Litmus
If you’re like the 41% of email marketing pros who responded to our 2023 State of Email survey, email marketing is your most effective marketing channels. But did you know over 14 of all emails never make it into the inbox? While email deliverability can feel like a bit of a mystery at times, you don’t have to cross your fingers and hope that your messages end up where you intend. With Litmus Spam Testing, you can identify and fix issues that might otherwise land your emails in spam—long before you hit send. Read on to learn more about why spam tests are so important, what they can help you identify, and how to conduct them. What is Litmus Spam Testing? Litmus Spam Testing scans your emails against 20+ different tests, identifying any issues that could prevent you from landing in the inbox. Best of all, it provides actionable advice
They say, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I’m not exactly sure who ‘they’ are, but I agree with them in this case. In email, your first impression comes from three parts: the sender or ‘from’ name, the subject line, and the preview text. Everyone remembers the ‘from’ name and subject line, as your email service provider (ESP) won’t let you send an email without them. But preview text is a whole different situation. And if you forget it, you’re leaving that piece of your first impression up to the whims of your subscriber’s email client. In this post, you’ll learn how to take control of your preview text to ensure your email’s first impression is flawless. What the heck is email preview text? Preview text is the bit of text below or next to an email’s subject line in the inbox that gives extra
Every email marketer wants their messages to arrive in the inbox and not the spam folder . So when Gmail and Yahoo announced they’d be enforcing new sender guidelines that deeply affect deliverability for anyone sending to their addresses, every email marketer’s ears perked up. Hence why we hosted a virtual Litmus Talks with experts from Yahoo, Braze, and SocketLabs to weigh in on how best to navigate these requirements. Don’t have time to watch a virtual event? Here are some of the key takeaways: What the requirements are and how will they impact deliverability Which steps to take technically and strategically How to frame these adjustments for internal stakeholders With that, let’s dig into the details… What are the new requirements? And how will they impact deliverability? To begin, let’s briefly recap what these requirements entail. If you’re a bulk sender—which Google defines as anyone sending 5,000 or more
Here’s the deal: whether they’re subscribers, prospects, or loyal customers, the demand for personalization is non-negotiable. (And we’re not just talking about “Hello %%first_name%%.”) With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming increasingly prevalent, there’s a growing demand for more human-centric marketing . In fact, 64% of emails sent by companies leverage personalization using dynamic content—making it a standard practice in the industry. If you’re in the business of fostering brand trust and creating customers for life, then meeting this expectation is just the bare minimum. 76% of buyers expect personalized attention because they understand that tailored experiences reflect a brand’s commitment to understanding their needs and preferences. So—how do you meet these subscribers, prospects, or loyal customers where they’re at? By offering personalized inbox experiences that surpass the standard. Keep reading to learn about the importance of personalized emails along with tactics you can apply to your own email marketing program. What
The Community Spotlight—a monthly blog series highlighting some of the amazing members of the email community —is back for 2024! Every month, we interview, highlight, and celebrate the splendid members of the email community. We dig into where they got their start, where they are now, and explore their challenges and passions in email. This month, we’re chatting with Najmah Salam —designer, copywriter, strategist, and former teenage graffiti artist. Najmah Salam (she/her/hers) Marketing Alchemist at NajmahSalam.com Follow Naj on LinkedIn, Instagram and X (Twitter) What did the beginning of your time in email marketing look like? Like many other email specialists, I fell in love with email marketing completely by accident. My meet-cute with email happened in my first role in the UK as a marketing assistant for an online personalized gifts company, and one of my many tasks was to create emails every week. It wasn’t long before
Looking for some fresh ideas for your email marketing program? You might be in the beginning stages of coming up with a new email nurture or want to learn more about how your subscribers interact with a different email design. After all, when they have a great experience with your emails, it has a positive ripple effect on your overall brand. So, where can you find email design inspiration and examples for new strategy, copy, design, and development ideas? Let us be your inspiration guide! I—along with the rest of the email team—dug into our bookmarks and found some treasures that have helped us along the way. And I hope they help you, too. Important questions to ask yourself about your email campaigns When looking for some email inspiration, you can easily turn into a magpie—be attracted to bright, shiny things! Here are some questions I keep in mind when
Emails can feel a bit predictable with an image here, a block of text there. One way to liven up the subscriber experience? Background images! They add another dimension to your design, making your emails “pop.” When done well, they make your email feel like a million bucks. Keep reading for: The benefits of background images 5 creative examples of brands using background images Design considerations How to code background images What are background images? (And what’s the point?) Background images are images that are applied to the background of, or behind, an element. The major benefit of using background images is they allow you to place additional HTML content on top of them. Unlike other images, where only the image itself can exist in that space, background images provide layering possibilities, so you can have extra images, text, or calls-to-action (CTAs) existing within that same space. Plus, by using
There’s no place like the inbox. 41% of marketers say that email is their most effective marketing channel, and it kind of leaves other channels in the dust. The runner-up, social media, got just 16% of votes. Part of the reason marketers love email is the ROI—organizations get an average of $36 back for every $1 invested in email. But what if your email marketing budget is a bit tight this year? We’ll look at the best free email marketing tools to use so you make a big impact without a big invoice. What To Look For in a Free Email Marketing Tool Even if free email marketing tools don’t need a dollar investment, getting them set up (and getting your whole team to use them) is a time investment. Here are the features your free tool should have to make it worth your while. Template library 39% of marketers
As we stand on the threshold of a new year, the ever-evolving landscape of email marketing beckons us with exciting possibilities. Our goals for 2024 are bold, fresh, and vibrant—better campaigns, higher engagement rates, and a seamless brand experience. To accomplish these things, however, we must keep our finger on the pulse of email industry trends and spend some serious time thinking about what those lovely trends mean for us all. Today, we’ll look at the Litmus team’s top 3 recommendations for email teams in the coming year, based on the trends we’ve observed in email. 1. Bring dynamic content & segmentation to the forefront We’ve all heard the news about personalization by now—but how do we personalize pertinently and successfully? At Litmus, we feel that the future of personalization includes advanced segmentation tools—so marketers can categorize their audience based on demographics, behavior, and engagement history—followed closely by dynamic content
For the uninitiated, code is code. It’s a series of incomprehensible symbols that make about as much sense as the pictures carved on the walls of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb—and about as useful to your day-to-day life. As you learn more about how to use different coding languages, however, you learn more about the different ways each language can be used, and some of the nuances in each type of use. And for us email folks, coding an email is a very specific use of HTML . That specific use is different than the web-based HTML you may be more familiar with and comes with all its own complexities. Today, we’ll examine all those complexities—and answer the question of why you can’t code emails the same way you do webpages once and for all! Let’s dive in and look at what sets HTML for email design apart. Table of