A Guide to the Best Email Marketing Practices and Tools in 2024

Want to take your own email campaign and marketing game to the next level? You’re in the right place. Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing channels – when done right.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll provide the tips, tools, and best email marketing practices you need to create attention-grabbing emails, avoid deliverability issues, boost engagement, follow email marketing strategies, leverage AI, and accomplish it all, even on a tight budget.

Whether you’re looking to optimize and segment your email list subject lines, improve deliverability, use images and video more effectively, implement automation, or get the most bang for your buck, we’ve got you covered. Read on to level up your email marketing expertise and results with the best tools and know-how in the industry. Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaway – Best Email Marketing Practices and Tools

• Craft subject lines that are engaging and succinct to boost open rates.
• Improve email deliverability by cleaning lists, monitoring campaigns, and avoiding spam triggers.
• Boost engagement by adding relevant images and videos to your emails.
• Enhance campaign effectiveness through audience segmentation, content personalization, and device optimization.
• Use AI to analyze, optimize, and personalize email content, improving overall strategy with data insights.

1. Tips for Attention-Grabbing Email Subject Lines

To increase email open rates and engagement, crafting an effective email subject line is important in today’s crowded digital age. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and SubjectLine.com are two tools that can help by providing actionable insights to refine subject lines for maximum impact.

Crafting email subject lines that stand out in a crowded inbox requires creativity, relevance, and strategic thinking. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Leverage Curiosity: Create a mystery or intrigue that prompts recipients to open the email for more information.

• Personalize: Include the recipient’s name or other personalized information whenever possible to make the email more relevant.

• Be Concise: Keep subject lines short and to the point, as longer ones may be cut off in email clients.

• Use Action Verbs: Start with verbs to create a sense of urgency or action, encouraging recipients to engage.

• Test and Optimize: Use A/B testing to try different subject lines and see what resonates best with your audience.

SubjectLine.com

SubjectLine.com offers a straightforward approach to improving email subject lines. It provides free ratings and suggestions that focus on enhancing open rates through practical adjustments. Its popularity stems from its simplicity and direct applicability to email marketing campaigns.

Key Benefits

• Over 15 million subject lines were tested.

• The #1 free subject line rating tool.

Pros

• User-friendly interface that delivers quick results.

• It helps identify key elements missing in a subject line that could improve performance.

• It is free to use, making it an excellent tool for marketers on a budget.

Cons

• Feedback can be somewhat generic, requiring users to apply their judgment when applying suggestions.

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is a comprehensive tool designed to evaluate the effectiveness of email subject lines. It scores your subject lines based on word balance, length, sentiment, and clarity. This tool is particularly famous among marketers and content creators for its in-depth analysis and practical recommendations.

Key Benefits

• The #1 Free Headline Analyzer

• Write Headlines That Drive Traffic, Shares, And Search Results

• Provides a detailed score out of 100 to assess the quality of your subject line.

Pros

• Easy-to-understand scores and actionable feedback.

• Encourages experimentation with different word types to strike the right balance.

• It is free for basic analyses, making it accessible to individuals and small businesses.

Cons

• Advanced features may require a subscription, limiting free users’ access to full benefits.

2. Common Email Delivery Issues

Email deliverability is crucial to email marketing best practices for successful email campaigns. Common obstacles to email drip campaigns include sender reputation, spam filters, and recipient email servers. Tools like SendGrid and Mailgun offer solutions to maximize email effectiveness.

Email delivery issues can harm communication efforts, but SendGrid and Mailgun can help. These tools address spam filters, sender reputation, and more through features that enhance email message deliverability and ensure compliance with regulations.

Why do emails fail to reach their intended inboxes? The answer lies in common email delivery issues, ranging from technical glitches to reputation damage.

To make the most of these services, it’s important to:

• Regularly monitor your email performance and adjust strategies based on analytics.

• Maintain a clean email list to minimize bounces and improve your sender reputation.

• Test different aspects of your emails, including content and send times, to optimize for engagement and deliverability.

SendGrid

SendGrid is a cloud-based service specializing in delivering transactional and marketing emails on behalf of companies. Known for its robust deliverability features, SendGrid provides comprehensive tools for managing sender reputation, optimizing email campaigns, and ensuring high deliverability rates.

Its popularity stems from its ability to effectively tackle common email delivery issues, making it a go-to solution for businesses of all sizes.

Key Benefits

• Get more messages delivered. See better results.

• Make every email count with SendGrid.

• Send at scale with SendGrid’s industry-leading 99% deliverability rate.

• Customers like Uber, Spotify, Glassdoor, Airbnb, and Yelp trust this platform to deliver over 134 billion monthly emails.

Features

• Email API by developers, for Developers

• Build meaningful connections with smart email marketing

• Send reliably at scale with SMTP service – no servers required.

• Expedite troubleshooting with a searchable email activity feed and additional history.

• Increase delivery rates with Email Validation API.

• Collaborate across teams and measure success with an intuitive user interface.

Mailgun

Mailgun is a powerful email service designed for developers but suitable for marketers. It offers tools for sending, receiving, and tracking emails. It emphasizes improving email deliverability through rigorous validation and analytics, aiming to optimize every aspect of email sending.

Mailgun’s fame in the sector is due to its developer-friendly approach and effectiveness in solving deliverability issues.

Key Benefits

• Flexible, scalable, and results-driven email-sending platform

• Build with the industry’s most reliable, compliant, and powerful email APIs with Mailgun Send.

Features

• OPTIMIZE AT EVERY STEP Simplify your journey to the inbox.

• DELIVERABILITY SERVICES Scale with simplicity

• EMAIL VALIDATION Minimize bounces, maximize conversions

• INBOX PLACEMENT TESTING Amplify your inbox placement

• REPUTATION MONITORING Protect your sender’s reputation

• EMAIL PREVIEWS Reach every subscriber on every device

Great results start with the right partner. Grow the brand voice of your business with a focused email strategy.

3. Boost Email Engagement Using Images, Videos

In digital marketing, standing out in a crowded inbox is tough. However, adding images and videos to email campaigns can boost engagement. Visual content quickly conveys messages and captures the attention of email recipients.

Mailchimp and Constant Contact offer advanced features to easily add multimedia to email campaigns, making them popular among businesses looking to enhance their email engagement.

Boost Email Engagement Using Images, Videos, & Dynamic Content by incorporating visuals into your emails to elevate engagement. Images and videos enrich your messages and simplify the communication of intricate ideas. Captivating your audience with striking visuals plays a crucial role in drawing their attention.

Mailchimp and Constant Contact offer multimedia capabilities with unique features and benefits.

To effectively use images and videos in your email marketing, consider the following tips:

• Choose Relevant Content: Ensure the multimedia content is directly relevant to your message and audience.

• Optimize for Load Times: Large images or videos can slow down email loading times, potentially harming engagement. Optimize media for quick loading without sacrificing quality.

• Use Alt Text: Always include alt text for images, ensuring recipients understand the content even if the images don’t display.

• Monitor Analytics: Consider how multimedia content affects your email engagement metrics and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing service known for its user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop editor. Users can easily integrate images and videos into their campaigns. This accessibility has made Mailchimp a go-to choice for email marketers everywhere, small businesses and large corporations.

Key Benefits

• Drag-and-Drop Editor: Makes it simple to design emails with integrated multimedia content.

• Content Hosting: Offers hosting for images and videos, streamlining the campaign creation process.

• Template Variety: Provides a wide range of customizable templates that support multimedia integration.

• Automation and Analytics: Includes advanced automation features and detailed analytics to track the performance of multimedia emails.

Features

• Marketing Essentials (A/B Testing, Campaign Manager, Customer Journey Builder, Email Builder, Email Marketing, Landing Pages, Websites)

• Content Creation (Content Optimizer, Content Studio, Creative Assistant, Dynamic Content, Email Templates, Generative AI, Subject Line Helper)

• Audience Management (Behavioral Targeting, Marketing CRM, Predictive Demographics, Segmentation, Sign-Up Forms, Surveys, Tags & Customer Profiles)

• Marketing Automation (Customer Journey Builder, Dynamic Content, Integrations, Retargeting Ads, Transactional Emails, Webhooks)

• Reporting & Analytics (A/B Testing, Content Optimizer, Dynamic Content, Marketing Reports, Send Time Optimization, Smart Recommendations, Subject Line Helper)

• AI Marketing Tools (Campaign Manager, Content Optimizer, Creative Assistant, Customer Journey Builder, Generative AI, Predictive Demographics, Smart Recommendations, Subject Line Helper)

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a popular email marketing platform known for its user-friendly interface, extensive template library, and multimedia content management tools. It provides a media library and allows users to embed images and videos directly into their emails to enhance engagement with visually appealing content.

Key Benefits

• Turn your website into an email in 3 easy steps.

• Best for small business owners who need tools and guidance to find, attract, and engage customers.

Features

• Reporting: See who’s opening, clicking, and sharing your emails. Spot trends and plan your next steps.

• Templates: Choose from hundreds of professionally-designed email templates to make your own.

• Marketing Automation: Send targeted emails to customers automatically based on how they engage with your emails.

• Customer List Management: Add, store, and organize your contacts in one place, as well as segment lists to target the right people.

• Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads: Find new leads with Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads, integrated to save you time

• Website Signup Forms: Prompt website visitors to join your contact list with easy-to-build pop-up signup forms.

• Lead Generation Landing Pages: Add new signups to specific contact lists through a customizable page with a unique URL.

• Social Posting: Save time creating, scheduling, and posting your social engagement from one place.

• Integrations: Auto-sync your contact, product, and sales data with tools like Salesforce, Shopify, and Etsy.

• Surveys, Polls, and Event RSVP: Further engage your customers with tools such as video, surveys, polls, and event RSVP.

4. Best Practices for Email Campaigns

To succeed in email marketing, you need a strategic approach that involves segmenting your audience, optimizing email messages for different mobile devices, and analyzing campaign effectiveness.

Follow the top 10 best practices for email campaign success to increase engagement rates, improve conversions, and build long-term relationships. Campaign Monitor and AWeber are tools that help businesses execute effective email campaigns.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is a user-friendly email marketing tool with exceptional design capabilities. It offers customizable templates and sophisticated automated workflows to create impactful email campaigns.

Key Benefits

• Drive results with unforgettable email marketing.

• Drag and drop your way to a beautiful email.

Features

• Powerful email marketing software with drag-and-drop simplicity.

• Email marketing: Craft engaging emails that get results.

• SMS marketing: Connect and convert like never before with SMS marketing.

• Segmentation and personalization: Use smart segments to maximize return on investment.

• Link Review: Don’t let a broken link break your heart.

• Marketing automation: Easily create personalized customer journeys.

• Transactional email: Take charge of your transactional emails.

• Analytics: How smart marketers get smarter.

• Integrations: Integrate your way to growth

• Signup forms: Grow your email list and reach a bigger audience.

AWeber

AWeber is a reliable email marketing platform for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers easy-to-use autoresponders, precise segmentation options, and insightful analytics. AWeber is known for its focus on deliverability and customer service, making email marketing best practices accessible to all.

Key Benefits

• Beautifully consistent emails in seconds, not minutes. Change colors, fonts, and more – from a single place.

• Easy-to-use marketing solutions for quicker success and at a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

Features

• Lead capture with customizable landing pages and sign-up forms

• E-commerce integration for online sales and recurring payments

• Personalized, automated email campaigns for engagement

• Pre-built automation for nurturing leads and boosting revenue

• Intuitive drag-and-drop email builder and professional templates

• Comprehensive analytics for optimizing email performance

• Reliable email deliverability to reach inboxes effectively

5. Email Marketing Strategy Proven Tactics

Email marketing is essential for businesses to engage their audience, nurture leads, and drive conversions. Proven tactics to improve effective email marketing strategies include segmentation, personalization, automation, and continuous performance analysis. HubSpot Email Marketing and ActiveCampaign are powerful tools for executing highly effective email campaigns.

To maximize results in email marketing, adopt proven tactics like personalization, segmentation, and automation. Continuously analyze and refine campaigns based on performance data for long-term success.

HubSpot Email Marketing and ActiveCampaign offer robust features that align with these proven tactics. Choose the right tool based on your specific needs, such as the complexity of campaigns, the level of integration required, or the depth of analytics and reporting.

HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot Email Marketing is part of HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing hub, known for its powerful inbound marketing tools. It offers a comprehensive suite for crafting, optimizing, and analyzing email marketing campaigns.

The platform is famous for its ease of use, integration capabilities with the HubSpot CRM, and advanced features supporting a data-driven email marketing approach.

Key Benefits

• Ability to create, personalize, and optimize marketing emails independently, without relying on designers or IT.

• Seamless integration with HubSpot CRM, ensuring accurate and up-to-date data for personalized email campaigns.

Features

• Drag-and-drop email builder with professional templates and goal-based designs for creating visually appealing emails.

• Advanced personalization capabilities allow emails to be tailored based on subscriber information, lifecycle stage, list membership, and more.

• A/B testing and detailed analytics, including insights on opens, clickthroughs, engagement, and conversions, are used to optimize email campaigns.

• AI-powered content writing features (public beta) for quickly generating and refining email copy using prompts and commands.

• Email scheduling with time zone optimization ensures emails reach subscribers at optimal times.

• Integration with HubSpot CRM, providing access to accurate contact data for personalization and segmentation.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign combines email marketing with automation, sales automation, and customer relationship management (CRM) to give email marketers a holistic approach to engaging and converting contacts.

The platform is renowned for its sophisticated automation workflows, detailed segmentation capabilities, and commitment to helping businesses achieve meaningful conversations with their audience.

Key Benefits

• Ability to find new customers, build brand loyalty, and create great customer experiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

• Seamless integration with various apps and platforms allows businesses to connect with customers across multiple channels.

• Time-saving automation capabilities enable businesses to streamline their marketing processes.

Features

• Multichannel engagement: Based on customers’ interests, send personalized messages via email, text, and social media.

• Email designer: Drag-and-drop email designer for easily creating beautiful and personalized emails.

• Automation library: Access over 800 pre-built automation, email templates, sign-up forms, and more.

• App integrations: Connect with over 900 apps, including popular tools like WordPress, Eventbrite, Zendesk, and Postmark.

• Targeted email marketing: Send targeted promotional emails, newsletters, and personalized follow-ups to reach specific audiences.

• Marketing automation: Automate workflows to target and send personalized emails across all channels at the right time.

• Landing page builder: Create high-converting landing pages quickly with customizable templates and visitor interaction tracking.

• Personalization: Create targeted customer segments and leverage data to deliver meaningful and personalized customer experiences.

6. AI-powered Email Marketing Tools Pros and Cons

AI-powered email marketing tools have transformed the way businesses communicate with their audience. These tools can analyze data, predict user behavior, and automate personalized content.

While they offer many benefits, they also have challenges and limitations. Therefore, marketers must understand the pros and cons of AI-powered email marketing.

Pros

• Saves time and resources with automated content creation and optimization.

• Personalizes email campaigns at a large scale for better engagement rates.

• Provides data-driven insights to refine marketing strategies.

• Improves content quality for higher engagement and conversion rates.

Cons

• Implementing AI tools can be complex and require a learning curve.

• Advanced AI features may come at a higher cost, making them less accessible for small businesses or startups.

• Over-reliance on AI risks overlooking the importance of creativity and human insight.

• AI raises privacy and ethical concerns that businesses must navigate carefully.

MarketMuse

MarketMuse is an AI-powered content research, planning, and optimization platform designed to help content marketers, publishers, and SEO professionals create content that resonates with their audience and ranks well in search engines.

It uses advanced AI algorithms to analyze content for quality, relevance, and authority, providing actionable insights and recommendations for improvement. While primarily focused on web content, the insights and strategies it offers can be highly beneficial for enhancing email marketing content.

Key Benefits

• Comprehensive content analysis and optimization capabilities, enabling content teams to create high-quality, optimized content that resonates with their target audience and ranks well in search engine results.

• AI and machine learning technologies power data-driven decision-making, allowing content teams to make informed decisions and efficiently achieve their content marketing goals.

• Streamlined content creation through comprehensive content briefs and planning tools, ensuring content meets the target audience’s needs.

Features

• On-Demand Content Inventory Analysis: Provides deep analysis of a website’s existing content to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.

• Personalized Ranking Metrics: Offers personalized metrics that consider the website’s competitive landscape, giving a more accurate view of ranking challenges and potential.

• Topic Authority Scoring: This is the only platform with a usable Topic Authority metric to help identify areas of expertise and gaps.

• Patented Topic Modeling Research: Utilizes patented AI to analyze thousands of pages and uncover important related concepts, content gaps, and additional keywords.

• Content Cluster Gap Analysis: Enables evaluation of topic cluster coverage to pinpoint gaps and blind spots for strategic content planning.

• Strategic Keyword/Topic Planning: Advanced research capabilities to identify relevant keywords/topics aligned with audience search intent.

• Comprehensive Content Briefs: This feature allows you to create detailed briefs covering topics, subtopics, questions, links, etc., for streamlined content creation.

• Leveraging Existing Topic Authority: Personalized analysis identifies and builds on areas where the website already has topic authority and a probability of success.

Phrasee

Phrasee is a specialized AI-powered tool designed to generate compelling email subject lines, body content, and calls-to-action that resonate with audiences. It leverages natural language processing and machine learning to analyze the effectiveness of marketing email content, providing insights into what drives engagement and conversions.

Phrasee is celebrated for its ability to create AI-driven content that outperforms traditional methods, optimizing email marketing campaigns for higher open rates and engagement.

Key Benefits

• Content optimization for increasing customer engagement and revenue across digital channels and marketing campaigns, going beyond just content generation.

• Ability to predict content performance, test variations, and provide insights to ensure marketing messages are engaging, relevant, and on-brand for the target customers.

Features

• AI Content Generation: Phrasee uses generative AI to create billions of marketing messages across the digital customer journey, tailored to the brand’s tone and voice.

• Content Performance Prediction: Phrasee predicts the best-performing content based on data and past experiments, not just gut instinct.

• Content Optimization: Enables automated testing and optimization of marketing content at scale to ensure the best messages reach the widest audience.

• Language Insights and Reporting: Provides real-time insights and reports on message performance and sentiments that resonate (or not) with customers.

• Enterprise-Grade Controls: Offers brand controls to protect and amplify the unique brand tone while maintaining consistent customer experiences.

• Self-Service UI: Features a self-serve UI for easy generation, testing, and optimization of AI-powered marketing messages.

• Integrations: Includes out-of-the-box integrations for instantly testing message variants across various marketing channels.

• Multi-Channel Support: Generates optimized content for emails, push notifications, SMS, web/apps, social media, and Google Ads.

7. Email Marketing on Any Budget

Email marketing is crucial for businesses of all sizes. It’s scalable and flexible, allowing even those with limited budgets to reach their audience. MailerLite and Moosend are budget-friendly email marketing platforms that deliver high value without sacrificing quality.

Mastering The Perfect Email Marketing on Any Budget is achievable without high costs. Opt for budget-friendly platforms that offer key features like intuitive design tools, automation, segmentation, and analytics.

These tools enable businesses to run impactful email marketing campaigns, ensuring quality without additional expenses.

MailerLite

MailerLite is celebrated for its user-friendly interface and straightforward email marketing tools. It offers a free plan for small businesses and startups that includes basic features, with the option to upgrade to more advanced functionalities as business needs grow.

MailerLite’s fame in the sector comes from its balance of simplicity and effectiveness, providing users with the essential tools needed to create, send, and analyze email campaigns without a steep learning curve.

Key Benefits

• Grow business with advanced email marketing features

• Strengthen customer relationships through targeted and personalized campaigns

• Monetize audience by selling digital products, e-commerce integration, and paid newsletters

Features

• Create Beautiful Campaigns: Craft engaging, responsive email campaigns using drag-and-drop, rich text, or custom HTML editors.

• Monetize Your Audience: Integrate with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Stripe to connect email campaigns with online sales.

• Automate Workflows: Utilize the intuitive automation builder to create advanced marketing workflows for efficient, targeted engagement.

• Send Targeted Campaigns: Deliver personalized content to every subscriber, enhancing the effectiveness of your campaigns.

• Manage Campaigns and Subscribers: The MailerLite app makes it easy to manage your email list and campaigns from a desktop or on the go.

• Continuously Improve Campaigns: Track and analyze campaign performance to refine strategies and achieve better results for your business.

Moosend

Moosend, a comprehensive email marketing platform, provides tools to enhance your email marketing efforts, automate workflows, personalize content, track performance, generate leads, and analyze results. Here are the six main key features of Moosend:

Key Benefits

• The Easiest Email Marketing and Automation Software.

• Create Your Campaigns In Under 5 Μinutes With Moosend.

• Send With Confidence. With Minimal Effort. And Get Results.

• Try Moosend for free, and upgrade when you are ready!

Features

• Drag and Drop Email Builder & Responsive Templates: Simplify email creation with an intuitive builder and ensure your emails look great on all devices.

• A/B Testing & Email Scheduling: Optimize and time your campaigns for maximum impact with testing and scheduling features.

• Workflow Automation & Trigger-based Emails: Automate your email outreach with customizable workflows and trigger emails based on user actions.

• Dynamic Content & Subscriber Segmentation: Enhance engagement by personalizing content and segmenting your audience for targeted campaigns.

• Comprehensive Tracking & Analytics: Monitor opens, clicks, and campaign performance with detailed tracking tools and analytics.

• Lead Generation Tools & Integrations: Grow your list and enhance campaign effectiveness with signup forms, landing pages, and integrations with analytics tools.

Summary

Email marketing remains a top strategy when using the right tools and best practices for compelling subject lines and custom email templates, improving deliverability, boosting engagement, proven tactics, AI optimizations, and maximizing value to email subscribers.

This guide covered leading platforms purpose-built to elevate your email marketing. Take your campaigns to the next level by implementing these tips and solutions for targeted success.

Choose the right tools to propel your email strategy forward and reap the rewards – more engagement and higher ROI. The knowledge is here – now optimize your email marketing!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I write attention-grabbing email subject lines?

• Use emotional triggers like “urgent,” “sale,” and “exclusive.”

• Personalize subject lines with first names

• Keep subject lines short, clear, and scannable

• Test different subject lines with A/B testing

2. What causes common email delivery issues, and how can I avoid them?

• Spam filters block emails due to factors like sender reputation and message content.

• Use trusted email service providers and authentication methods

• Ensure subscriber opt-ins with confirmed double opt-in

• Monitor spam reports and optimize based on feedback

3. What effective ways to use images and videos to boost email engagement?

• Include relevant visuals that communicate key messages

• Ensure images are optimized for email and mobile

• Use gifs or short videos for added engagement

• Test image placement (top vs bottom, left vs right)

4. What best practices should I follow for email marketing campaigns?

• Segment your list based on interests and engagement

• Create targeted, relevant content and offers in emails

• Focus on value for subscribers in every email

• Make call-to-actions and desired actions clear

• Provide options to unsubscribe from every email

5. What proven email marketing strategies and tactics should I implement?

• Welcome email series for new subscribers

• Drip campaigns that nurture subscribers

• Promotional emails like sales, coupons, contests

• Customer re-engagement campaigns

• Automated email workflows by subscription action

6. How can AI-powered tools help optimize my email marketing efforts?

• Subject line and content generators

• Insights into optimal send times

• Automated optimization of images

• Analysis of email performance

• Suggestions to improve deliverability

7. What budget-friendly email marketing platforms and tools can I use?

• Many platforms offer free tiers like MailerLite, SendinBlue

• Leverage free templates to save design time

• Use email analytics to refine list and tactics

• Set up workflows and automation to streamline the process

• Focus on core features vs expensive add-ons.

8. How can optimizing your call to action improve click-through rates in email marketing campaigns?

• Clear, concise language emphasizing immediate value.

• Visually distinct design for easy recognition.

• Placement above the fold and at the end for visibility.

• Personalized to the recipient’s interests or behaviors.

• Regular A/B testing for continuous optimization.