Email personalization is always one of the top priorities for marketers, but it’s also one of the things that drives them crazy.
There are good reasons for both of these facts. Personalized emails help engage your audience with a true 1:1 experience, engage more subscribers throughout the customer journey, and increase conversion rates, conversion rates, and ultimately revenue growth.
When we ask marketers about our personalized email content State of Email Innovation Reportwe found that 95% of people do some kind of email personalization, even if it sticks to the basics like “name” merge tags.
But only 3% marketer Use instant or live dynamic content, this is key to unlocking the true benefits of email personalization.
When we asked you what’s stopping you from fully implementing your email personalization strategy, the top ones were a lack of data (24%), a lack of resources (21%), and a lack of inspiration (13%).
The good news is that all these complaints have been resolved Totally repairable.
Buckle up, email geeks. We’ve put together a comprehensive guide to all the email personalization best practices you need to know, along with convenient downloads your team can use.
5 Email Personalization Best Practices for a Winning Strategy
Email personalization takes effort, but it can pay huge dividends in your email marketing strategy. 76% of buyers Expect a personalized experience because they know it reflects the brand’s commitment to understanding their needs and preferences.
Personalizing your emails isn’t just a great way to do email marketing or make your emails look pretty. They actually drive results.
When you send emails that speak directly to your subscribers who are in the middle of their customer journey, they’ll feel more connected to your brand. “When personalization is done right, subscribers are more likely to engage,” says Tracie Pang, email marketing manager at Litmus. “They’re more likely to click on products, browse your website, and make purchases.
What are the best practices for personalizing email marketing campaigns to increase engagement?
Here are five email personalization best practices to achieve this goal:
1. Collect (and organize) as much data as possible
24% of email marketers told us they struggle to find the right data to personalize their email campaigns. Oh, we feel you. Google’s Terminate third-party cookies and apple Email privacy protection This is a one-two punch for email marketers looking to target subscribers more effectively.
But guess what? You have access to a lot more data than you think. Instead of lamenting the end of third-party data, use the data you have:
- zero square data Explicitly provided to you by your audience through surveys, polls, or purchasing data. Whenever you ask your subscribers a question and they answer it, that’s zero-party material.
- first party data is individual-level data collected from your audience, such as browsing data from your website, shopping history, or social media engagement.
- second party data was purchased from another company – basically someone else’s first-party data. Second-party data gives you context and scale to help you understand consumer trends, analyze the competitive landscape, or conduct research.
Used by email marketers zero square data This is especially a huge advantage in personalized games. Whether it’s their topic preferences, wishlist products, or survey results, you can use email to generate data for future personalized marketing campaigns.
2. Know yourself better than your audience
Once you have the correct data, you can start brainstorming different ways to personalize your email marketing campaigns. You don’t have to fundamentally change your email marketing strategy to do this. Instead, think about the emails you already send and how you can add variations to them based on what you know about past purchases, browsing behavior, or customer support interactions.
Create super segments for each audience. For example, you may already separate customers from prospects. Now, one step further:
| Customers and Prospects | Personalized event ideas | the data you need |
|---|---|---|
| Customers who purchase products from multiple categories | Gift guide or visit our store in person | purchase behaviour explicit preference Geolocation |
| Customers who purchased one product but not the second | Products Recommended | purchase behaviour Browsing history explicit preference |
| Customers who have purchased 3 or more products (also known as your super fans) | Ask for comments or shout out on social media | purchase behaviour mood |
| Potential customers who viewed the website in the past 24 hours | Replenishment or “get it before it’s out of stock” | Browsing history |
| Leads who haven’t used email in 30 days or more | Re-engage | Email engagement Browsing history |
| Potential customers who are about to buy | Abandon shopping cart or browse | interest signal Browsing history |
Email personalization is more than just personalizing the subject line of an email, using a “name,” or including a specific message in an email, although these can be powerful personalization techniques.
Rather, it’s about delivering the right nudge at the right time in the customer journey to get them considering your brand. That way, when they’re ready to make their first or fifth purchase, they’ll choose your brand first.
3. Go beyond name tags in email design and include timely content
when it really comes down to Create a personalized email, including live or instant content can help your brand stand out. we were surprised to find Only 3% of email marketers The people we surveyed used Live or instant content in their personalization efforts, because this tactic comes up time and time again when we ask what you want to do with personalization.
Live or instant content can be intimidating because, unlike name merge tags, it’s not necessarily handled by the ESP. Add some features to your emails to make your subscribers excited to read them, such as:
- signal of interest, Shows instant click totals so you can show your subscribers the content their peers are most interested in
- countdown timerwhich will add a sense of urgency to your promotional emails
- live pollso subscribers can instantly see how their views match those of other subscribers
- scratch cardadd a little interactive fun to your emails by revealing products or promotions with clicks
Email marketing is always a race to find something new, exciting, and different. These personalization strategies can give your emails that little extra something that makes your subscribers more engaged with your emails.
4. Personalize email timing and frequency
Personalization is more than just the content and design of your email. You can also optimize your larger email marketing strategy on a personal level. This means sending your emails when your subscribers are most likely to read them – whether they’re checking email during their morning commute or while relaxing after dinner.
You can do this using open data via ESP, but if it’s hard to come by, there’s nothing to lose by asking subscribers directly. Enhance your subscriber preferences page with options to customize newsletter type, frequency and timing.
5. Continuously test your emails (and include fallbacks)
Part of the reason why email personalization is difficult to achieve is that you have so many moving parts that need to flow seamlessly. You never want someone to receive a literal “name” in their email, or six emails instead of the one they were supposed to receive.
Whenever you add personalization to an email marketing campaign, be sure to include a universal fallback. For example, you could replace product recommendations with a bestseller campaign, or include messages from multiple product categories in your emails instead of the ones you know your subscribers are most interested in.
Start getting results from these email personalization best practices
Email personalization can help with all the typical tasks email marketers are looking for: increasing click-through rates, gathering better customer profiles, and creating more relevant content in your subscribers’ crowded inboxes. But it’s not just about improving email marketing metrics. Personalized messages help you develop and nurture real customer relationships.
Personalized email campaigns provide the type of customer engagement that typical mass email strategies cannot. Implementing email personalization best practices will pay huge dividends and establish your brand as one that truly understands your audience and customers
To achieve this, you need an email marketing platform that’s built with personalization in mind.
If email personalization is your top priority this year, we’re here to help. Litmus Personalize is a simple way to create unique, personal, engaging email experiences that increase customer loyalty and drive higher conversions and revenue. From e-commerce to finance, brands and teams of all types use Litmus Personalize to take their personalized email strategies to the next level. Learn more about email personalization with Litmus Personalize.
