Practices

4. Behavioural Segmentation

Behavioural segmentation is used to segment users based on how they’ve interacted with your brand, website, app, or emails. 

Information such as their awareness of, attitudes toward, usage of, preferences for, and responses to a product, service, promotion, or brand are used to tailor email campaigns to the subscribers’ unique preferences and actions.

Behavioural segmentation allows you to up your behavioural targeting strategy and target subscribers with hyper-personalised email campaigns, improving engagement, conversion, and overall customer satisfaction.

Final Words on Email Segmentation

Email segmentation is an indispensable cornerstone in the strategic planning of your email campaigns. In a landscape crowded with thousands of emails, the question remains: Wouldn’t you prefer your message to captivate your intended audience?

While intriguing subject lines and eye-catching visuals undeniably play their part, the true linchpin is the content within your email.

It is the content’s relevance that holds the key to garnering your audience’s active engagement. So, remember, the path to success in email marketing begins with thoughtful segmentation and content that truly resonates.