As an email designer, it’s your job to provide subscribers with a functional email experience. This means eliminating friction that can erode the subscriber experience, and ultimately damage your brand image.

Achieving this goal is complicated by the fact that email is constantly evolving. It’s crucial to stay on top of the latest updates in the email world, especially when those changes—like new apps and updates to HTML and CSS support—can affect your carefully designed campaigns.

In the 2016 State of Email Report, we round up everything that happened in the email world last year, helping identify major innovations that can have huge implications for your email campaigns.

Get your free report →

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll find inside:

1. KEEP THE APPLE WATCH IN MIND

In April 2015, the Apple Watch was launched. The addition of wearables to the email app fleet was inevitable—and it’s bringing with it some major implications for email designers. If your audience includes tech early adopters and potential Watch users, then consider the subscriber experience on the Watch.

Since Apple Watch displays plain text when remote or linked images are detected, it’s crucial to optimize the plain text version of your emails. Also note that special characters, extra spaces, and other formatting tricks reserved for desktop plain text consumption translate very poorly to the Watch’s small screen.

There is also a more advanced option to add a third part to your message: text/watch-html. By including this additional part and specifying the Content-Type as “text/watch-html,” the Watch will display the text/watch part instead of the plain text part when the HTML part is unsuitable. However, be sure to check with your ESP before adding the Watch part—not everyone supports it.

2. OPTIMIZE FOR IMAGE BLOCKING

Outlook 2016 and AOL’s Alto Mail app were both introduced in 2015—and each block images by default. Email designers should use defensive design techniques like ALT text, bulletproof buttons, and a proper balance of imagery and HTML text to combat image blocking.

3. DON’T HIDE YOUR UNSUBSCRIBE LINK

In September 2015, Gmail rolled out new “block” functionality to all Gmail webmail and Android Gmail app users, giving consumers yet another option to rid their inboxes of email they don’t want. When a subscriber “blocks” a sender it means they’ll never see an email from that sender again.

The upside is that the new “block” option should reduce spam complaints because some subscribers who would have previously clicked “report spam” will now click “block” instead. The downside is that the “block” button may have created a new, lower bar for ISP intervention, so some subscribers who might have previously clicked “unsubscribe” will now click “block” instead.

So what should you do? Make it easier to unsubscribe. If subscribers can’t easily spot your opt-out link, some will simply block your message or mark it as spam. If your unsubscribe link is buried in small gray type, it’s time to break it out on a line by itself with larger, easier-to-read text.

In addition, add the “list-unsubscribe” header and Gmail will, in certain circumstances, place an “Unsubscribe” link after your sender name and sender email address.

While this link allows subscribers to skip your opt-out process—including the preference center, if you use one—it’s still preferable to getting a block or spam complaint.

4. UPDATE YOUR INTERACTIVE EMAILS

In September 2015, Apple released the latest version of their mobile operating system, iOS 9. This updated operating system added support for a few new CSS properties—and introduced a few changes that are bound to frustrate email designers.

One such frustration? The general sibling selector (~) is not always supported. Litmus Community members Rémi Parmentier and Justin Khoo both reported that the general sibling selector ~ is not supported on iOS 9 when used with the :hover or :checked pseudo class selectors.

A lot of interactive emails use pseudo classes to check whether or not something has happened in an email and style elements appropriately depending on the state. However, this bug will cause formerly interactive emails to be static.

Luckily, there’s a fix! Simply replace the general sibling selector ~ with the adjacent sibling selector +. Although not as flexible as the less-specific general sibling selector, it achieves the same results.

5. USE TABLE-BASED LAYOUTS

In September 2015, Microsoft launched the latest version of their Outlook client—Outlook 2016. Unfortunately, it hasn’t changed much from its predecessors. Like Outlook 2007, 2010, and 2013, Outlook 2016 renders emails using Microsoft Word, which has poor support for HTML and CSS and has a ton of frustrating quirks.

More recent versions of Outlook (2007-2016) have poor support for HTML and CSS and include a number of quirks to keep in mind:

• No support for background images in divs and table cells
• No support for CSS float or position
• No support for text shadow
• Poor support for padding and margin
• Poor support for CSS width and height
• Problems with nested elements background colors

Due to its lack of support for many CSS properties, table-based layouts are a necessity for optimization in Outlook 2016. You can also use conditional CSS to target Outlook 2016 specifically.

6. USE MOBILE-FRIENDLY ELEMENTS

With 55% of email opens happening on mobile devices, it’s more crucial than ever to have a mobile email strategy in place. While using responsive design is a great option, you must also use mobile-friendly elements in cases where media queries are not supported.

For example, neither AOL’s Alto Mail app nor the Universal Outlook app, both of which were introduced in 2015, support media queries.

Take advantage of large text, touch-friendly buttons, and a single-column design to provide your subscribers with the best experience possible.

7. USE OPEN DATA TO MAKE DESIGN DECISIONS

While looking at industry-wide email open trends is a great indicator of adoption of certain email clients, it’s your audience that matters. It’s more important than ever to look at where your audience is opening their email and adjust your designs accordingly.

For example, we saw a 22% increase in iPhone opens in 2015, which now accounts for 33% of total email opens. If you’re seeing something similar in your own audience, you can use that data to inform your design decisions. We know that iOS, iPhone’s operating system, has excellent support for HTML and CSS, so you can safely use advanced techniques like HTML5 video backgrounds in our campaigns.

The key is understanding your audience. With Email Analytics, you’ll get the data you need to optimize your designs. Sign up for a free 14 day trial today. No credit card required.

GET THE 2016 STATE OF EMAIL REPORT

Want even more information and actionable takeaways? Get up-to-date on the latest email updates and advances by downloading the free report today.

Get the 2016 State of Email Report →

The post 7 Design Tips for Building Successful Emails in 2016 appeared first on Litmus Blog.

Support emails…we know, we know, they don’t sound very glamorous. Using email beyond the standard promotional or transactional function doesn’t always garner a lot of attention. However, often overlooked support emails are one of the best ways to build relationships and engage your customers.

The benefits of using email for support

While we also offer phone, live chat, and Twitter support here at Litmus, email is what works best for us. Yes, we really love email!

When it comes to supporting issues within the app, we find it’s the quickest way to gather all of the necessary and relevant information, document the issue, and escalate it to our development team.

Outside of the typical issue and bug reports, we also use support emails to build relationships with our customers, facilitate interactions, gain product suggestions, and build brand personality. It’s also an opportunity to showcase features to our users that they may not have been aware of.

For those reasons and more, we recently transitioned our Customer Support team into our Customer Success team. We’re more than support—and email plays a huge role in making that clear to our customers. Here’s how:

Day-to-day support interactions

Use a consistent voice and style

Numerous members of the Litmus team are customer-facing, so having a cohesive style and voice is crucial. The tone of the Litmus voice is casual because we want you to feel like you’re talking to a friend, not a robot.

Keep it timely

Nobody likes receiving an automated response with a ticket number, followed by a stiff, impersonal response weeks later. We answer 86% of all customer emails within 6 hours. We want our customers to know that if something is bugging them, it’s on our minds, too!

Use plain text emails

In addition to making sure all of our emails have a “Litmusy” voice, the design of our daily emails is consistent as well. There’s nothing fancy to them. In fact, they’re not designed at all. We use plain text to ensure that our emails will render across all platforms. This makes us and our message accessible to our customers.

Be helpful, very helpful

Day-to-day support emails also give you an opportunity to introduce your users to all the tools and benefits that your product provides. For example, while reviewing a customer’s email, you may notice that they aren’t using all of the features available in their account. This is the perfect opportunity to link them to a quick tutorial, or even give them temporary access to a feature that requires an upgrade. Every interaction by email is an opportunity to educate your users, and make them aware of tools they may not be utilizing.

Gain feedback and product ideas

Litmus is not just a product, it’s a team of awesome people, too. We’re approachable, resourceful, and helpful—and we’re able to show that via email. The more we convey that to our customers, the more comfortable they are coming to us with their feedback, ideas, and issues.

Every support email gives us the opportunity to interact with our customers and gain their invaluable feedback.

Your customers are your best resource, and for this reason the support team can really help guide product development. Outside of helping our team to identify issues and bugs, users pass along a variety of feedback every day that motivates us to improve our customer experience.

Specific to Litmus, this includes notifying us of changes in the email marketing industry. Users help us track down changes in email clients as soon as they happen, and rendering issues when a new version is released.

They’re also a huge resource for UX/UI improvements. In fact, many of the changes made in our recent app updates came from daily interactions with our customers via email.

Even after the app update launched, our development team was poring over email feedback and making constant tweaks and adjustments to the platform. The result was a clean, efficient, and powerful design that improved workflows and made email better.

Triggered support emails

In addition to our daily support emails, we have several triggered emails that are sent to customers at various stages of their Litmus subscription. One of the emails is sent out if a customer decides not to activate their subscription on Litmus. This helps us to understand why the user decided against upgrading their account.

Another triggered support email that we have is a check-in note a few weeks after a customer has signed up. We ask how things are going, and make sure any questions the customer has get answered.

And, like our day-to-day emails, we keep the design of these triggered emails very simple and use plain text. This helps to keep them casual and conversational, and ensure they are accessible regardless of whether our customers are reading on desktop, mobile, or webmail.

Triggered emails give us yet another opportunity to interact with our users. While we have a lot of customers that choose to start a conversation by emailing our support inbox, we also know it’s important for us to reach out as well. It’s a two-way street and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to improve our user experience.

Cancellation emails

Whenever a customer decides to cancel their Litmus subscription, we ask them to provide feedback within the app. Users can choose from a few pre-filled reasons for cancelling, or they can opt to write their own. Each response creates an email that is sent into support.

While these emails can be tough to read sometimes (hey, no one likes being broken up with!), they provide us with invaluable feedback. Whether it’s an issue with the product, UI/UX, billing, or customer service, they give us advice on where we need to improve.

They also give us a second chance to redeem ourselves. For example, if they cancelled because they thought we were lacking a feature that we actually had—we can make them aware of that tool.

Or, maybe they were on a lower level plan and didn’t realize one of our upgraded plans had the feature they were looking for. This is the perfect opportunity to let them try the upgraded feature.

While breakups are never easy, they’re a great learning experience—and, hey, if you’re lucky, you may just get a second chance!

GET MORE RESOURCES AND TIPS

Want more tips on how to do email right? Our newsletter is chock full of tips for creating great email and building relationships with your subscribers—whether it’s promotional, transactional, triggered, or day-to-day support. Get the latest goodies delivered straight to your inbox.

The post How Support Teams Can Use Email to Engage Customers appeared first on Litmus Blog.

Founded in 1988, United Internet AG is one of Germany’s leading ISPs, and the parent company of several webmail clients. Between all their services, they have over 47 million customer accounts.

One of United Internet’s email clients is GMX, which was founded in 1997. GMX is owned by Global Mail Exchange, a subsidiary of United Internet AG, and has more than 19 million users. It offers a free webmail client, GMX Freemail, which, much like AOL Mail and Gmail, is advertising-supported. It also offers paid options—TopMail and ProMail—which offer additional storage and email addresses for members residing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

WEB.DE, founded in 1995, is another email client provided by United Internet. It has 15 million users, and also offers a free, advertising-supported webmail client, WEB.DE Freemail. It also offers professional, fee-based solutions for those with larger email needs.

Nearly 54% of emails in Germany are opened in GMX or WEB.DE. If you’re based in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland (or one of your offices is), or you’re emailing subscribers based in those countries, then you should be aware of how your emails display in these clients—and if they’ll even reach the inbox.

A LOOK AT THE CLIENTS + THEIR TOOLS

Mobile apps + flexible access

Both GMX and WEB.DE make it easy to access email anywhere, on any device. Users can check email via the webmail client and POP3/IMAP. In addition, both clients offer iOS, Android, and Windows Phone apps.

Many email addresses, one app

GMX Freemail users are granted two email addresses with the domain of @gmx.de (Germany), @gmx.at (Austria), @gmx.ch (Switzerland), or @gmx.net. Both email addresses can be hooked up within one interface, so users can access all of their mail—personal and business—within one app.

For those with paying GMX ProMail and TopMail accounts, they are granted more email addresses, as well as a wider array of domains to choose from.

WEB.DE users are granted one email address with the @web.de domain. There are premium services for users that need more addresses.

Email actions in the browser

GMX and WEB.DE both offer MailCheck services for no additional cost. MailCheck is a browser add-on that allows users to see the number of unread messages in their inbox. It also gives users the ability to take action directly from within their browser—they can write emails, refresh their inbox, view their media center, and check their calendar. MailCheck also allows for desktop notifications.

In addition, when MailCheck is set up, the mail storage capacity in both GMX and WEB.DE Freemail increase.

YOUR EMAIL IN GMX + WEB.DE

Now let’s get to the good stuff—how do your emails display in these clients?

Optimize your emails in GMX + WEB.DE Use Litmus Email Analytics to see if your subscribers open in GMX and WEB.DE and get Instant Previews in those clients with Litmus. Try Litmus free →

THE INBOX VIEW

GMX

GMX automatically sorts emails into five categories: Favorites, Inbox, Read, Spam, Sent, and Draft. When a user logs in, they are automatically taken to the Inbox folder.

The Inbox folder includes all emails that pass through the GMX spam filter, as well as advertisements. Advertisements are greyed out, and display a logo next to their sender name. Advertisements can be removed from the inbox by clicking on the “X” icon next to the sender name (see “Keuchenportal.de” example above).

If a user clicks on an advertisement, there is a disclaimer at the bottom of the email:

This disclaimer clarifies that this is an advertisement, and that user data will not be passed on to the advertiser.

In addition:

• Symbols in the subject line are supported
• Preview text is not displayed

Since preview text isn’t supported, the sender name and subject line will be crucial for encouraging subscribers to open. Use a recognizable, trustworthy from name, and an optimized subject line.

WEB.DE

WEB.DE sorts emails into eight categories: Unread, Favorites, Friends & Acquaintances, Unknown, Trash, Spam, Sent, and Drafts. When a user logs in, they are automatically placed in their Friends & Acquaintances folder.

Emails in this folder include emails from WEB.DE, as well as those in the user’s address book, and senders they frequently interact with.

Like GMX, WEB.DE also supports symbols in the inbox.

WEB.DE has advertisements in the inbox, but rather than showing the advertiser’s icon, they use their own logo to distinguish ads from other messages in the inbox.

In the example above, the advertisement is for Skoda, a car manufacturer. The subject line translates to “WEB.DE presents Skoda.” Similar to GMX, there is a disclaimer at the bottom of each advertisement.

HOW DO GMX and WEB.DE DISPLAY YOUR EMAILS?

Similar to AOL Mail, GMX and WEB.DE show emails in an iframe, rather than embedding them. This maintains your email’s original code, rather than reformatting it inline—and it leads to great rendering capabilities.

Email in GMX

Email in WEB.DE

Images automatically on

Both GMX and WEB.DE display images by default in the inbox. However, optimizing for image blocking for other email clients is always a great idea. Try using HTML text, ALT text, and bulletproof buttons.

However, all messages in the Spam folder have images disabled. And, when this is the case, images are collapsed and ALT text is not supported.

Images enabled in GMX

Images blocked in GMX

Support for Animated GIFs

Animated GIFs are a great way to add interactive visuals to your designs. Luckily, both GMX and WEB.DE support animated GIFs, so feel free to get creative.

However, not all email clients support animated GIFs. Instead, they will show the first frame of the animation. To overcome this, ensure vital information—perhaps a call-to-action, offer, or headline—is included in the first frame of your GIF.

Lack of advanced HTML and CSS support

While GMX and WEB.DE have great support for HTML and CSS basics, they lack support for advanced techniques. This isn’t unexpected—most webmail clients have similar shortcomings.

For example, neither GMX nor WEB.DE support HTML5 video. If you’re using these types of advanced techniques, be sure to have proper fallbacks in place.

In addition, we noticed during testing that neither client supports border-radius. This attribute is often used to add rounded corners to call-to-action (CTA) buttons, like the one below:

GMX and WEB.DE do not support border radius

It’s a subtle change compared to email clients where where border-radius is supported:

Gmail supports border-radius

Lack of support for border-radius won’t affect the functionality of your CTAs.

SPAM FILTERS, SECURITY & DELIVERABILITY

Germany is known for its strict spam laws, and GMX and WEB.DE pride themselves on their high security and privacy standards. Both have a multi-level spam filter, which detects unsolicited emails and moves them to the Spam folder.

The spam filters perform tasks like:

• Distinguishing reputable emails from unsolicited bulk emails based on checksum methods.
• Analyzing emails for technical properties and errors that are typical of spam.
• Checking emails for fake sender addresses (i.e. ensuring the email was sent from the server responsible for the domain).
• Comparing emails with internal and external lists (i.e. IP addresses of servers known for sending spam or URLs that occur in known spam e-mails).

In addition, there is also a personal spam filter in these clients. When a user personally marks an email as “Spam” or “Not Spam,” future emails from those senders will be classified in the correct folder.

“Email Made in Germany”

In an effort to promote German email providers as the most secure in the world, four of United Internet’s brands—GMX, WEB.DE, Telekom, and freenet—joined together to implement new security standards.

The result of this initiative—“Email Made in Germany”—was launched in August 2013. The program ensures that email traveling between its email servers never leave local servers, which are all based in Germany. Email Made in Germany guarantees that all emails are transmitted with SSL encryption and protected against access from third parties.

Secure senders are marked with an “Email Made in Germany” seal.

Source: Email Made in Germany

It should be noted that this program is only effective for emails being transferred between GMX, WEB.DE, Telekom, and freenet. If a user from within the network emails a user with a Gmail account, that email will not be encrypted. Users will be notified if they are emailing to an address that does not fall under the program’s protection.

Trusted Dialog

Founded in 2009 by email clients like WEB.DE, GMX, 1 & 1, freenet, and T-Online, Trusted Dialog is an initiative that aims to protect their users from spam.

Trusted Dialog verifies the authenticity of the sender’s emails through DKIM, ensuring that the sender is who they say they are. After proof of authenticity has been provided, the sender gets the Trusted Dialog seal and their logo displayed in the inbox.

Thanks to the seal and logo, users can easily identify trustworthy emails in their inboxes. Many Trusted Dialog brands have seen an increase in opens and clicks as a result of the increased trust with their subscribers.

Other benefits of being a Trusted Dialog brand include:

• Direct delivery to the inbox—not the spam folder. In GMX, emails are delivered straight to the inbox, whereas in WEB.DE messages are delivered to the Friends & Acquaintances folder.
• Video content will play within the inbox. Trusted Dialog brands can include video within an iframe, which will display in WEB.DE, GMX, 1 & 1, freenet, and T-Online.

In addition, when a user views an email from a Trusted Dialog brand, the email is the focus of the screen—advertisements are removed.

Conversely, for non-Trusted Dialog brands, advertisements are viewable in the sidebar:

OPTIMIZE YOUR EMAILS GMX AND WEB.DE

Use Litmus Email Analytics to see if your subscribers open in GMX and WEB.DE and get Instant Previews in those clients with Litmus.

Rest assured that your designs look great regardless of where your subscribers are opening.

Try Litmus free →

(function() { function async_load(){ var s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://pi' : 'http://cdn') + '.pardot.com/pd.js'; var c = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; c.parentNode.insertBefore(s, c); } if(window.attachEvent) { window.attachEvent('onload', async_load); } else { window.addEventListener('load', async_load, false); } })();

The post The Ultimate Guide to GMX and Web.de: How do they display your emails? appeared first on Litmus Blog.

The email landscape is constantly changing. Between the introduction of new email apps and deliverability updates, email marketing has never presented more challenges—or opportunities. As an email marketer focused on success, it’s crucial to stay on top of every new development.

In our 2016 State of Email Report, we analyze the biggest email developments and provide tons of actionable tips and advice to keep you on top of your game.

Get your free report →

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the takeaways you’ll find inside.

Send relevant emails

In January 2015, Microsoft launched Outlook for Android and iOS phones and tablets. The Outlook app splits messages into two groups: Focused and Other.

With the organization of emails into Focused and Other, subscribers will find it even easier to
pass up marketing emails. Sending relevant, useful, and timely messages may be the only way around it. Relevant content engages subscribers, building trust in your brand and the emails you send. Over time, subscribers receiving valuable content scan their inboxes looking for messages from brands they trust.

And, if you’re sending relevant emails and have highly-engaged subscribers, then you may find your emails landing in the coveted Focus group. In contrast, marketers who aren’t sending relevant messaging might find that their emails are more easily ignored in the Other group.

Keep an eye on your iOS engagement rates

In September 2015, Apple released the latest version of their mobile operating system, iOS 9. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus feature 3D Touch, which adds pressure sensitivity to the latest iPhones and introduces two new interactions: peek and pop.

When scrolling through the inbox, users can now use a light press to “peek” at an email, which opens the email itself in a modal window. Using that same touch, they can then press harder to “pop” into the email itself and see the entire email, just like opening it normally.

Since “peeking” at an email loads the images contained within, peeks will count as opened emails. However, even though opens are registered, engagement could easily drop for campaigns if subscribers are just “peeking” at—and not reading—your campaigns. If you’re seeing your engagement rates dropping, consider revamping your content, optimizing your inbox view, and ensuring your messages are mobile-friendly.

Make your email preference center more visible + accessible

In September 2015, Gmail rolled out new “block” functionality to all Gmail webmail and Android Gmail app users, giving consumers yet another option to rid their inboxes of email they don’t want.

When a subscriber “blocks” a sender it means they’ll never see an email from that sender again. The upside is that the new “block” option should reduce spam complaints, since some subscribers who would have previously clicked “report spam” will now click “block” instead. The downside is that the “block” button may have created a new lower bar for ISP intervention, so some subscribers who might have previously clicked “unsubscribe” will now click “block” instead.

Often times, a subscriber would be happy to continue receiving emails if only they could receive messages less often or on different topics. Many opt-out processes are now managed in preference centers, but as more subscribers rely on ISP-provided opt-out methods, marketers can’t use their preference centers as a last resort anymore.

Be proactive with your preference centers. Key moments in the subscriber lifecycle are the perfect time to get your subscribers to update their preferences.

Use Gmail Postmaster Tools to your advantage

In July 2015, Google launched Gmail Postmaster Tools, which helps “qualified high-volume senders analyze their email, including data on delivery errors, spam reports, and reputation.” The goal of this tool is simple: get wanted mail to the inbox and put spam where it belongs.

Gmail Postmaster Tools gives email marketers a major advantage by allowing them to check on their email performance to monitor trends over time and ensure that their messages are hitting their subscribers’ inboxes. This gives marketers insights that they’ve never had before, and should be taken advantage of immediately.

To set up the Gmail Postmaster Tools, you have to add a CNAME or TXT DNS record. Google will then test these records on a recurring basis to verify ownership.

Once you’re up and running, you can analyze each dashboard to look for key trends that are negatively or positively impacting your deliverability. The Delivery Errors Dashboard is particularly useful—you’ll gain insights into exactly why your email was rejected, such as the email content is possibly spammy or the sending IP address has a low reputation.

GET MORE TIPS IN THE 2016 STATE OF EMAIL REPORT

Want even more information and actionable takeaways? Get up-to-date on the latest email updates and advances by downloading the free report today.

Get the 2016 State of Email Report →

The post 2016 State of Email Report: The Email Marketer’s Guide to Creating Successful Campaigns appeared first on Litmus Blog.

“It’s ok, we have good open and click through rates.”

Did your eyes roll a little when reading that line? How many times have you had a client say that to you when you asked about their email metrics? While helpful, these two metrics rarely give a well-rounded portrait of how subscribers are interacting with their emails (and if they are actually engaged at all!).

As part of Digital Agency Day, we hosted a live webinar that covered the “other metrics” that your team should be looking at to optimize emails for your clients.

Didn’t have a chance to make it to the webinar? No worries! We recorded the whole thing.

View slides on SlideShare →

There were so many great questions during the webinar. We didn’t have a chance to get to them all, but have answered them all here on the blog. Have any additional questions? Leave them in the comments.

Why do opens and clicks only give a limited portrait of subscriber engagement?

While open and click rates are a great way to see what subject lines and preview text are getting the most opens, and what links are getting the most clicks, they don’t provide a deeper understanding of subscriber interactions. How long were they engaged with your client’s email? Did they forward it to anyone? Opens and clicks lack data like these insights.

What other metrics should we look at when building email campaigns for our clients?

Engagement rates (or time spent on email)

Engagement time is incredibly important to review in parallel to your client’s open rates. Are your client’s subscribers even reading their emails, or simply glancing and deleting them?

In the webinar, I gave the example of why I am a “marketer’s worst nightmare.” I am one of those dreaded folks who opens an email to get it out of their open count on their mobile device, but barely bothers to actually read the mailing. And, I am not the only subscriber to do this! While it counts as an open, I’m not actually engaging with the email at all.

By using time on spent on email, you can understand the divide between the real “Readers,” “Skim Readers,” and “Glance and Deleters” (this is how we actually break it down in Litmus Email Analytics).

With this data in hand you can send content-rich newsletters to your clients most engaged subscribers. Are you seeing the same subscribers consistently skipping over your client’s emails? Maybe it’s time to remove them from your client’s main mailing list and add them to a “disengaged” list—try a win-back campaign!

Email client and device open data

Understanding the different email apps and programs your client’s subscribers are using will help you create consistent, well-performing messages. Do they have a high percentage of mobile opens? Are a lot of their subscribers using Outlook 2010? This information can help guide both strategic and design decisions for your client’s email program.

For example, if your clients are seeing a high percentage of opens on mobile devices, you might want to consider a scalable, fluid, or responsive design (we cover these approaches in the webinar!). Or use the data to send targeted messages to smartphone users, like announcing a new mobile app.

Geolocation data

With geolocation data, you can pinpoint exactly where your client’s subscribers are when they read their email.

Are your client’s subscribers mostly in Europe? Are they mostly in Europe opening on Apple devices in the mornings? Looking at these metrics can have a profound influence on your send time, what platforms you tailor your content for, the language of the email, and even the type of content that they see.

For example, here at Litmus, we used geolocation data to target our announcement email for The Email Design Conference. West coast subscribers received info about our San Francisco conference, east coast subscribers about our Boston conference, and European subscribers about our London conference. These geo-targeted emails saw an average of 209% increase in opens over the general email that included information about all three locations.

Forwards and prints

Use forward and print data to note trends with email sharing and other evangelist behaviors. Consider rewarding frequent forwarders by creating a loyalty program. Print and forward activity can also help identify high-performing or “viral” content in your client’s email program, providing another data point outside of opens and clicks.

Is there a one-size-fits-all solution for optimizing designs across all the different email apps and devices?

The short answer is no. However, there is a silver lining! You don’t have to optimize your designs for every email app—you only have to focus on the ones that the majority of your client’s subscribers are using.

There is a very wide variety of email clients and apps that your client’s subscribers could be using to view their emails. Between desktop, mobile, and webmail clients—plus different versions of those clients, as well as numerous email apps—it can seem as though the list of places your client’s subscribers are viewing their emails is endless.

In order to stay sane it’s probably not realistic to test in every possible combination. As a result, knowing where your client’s audience is opening your emails is key to narrowing down which programs and apps you should test in. It not only saves you time, but ensures that your client’s email will render well in all of the necessary environments.

For example, if only a minor portion of your client’s audience is using Outlook—which can be difficult to design for—then you shouldn’t waste too much time optimizing your emails in that client.

Should we make it easy for our client’s subscribers to unsubscribe? Or is that email marketing suicide?

We always recommend making it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe. Not only is an unsubscribe link necessary under spam laws, but if it’s missing or inaccessible, it can greatly affect your client’s overall sending reputation.

If subscribers can’t easily spot an opt-out link, then they make block the message, or mark it as spam. While unsubscribes aren’t ideal, it’s better than getting a block or spam complaint.

How can Litmus help agencies and teams building emails for clients?

For starters, Litmus offers access to all of the metrics mentioned—engagement rates, email client device open data, print and forward tracking, and geolocation data. We provide these metrics at an aggregate level, as well as an individual-level. With Email Analytics you simply add a small tracking code to your client’s campaigns, and all of the deep-data reports are generated for you.

We also offer a plan that was built specifically for agencies. Our Unlimited plan allows your team to add as many users and use as many Email Analytics tracking codes as needed. We just charge based on usage.

Plus, this is the only plan that comes with subaccounts, as well as Litmus accounts that you can offer or resell to your client.

Want more information about our Unlimited plan? Shoot me a note.

GET THE LATEST RESOURCES FOR AGENCIES

Subscribe to the Partner Newsletter and get a quarterly roundup of industry best practices, case studies, and tips for agencies.

The post Data You Should Be Using to Optimize Your Clients’ Campaigns: Webinar Q&A appeared first on Litmus Blog.

Your customers leave little data clues behind them wherever they go. In fact, we collectively create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, according to IBM—which means that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

That’s a lot of breadcrumbs to follow!

The Big Data movement is all about sorting through all these bits of data—discarding the ones that are meaningless noise, putting aside the ones that don’t tell us anything actionable, and creating plans and campaigns based the ones that yield true customer insights.

Matt Laudato, Senior Manager of Big Data Analytics at Constant Contact, has been sorting through the piles of data generated by the email service provider’s customers and has uncovered lots of interesting takeaways. I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt at The Email Design Conference and talk about what he and his team have learned and how marketers can uncover Big Data insights of their own.

You can watch the full interview here, or read a transcript of it below.

It started with simple questions. And it started with the fact that we knew we had gold. We knew we had a lot of interesting data. We also knew we weren’t leveraging it. We weren’t using it to the advantage of our customers. And my bias is always if you do the right thing for the customer, they will drag you along and make your business successful as well. And so I knew that we weren’t doing the best for our business.

Small Wins

It’s amazing what happens when you get to a small win. The first small wins that we were able to talk about around the company—and best time to send was certainly one of them—really just opened up the eyes of a lot of folks, a lot of stakeholders who I was asking for things like more budget, for example, and they realized that we actually had something here.

So it was small steps, focused questions, making sure that the data was sound and that we believed in our analysis. And it’s really snowballed from then.

‘The Super Fan’

You always hear that there’s a small group of people that influence. Well, we found that in spades. We found that there’s a very small group, about 10% of the people that open emails, are responsible for half of your opens. We found that 10% of the folks that you have on your list are responsible for almost half of your clicks.

So just that the notion that on something as big as an email list there was this small cluster of people that were the real influencers—that was a real eye opener.

Focus on Fewer Links

People are very interested in the click studies that we did. Specifically, there’s two competing results, which is that the more links you put in an email, the higher your click rate. This doesn’t mean that you should put a couple of hundred links in your email though.

We also found that the more links you put into an e-mail, the less effective each link is. If you look deeper at it—and that’s really the power of what we’re doing—you find that, you know what? It really does make sense to keep the number of links small. You’re going to get more effective communications there. You’re going to get people to focus on the things that are important.

Behind the Number

I think people go wrong by simply looking at the number and forgetting that there’s somebody behind that number who wants to be made to feel special. And that really ties into some of the things we were talking about as to, can you segment people? Can you find the right group to put people in so that they really do feel special? They’re getting a communication from you that makes them feel like they’re not just one of the many sheep grazing on the hill, but they’re somebody who’s special and important.

So I always like to go behind the number and remind myself, every day, that there’s somebody there that is responding and they’re important, and I have to treat them as such.

More Expert Videos

• Achieving Better Performance with Email Segmentation & Personalization [Video]
• Email Marketing Success Metrics Vary by Subscriber
• The Pitfalls of Email Marketing Metrics & A/B Testing
• Will We Ever Have Email Coding Standards?
• Email Marketing in the Age of Data Breaches & Tightening Regulations

GET THE LATEST DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Want to get more tips and advice like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest content for email marketing pros delivered straight to your inbox.

The post Gaining Email Marketing Insights from Big Data [Video] appeared first on Litmus Blog.

Nearly 54% of emails in Germany are opened in GMX or WEB.DE. If you’re based in Germany or its surrounding regions, or you’re emailing subscribers based in that area, then understanding how your emails display in those clients is critical.

But, where are these webmail users opening their emails? Are they using the client’s web interface, or are they opening on a mobile browser?

Users of free web-based email services, like GMX and WEB.DE, typically have IMAP access to their messages, making their email accessible from virtually any email client they choose.

Breaking down GMX and WEB.DE opens will help you identify optimization efforts in those clients. For example, if the majority of your WEB.DE opens are occurring in iOS or Apple Mail, which both have great support for HTML and CSS, then you don’t have as much to worry about. However, if they’re opening in Gmail, then inlining your CSS is a must.

To dive deep into GMX and WEB.DE opens, we analyzed over 1.2 million opens from webmail accounts to examine the behavior and preferences of their users.

Check out a high-res version of the infographic, or read the transcription below.

Where do GMX and WEB.DE users open email?

Founded in 1988, United Internet AG is one of Germany’s leading ISPs, and the parent company of numerous webmail clients. Two of United Internet’s most popular clients—GMX and WEB.DE—offer free webmail services.

Users of free webmail services, like GMX or WEB.DE, can choose to view email messages in a browser, using a smartphone or tablet, or even in a desktop mail client like Apple Mail or Microsoft’s Outlook. So, with all of these choices, where are these German webmail users opening their email?

GMX

39% of GMX users read email on mobile devices. The majority of these mobile opens—79%—take place on iPhone and iPad, while 21% occur on Android devices.

Popular mail clients for GMX users

• GMX webmail: 33%
• Apple iPhone: 23%
• Apple Mail: 9%
• Google Android: 8%
• Outlook: 8%

Breakdown by environment

• 23% of GMX users open on desktop
• 39% of GMX users open on mobile
• 38% of GMX users open in a browser

GMX opens on desktop

Emails opened by GMX accounts on desktop clients only account for 23% of total GMX opens—the majority of which is in Apple Mail or Outlook.

• Apple Mail: 38%
• Outlook: 35%
• Other: 27%

GMX opens on mobile

The majority of emails opened on GMX accounts occur in mobile devices, with the Apple iPhone being the most popular device.

• Apple iPhone: 61%
• Google Android: 21%
• Apple iPad: 18%

GMX opens in a browser

87% of GMX webmail opens—and 33% of total GMX opens—take place in their web interface.

• GMX webmail: 87%
• Windows Live Mail: 6%
• Gmail: 6%
• Outlook.com: 1%

WEB.DE

The majority of WEB.DE users—57%—are reading their emails in the provider’s browser interface. The Apple iPhone and Apple Mail are also popular among WEB.DE users.

Popular mail clients for WEB.DE users

• WEB.DE webmail: 57%
• Apple iPhone: 16%
• Apple Mail: 6%
• Apple iPad: 5%
• Google Android: 5%

Breakdown by environment

• 13% of WEB.DE users open on desktop
• 26% of WEB.DE users open on mobile
• 61% of WEB.DE users open in a browser

WEB.DE opens on desktop

Similar to GMX, the majority of WEB.DE users who open on desktop use Apple Mail.

• Apple Mail: 46%
• Outlook: 29%
• Other: 25%

WEB.DE opens on mobile

26% of WEB.DE users open their email on mobile devices. 81% of these mobile opens occur on Apple iPhone or iPhone.

• Apple iPhone: 61%
• Apple iPad: 20%
• Google Android: 19%

WEB.DE opens in a browser

A whopping 93% of WEB.DE webmail opens occur in the WEB.DE web interface.

• WEB.DE webmail: 93%
• Gmail: 4%
• Windows Live Mail: 2%
• GMX webmail: 1%

*Data in this infographic is based on opens from Litmus Email Analytics. A random sample of over 1.2 million web-based email opens between May and April 2015 formed the basis of the analysis. Some email clients and mobile devices may be over- or under-represented due to image blocking.

OPTIMIZE YOUR EMAILS FOR GMX AND WEB.DE

Use Litmus Email Analytics to see if your subscribers open in GMX and WEB.DE and get Instant Previews in those clients with Litmus.

Rest assured that your designs look great regardless of where your subscribers are opening.

Try Litmus free →

(function() { function async_load(){ var s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://pi' : 'http://cdn') + '.pardot.com/pd.js'; var c = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; c.parentNode.insertBefore(s, c); } if(window.attachEvent) { window.attachEvent('onload', async_load); } else { window.addEventListener('load', async_load, false); } })();

The post Where do GMX and WEB.DE users open email? [Infographic] appeared first on Litmus Blog.

As part of the research that went into his 2012 bestseller To Sell Is Human, author and speaker Daniel Pink surveyed people on the first words that came to mind when they heard “sales” or “selling.”

Among the 25 most frequently used adjectives or interjections were words like “pushy,” “sleazy,” “manipulative,” “annoying,” “ugh,” and “yuck.” (I could go on, but you get the idea.)

This research validates some of the experiences many people have with salesmen.

But it also has an unexpected effect on marketers and salespeople, as many have become fearful of coming across as too “salesy” in their efforts. They’ve developed defense mechanisms in the form of a more passive sales approach, avoiding words or situations they fear people will associate with a sales pitch, resulting in unfavorable responses.

Other marketers and salespeople hold such findings with little to no regard. They approach their job with the level of authority they feel is needed to persuade and influence others to buy.

As Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Translation: I know what’s better for my customers than they do. Of course, this worked for Ford, but does it actually work for most communicators?

Not quite. As we’ll learn, most people are turned off by the dominant sales pitch. But does that mean they’re turned off by sales in general, or is there a better approach to take in our email campaigns?

How do people really feel about sales?

People aren’t actually afraid of being sold to. Instead, they don’t like a sales pitch that takes a dominant approach for a product or service that doesn’t align with their needs and interests.

In his book Give and Take, author Adam Grant details research that suggests two fundamental paths of influence: dominance and prestige.

A sales pitch relying on dominance uses powerful communication—a method of selling in which, according to Grant, the communicator aims to “claim as much value as possible by striving to be superior to others. They speak forcefully, raise their voices to assert authority, express certainty to project confidence, promote their accomplishments, and sell with conviction and pride.”

These types of pitches tend to be more brand-centric, wherein you’ll read lots of “I’s” and “We’s” and very little about you as the customer or subscriber.

Methods which are commonly used to pitch via email. In fact, you may find them in your inbox fairly often. (Gmail users: Check your promotions tab.)

Many times, the sender practicing powerful communication attempts to influence you with their credentials, like this:

If you couldn’t get through more than a few lines of that email, believe me, I don’t blame you.

Other times, the sender wastes no time (or all of it, depending how you look at it) jumping right to the pitch.

This salesperson, writing on behalf of the company, opened with a textbook power word in describing his company as a “leading” provider. After that, he jumped right into the pitch with no regard for the recipient.

Not ironically, this email was marked as spam and had to be fished out of a folder with many other messages just like it. Not only are these emails less effective at gaining influence, they’re apt to be marked as spam and go unseen by your audience.

These are the kinds of sales pitches that drive survey results like the ones we saw in To Sell Is Human. The more you attempt to dominate an audience, the more they resist.

As Grant writes in Give and Take, “Even with a receptive audience, dominance is a zero-sum game: the more power I have, the less you have.”

In other words, the more you try to secure dominance, the higher the risk you run of losing influence.

Powerless communication

Rather than relying on dominance through powerful communication to influence an audience, a sales pitch focused on prestige aims to earn respect and admiration through what’s called powerless communication.

With powerless communication, marketers speak less assertively, express doubt, ask questions, and rely on advice from others. They’re not afraid to convey vulnerability.

While it seems counterintuitive, expressing vulnerability instead of certainty is more effective when it comes to influencing others. Empathy is a powerful selling tool.

Whereas powerful communication is more brand-centric, powerless communication is all about being customer or subscriber-centric. In other words, it’s about you. “Tell us what you think”, “what are some ways we can improve your experience?” “Here is what others are saying.”

Note there are no assumptions being made. Powerless communication is about conveying that you don’t know it all.

Here are just some of the ways that brands use powerless communication to sell more effectively.

Tentative talk

While marketers and salespeople aiming for dominance use powerful speech, those looking to secure prestige use powerless speech.

Grant classifies them as follows:

• Hesitations: “well,” “um,” uh,” “you know”
• Hedges: “kinda,” “sorta,” “maybe,” “probably,” “I think”
• Disclaimers: “this may be a bad idea, but”
• Tag questions: “that’s interesting, isn’t it?” or “that’s a good idea, right?”
• Intensifiers: “really,” “very,” “quite”

Tentative speech suggests that, as the communicator, you’re willing to take someone else’s opinion into consideration. That you’re willing to defer, negotiate, or even rely on them for the answer.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Rather than using powerful communication to express certainty, Boombox—an app for online publishers—uses powerless communication to create influence instead.

There are no credentials, product specs, or power words. In fact, the marketers at Boombox relied on a case study to sell their product, using hedges and disclaimers to defer the message.

Asking Questions

Asking questions shows people that you care enough about their interests to continue learning about them. Sure, the end goal is for brands to sell product, but when they do so with the customer’s best interests in mind, people aren’t afraid of being sold to.

Take this email I received from The North Face, as an example:

Besides the noticeable absence of any discernable product pitch, The North Face is using powerless communication to ask for my outdoor interests in order to provide a more personalized experience moving forward.

Not only are questions effective at deflecting the focus to the subscriber, they’re also effective drivers of action. In Give and Take, Grant refers to research conducted by American psychologist Elliot Aronson, where it was learned that by asking people questions regarding behavior, they were then more likely to exhibit said behavior.

For example, if you ask someone if they’re planning to vote, you’ve just increased the odds that they will actually vote by 41 percent. Research also shows that if you ask someone if they plan on buying a new computer in the next six months, they will be 18 percent more likely to do so.

But why?

As Grant notes, “when I ask if you’re planning to vote, you don’t feel like I’m trying to influence you. It’s an innocent query, and instead of resisting my influence, you reflect on it. This doesn’t feel like I’m persuading you. You’ve been convinced by someone you already like and trust: yourself.”

Don’t be afraid of selling

Keep in mind that research that positions sales unfavorably consists mainly of experiences with sleazy and dominant pitches riddled with powerful communication techniques.

No matter what you’ve heard, don’t be afraid of selling to others via email.

The favorable experiences aren’t accounted for in such research. This is where, as email professionals, your opportunity lies.

Become part of the small percentage of sales emails that utilizes powerless communication, expresses uncertainty, and deflects the focus on the customer.

In other words, write emails that sell.

GET THE LATEST DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Want to get more tips and advice like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest content for email marketing pros delivered straight to your inbox.

The post How to Write Emails That Sell: An Analysis of Influential Language appeared first on Litmus Blog.

About a month ago, a friend and fellow Boston marketer and I got into a discussion about the merits of customer marketing, and more specifically, how email plays a role.

Casey Hogan was frustrated, as she had just received her tenth—tenth!—upsell email from a brand that she had been using for four years.

Obviously annoyed, she took to Twitter in search of empathy.

CX in need of upgrade:
1 Use code for 1st X free ✔️
2 Refer friends, get $ ✔️
3 Refer friends, get $ …✔️
4 Refer friends, get $ …..

— Casey Hogan (@hogan) December 10, 2015

Asked by another user to clarify, she went on:

@netspencer Not a great experience for a long time user.

— Casey Hogan (@hogan) December 10, 2015

I added my .02 cents…

@hogan @netspencer Hate when email is used exclusively as leverage in a relationship rather than a relationship itself : (

— John Bonini (@Bonini84) December 11, 2015

…and the inspiration for this post was born.

For Hogan, formerly a marketer at Drift and Drizly, the customer experience is something of great personal meaning. And like anything else worth analogizing, she related her experience to dating:

“Getting a subscriber is just like getting someone’s number…Most people don’t want to hear from someone they just met three times a day. I would also guess they don’t want to sporadically hear ‘hey can you set me up with your friends?’ either.”

Conversely, by permission marketing standards, all seems fair. But when we consider how subscribers’ rising expectations has worked to evolve what email spam really is, her frustration comes into focus.

A friend and colleague of mine, Chad White, writes in his book Email Marketing Rules that “Having permission only gets you so far nowadays. Irrelevant and unwanted email is the new spam in the eyes of both consumers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).”

How your customers define email spam

White’s definition above is whiteboard material.

Your customers view any irrelevant or unwanted email as spam. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been a customer or if they’ve given you permission—if your email is repeatedly of little to no relevance to them, it’s spam.

Or, as was the case mentioned earlier, this particular brand was more interested in using Hogan to create new relationships than actually building a relationship with her. As detailed by Hogan, the customer experience looked something like this:

• Use code for first X free
• Refer friends, get $
• Refer friends, get $ ..
• Refer friends, get $ ….
• Refer friends, get $ …..

…and so on. Ten times.

There was obviously no relevance for the user, otherwise she wouldn’t have taken to Twitter to voice her frustrations. But how are brands to define relevance? As White says in Email Marketing Rules, “it’s often discussed in vague, mystical terms.”

In an attempt to lift the veil a bit, I’ve detailed some ways I’ve found effective at ensuring a more relevant experience for subscribers.

Set the right expectations

This section is really about table stakes. If your subscribers aren’t sure of what kinds of communications to expect, you’ve exposed yourself to the risk of being reported as spam, thus hurting your subscriber reputation and any future hopes of landing in the inbox.

So tables stakes or not, it’s important to note here.

Sign up forms and welcome emails are two areas of prime real estate you should use to clearly inform people what they will be receiving from your brand.

If you plan on emailing occasional gated material, let people know in advance of them providing their email address. Whether or not you view additional communications as a value add is irrelevant, both to this principle and to your subscribers.

Let subscribers of any list know ahead of time exactly what they can expect to receive from your brand. Then, most importantly, reduce your messaging to specific lists to the content they expect to receive.

Personalize the subject matter, not the subject

Advances in marketing technology has resulted in a misconception of what personalization really is, and more unfortunately, in marketers abusing the tactics available for achieving faux personalization.

So let’s start with what personalization is not. It’s not:

• Knowing your subscriber’s name, or
• Location
• Company name
• Job title
• Industry, or any other basic demographic information

Personalization is about interests, behavior, and challenges. And while most brands can talk about these characteristics in detail as they pertain to their target audience, many do not tailor the email marketing strategy to communicate the right messages to those who need it most.

Let’s use an example from my own inbox.

I joined the Dollar Shave Club last fall, and right before my first box shipped, I received an email with the subject line, “Your first box is about to ship. Toss more in.”

This was pretty pertinent information for me. Naturally, I opened.

Inside were four product suggestions, including a shave butter I had never tried. I wouldn’t normally purchase shave butter, but at $4.99, I thought, “Why not? One less thing I have to remember at the store.”

Dollar Shave Club knows this about me (and all its users): we value convenience over features. Their razors don’t have 8 blades, a battery, or other gimmicks. It’s just a razor. But they’re delivered to the doorstep every month, for less than we’d pay in the store.

Convenience over features.

This email, from the subject line through the body copy, stayed consistent with this message. That’s personalization. They didn’t need to use my name anywhere in the email. Instead, they know why I buy from them and use this to improve my experience and increase sales.

Now, this was a more general form of personalization. Most automation software enables you to collect more relevant, personal information on your customers and prospects. Not only should you be gathering information around buyer interests, behaviors, preferences, purchase history, and more, you should also be powering your personalization efforts with the insights you glean from it.

User-friendly

Your subscribers are viewing email on a variety of different apps and devices, each with its own rendering quirks that affect the way your email looks and performs.

These are challenges your marketing and design teams face.

From your customer’s standpoint, their challenge is that it may be really hard to read your email on mobile, or that your call-to-action isn’t “clickable” on whichever device they happen to be using. Or maybe it’s that some (or all) the images used are broken, or your links are broken or leading to the wrong page.

Poor user experience leads to frustration, which as shown in the opening, could also lead to declarations of spam.

Utility

While most marketers believe that what they produce and send is of value to their customers, in order to truly be of utility to your customers, you need to think in their terms rather than your own.

Besides using customer intelligence to segment your messaging (discussed earlier), White lists two other ways that email marketers can execute greater value and utility in their strategies: worthwhile and engaging messaging.

Worthwhile

Discounts, deals, and buyer-related information are the number one reason people sign up for emails. This aligns perfectly with David Ogilvy’s summation that, more than anything, people care about saving money.

However, be careful as to use these motivations as a means to take advantage of your customers. As evidenced in the opening, many brands essentially hold their customers ransom with discounts and deals.

In other words, they follow the formula of “if you perform [x], we’ll allow you to save [y].”

Could it also be possible that “performing [x]” aligns with a buyer’s interests while also appealing to their motivation to save money? Sure. But be careful, as there’s a very thin line in appealing to a customer’s motivation and holding them ransom.

Engaging

Chances are a sizeable portion—if not the majority—of your email list is not made up of customers, but prospects—prospects who are not yet ready to buy, but would benefit from educational materials that pertain to their specific needs and challenges.

Here’s where the intelligence you’ve gathered about your prospects—and the subsequent segmentation—come into play in order to deliver the right content to the right people. The “spray and pray” approach is not only less effective, it’s also less valuable to your subscribers.

You may find yourself sending multiple variations of an email, thus spreading your reach across several emails rather than one, in order to achieve this, but you may also find yourself with higher engagement as a result.

Email spam redefined

Your subscribers don’t think in terms of algorithms, they think in terms of relevance.

While ISP algorithms and content filtering are a critical component of ensuring your emails even make it to the inbox, your sender reputation and level of subscriber engagement are even more important when it comes to optimizing for the inbox.

It’s time marketers redefined how they define email spam, because their customers and prospects already have.

GET THE LATEST DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Want to get more tips and advice like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest content for email marketing pros delivered straight to your inbox.

The post The Evolution of Email Spam: Here’s How Your Customers Now Define It appeared first on Litmus Blog.

Everyone likes to feel special: your customers included. Segmentation and personalization in email make the message more relevant and, ultimately, more effective. Plus, personalization can make your brand stand out in a vast sea of competitors.

Imagine you have a conversation with two different new acquaintances, and one remembers a detail you mentioned in your first chat. Wouldn’t your conversation (and relationship) with the person who made the interaction specific to you stand out more? The data and opinions of email marketers seem to think so. Litmus research shows that brands that use dynamic content to personalize their emails see an ROI that’s 22% higher than the ROI of brands that rarely or never utilize dynamic content.

That’s all great, but how do you actually put personalization into practice? We surveyed nearly 2,000 marketers about what data points they use to personalize their emails. Here’s what they said.

What kind of personalization do marketers use?

There are many ways to segment and personalize your emails, and marketers aren’t afraid to use multiple tactics throughout the year. Based on the data in the chart above, it isn’t uncommon for email marketers to have used nearly four different tactics.

Simpler personalization tactics, such as a user’s name, are easy to include in all of your newsletters and transactional emails. Other tactics, like customer status and geolocation, could be particularly useful for specific campaigns or seasons.

Using the recipient’s name is most popular

Let’s start with the reigning champ in email personalization. A whopping 89% of email marketers stated that they use either a person’s name or company name in their emails. This tactic is widely used for a few reasons. First, it’s the easiest data to gather and implement. After all, even the shortest sign-up forms usually require a first name. Also, “first_name” is easy to slap onto any email.

There’s no denying using a person’s name in an email is easy and near-ubiquitous, but the question that remains is whether or not it’s enough. These days, the answer is no. The fact that most companies do it means it’s almost expected, and therefore shouldn’t be the extent of your personalization strategy.

Takeaway: Include the first name in your email? Yes. Have the first name as your core personalization strategy? No.

Segmentation based on behavior 

If relevancy is the reason personalized emails work, then it makes sense that so many email marketers segment their list and customize emails based on customer behavior.

Tied for the most popular behavior-based personalization technique is a subscriber’s past interactions with emails, used by 34% of email marketers. This data is handy for personalizing newsletters, onboarding, or engagement emails.

34% of email marketers also use data about past purchases to personalize emails. Knowing what a customer has bought in the past empowers you to suggest related items or upsells. Additionally, 14% of email marketers use data about what the subscriber owns, which can also be used for targeted sales emails.

A perfect example of using a customer’s past shopping behavior email is the message below from Chewy. The email knows exactly what the subscriber purchased in the past and makes it easy to order it again. Plus, Chewy recommends associated items.

Following close behind in popularity is subscribers’ past interactions with your company’s products or services, with 29% of marketers using this data. Additionally, 27% of marketers personalize emails based on past interactions with the company’s website. Someone visited your pricing page, checked out specific product deals, or left an item in their shopping cart? Those are great insights to power targeted, personalized follow-up emails. Mobile app interactions, on the other hand, are only used as a data source by 7% of marketers. All of these tactics are prime examples of how to boost the performance of your abandoned cart or re-engagement campaigns.

Takeaway: Tracking past purchases and interactions helps you send the most appropriate information or products.

Customer info (along with third-party data) makes emails unique

The other category of email personalization that our data uncovered is using customer information and preferences.

Nearly half of email marketers use customer status to personalize emails. Each company can have different customer status designations, but examples include prospect vs. customer or seasonal shopper vs. year-round shopper.

In fact, here at Litmus we personalize emails based on customer segments. The example emails below introduce the new, redesigned Litmus. Can you spot the differences? For one, this first email for prospects has the CTA “Start your trial”:

Plus and Pro Plan customers, on the other hand, received this email with the CTA “Try the new Litmus”:

39% of marketers consider geolocation in their emails, which can mean changes in language, copy, and offerings. Tools like Litmus Email Analytics that track geolocation help you send emails at the best time for a recipient’s timezone. An additional 11% of marketers use gender, race, or ethnicity to make emails more customized, and 7% use third-party data about a subscriber.

You can also learn about users the old-fashioned way by simply asking their preferences. Just over a quarter of email marketers use expressed preferences via a preference center, profile, or account. If you need inspiration for how to ask user preferences, look no further than the email from Bespoke Post below.

Takeaway: Information about a customer’s location and what preferences they’ve selected help you send a user what they need at the right time of day.

Email segmentation and personalization take messages that could be generic and turn them into ultra-targeted sales machines. The simplest place to start is by adding subscribers’ names, but don’t let that be the end of your strategy. Ask subscribers for their preferences and take advantage of customer behavior and insights to make their email experience as bespoke as possible.

If you’re ready to level-up your personalization, you’ll want to check out our webinar with Really Good Emails, The Secrets to Really Good Email Personalization. 

Want to learn more about how fellow email marketers work and the trends shaping email marketing today? Download the 2019 State of Email report here.

The post More Than a Name: 13 Ways Marketers Personalize Emails appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

If you work in email marketing, you know that getting a great email out the door isn’t easy. From copywriting to designing, coding, getting feedback from your team, and analyzing results post-send, the process involves a multitude of steps and stakeholders. Keeping on top of all of this can feel like an impossible task.

So how can you keep your sanity in the email production process—all while making sure that every email you send is set up to drive the best possible results? 

There’s one secret to keeping the moving pieces together to shape a well-oiled email marketing machine: It’s building a bulletproof workflow with seamless cross-team collaboration. We teamed up with our friends at Trello to bring everything we’ve learned about the perfect email process into a Trello template that you can copy and make your own—and, ultimately, make your email workflow more seamless.

Get the template →

You’ll see the email workflow template is organized by columns that represent different steps of the email workflow. As you work on a campaign, your project will move from the left (New Requests) all the way to the right to the Sent and Reporting stages. Let’s look at each step of the process in more detail.

New Requests

This column is your place to collect campaign requests from your team, as well as your spot to keep track of all the projects you’d like to tackle. Think of it as the email team’s backlog of ideas and to-dos.

Manage campaign requests + improve collaboration with forms

If your team sends campaigns for a lot of different teams and stakeholders, it can be hard to stay on top of requests. Using a form as a one-stop shop to manage requests helps you streamline the process and makes it easier to gather key info about the goal, timing, and audience of each campaign.

In this template, we’re using the Typeform power-up to collect email requests and pipe key information directly into the New Requests column of our Trello board. It automatically generates a table with key facts about the campaign:

We picked Typeform for this example, but feel free to use your favorite survey tool to handle requests.

Once you’ve reviewed a new request (and gotten answers to any questions you might have) you can move the campaign to the next step of the workflow.

Accepted/Queued

Once you’ve gathered all crucial information about the goals and details of a campaign, you can move it into the Accepted column. Once a campaign makes it to this step of the workflow, we give it a due date. We recommend setting your send date (or go live date for triggered or transactional emails) as a due date. Why? If you’re using the Calendar power-up, you can see all upcoming (and past) campaigns in a single calendar view. Creating an email calendar has never been easier!

Use labels to keep track of the different types of campaigns you’re sending

If you’re sending a lot of different types of emails—you might be serving different customer groups, departments, or products—labels can be a powerful way to stay on top of what campaigns are serving which business purpose. Customize your labels to fit your team’s needs. 

Here at Litmus, we’re looking to strike a balance between content promotions and product updates, and Trello’s labels make it easy for us to spot if one week is overly heavy on one or the other.

In Progress

Once your team starts working on the campaign, it moves to the In Progress column.

Here’s where you keep track of all the tasks that need to get done to create a campaign. In this example, we split up tasks into copywriting, design, development, and testing/QA. Choose a logic that works for your team.

You can also use Trello to keep track of all documents, links, and files that belong to each campaign. For example, you can attach a Google Doc with your email brief or your email copy (there’s a power-up to help with that), include a link to a live preview of your email, or attach your email HTML.

Create a checklist to ensure your email is optimized and you catch errors before you send

From emails not rendering correctly to broken links and images that just won’t load, there’s a lot that can go wrong with an email—and each mistake will impact your campaign’s performance. That’s why thoroughly QA’ing your emails is crucial, and a checklist can help with that.

Going through a comprehensive checklist takes time—but it’s crucial to ensure that each email you send is error-free. So never skip this step of the process. Our template includes the most important email QA checks, but feel free to add others that are specific to your team and your emails.

Are you’re looking to speed up this step of the email workflow? Tools like Litmus Checklist can help you automate the most time-consuming tasks and improve your email message delivery and effectiveness.

Catch issues before you send with Litmus Litmus Checklist gives you a guided check of the critical elements that impact email performance. Preview your email in popular apps and devices, validate that links, images, and tracking work, and create an incredible email experience every time. Learn more →

Waiting for Final Approvals

Now it’s time to get final feedback and sign-off from all stakeholders. Trello’s approval power-up lets you set reviewers for each project, making it easy for marketers to keep track of who has already signed off on a campaign and who hasn’t.

Do your reviewers have last-minute feedback on your campaign? You can keep track of feedback within Trello—just ask reviewers to comment on the card. Or, use Litmus Proof to allow all stakeholders to leave comments and suggestions directly on an email. With Litmus Proof it’s never been easier to speed up your approval process and increase collaboration.

Streamline your email review process with Litmus Proof With Proof as your centralized tool for collecting feedback, you can improve collaboration, get better visibility, and cut review cycles. Learn more →

 
Once your email is reviewed and approved, you can move it to the Ready to Send column. And once you’ve hit the send button, you’re good to move the campaign into Sent—a great way to keep track of all the emails your team has managed to get done.

Your work isn’t over once you hit send: Reporting

When your team is busy, your backlog full, and you’re struggling to meet the next deadline, it’s easy to forget about your email analytics. But the only way you can improve future campaigns is to take a close look at what works and what doesn’t. That’s why you must make email reporting a crucial part of your email workflow—and reminders in Trello can help you stay on top of your reporting tasks.

Need a reminder to finalize your monthly email reporting? You can use the Butler power-up to automatically set a recurring task. For example, set Butler to remind you of this task the first Monday of every month.

Need a place to collect email inspiration or keep track of important documents? You can do that in Trello, too.

On top of covering the key steps of your email workflow, you can also use your Trello board as a one-stop shop to collect ideas (you’ll see an Inspiration column in our template), or to keep track of any key documents like your email strategy, styleguide, internal email marketing best practices, and more. Do you need a place to keep track of your weekly meeting notes? A place to document the most helpful industry resources for your team? Thanks to Trello’s flexibility, you can do all of that. Just add additional columns as you see fit.

Make the template your own

Each email team is different, and each email team has their own, unique processes. This template is a great starting point to establish and document a workflow for your team. Customize it to reflect your team’s unique needs and start sending more effective emails.

Create your own email workflow in Trello →

Do you have any Trello power-user tips that help you streamline your email workflow? We’d love to hear them! Let us know in the comments below.

The post Supercharge Your Email Process & Improve Collaboration With Litmus’ Free Email Workflow Trello Template appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Here at Litmus, we may seem biased towards email testing, but it’s because we’ve seen what happens when a carefully crafted email goes off the rails in the final moments. Email mistakes are costly (and embarrassing), so you’d think marketers would do whatever they can to avoid them and protect their brands.

But when we surveyed nearly 2,000 marketers about their email testing routines, we were a bit surprised. That’s because a larger percentage of the email community than we expected is risking a bad email experience by not testing their emails every time.

The good news is that 57% of email teams test every time…

While we’d love to see 100% of marketers checking their emails every time, 57% is a solid start. Nearly six in ten email marketers understand that testing each email is like an insurance policy for all their hard work. Testing every email doesn’t have to be as time-consuming as it sounds, either. There are power user hacks that save you precious time when writing an email’s code.

… but that means 43% are risking a bad email experience.

If 57% of email teams are testing emails before every send, that means 43% aren’t. 21% of respondents said they occasionally test the emails they send, and 19% only test new and updated templates. The email marketers who only test sometimes may share some misconceptions we hear often. Some common email testing myths include thinking that as long as you work with a template, you can test it once and be done.

Unfortunately, every single time you send an email without testing, you risk a sub-par subscriber experience. Email client updates can happen as often as every two days, so an email that looked great yesterday might be broken today. Templates can speed up your workflow, but they aren’t a guarantee that every send will be perfect. Therefore, the 19% of email marketers who only test new templates may be taking on risk without realizing it. The other 21% who occasionally test may only do so before their most important campaigns. While it’s understandable to take an even finer-tooth comb to your most important sends, every customer deserves a great email experience year-round.

Some companies don’t test at all

3% of companies don’t test their emails at all. Teams who don’t do any email testing won’t catch issues—and risk sending broken campaigns that can be damaging to their brand.

The good news: it’s never too late to start email testing. If you’re part of the 3% that never tests, let’s begin today. Not sure how? Let’s look at how your peers test their emails.

Most marketers use special tools, like Litmus Email Previews

Of all the third-party testing tools used, Litmus was the most popular among respondents. 59% of email marketers shared that they use Litmus Email Previews to preview their campaigns across email clients before hitting send.

The data also shows that email marketers aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and make their own solution. 58% of respondents test their emails by sending emails to fellow employees. 26% take it a step further and set up email accounts at a variety of inbox providers and have several devices on hand on which to test rendering and functionality. While this works, manually testing your emails can be cumbersome. If you’re spending a lot of time sending and checking test emails, consider using a tool like Litmus to automate the process while covering a broader range of email clients than you can handle with manual testing.

Say goodbye to manual rendering testing See screenshots of your emails across 90+ apps and devices to ensure compatibility in all environments with Litmus Email Previews. Test your emails →

Ready to give your email program the investment it needs?

Are you ready to get your team the resources they need to run a flawless email program and help them test their emails before every send? Litmus is here to help. Reach out to one of our email specialists at Litmus and learn how Litmus can help you streamline your email workflow so you can get better emails out the door, faster.

Talk to an expert →

The post The Email Risk That 43% of Companies Are Taking appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

“Oh, I’ll just make this one little tweak before we send…” Nope. No. Don’t do it.

It may be tempting to make a small change to an email after it’s been approved and tested. Perhaps you want to tweak an image, add another section, or update a link. While it may seem harmless to make these small, last-minute changes, they can trigger a negative chain reaction.

Email apps change all the time—and all of the constantly moving variables mean that even the tiniest update can lead to deliverability or rendering errors. If you’ve ever been tempted to make a last-minute change, though, you aren’t alone.

Our 2019 State of Email Workflows report uncovered how close a lot of email marketers are flying to the sun.  

Making last-minute email changes is common

When done well, email marketing can have a “pinch me” level ROI. The drive to deliver a great experience to customers and reach the average return on investment of $42 to $1 means that email marketers are committed to perfection.

So much so that 72% of email marketers in 2019 said they make last-minute changes to an email at least sometimes.

That breaks down to 8% always making changes, 26% often editing after approval, and 38% sometimes sneaking in a tweak. These numbers prove it’s really common to change an email after it’s been approved by all stakeholders—and that’s a problem. Here’s why: 

Post-approval edits lead to costly errors

Those quick last-minute changes often happen when a deadline comes up. You might update that link or swap out that image under time pressure and skip another round of QA to ensure you hit the deadline. That’s when errors sneak in.

Whenever you make a change to your email—no matter how small—it’s crucial to re-test your email to ensure it looks great and works as intended. You should never skip that step of the process.

But why is there even a need for last-minute changes after your team has already signed off on the email?

A well-functioning review process should help you collect feedback from stakeholders, catch any errors, and give you confidence that your email is nothing but perfect. So, if you’re among the marketers who frequently make changes to an email after it’s been approved, that’s a telling sign that your review and approval workflow wasn’t effective in the first place.

Improve your review process and cut the need for last-minute updates

If email testing is essential—and our community knows it is—then what could cause all of these post-approval changes? A burdensome approval process could be to blame. Scattered or contradicting feedback, too many cooks in the kitchen, or an unclear process can lead to edits slipping through the cracks. A drawn-out process may also leave you wanting to bypass the normal checkpoints when the change seems small or insignificant.

If you find yourself making changes to an email after it’s approved, it’s time to assess the situation. First, look at what changes you’re making. Is there a point in the process where the edit should have been caught and updated?

Plus, consider these tips for a more streamlined approval process:

• Have two to three team members review each campaign
  The need for two or three people to sign off on an email appears to be the sweet spot for a balanced, appropriate email approval process. If more people are involved, marketers say the approval process becomes cumbersome. If only one person is involved, it becomes too lax.
• Collect and manage feedback in a single place
  If you’re among those marketers who receive feedback verbally or through a multitude of channels, make it a priority to improve that process. The more scattered feedback is, the more likely it is that errors will happen and mistakes will slip through. Figure out how to centralize feedback to keep everything in one place, keep projects moving, and avoid errors. Tools like Litmus Proof can help.
• Give reviewers enough time to review and approve emails
  If your reviewers feel rushed, it’s likely that they don’t take as close of a look as they should, making it more likely that mistakes get missed. When planning your campaigns, slot in enough time for a thorough review process.

Streamline your email review process and stop last-minute changes in their tracks with Litmus Proof

Say goodbye to juggling feedback from different communication channels. Share feedback, consolidate conversations, and resolve questions in a single, centralized application with Litmus Proof.

Learn more about Litmus Proof →

The post The Dangers of Last-Minute Changes to Emails (and How to Avoid Them) appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Earlier this year, we identified animation as one of the top email design trends for 2019. Email marketers everywhere are looking to create dynamic, engaging emails with the help of animations—whether that’s through the use of animated GIFs or code-driven CSS animations.

But to truly take advantage of the power of animations, you have to use them the right way, said Evan Diaz from Lucky Red Pixel in his talk at Litmus Live Boston this year. Unfortunately, marketers don’t always do that. If you’re considering adding animations to your next campaign, make sure you don’t fall for these common mistakes:

1. Animations are too distracting

In most cases, animations are thought to enhance your email design to make it more appealing. But it’s surprisingly easy to cross the line from a helpful animation to one that distracts from your email’s goal and is annoying for your subscribers.

An animation that’s done well should grab your reader’s attention, but also allow them to let go and move on to what you really want them to do: reading the content or clicking a CTA. Using too many animations in one email—or using one that’s too flashy or too prominent—might catch your reader’s eye, but it won’t help make your emails more effective.

Learn the simple tricks to helpful animations →

2. Image files are too large (and take too long to load)

Animated GIFs are prone to excessive file sizes. In an increasingly mobile world, file size can play an important part in any email program. Extremely large GIFs cut into subscribers’ data plans and can be slow to load and play—both of which are frustrations that no subscriber should have to deal with.

Keep your image file sizes between 1MB and 3MB to ensure your animations load quickly and don’t use too much data. How do you do that, you ask? Watch Evan’s talk to learn how you can reduce file sizes for your animated GIFs.

3. Animations bloat up production time (and budgets)

Animations take longer to produce than simple imagery. The more complex your animation is, the more it will impact your production times—and your budget, too. Set realistic expectations with your team when you map out design work for a campaign that includes animations.

Is an advanced animation that takes days of design work for a single email really worth the extra effort? Less is often more, especially when you’re just starting to use animations in your campaigns. Adding subtle animation with a few frames using existing imagery as a base can be just as powerful as brand new, fancy animations your team needs to create from scratch. Start with that.

Check out Evan’s talk to see some great examples of animations that make an impact without eating up your design resources.

Avoid the biggest mistakes and master the art of animation in email

But how do you create animations that support your email’s goal and delight your subscribers—all while keeping file sizes low and production times short?

Watch Evan’s full Litmus Live talk and learn how to master the art of animation in email marketing.

Join us at Litmus Live and bring your email marketing to the next level Did you enjoy this talk? Litmus Live is even better in person. Join us and learn email strategy, design, and development from the world’s leading email marketers. Get your ticket →

The post Animation in Email: 3 Mistakes You Shouldn’t Fall For appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Animated imagery is one of the top email design trends for 2019. Email marketers everywhere are looking to add movement to their campaigns—and the most popular way of doing that is by using the power of animated GIFs.

But animated GIFs aren’t the only file type that allows you to add movement to imagery. Animated Portable Network Graphics—or APNGs—are an option you might want to explore, too.

Reasons to use APNGs in email

An animated PNG is exactly what the name suggests: a collection of PNGs that are combined to introduce movement. So to understand what makes an APNG special, it’s key to understand the characteristics of a simple PNG.

There are two types of PNG formats: PNG-8 and PNG-24. The PNG-8 format is similar to GIFs in that they are saved with 256 colors maximum. The PNG-24 format is able to display millions of colors. So compared to the limited colors of a GIF that often give animations a low-quality look, APNGs let you use the full range of color depths. That gives your images a crisper look—especially when you’re using photography with a broad range of colors—but higher quality always comes at a cost. If you don’t carefully watch your file sizes, PNGs can become quite large. If you’re using many of them to create an APNG, the large file sizes can negatively impact your email loading times.

Plus, in contrast to GIFs, APNGs allow you to work with transparency. GIFs handle transparently poorly, applying a rough white edge around elements when set on a transparent background:

Why would you want to use an animation over a transparent background, you ask? 

Transparency and animations in Email: APNGs in Litmus’ October newsletter

For our Halloween-themed October newsletter this year, we wanted to give our readers the opportunity to “switch off the lights,” changing the email from a bright design to a dark and spooky one. Plus, for extra spookiness, we decided to include some animation to make scary eyes blink in the dark, ghosts hover and goo ooze—but only when the lights are turned off.

To hide the animations in the bright version of the email, we designed them in the very same color as the background they were placed on in the bright version. When a subscriber “switched the lights off,” those background colors changed and—surprise—made our spooky animations visible!

For this trick to work, the animations had to live on a transparent background—and that’s exactly why using GIFs wasn’t an option for us. Had we used a GIF, you’d see those white edges around our illustrations, which would have looked messy and exposed our hidden graphics when the lights were on. Animated PNGs, on the other hand, handle the challenge of transparency perfectly.

We considered an alternative tactic to address this issue by animating a sprite-sheet of PNGs using CSS animation keyframing. But in the context of this project, the amount of CSS involved for each graphic would have resulted in an email that was too code-heavy. And even more significantly, email client support for animated PNGs has actually overtaken support for CSS animation in recent years.

Email client support for APNGs

Many popular email clients offer full support for APNGs. The most troublesome exceptions are Gmail (both the webmail client and mobile apps), Outlook.com, and Outlook on Windows. These email clients only show the first frame of the animation.

Animated PNGs are fully supported in:

• Apple Mail
• iOS
• Samsung Mail
• Outlook (MacOS)
• Outlook.com
• Outlook.com app
• AOL
• AOL app
• Yahoo
• Yahoo app

Only the first frame shows in:

• Gmail
• Gmail app
• Outlook (Windows)

How to create animated PNGs for your email campaigns

It isn’t currently possible to save animations out as APNGs from software such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Animate, so you’ll need additional tools to create your animations. Here’s how we created the animated PNGs for our newsletter:

1. Create your animation in Adobe CC and save each frame as a PNG

We use Adobe Animate to create our animations—no matter if it’s a GIF or an APNG. The difference, though, is Adobe Animate doesn’t offer a native option to export an APNG file. Instead, you’ll have to export each frame as a single PNG. After creating your animation, go to Export > Export Movie and select “PNG Sequence” from the dropdown menu.

The process in Photoshop is very similar. Go to File > Export > Render Video. In the Render Video pane, select “Photoshop Image Sequence” from the dropdown and choose PNG as the format. You need to take one more step to ensure that your pngs are transparent: in the Render Options box select “Straight – Unmatted” from the “Alpha Channel” dropdown. Once you’ve selected where you would like to save your images, hit the Render button.

2. Combine your individual PNGs into an APNG

Now it’s time to assemble your individual image files into an APNG! 

PNG animator is a great piece of software that you can purchase for a small price from the Apple App Store if you’re an OS user. A free alternative is the Animated PNG maker from ezgif.com which offers similar functionality.

We chose to use the online tool to complete our files. Here we were able to exclude any frames that weren’t required in the final file and set the amount of time each frame required.

3. Optimizing APNG file size for use in emails

Like GIFs, APNGs can quickly become quite weighty. Reducing colors and the number of frames used will help keep file sizes low. The standard zlib compression seemed to be the only option that worked for our files, and once we hit the Make APNG! button, we could see an example of our animation and its file size before downloading. This is a great chance to make further changes—such as altering the speed or removing a few more frames—before downloading.

Before uploading our image files for use within our email, we were able to compress them a little more. We simply ran our APNGs through TinyPNG, which decreases file sizes by stripping metadata and reducing colors, all while preserving transparency and animation. It made a huge difference, reducing our total image file size from 943kb to 243kb, saving over 74% in file size! Not every PNG compression tool will preserve animation, though, so make sure to double-check your work after your images are processed.

And that’s it! Now you’re ready to add an APNG to your email, just like you would work with any other image type. If you’d like to see our full newsletter in action, you can view it here or check out the code in Litmus Builder.

What’s your take on using APNGs in email?

Have you ever used animated PNGs in your email campaigns? What are the tools you rely on to create them—and keep file size low? We’d love to hear about your experience. Share your learnings in the comments below.

The post Animated PNGs in Email: An Alternative to GIFs? appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Dark Mode. The tech industry is buzzing with these two words, and email marketing is no exception. Last year, Apple added Dark Mode to its desktop email client. In 2019, Dark Mode came to iOS Mail and other industry heavyweights, including Gmail, announced support for Dark Mode. There’s no denying Dark Mode is taking over the inbox—and making sure emails look great in this reading environment is the new big challenge for email marketers.

In this post, we break down what email clients offer Dark Mode, how each client’s Dark Mode settings impact your email designs, and what you can do to improve your emails for subscribers that read in Dark Mode.

Ready to dive in? Let’s recap the basics.

Dark Mode: A Darker Color Palette for Low-Light or Nighttime Environments

Dark Mode is a reversed color scheme that utilizes light-colored typography, UI elements, and iconography on dark backgrounds—and it’s one of the hottest digital design trends in the past year. From Apple’s OS to apps like Twitter, Slack, or Facebook Messenger, most popular operating systems and apps now allow users to switch to Dark Mode. Dark Mode is a hot topic—and there’s good reason. Many users prefer Dark Mode because:

• It’s easier on the eyes. Light text on a dark background is much better for minimizing eye strain, especially in low-light situations.
• It reduces screen brightness, saving your battery life.
• It can improve content legibility and can make it easier for some users to consume content on desktop and mobile.
• They may simply have a preference for darker interfaces.

With Dark Mode popularity growing, it’s no surprise that it’s coming to the inbox, too.

What email clients support Dark Mode?

These clients and apps currently offer Dark Mode—either as a setting that the user can set manually or by automatically detecting the user’s preferred color scheme:

Mobile Apps

• Gmail App (Android)
• Gmail App (iOS)
• Outlook App (Android)
• Outlook App (iOS)

Desktop Clients

• Apple Mail
• Outlook 2019 (Mac OS)
• Outlook 2019 (Windows)

Web Clients

• Outlook.com

But just because all these email clients offer a way to set their UI to a dark color scheme, that doesn’t mean that they handle your emails the same ways. Email rendering is complex. An email that looks great in one client might look broken in another. Now, Dark Mode is adding another layer of complexity. In fact, there’s various ways a Dark Mode email client might deal with your code.

How are clients applying Dark Mode to my emails?

At the moment, there appear to be three fundamentally different types of color schemes that email clients use to apply Dark Mode to emails. Let’s look at them one by one (or jump straight to the Dark Mode Email Client Support Chart.)

No color changes

Yes, you read right. Some email clients let you change their UI to Dark Mode, but that doesn’t have any impact on how your HTML email is rendered. Whether the app is set to Light or Dark Mode, your email will look exactly the same. Email clients like iOS and Apple Mail always render your Light Mode designs by default (unless you specifically add code to trigger Dark Mode).

Check out this email example in Apple Mail: The design of the email stays exactly the same, no matter if you view it in the dark or light email client UI:

There’s an exception though: plain-text emails do trigger the application of a Dark Mode theme, and the minimum code that blocks Dark Mode from applying to a plain-text email is a 2×1 image—this is to ensure that you can include a 1×1 tracking pixel while retaining a “plain-text”-like feel.

Partial Color Invert

This Dark Mode theming only detects areas with light backgrounds and inverts them so the light backgrounds are dark, while the dark text becomes light. It generally leaves areas that already have dark backgrounds alone, resulting in a fully Dark Mode design. Fortunately, most email clients that use this method also support Dark Mode targeting, so you can override the client-default dark theme.

Outlook.com is an email client that partially inverts colors, like you can see in this screenshot:

Full Color Invert

This is the most invasive color scheme: it not only inverts the areas with light backgrounds, but impacts dark backgrounds as well. So if you already designed your emails to have a dark theme, this scheme will ironically force them to become light. Unfortunately, this is currently the tactic used by some of the more popular email clients, such as Gmail app (iOS13) and Outlook 2019 (Windows).

In the screenshot below from Outlook 2019 (Windows), you can see the white backgrounds have been converted to a dark gray and areas that previously had a dark blue background with light text are now light blue with dark text.

Not only does this Full Color Invert scheme most radically change your email, but the email clients that use this logic also don’t allow Dark Mode targeting at the moment. Email clients are still figuring out how to best implement Dark Mode and may be open to feedback from users—especially since not allowing developers to target Dark Mode with their own styles can have a negative impact on legibility and accessibility.

In the interest of advocating for better Dark Mode targeting support and less invasive Dark Mode theming logic, you can communicate your thoughts directly to Gmail’s Accessibility team, and you can also contribute your screenshots of Gmail’s Dark Mode breaking your email.

So what email client follows what color scheme? We’ve tested the Dark Mode settings in the following email clients to see how they impact a regular email that doesn’t include any Dark Mode-specific targeting. Here’s what we found:

Dark Mode Email Client Support Chart (As of November 2019)

How do I target Dark Mode users with my own styles?

Now we know how popular email clients in Dark Mode handle your regular HTML emails. But what if you’d like to apply your own Dark Mode styles that could very well differ from email clients’ default color schemes? Here are two methods you can use:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark)

This method works in very much the same way as applying a block of styles inside a @media query for your Mobile Responsive view, except this CSS block targets any user interface that’s set to Dark Mode.

[data-ogsc] and/or [data-ogsb]

This is a method first brought to our attention by Mark Robbins to target Outlook app. While it seems like a pretty narrow market share, it’s relatively easy to simply duplicate the @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) styles you already applied and simply add the appropriate [data-ogsc] and/or [data-ogsb] prefixes to each CSS rule.

But—and there’s always a “but” in email—there’s no consistent support for these targeting methods either. 

Dark Mode Targeting: Email Client Support Table

Email Client	@media	[data-ogsc] and/or [data-ogsb]
Gmail App (Android)
Gmail App (iOS)
Outlook (Android)
Outlook (iOS)
iOS Mail
Apple Mail
Outlook 2019 (MacOS)
Outlook 2019 (Windows)
Outlook.com		Partial

While some email clients—we’re looking at you Gmail—offer email designers no opportunities to target Dark Mode to optimize the reading experience, most clients can be targeted with one of these methods.

When you’re applying these styles to your emails for use across email clients, keep these things in mind:

1. Optimize your logos and other images for all styles

Add a translucent outline to transparent PNGs with dark text for legibility in email clients where Dark Mode can’t be targeted, like Gmail App and Outlook 2019 (Windows). This will help prevent any issues where the email client might decide to use either the Partial Color Invert or Full Color Invert settings—and make things easier on the eyes for your subscribers. Opting for transparent backgrounds wherever possible will help with this.

If your images are not transparent and include backgrounds, make sure there is enough padding around your focal point to avoid an awkward juxtaposition.

Plus, swap Light Mode and Dark Mode images with the @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) and [data-ogsc] methods described in this guide.

2. Enable Dark Mode in email client user agents

By including this metadata in your <head> tag, you can ensure that Dark Mode is enabled in your email for subscribers that have Dark Mode turned on:

<meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark">
<meta name="supported-color-schemes" content="light dark">

To support that metadata, you’ll need to add this CSS as well:

<style type="text/css">
:root {
    color-scheme: light dark;
    supported-color-schemes: light dark;
  }
</style>

3. Add Dark Mode styles for  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark)

Add this media query in your embedded <style></style> section for custom dark mode styles in iOS, Apple Mail, Outlook.com, Outlook 2019 (MacOS), and Outlook App (iOS).

The .dark-img and .light-img classes are particularly useful for showing a dark mode-specific logo if having an outlined logo isn’t ideal.

Example CSS:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark ) {
  /* Shows Dark Mode-Only Content, Like Images */
  .dark-img { display:block !important; width: auto !important; overflow: visible !important; float: none !important; max-height:inherit !important; max-width:inherit !important; line-height: auto !important; margin-top:0px !important; visibility:inherit !important; }
  
  /* Hides Light Mode-Only Content, Like Images */
  .light-img { display:none; display:none !important; }
  
  /* Custom Dark Mode Background Color */
  .darkmode { background-color: #272623 !important; }
  
  /* Custom Dark Mode Font Colors */
  h1, h2, p, span, a, b { color: #ffffff !important; }
  
  /* Custom Dark Mode Text Link Color */
  .link { color: #91ADD4 !important; }
}

4. Duplicate Dark Mode styles with [data-ogsc] and/or [data-ogsb] prefix

Add this styling for support in Outlook app (Android).

Example CSS:

/* Shows Dark Mode-Only Content, Like Images */
[data-ogsc] .dark-img { display:block !important; width: auto !important; overflow: visible !important; float: none !important; max-height:inherit !important; max-width:inherit !important; line-height: auto !important; margin-top:0px !important; visibility:inherit !important; }

/* Hides Light Mode-Only Content, Like Images */
[data-ogsc] .light-img { display:none; display:none !important; }

/* Custom Dark Mode Background Color */
[data-ogsc] .darkmode { background-color: #272623 !important; }

/* Custom Dark Mode Font Colors */
[data-ogsc] h1, [data-ogsc] h2, [data-ogsc] p, [data-ogsc] span, [data-ogsc] a, [data-ogsc] b { color: #ffffff !important; }

/* Custom Dark Mode Text Link Color */
[data-ogsc] .link { color: #91ADD4 !important; }

5. Apply your Dark Mode-Only styles to your body HTML

Make sure all of your HTML tags have the appropriate Dark Mode classes inserted. Here is an example of the .dark-img and .light-img classes as they appear in our Light Mode vs. Dark Mode logos.

Example HTML:

<!-- start HEADER_LOGO -->
<a href="http://litmus.com/" target="_blank">

    <img class="light-img" src="https://campaigns.litmus.com/_email/_global/images/logo_icon-name-black.png" width="163" height="60" alt="Litmus" style="color: #33373E; font-family:'proxima_nova', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size:36px; line-height:40px; text-decoration: none; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0;" border="0" />

    <!-- The following Dark Mode logo image is hidden 
    with MSO conditional code and inline CSS, but will be         
    revealed once Dark Mode is triggered -->

    <!--[if !mso]><! --><div class="dark-img" style="display:none; overflow:hidden; float:left; width:0px; max-height:0px; max-width:0px; line-height:0px; visibility:hidden;" align="center">
          <img src="https://campaigns.litmus.com/_email/_global/images/logo_icon-name-white.png" width="163" height="60" alt="Litmus" style="color: #ffffff; font-family:'proxima_nova', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size:36px; line-height:40px; text-decoration: none; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0;" border="0" />
    </div><!--<![endif]-->

</a>
<!-- end HEADER_LOGO -->

6. ABT: Always Be Testing!

As we always mention, email clients are constantly changing. Especially with a new feature like Dark Mode, tweaks to rendering logic are coming quickly and frequently. The only way to be on top of it all is to test every email with a tool like Litmus.

Respect User Preferences When it Comes to Dark Mode

One of the biggest benefits of dark mode is its assistance with reducing eye strain for users in low-light conditions or for other personal reasons. If your subscribers are making that conscious decision to view emails in dark mode, it’s best to respect that. Just like you’d want to add ALT text in case your users prefer to have images off by default, you should build emails that respect darker interfaces, too.

Ready to see what your emails will look like in Dark Mode? See how Apple Mail, iOS Mail, and Outlook 2019 render your emails in Dark Mode with Litmus Email Previews. Start testing →

The post The Ultimate Guide to Dark Mode for Email Marketers appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Marketing strategies, best practices, technologies, and channels seem to be changing all the time. Between new social media channels, evolving Google ranking factors, and continuously updating email clients, it’s enough to make a marketer’s head spin.

Among all the changes in marketing and the trends that come and go, there’s one channel that remains unique and powerful: email. There’s a lot to love about email (which we’ll dive into in a minute), but the biggest advantage of email marketing is the subscriber.

Why an email subscriber is more valuable than a social follow

We don’t mean to step on the toes of any social media marketers, but it’s time to shine a light on email subscribers. Email may often be seen as an old school channel, but the truth is, it pulls weight in the marketing arena that’s unmatched by other channels. Why? Because of the special relationship that email creates between a brand and a subscriber.

Given that it’s easier to build a personalized connection and track ROI with an email subscriber, we may even go so far as to say an email “subscribe” is more powerful than a social “like.”

Here’s why.

Email subscribers want to hear from you (even your promo)

If you’re doing email the right way—and we know you are—then email subscribers actively choose to hear from you. Unlike a paid social media ad or SEM, your email subscribers have opted-in to your marketing.

Luckily for email marketers, not only do email subscribers choose to hear from you, they’re also open to promotions. 60% of consumers subscribe to emails for promotional content, while only 20% prefer social media for promotions. Plus, 44% of consumers check their email for a deal from a company while only 4% go to Facebook.

All of these factors together mean that each time you send an email, it goes to someone who wants you in their inbox and is more open to sales-forward content. In contrast, paying to put ads in front of a cold audience is an uphill battle in establishing a connection.

Email communication is more personal

No matter what industry or niche you’re in, it’s likely that your customers have options. One way to stand out among competitors is to focus on building a personal relationship with customers. Luckily, email is much closer to a one-on-one conversation than a Facebook post. Email, when done right, can be more conversational and private. Plus, you have more options for fine-tuning the visuals to match your brand’s personality.

Subscribers can be reached, at scale, for less

For many advertising channels, reaching a larger audience means a significant increase in marketing spend. With email, you can create curated experiences for customers at scale without running through your marketing budget.

Sure, your email service provider might bill you based on email volume or list size, and you might opt for more sophisticated segmentation and more complex campaigns as your list grows—all of which impacts email production costs. But compared to other channels, the cost of scaling your email program to reach more subscribers is vanishingly small. Your spending doesn’t need to change much to reap the benefits of a larger audience, whether you’re sending to 100,000 or a million subscribers. That makes email the most effective channel to reach audiences at scale—and explains email’s insane ROI. The latest numbers show that marketers get back $42 for every $1 they spend on email.

Attributing engagement and ROI is easier

The level of detail you can get from your email metrics is unmatched by most other channels—and there’s true power in that data.

Most marketing channels like social media or paid advertising only allow you to understand campaign performance on the highest level. For example, you might see how many impressions your paid ad received or how many people clicked through your post on LinkedIn. Beyond that, visibility falls off quickly.

In email marketing, you can measure overall campaign performance—like open, click-through, and conversion rates—but an email address as a unique identifier also lets you get a glimpse into each subscriber’s behavior and preferences. For each subscriber who interacts with your messages, you can learn what content resonates the most, how long they engage with your email, and whether or not your email leads to a conversion. You can understand performance on an individual level.

No other channel makes attributing engagement and ROI easier.

You get insights that can improve the effectiveness of other channels

When you’re running paid ads or social campaigns, one of the common goals is to get those unknown prospects to sign up for your email list. Why? So you can nurture them and learn more about who they are and what they care about.

Your subscribers are essentially a representation of the new prospects you’re trying to reach. What is most engaging to them from your email program—whether it’s content, design, or call-to-action—is more likely to break through all the other marketing noise competing for the attention of your target audiences in other channels.

The insights you get from your email subscribers can have a major impact on the performance of your marketing mix. We did this at Litmus, taking a blog post that generated high engagement in an email and using that same post in a paid ad campaign. The result? We more than doubled our average click-through-rate on those ads.

Email subscribers are an important source of real-time information to help inform the content and messaging most relevant to your prospects.

Make the most of your most powerful marketing channel

Despite the new marketing channels that arise, email marketing stands the test of time as a powerful marketing tool. The one-on-one relationship with an email subscriber who has opted-in to hear from your company leads to high ROI and easy attribution.

Want to learn more about how to make the most of your most powerful marketing channel? Talk to a Litmus expert for one-on-one advice on how to supercharge your email marketing program.

Talk to an expert →

The post Understanding Your Most Valuable Marketing Channel: The Power of an Email Subscriber appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

Interactivity has been a top email design trend for a few years, and it’s easy to see why. Interactive elements make an email more accessible, and often, more fun and engaging. The concept takes a format that has long been a single, static message, and turns it into an entire experience within the inbox. Yet it isn’t actually a pervasive design or strategy.

We asked nearly 2,000 email marketers about their team’s use of interactive email design, and we’re a little surprised by the results.

Nearly half of marketers haven’t tried interactive design… and don’t plan to

The most common response to whether or not an email marketer has used interactivity was “No, and we don’t have any plans to try it anytime soon.” With 45% of responses, almost half of email marketers don’t have interactivity on their radar. On the other end of the spectrum, only 7% of marketers have used interactivity in the past, but don’t plan on continuing to implement interactive techniques in their email campaigns.

But regardless of the industry buzz around the topic, interactivity in email hasn’t reached the email marketing mainstream yet. Only 23% of marketers say they’ve used interactive elements in their emails. The large majority (77%) says they haven’t worked with interactive emails.

If interactive email design is a trend that catches marketers’ eyes—and companies that have tried it will typically use it again—what’s holding so many marketers back?

Interactivity may seem intimidating (or frivolous)

Coding an interactive email design may be intimidating. Email service provider support for different interactive elements has varied some over the past few years, which might make designers shy away from taking the time to implement interactivity. After all, there’s not much worse than your hard work going to waste.

We suspect that email marketers may also view interactivity as a tactic reserved for the biggest companies and “best” email developers. It doesn’t help that most of the current examples are from well-known companies. If an email marketer heads to Really Good Emails’ interactive email examples, they would see Xfinity, Taco Bell, Adidas, BBC, and more. If you look a bit closer at the examples from household names, like the one from the BBC below, you might notice that not all interactivity is overly intricate. This email doesn’t have a bunch of different effects or elements at play.

Another apprehension some email marketers may feel towards interactivity is that it’s a bit frivolous. In email games and quizzes, like Taco Bell’s holiday maze, there’s an undeniable fun element to them.

However, in the grand scheme of all the tasks an email marketing team needs to tackle, it might not seem worth it to learn a new skill for one email a year. Perhaps email interactivity will become more widespread when companies begin to use various elements in the emails they regularly send.

It’s understandable to be intimidated by a new, and seemingly fancy, skillset. The good news, though, is email interactivity doesn’t have to be scary—and it isn’t just for the biggest companies.

Where should curious email developers start?

32% of marketers haven’t use interactivity yet but plan on it. That means there’s a big group of email professionals gearing up to test a new skill. We also heard from 16% of marketers that they’ve used interactivity and will keep doing so.

If you’re an email marketer who’s been meaning to try an interactive design—or even someone who thought it might be out of reach—let’s break down some easy ways to get started.

The first place beginner interactive email developers should start is with hover effects. Adding a hover effect to an email element, such as a link or image, not only makes the email more engaging, but it also indicates clickability. You can also add hover effects to nearly every aspect of the email, from text to images to buttons.

Email accessibility is another top email trend, and for a good reason. An estimated 1.3 billion people live with visual impairment, and interactive elements such as high contrast switchers make sure every customer can enjoy your emails. 

For the July newsletter on accessibility, Litmus’ Principal Email Engineer, Alice Li, adapted Paul Airy’s accessibility switcher to create a fully interactive email. The newsletter, which you can interact with here, featured switchers and hover effects. If you want to try out these effects on your own emails, Alice teaches you how in this Litmus Community post.

Interactivity is commonplace on websites and apps, but this popular design trend isn’t yet widespread in email marketing. Some teams have experience with it, but there are still plenty who’ve yet to commit. If you’ve been putting off giving interactivity a try, you’re not alone. Here are some great resources to help you get started with using interactive elements in your emails:

• Learn how to add simple hover effects to your emails
• Get a step-by-step walkthrough of how to build an interactive quiz in email
• Learn how to fight limited support for interactivity using fallbacks 
• See how we used an accessibility switcher in one of our newsletters

The post Interactive emails are a top trend, but is anyone using them? appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

With the year 2020 within reach, we’re about to enter a new decade of email design. But which visual design trends will shape the look of emails in the 2020s?

Trends that dominated designs in 2019 will still be popular in the coming year. We’ll continue to see vibrant colors, bold typography, and off-grid designs. But new trends in digital design will make their way into the email design world over the coming months. 

Here are 10 email design trends that will hit your inboxes in 2020.

1. More image depth with 3D imagery

Big brands are embracing 3D to make imagery appear more realistic and intriguing. Compared to traditional flat imagery, 3D effects can help bring products or characters to life, make elements pop out of the composition, and highlight key messages. As 3D imagery can be considerably labor-intensive to create, it doesn’t often appear in email designs… yet. But when it does, it’s incredibly powerful. 

Designmodo, who offers a range of web and email resources, brings a little 3D to the hero of this Black Friday campaign, making their discount stand out:

2. Isometric Illustrations

The defining feature of an isometric drawing—and the one that sets it apart from 3D illustration—is that it’s built around equal 30-degree angles, ensuring that an image is not distorted. What makes isometric illustrations so popular is they combine a 3D feel with the simplicity of flat design. 

This approach to visual content can help convey more complexity than is possible in 2D form. Plus, exploded isometric images can really delve into the details by showing layers and displaying parts of a product or process that might otherwise be hidden.

Isometric drawings became increasingly popular on the web in 2019, and we expect more of them to hit our inboxes in 2020. Lyft shows just how effective this style is when used in email:

3. Futuristic design and imagery

Vivid colors and gradients, dark backgrounds, soft glows that depict light and movement, and otherworldly subject matter are key features of this evergreen trend. With little known about what we can expect to see in the future, it offers a great opportunity for designers to let their imagination run wild and an exciting and experimental way to create unique and engaging graphics. 

With futuristic styles considered one of the biggest graphic design trends in 2020, it’s likely that we’ll see this style make an impact on email design too. 

Dense Discovery already embraced this trend and led with a futuristic image in this newsletter: 

4. Retro Styles

We’ll not only be looking to the future in 2020, but to the past as well, taking influence from popular 20th century movements. 

With the Bauhaus movement celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2019, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen its linear lines, geometrical forms, and experimental compositions with broken grids regain popularity over the past months—and it will continue to influence email designs in 2020. 

At the same time, Swiss Design is making a comeback, with its typical use of large sans serif typography (think Helvetica!) becoming more popular than ever. 

The result: Email designs with a hint of a retro feel that still look modern—and simply beautiful—like this newsletter from Bugsnag. 

5. Organic Shapes

Although geometric shapes will remain popular, there’s also a shift towards more organic, fluid shapes that do without straight lines and symmetry. Designers often use organic shapes to soften a composition—they offer a way to break up content without harsh lines, and also work well as a background element.

Campaign Monitor uses organic shapes as a key design element for their product news campaign: 

6. Abstract Imagery, Typography, and Layouts

With off-grid and abstract design trending in email over the last year, brands have harnessed the power of compositions that stray from conventional formatting to help draw attention and keep subscribers engaged with their content. Going into 2020, we expect to see this style evolve, with abstractions becoming more extreme—bringing distortion to layouts, imagery, and animation. 

Taking abstractions to the extreme pushes the audience to try and make sense of the elements they are presented with. They force the eye and generate intrigue, which has a positive impact on engagement.

Abstract, a version control and collaboration app, distorts the typography of the hero image in this newsletter with a glitchy gif:

7. Bringing Animation to The Next Level

Animation was undeniably a top trend in 2019, and it looks set to be big in 2020, too. There are a number of ways in which we expect to see this trend evolve:

Animated PNGs (APNGs), which bring transparency and more colors to animation than the trusty GIF, are likely to gain more traction. With greater support across email clients than CSS animation—and the option to use a GIF fallback—APNG popularity is set to rise. Our October Newsletter featured a number of APNGs, allowing us to hide and show animations with the use of a switcher.

Micro interactions have made waves in the world of User Experience design for a number of years. Last year, we started to see them become a popular form of visual content within email and we expect this trend to continue. A micro interaction can be small like a prompt to swipe or tap, or an example of how a feature or process works. Digital companies often use this style of animation to highlight product launches and new features, helping customers to understand the process and benefits. 

Vimeo highlights accessibility updates to their embeddable player with this animated hero image:

Joyful animations have also made waves in the email world recently and will only become more popular in our inboxes as brands embrace this uplifting form of storytelling. With emails likely to become more simplified to help get key messages across quickly, designers will rely more on animation to add more dimension and—maybe most importantly—fun to their campaigns. Rifle Paper Co., a US gifts and stationery retailer, shows how effective joyful animations are when highlighting a single product:

8. Textured Illustration

Textured illustrations are a great way to add depth to 2D imagery. This salt and pepper style of applying texture to illustration has become popular in various areas of design—and 2020 might be the year for email designers to embrace it, too.

Custom illustrations were huge in 2019, with many brands including them in their email campaigns. As this trend evolves and marketers consider how to harness the power of illustrations while setting themselves apart from competitors, techniques like this are likely to become popular in 2020.

Magic Spoon uses the salt and pepper technique to add some depth to illustrative visual content:

9. Negative space

Many inboxes are bombarded with content, and marketers know that their audiences are too busy to consume content-heavy emails. So simplicity has become the secret to being heard. Minimalism in email design has been gaining ground over the last year. It’s an approach that strips everything nonessential in design and makes generous use of negative space.

A focus on basic content and design elements framed by generous amounts of white space help to make content digestible and easier to scan, giving the subscriber a clear understanding of the action they need to take. The power of minimalist design lies in the beauty of simplicity—and we expect more email designers to utilize this trend for their campaigns in 2020. 

Harry’s carefully consider the white space in this welcome email to help drive the subscriber to the website:

10. Dark designs

Darker designs are predicted to become popular in the coming months. Why? First, the rising popularity of Dark Mode. With more and more users opting into using dark color schemes as the default UI setting on their phones and computers, bright designs can lead to jarring experiences—and force designers to opt for darker background colors. But the rising popularity of dark designs may also be a reaction to the increased use of bold colors in 2019. In between all the bright colored campaigns we saw in 2019, dark designs stand out. 

Invision relied on a dark color scheme for this beautiful email. Expect to see more of that in 2020. 

The post 10 Email Design Trends Hitting Your Inbox in 2020 appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..

When it comes to email workflows, each team is unique—and so are the tools that help them get their campaigns out the door. Marketers can choose between hundreds of email service providers (ESPs) and dozens of code editors, localhosts, and task runners—and our research shows that many teams even use multiple of each of these tools. 

No matter which tools your team uses, we want to make sure that you can utilize Litmus to improve your campaigns and learn what content and tactics resonate best with your subscribers. That’s why Litmus is designed to work with any email tool, and to fit into your unique workflow.

Why connecting your marketing tools is the key to email success

We know that switching back and forth between tools can be a hassle. The more often you have to jump between different tools, the more time you lose—and the more likely it is for errors to creep in. When your marketing tools are connected, information seamlessly flows from one to the other so you can automate manual tasks, set your campaigns up for success, and make true improvements to your workflow. That’s why we’re set on a mission to integrate Litmus more seamlessly with your favorite email marketing tools. 

There is a whole set of integrations available with Litmus—each of them designed to automate manual steps that slow down your workflow and eliminate the risk of errors, so that your emails perform their best. Figure out which integrations can supercharge your team’s email workflow when we break them down one by one:

Stop copy and pasting your code from Litmus to your ESP with ESP Syncing

Getting your email from your code editor into your ESP has always been a hassle. And once your email is built, you need to get it from your ESP to your testing solution. It’s time to say goodbye to that manual copy and paste process.

With ESP Syncing, you can automatically sync your code from Litmus Builder to your ESP with a click of a button. Once connected, whenever you make any changes to your code in Builder, it automatically updates in your ESP, too. 

Once your email is complete and ready to test, use ESP Syncing to instantly begin testing your email across key spam filters to make sure it reaches the inbox and produces the best subscriber experience. 

WHO IS THIS FOR

This integration is for you if you use Litmus Builder to code and troubleshoot your emails and are looking for a way to eliminate the bothersome process of copy and pasting your code to your ESP. This integration is also for you if you’re looking for a more efficient way to import your emails from your ESP to Litmus for thorough pre-send testing.

SEE ESP SYNCING IN ACTION

AVAILABLE FOR THE FOLLOWING ESPs

If you’re on a Litmus Plus plan or above, you have access to ESP syncing with the following ESPs:

• Campaign Monitor
• Mailchimp

Litmus Enterprise plans come with access to ESP syncing for even more ESPs:

• Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)*
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly ExactTarget)
• Eloqua
• Marketo

* The Acoustic Campaign ESP Sync cannot currently be used for importing an email for testing.

Troubleshoot Your Emails Right Where You Build With the Litmus Extension

When you’re working with a local editor or your ESP’s email editor, email testing can be a cumbersome process. For example, you might build your email in your favorite code editor, then move it into Litmus for testing, and if you find an issue, the process starts all over again. That’s a lot of copying and pasting, and a lot of switching between tools. 

The Litmus Extension brings Litmus’ testing tools right into your favorite build environment. It’s a powerful Chrome extension that brings the power of Litmus Checklist and Email Previews wherever you build your emails. 

WHO IS THIS FOR

The Litmus Extension is for you if you use a local code editor (like Dreamweaver) or your ESP’s email editor to build your emails and are looking to bring the power of Litmus’ pre-send testing to your build environment.

SEE THE LITMUS EXTENSION IN ACTION

AVAILABLE FOR THE FOLLOWING TOOLS AND ESPS

The Litmus Extension is available on Litmus Plus plans and above. It works with all text editors, task runners, and localhosts, including:

• Dreamweaver
• Sublime Text
• Atom
• Coda
• Brackets
• Grunt
• Gulp
• Zurb’s Foundation for Emails
• MJML
• And really any editor you’re using!

Does your team use your ESP’s email editor to create emails? The Litmus Extension works with the following ESPs:

• Campaign Monitor
• Mailchimp

If you’re on a Litmus Enterprise plan, you can also use the Extension with the following ESPs:

• Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly ExactTarget)
• Eloqua
• Marketo
• Responsys

Plus, if you’re working with dynamic content in Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, or Responsys, the power of the Litmus Extension lets you test multiple variations of your content in a single click as you build.

Learn more about the Litmus Extension →

Use Litmus Email Previews inside your ESP

Litmus Email Previews are also integrated in hundreds of popular ESPs. While you won’t be able to use the full power of the Litmus Platform via these integrations—you typically only get Email Previews inside your ESP and can’t utilize the power of Litmus Checklist or Spam Testing for complete pre-send testing—it still is another great way to preview and test your emails right where you create them, without switching between your ESP and Litmus.

WHO IS THIS FOR

Litmus Email Preview integrations come in handy for everyone who’s looking to use the power of Litmus Email Previews within their ESP to compliment the full Litmus testing platform.

SEE EMAIL PREVIEWS INTEGRATIONS IN ACTION

Direct integrations of Litmus Email Previews look different depending on the ESP (so you’ll have to check with your ESP for details), but check out this example of the Email Previews Integration within Salesforce Marketing Cloud:

AVAILABLE FOR THE FOLLOWING ESPs

Popular ESPs with Litmus integrated right into their services include

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Eloqua
• Mailchimp
• Hubspot
• Adobe Marketing Cloud
• Pardot
• IBM Watson Campaign Automation
• Selligent
• And hundreds more!

Pricing and usage limits differ from ESP to ESP. Please check your ESP’s help documentation to find out if Litmus Email Previews are integrated in your ESP, and to learn more about the pricing. 

Don’t use one of these ESPs? Don’t worry! No matter which email technology you use, Litmus can seamlessly integrate into your workflow. You can use Litmus alongside any of your existing email tools to create better email, faster, and increase your overall marketing effectiveness.

Looking to get more out of your email marketing tech stack? We’re here to help.

If you’d like to learn more about how Litmus and our broad range of integrations can help you better connect your email marketing tech stack—and bring your team’s workflow to the next level—reach out to our Litmus experts. We’re here to help you get the most out of your email marketing. 

Talk to an expert →

The post Litmus Works Where You Work: Powerful Integrations with Your Favorite Email Tools appeared first on Litmus Software, Inc..