Mobile Email Performance for E-Commerce Brands

Marketers, are you still measuring email the old way? We get told email is dead, but everyone reading this has most likely read an email, logged in using it & made a purchase with it. So it's not dead, but how we judge its effectiveness hasn’t evolved fast. We’ve relied on open rates & click-through rates (CTR) — metrics that, frankly, are no longer fit for purpose. Why open rates are no longer reliable Open tracking depends on image loading, which Outlook often blocks, & Apple & Gmail preload by default. As a result, you might see machines open, not human ones. And proper visibility is vanishing with more “text-only” creatives or image-blocked environments. And CTR? It’s got its own problems Think about user intent. If a customer reads “50% off this weekend” in your subject line, they may just go straight to your site—no click needed. Even Gmail’s AI summarising content & extracting voucher codes means users engage without clicks. Email is quickly becoming a powerhouse for brand awareness, but it doesn't have the metrics to prove this. So, what should we look at? As the rest of adtech races toward incrementality, attention, and post-impression attribution, email needs to catch up. Here’s how: 1. Conversion Attribution (Beyond Last Click) Don't stop at click-based conversions. Track who received the email, & assign influence weightings to openers, clickers, & even non-clickers who later convert. This mirrors how display and social now assess "view-through" impact. 2. Frequency & Multi-Touch Engagement Did the recipient open on mobile in the morning, revisit via desktop, & convert on payday? That’s a multi-touch journey. Look at repeat site visits, device switching, & re-engagement post-send. 3. Pay Day or Trigger-Based Lift Create holdout groups and measure uplift around high-conversion moments (e.g., end-of-month). This mirrors the incrementality testing often used in paid social or programmatic, proving that email drives behaviour, not just volume. 4. Attention Metrics Use tools to estimate dwell time on emails or the time between opening& clicking. These are soft proxies for intent, similar to how platforms measure scroll depth, hover rate, and ad exposure time in other channels. 5. Site Quality Metrics Did email recipients spend longer on site, view more pages, or have higher AOVs? Your session quality tells you if email delivers high-intent traffic, something brands already monitor from Google Ads or affiliates. 6. Ask them! Simple, but powerful: survey your audience. What emails did they find valuable? Did it change their behaviour? Self-reported attribution, done well, can give you what click-tracking can’t. Email deserves more credit than. If adtech is shifting toward attention, incrementality, & deeper behaviour analysis, email should, too. Let's measure actual impact, not just opens & clicks. I bet you will discover that email isn't just for conversion but also a branding-building superpower.

POST-4/7👉 Email used to be a megaphone. In 2025, it’s a whisper in a very specific ear. Gone are the days when “blast to all” could pass as a strategy. In fact, that approach in 2025 is actively hurting your deliverability. Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook are no longer just evaluating your IP health—they’re scoring your sender behavior at the recipient level. That means if 40% of your list is cold or disengaged, Gmail sees you as the problem—not just the user. ⚠️ Real Consequence: 1. We audited an ecommerce fashion brand with 220K contacts. Over 92K of them hadn’t clicked a single email in 90+ days. Gmail flagged them for bulk spam behavior, and inboxing fell from 78% to 46% overnight. 2. They were running promos weekly. Nothing was technically broken—but nothing was relevant. That’s what got them crushed. What Micro-Segmentation Solves in 2025: ✅ Reduces spam complaints ✅ Increases engagement velocity ✅ Signals positive intent to inbox providers ✅ Unlocks higher revenue per send with smaller cohorts Micro-Segmentation Tactics That Work Now: 1. Behavior-Based Journeys: Forget static tags. If someone viewed winter boots but didn’t buy, your next 3 emails better talk about warmth, snow, or style—not your general spring lookbook. ✅ Klaviyo + Shopify data lets you trigger flow branches based on: Last viewed product category Cart abandonment by SKU group Pages viewed in session (via UTMs or on-site behavior) Pro Tip: Use dynamic content blocks inside campaigns to adjust hero sections based on browse activity without cloning entire flows. 2. Lifecycle Automation by Spend Velocity This isn’t “new vs returning” logic anymore. In 2025, flows shift based on: Time since last order AOV trends SKU replenishment cycles Example: First-time customer who hasn’t returned in 30 days → “2nd purchase incentive” High-value buyer within 7 days → “VIP early access” Customer inactive 60+ days → Winback + dynamic offer block + channel sync suppression 3. AI-Supported Clustering Tools like RetentionX, Lexer, and even Klaviyo’s predictive analytics are now building multi-dimensional customer clusters using: Purchase frequency Channel source Time to second order Category loyalty It’s loyal mid-value buyers who shop monthly but only when free shipping is offered. ✅ What to do: Export these clusters to your ESP Build messaging that maps exactly to their past actions Suppress low responders from paid channels and warm email instead. Ready to Execute? Create 5 foundational micro-segments: 1. High spenders 2. First-time buyers 3. VIPs (CLV > 2.5x avg) 4. Dormant >90 days 5. Active clickers, no conversion Test 2 cadences per segment: VIPs: 4x/month + early access Dormant: 1x/month reactivation with content—not promos Use Recency, Frequency, and Monetary score buckets to tag customers and let your automations react to movement between them. #EmailMarketing #email

A common mistake I see brands make is relying on their own inboxes to test email campaigns. But just because it looks great on your device doesn’t mean it will for your customers. What's often not taken into consideration is how your campaigns render across the 60+ platforms and devices your customers might be viewing your campaigns on. This means that while you and even your team might see a beautifully designed, well-put-together campaign, your customers might be seeing a completely skewed design. Not quite the outcome you'd like... And without proper testing, that beautifully designed campaign could appear distorted, unreadable, or even completely broken for some recipients. Dark mode is a perfect example. It's estimated that around 40% of users have dark mode enabled on their devices, yet most brands don’t test how their emails render in dark mode. The result? Logos that disappear, unreadable text, and broken design elements that ruin the user experience. Internally, we use Litmus to check formatting, links, and deliverability before sending and while this is our go-to, Sinch Email on Acid also does the trick and is much more cost-effective for brands. To give you an idea, here's what you can do using a third-party tool like Litmus or Emails on Acid: ✔️ Ensure emails display correctly, including in dark mode ✔️ Make sure all links work ✔️ Confirm compatibility across 60+ devices ✔️ Prevent email clipping, especially in Gmail (102KB limit) ✔️ Minimise human error by testing beyond just your inbox ✔️ Validate mobile responsiveness ✔️ Provide proper authentication to avoid being flagged as spam ✔️ Monitor for blocklists and spam placements ✔️ Check email load times to avoid slow rendering ✔️ Review accessibility compliance (contrast, font size, readability) I’m still waiting for an ESP to integrate this functionality directly - it would be a game changer. Until then, proper testing is non-negotiable.

Jan 1 or not, we’re still shipping real email design fundamentals. Most emails don’t need more design flair. They need better fundamentals. I’ve seen brands obsess over colors, fonts, illustrations… Meanwhile, their emails look broken on mobile, bury the CTA, and feel like a puzzle to navigate. Truth is: High-performing email design is boring, strategically boring. It’s clean. It’s conversion-first. And it works. After designing thousands of emails, here are the 10 non-negotiable design rules we stick to: 1. Text first. 16–18px body. 22–28px headers. No one reads tiny text. 2. The Above-the-fold section is sacred. Clear headline. Supporting line. Visual. CTA. In <3 seconds. 3. Dark mode is not optional. Test your layout, or use graphics that won’t break. 4. Your CTA = Your paycheck. Bold. Contrasting. Thumb-tap friendly. 5. Use a single-column layout. Stacks beautifully on mobile and doesn’t overwhelm. 6. No nav bars at the top. Fewer distractions = more clicks. 7. Design mobile-first. 60%+ of people will never see the desktop version. 8. White space is your best friend. Clarity converts. Clutter kills. Make sure you use enough white space in your designs. 9. Brand consistency matters. But conversion always comes first. 10. Reuse what works. Build templates around winning layouts. Iterate. Scale. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time. Just design like someone who respects your reader’s time (and thumbs

Amazon sent 5,743 holiday email campaigns last season. Walmart sent 1,288. Guess which strategy performed better? Research analyzing holiday email performance from major ecommerce brands revealed something most marketers get backwards: More emails doesn't mean more opens or conversions. Amazon's deliverability sat at 85%. Walmart's hit 95%. That difference matters more than you'd think. For Amazon, emails with below-90% deliverability got 13% open rates. Above 90%? The rate jumped to 19-22%. But here's the real insight buried in the data: Smaller, segmented email lists consistently outperformed larger blast campaigns across every brand studied. Yet most ecommerce teams are still playing the volume game. They're scheduling dozens of holiday sends to their entire list, watching deliverability drop, and wondering why open rates tank. The brands winning aren't sending more. They're sending smarter. Clean your list constantly. A deliverability rate below 90% signals quality issues that kill your open rates before anyone sees your offer. Segment ruthlessly. Your loyal customers, potential converters, and inactive subscribers all need different messages. Treating them the same leaves money on the table. Focus on the season, not just the days. Site visits don't drop after Cyber Monday like everyone assumes. The brands that keep relevant emails flowing through December capture sales competitors miss. The irony? Most email marketers know segmentation works, but only 58% actually use it. That's not a knowledge problem—it's an execution problem. Holiday email success isn't about flooding inboxes. It's about reaching the right people with clean lists and relevant messages. Full research breakdown and holiday email tactics that work year-round in the article below.

We sent over 1 million emails last month across dozens of ecom brands — and here’s what we’re seeing on the front lines: Consumer spending in the U.S. is down. Tariffs, inflation, tighter wallets — people are buying less. This isn’t theory. It’s across categories, especially in mid-priced DTC. But here’s the kicker: email is outperforming almost every other channel right now. Facebook’s still driving revenue, but email is catching up fast — especially for brands that have their flows and campaigns dialed in. While paid ads are getting more expensive and less consistent, email’s ROI is going up. Why? Because it’s owned. It's consistent. And most brands are finally starting to use it properly. We’re seeing email carry 45–50% of total revenue for clients who were doing maybe 25–30% from email six months ago. Usually when email is generating this much revenue, ad channels are underperforming and brands rely on their email list a lot more. So yeah — the economy’s shifting. But if you’re not doubling down on email right now, you’re probably missing the most reliable profit channel you’ve got. Curious how your all your marketing channels stack up? Happy to talk through what we’re seeing in your space.

Everyone's fighting the same email marketing battle: Open rates have never been higher. Click rates have never been lower. Conversions are getting harder. After analyzing 2 million emails across 12 ecommerce brands last quarter, I've found a pattern in what's actually converting in 2025: 📌 Emails with 5 or fewer images outperform design-heavy emails by 34% 📌 Story-driven subject lines get 62% higher opens than offer-focused ones 📌 Using real customer language from reviews in email copy lifts CTR by 27% But the biggest revelation? The timing between emails matters more than the content itself. We tested identical campaigns sent 3 days apart versus 7 days apart. The 7-day gap drove 31% more revenue despite identical content. Are you obsessing over email creative when you should be optimizing your sending cadence? #EmailMarketing #Ecommerce

The most expensive mistake your e-com brand could be making. It is not in the ads. It’s in your inbox. A mid-size e-commerce brand came to us, stuck. The traffic was steady. AOV was solid. Their CTR wasn’t bad either. But sales were stuck at $70K/month. Their internal marketing team thought the issue was top-of-funnel. We looked deeper. 70% of their shoppers were abandoning carts. Their recovery emails were pulling in… 3%. There is no sense of urgency and mobile optimization. The first email went out 24 hours after drop-off. Let’s do the some stepwise breakdown of how to get it right.  → 1,000 abandoned carts/month → $100 AOV → $100K/month left on the table → At 3% recovery = $3K/month →  With 25% recovery = $25K/month That’s a $22,000/month mistake. We rebuilt their cart sequence. You do not need to build anything very fancy.  → Subject lines that didn’t sound like templates → Mobile-first layout with one clear CTA → First email within 1 hour → Follow-ups at 12 and 48 hours →  Small nudge offer (free shipping or 5–10% off) The recovery rate jumped from 5% to 25%. No extra spending. Just less leakage. Everyone wants to scale. But if your funnel’s leaking, you’re scaling losses. We don’t just run ads. We build full-funnel systems that convert. Curious what your recovery rate looks like? Happy to take a quick look, no pitch, just data. Book your calls. PS: Link is in the comments

This Ecommerce Brand used an AI Agent for Email Audience Prediction and got 2.7x higher revenue per email recipient, 57% higher click rate, and more revenue than blasting the full list! A lot of ecommerce teams are feeling the pressure right now. Growth is uneven. Lists are tired. Every send has real tradeoffs. Instead of defaulting to "email everyone", an AI agent can predict who is most likely to generate revenue right now. Here is a real example from a Shopify + Klaviyo brand: • CustomersAI High Engagement segment: 6,845 recipients → $11,812 revenue → 2.15% click rate • Traditional engaged segment: 18,284 recipients → $11,732 revenue → 1.37% click rate Our AI predictions generated more revenue while sending to about one third as many people. Key takeaways: • 2.7x higher revenue per recipient • 57% higher click rate • More total revenue than a much larger send • Less list fatigue and better efficiency In tougher markets, blasting the full list often feels safer. But the data keeps showing the opposite. "Emails sent" is not a KPI: smarter targeting can outperform bigger sends. AI agents are becoming the decision layer for email list segmentation, helping teams focus on buyers instead of just activity. DM me for more info! [See below, the green segment is our predictions, the red segment was the standard "recently engaged" segmentation]