Email marketing mistakes can break your entire campaign—wasting all the hard work and money you put into it. Fortunately, it's easy to avoid most of the common email marketing mistakes. If you know what to look for, at least.
And that's where we can help.
Knowing how to leverage email marketing is essential to building strong relationships with your customers. From order confirmations to newsletters, 87% of marketers rely on email to increase customer engagement. Given that every dollar spent on email marketing generates an average return of $54, it’s no surprise that email marketing endures as a top channel for customer correspondence.
As your customers’ inboxes fill with communications from various companies, you’ll need to strengthen your email marketing skills to stand out and keep them engaged with the products and services you offer. You’ll also need to know the common pitfalls in email marketing to reach consumers in helpful ways while maintaining a favorable reputation of the brand you’ve worked so hard to build.
While emails are easy to create and send, email marketing mistakes are equally easy to make. Often, companies seek quantity over quality, sending out emails that irritate the same people they want to win over. Too many small email marketing mistakes can add up, depressing engagement and frustrating marketing initiatives.
However, identifying email mistakes isn’t as simple as flicking a switch. Thanks to email marketing tools that allow you to measure audience engagement, you can assess whether you’re making professional email mistakes and devise potential solutions if you are.
Below are some common email mistakes to avoid. Consider whether these factors reduce customer engagement if your emails don’t get the attention or responses you desire.
A poor sender reputation increases the chances that your emails will end up in customers’ spam folders. And your sending reputation will be worse if you suffer high bounce rates or if few customers open and engage with your emails. Fortunately, tools exist that enable you to check your sender reputation and take steps to improve it.
Failing to abide by email laws is one of the most serious email marketing mistakes to avoid. The CAN-SPAM Act, for instance, establishes penalties for companies that fail to offer certain options to customers, such as the ability to unsubscribe, and requires that senders identify emails accurately, among other requirements.
Email marketers need to ensure that their emails comply with these regulations to avoid fines that can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Compliance also has the added benefit of improving engagement: you’ll utilize best practices, and customers will appreciate it.
Using no-reply emails may seem like a natural decision to avoid receiving customer messages outside your preferred channels. You may, for instance, want to direct customers to a “Contact Us” page rather than allowing them to directly respond to the emails you send.
This is a common email marketing mistake. No-reply emails will negatively impact your deliverability. And when customers can’t respond to emails, future emails from the same address are more likely to go to the spam folder.
Additionally, no-reply emails alienate customers by making them feel that your brand isn’t interested in their feedback. Using an address that customers can reply to with their comments and questions is an easy and natural way of improving engagement.
It’s increasingly common for customers to open and read emails on devices besides a personal computer. To avoid these email mistakes, ensure that your emails are responsive and readable on phones and tablets.
When crafting your message, you’ll also want to consider email accessibility to avoid email marketing mistakes. If one of your customers uses a screen reader, will your email sound good spoken aloud? Will a lack of alternate text and other key features make it difficult for customers to interact with your emails?
Other simple adjustments, like increasing the font size, separating links, or including media queries to adapt your HTML emails to different devices, can also create a more user-friendly email experience.
Welcome emails serve an essential purpose of establishing customer expectations for future email marketing. By sending a welcome email, you avoid one of the most common email marketing mistakes: making customers feel like they’re just numbers on a screen. Sending a welcome email shows you care and reminds customers why they chose to subscribe to your messages.
List segmentation plays a crucial role in personalized email marketing. After all, not every email will be relevant to every customer, even if they all serve a purpose for some customers. Segmenting your email list allows you to deliver emails to the customers who are most likely to engage with the message.
Your segmentation might be based on demographics, the kinds of purchases subscribers have made, or their more general interests. Regardless, segmenting your email list helps you avoid email marketing mistakes that result in high unsubscribe rates after customers receive emails irrelevant to their interests.
As mentioned above, no one likes to feel like they’re just one address in a long list of subscribers. Crafting generic emails intended for any recipient is a common email marketing mistake to avoid. Fortunately, you can personalize your emails based on data gathered directly from customers.
Personalization increases the likelihood of subscriber engagement with your emails: they’ll feel that your brand cares about them and wants to help them make useful purchases. And when your subscribers feel like they’re seen as people, their perception of your brand improves.
It may seem like an afterthought, but simple proofreading is an easy way to avoid email marketing mistakes. Sending emails with spelling, grammatical, and factual errors may lead inbox providers to mark your emails as spam. You’ll also want to be sure all the links work properly and direct audiences to relevant landing pages. Otherwise, you may turn off subscribers by what seems like a lack of professionalism.
Spending a few minutes proofreading your emails before sending them out can help you sidestep this issue. Better yet, have a colleague take a look at your writing to see if there’s anything you missed. Establishing an editing process is easy to do and helps you deliver on consumer expectations of diligence and attention to detail.
An email without a gripping subject line is unlikely to draw customers’ eyes. That’s why the best email subject lines are concise, descriptive, and urgent. And while accomplishing all that in only 60 characters might seem daunting, it’s worth the effort to take time to craft a unique, attention-grabbing subject line to improve your customer engagement and avoid a common email marketing mistake.
A/B testing is crucial to avoid email marketing mistakes. First, devise multiple options for the various components of your email communications, including the “from” address, subject line, content, and design. Then, send these variations to a representative sample of your subscribers and track the resulting actions to assess what decisions will promote engagement most effectively.
Email marketers send their emails at many different times of day, but research shows that certain times are better than others for getting subscribers to open messages. Sending at an inopportune time—in the middle of the night, for instance—can reduce email visibility.
Timing is another reason why segmentation matters. An email that arrives at the right time in New York may arrive at the wrong time in California if you send them simultaneously. Segmenting your audience across different time zones will allow you to optimize your sending time.
This email marketing mistake is perhaps the most obvious, yet marketing professionals often default to it. The temptation to fill your marketing calendar with promotions and newsletters daily is strong. But email fatigue is real, and your subscribers might choose to opt out of communications altogether rather than receive too many communications each week.
Instead, focus on quality over quantity, and keep your subscribers engaged with high-caliber content. Also, update your preferences center to make it easy for subscribers to adjust how many emails they receive and what types of emails they receive—or, as much as you want to avoid it, unsubscribe.
Failing to re-engage inactive subscribers is a missed opportunity. Your email list may include people who haven’t opened your emails in months. Regularly cleaning and attempting to re-engage these subscribers can improve your overall engagement rates. Re-engagement campaigns with special offers or surveys can help determine if they’re still interested.
Long, dense emails can overwhelm your subscribers, causing them to disengage. People often skim through emails, so it's essential to keep your content concise and to the point. Use bullet points, short paragraphs, and clear headings to make your emails more readable.
While visuals can enhance your email, using too many images or large files can slow down load times and negatively impact user experience. Double-check your images are optimized for quick loading, and balance them with text to maintain engagement without overwhelming your readers.
Sending emails without thorough testing can lead to broken links, formatting issues, and other problems that diminish the user experience. Always test your emails on various devices and email clients to guarantee they look and function as intended.
A compelling call-to-action (CTA) directs your subscribers on what to do next. Without clear CTAs, your emails may lack direction and fail to drive conversions. Check that your CTAs are prominent, clear, and compelling to encourage desired actions.
With a significant portion of emails being opened on mobile devices, ignoring mobile optimization can lead to poor user experience. Double-check that your emails are mobile-friendly, with responsive designs that adjust to different screen sizes.
Ignoring email analytics means missing out on valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. Use analytics to track open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics to continually refine your email marketing strategy.
Sending emails too frequently can annoy subscribers, while sending them too infrequently can lead to disengagement. Finding the right balance is crucial. Use analytics to determine the optimal frequency for your audience and stick to a consistent schedule.
Including too many calls-to-action in one email can confuse your subscribers and dilute your message. Focus on a single, clear CTA per email to guide your readers towards a specific action.
While clickbait subject lines might increase open rates initially, they can harm your credibility and lead to higher unsubscribe rates if the email content doesn’t deliver on the promise. Write subject lines that accurately reflect the content of your emails.
Failing to regularly clean your email list can lead to high bounce rates and lower engagement. Remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses to maintain a healthy list and improve deliverability.
Social sharing buttons can help amplify your email content by allowing subscribers to share it with their networks. Make it easy for readers to spread the word by including these buttons in your emails.
Customer feedback can provide valuable insights into what your audience wants from your emails. Ignoring this feedback means missing out on opportunities to improve your campaigns and increase engagement.
People love to feel special and part of an exclusive group. Failing to create a sense of exclusivity in your emails can result in lower engagement. Offer exclusive content, deals, or early access to make your subscribers feel valued.
Automated email sequences can nurture leads and keep your audience engaged without requiring constant manual effort. Not utilizing these can mean missing out on consistent touchpoints with your subscribers.
Sending content that isn’t relevant to your subscribers’ interests or needs can lead to higher unsubscribe rates. Use segmentation and personalization to ensure your emails are tailored to your audience.
A well-designed email can make a significant impact on your readers. Overlooking design elements like layout, color scheme, and imagery can result in emails that look unprofessional and are less engaging.
Email marketing should be part of a cohesive strategy that includes other channels like social media, content marketing, and paid ads. Failing to integrate your email marketing with these channels can result in missed opportunities for engagement and conversion.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is essential for understanding what resonates best with your audience. Failing to use A/B testing can result in missed opportunities to optimize your email content, subject lines, and overall strategy for better engagement.
Gratitude goes a long way in building strong relationships with your subscribers. Forgetting to thank them for their support or their business can make your emails feel transactional rather than relational. Incorporate appreciation into your email strategy to foster loyalty.
Making it difficult for subscribers to unsubscribe can lead to frustration and potential complaints. Always include a clear and easy-to-find unsubscribe option in every email to maintain trust and comply with regulations.
Preheaders, the text that follows the subject line in the inbox, are crucial for giving additional context and encouraging opens. Ignoring this element can result in missed opportunities to entice your audience to read your email.
While promotions are a key part of email marketing, sending emails that are overly promotional can turn off your subscribers. Balance promotional content with valuable, informative, and engaging content to keep your audience interested.
Personalization goes beyond just using a subscriber’s name. Failing to personalize emails based on past behavior, preferences, and interests can result in generic and less effective communications. Use data to create more tailored and relevant content for each subscriber.
Many users now prefer dark mode on their devices. Not optimizing your emails for dark mode can lead to readability issues and a poor user experience. Double-check that your email design works well in both light and dark modes.
The sender name is one of the first things subscribers see. Using an impersonal or confusing sender name can reduce open rates. Use a sender name that is recognizable and trustworthy to encourage more opens.
Dynamic content allows you to tailor different parts of your email to different segments of your audience. Not utilizing dynamic content can result in less relevant emails and lower engagement. Incorporate dynamic elements to make your emails more personalized and engaging.
Emails that tell a compelling story can capture attention and create a more memorable experience. Ignoring the power of storytelling can lead to bland and forgettable emails. Use narratives to make your emails more engaging and impactful.
Without tracking and analyzing the performance of your email campaigns, you won’t know what’s working and what isn’t. Forgetting to measure key metrics can result in missed opportunities for improvement. Regularly review your email analytics to refine your strategy and achieve better results.
You can also avoid content that might trigger spam filters, monitor how your emails will render in various browsers and devices, and check for broken links or images. And when you need help to avoid common email marketing mistakes, SendGrid provides you with support.Email marketing is essential to keeping recipients interested in your business, but many marketers misstep. Here are some common email mistakes to avoid.
