What's Been Happening in eCommerce Email Marketing in 2023?

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, email marketing remains a powerful tool for eCommerce businesses. In this article, we'll dive into insights gathered from interviews with professionals from 7 leading email marketing agencies and one email marketing consultant. Let's explore the current state of email marketing, trends, and insights that these experts have shared with me.

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General Email Marketing Overview

Email marketing has undergone significant transformations in recent years. Bobi Nikolovski from Flowium, one of the world’s leading eCommerce email marketing agencies, notes that while the importance of email marketing is recognized, some eCommerce companies remain hesitant to invest. Despite this, the impact of the pandemic on store revenues has emphasized the need for robust email marketing strategies.

"Email marketing is becoming more important, but there's still hesitancy among some eCommerce companies to fully invest in it.", says Bobi.

Nikola Malden from Luck & Co agency echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the shift in focus from social media and paid ads to recognizing the value of email marketing. He points out that companies not leveraging their email lists are at risk of being left behind in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

?Before the pandemic, brands didn't pay much attention to email marketing and retention. Now, there's a realization of its importance, and companies not taking advantage of it will be left behind“ , says Nikola.

?Email marketing is here to stay. It will be here for quite some time. It has become a method of commerce to communicate with their customers. Email marketing is basically an evolution of mail“, says Joi Brooks, a consultant who has been in email marketing since forever.

She also adds: “The main concept of email marketing hasn't changed. It always boils down to the same thing - there's an email address that you're exchanging with a customer for some sort of value. That will never change. But nowadays there are much more layers to it. What it used to be: you've got a designer, a writer, and an email marketer and you're ready to go. Now you've got a lead nurturing team, an attribution team, all these different teams dealing with email marketing.“

?If there are brands that still don't use email marketing in 2023, I'd love to meet them and ask them why“, says George Kapernaros, the founder of YOCTO.

He also shares a similar opinion as others on email marketing adoption: ?In my view, adoption is incredibly high, the issue is that adoption lacks sophistication. This is not me being cheeky, it's factual. Every time we audit a new brand we always find multiple revenue sinkholes that are easy to fix.“

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Interactive emails

Interactive emails are a topic that has been increasingly talked about in recent months. They are surely gaining prominence, offering a new dimension to engagement.

Let's hear what the experts’ opinions are.

?Interactive emails are a great way to engage customers, to make them click more and they definitely have a big potential“ – notes Biljana Dukleska from Milkshake Media.

Bobi Nikolovski emphasizes their growing importance but notes a hurdle – the complexity of creating interactive blocks. Currently, these features are accessible primarily to agencies with dedicated developers.

"Interactive emails are becoming bigger and more important, but they're still not easy to implement. Most ESPs don't fully support them.", says Bobi.

I also got an interesting opinion from Xiaohui “X” Wang, the founder of Essence of Email: "The hype around interactive emails is significant, but they still lack support from major players like Google, Yahoo, and Apple. Brands should carefully consider the potential impact on deliverability and user experience", concludes Xiaohui.

George thinks they’re great for click-through rates and engagement but consistently underperform vs. conversion-rate optimized messages when it comes to bottom-line impact.?

?Use them as part of larger initiatives (e.g., with dedicated landers and social pushes), but sparingly, otherwise the novelty factor will wear off“, suggests George.

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What about HTML emails?

Some email marketing agencies provide HTML services, while others don't. Is HTML still a thing in 2023 and is it a crucial element in email marketing? Let's find out.

?Whether you're using HTML or not, it doesn't make a big difference“ , thinks Biljana from Milkshake Media who has HTML coding knowledge herself.? She emphasizes the importance of numerous design functionalities that the new Klaviyo builder offers, thus almost eliminating the need for using HTML. She says that sometimes they do HTML when a client has a special request but that’s not something they normally do.

Stefan from No Limit Email also says they don’t have the practice of using HTML, but they do have people on the team who are familiar with HTML coding. Sometimes they use it when they have to do some specific stuff – for example a coded CTA or when they want to make the text look in a certain way, which is not possible in Klaviyo. He also thinks that the Klaviyo drag and drop editor is more than enough in most cases.

?We don’t use HTML emails. We use drag and drop where (almost) every component is a picture. We create a design in Photoshop and then crop it to match the email size in Klaviyo. The design will look good in both white and dark modes, it will look the same way.“, says Darius Steikūnas from Kandy.

Short vs. Long Emails

The length of emails is a subject of experimentation. Bobi Nikolovski shares insights from testing, suggesting that shorter emails often have a higher click-through rate. However, the correlation between email length and conversion rate is not straightforward.

George Kapernaros has a very similar take on this: ?Shorter gets more clicks, longer tends to get more sales. But the trick is, if it's longer, it has to be longer for a reason. Do not clear your throat and get to the point immediately. Then, stack up value, the way you would in a landing page. In essence, you have impulsive users and involved users. You want to give the first an easy CTA at the top, but have enough detail and info for those who are more involved down below. Tons of people will disagree with this, and say the role of the email is just to get a click, but that's because they haven't tested this as extensively as we have“

?With D2C emails, you need to sell the click. If a short email leads to a well-built and optimized LP/PP/blog post getting better clicks than a long one, then why overcomplicate things? Long emails are for audiences who are into reading long emails. And there are not so many of them left on this Earth. Most importantly, know your target audience. Know if they like to read or not. Test long vs short emails. And make your decisions based on that.“, says Darius Steikūnas.

Email Design

In the realm of email design, Stefan Stefanov from No Limit Email, the agency that is known for its beautifully designed emails, sheds light on the ongoing debate between all-image and regular emails. He emphasizes a preference for all-image emails, countering concerns about triggering spam filters. Stefan argues that well-designed emails, particularly those with visuals, are more relevant and effective in capturing the audience's attention, and that's something that you can best achieve with all-image emails.

?Design emails are more relevant. They work better, and the problem with text emails is often font compatibility issues. The font you see in Klaviyo can get totally messed up in the actual email", says Stefan.

Xiaohui Wang adds another layer to the discussion, cautioning against the exclusive use of image-only emails. He points out potential challenges with deliverability, especially with image-only emails causing longer loading times, particularly on the iOS email provider.

?The reason brands like to use image-only emails is because it's a decision potentially driven by the design team, rather than the marketing team. Image-only gives you full control over how you want to display the email, but is not the right way to go if you want to achieve maximum performance“, says Xiaohui.

George and his team from YOCTO use both image-only and regular types of emails:

?We use both, depending on the product being sold. The more complicated (and expensive) a product is, the more copy it needs to sell, but visuals, particularly movement and before-afters can communicate a lot more than words alone. What I'll say is that, in my experience, image-only has a smaller impact on deliverability than it used to have.”

On my question about how important design is in email marketing, George said: “A lot, but surprisingly, less so for recipients, and more so for the brands themselves. Strong, clean design is a huge trust factor, but beyond that, accessibility of the email is far more important.”

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User Generated Content

We all know UGC is an extremely important element of email marketing. But it seems it's getting even more significant and actually, inevitable to have.

?George emphasizes personalization based on shopper goals and pain points. He sees UGC as a massive conversion booster and highlights the importance of instructing users on content creation.

?"Before purchase, personalize according to shopper goals. UGC is a massive conversion booster; provide instruction to users for effective content creation.", he says.

?Nikola from Luck & Co, confirms the increasing relevance of UGC in email marketing. He recognizes its effectiveness in building authenticity and connections with the audience. Nikola views UGC as a significant trend, becoming even more crucial in 2024. Despite its effectiveness, he notes that collecting UGC comes with challenges and outlines their current strategies, including personalized hashtags and incentivized social media contributions.

"UGC is extremely important but can sometimes be hard to collect. It will be an even bigger trend in 2024, thanks to AI and more advanced strategies for collecting data. People relate best to other people, to the real stuff. ", thinks Nikola.

Stefan from No Limit Email emphasizes the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to UGC: ?UGC has been around for some time now, what I think is important is how you actually do it. Everyone could splash reviews in emails, but that doesn't make too much sense. You need to think strategically about it. Focus on doing interesting stuff, like a contest, or use UGC for storytelling in your campaigns. Thinking outside the box is important here”.

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Discount culture

Discounts are an essential part of eCommerce marketing. Some would even say there’s no ecommerce marketing without discounts. Discount culture has gained strength in recent years. Brands that have managed to leverage the power of discounts have skyrocketed their revenues, while others have killed their profit margins but also their brand values by conditioning their customers to only buy at discounts.

What do the experts say?

?If you're product is so overpriced that you can literally afford a 40% discount 360 days a year, then your product is simply overpriced. If the pricing is this, and the main price is 40% off all the time, then your product should be 40% off“, says Joi Brooks.

“ FOMO is going to work out a few times until they say ?come one“. People are not stupid. You're not going to build a loyal customer base treating them like they're stupid. You can't sell them sneakers if they don't need sneakers at that moment. They will buy when they need them“, Joi adds.

Joi emphasizes that brands should, as opposed to trying to sell everything to everyone, try to focus on finding the people who actually need that product and sell to them.

?Everyone offers discounts, so if you're not offering discounts, you will probably make some sales but you will not be very competitive“, concludes Xiaohui.

But he also adds: “Brands have to play around with offers and get creative. You don't have to always necessarily offer a discount. You can offer something like a free gift which costs you much less and sometimes works way better. Be creative“.

?I used to think that discount is the main engine for email marketing. But I was wrong. Now I have a love-hate relationship with discounts in my emails. Most of the emails with discounts in any D2C brand’s email ecosystem could be killing the profits. Yes, short-term they could and probably will outperform emails without discounts.“, notes Darius Steikūnas.

?But, if you are looking at the brand with a long-term vision, you may want to test your email flows and campaigns without discounts. Just pure copy focused on the customer's needs.“, Darius continues.

Conclusion

So, here’s the lowdown on email marketing in 2023 – it’s still a big player in the digital game. But get this, some eCommerce folks are still on the fence about going all-in, thanks to the rollercoaster the pandemic threw at store revenues.

Interactive emails are making waves, but guess what? Big shots like Google and Apple aren't fully on board yet, so use them wisely. Don't stress over HTML too much; it's like old school versus new cool, with the cool kids using modern platforms.

When it comes to emails, it’s a showdown between flashy visuals and plain talk. But hey, everyone agrees – make your emails look good!

User Generated Content (UGC) is the secret sauce for authenticity, though rounding it up can be a puzzle. And discounts? Yeah, they're cool, but don’t go crazy. Too many discounts might make your brand look desperate.

In a nutshell, 2023 email marketing is a mix of smart moves, staying trendy, and not forgetting to have a bit of fun. So, let’s keep those emails cool, catchy, and ready for the next digital wave!

Stay tuned for my next article where I'll be covering how AI is changing email marketing forever!