For the better part of the past two decades, email marketing’s return on investment has hovered around 40:1, according to a variety of sources. For instance, a recent Litmus survey of more than 2,000 marketers found that email marketing’s ROI is 36:1. That means the average brand can expect to earn...

The simple answer is that it should be both. But there is sometimes a gap between that combined vision and how marketers practice email marketing. Because of short-term business pressures, or simply a lack of understanding, many marketers prioritize sales over relationship-building. They assume that, or at least act as if,...

When Andy King asked me to curate a collection of noteworthy emails for Email Love and join him on his Email Love podcast, I knew right away my theme would be designing emails for images off, as this has always been something I’ve advocated for – ever since I performed my...

Headlines warn that AI is set to automate millions of jobs, potentially displacing entire segments of the workforce. They’re right. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI could affect 300 million jobs globally, with up to 25% of tasks in the U.S. and Europe being automated. Yet history tells us...

Can AI take over the whole email creation process? Does it match human creativity in crafting a full-fledged campaign? And are email marketers at risk of losing their jobs to artificial intelligence? Since AI is revolutionizing email marketing, my team and I decided to put this emerging technology to the ultimate...

How can you stay a step ahead in the AI race? That's a great question, and there's no single definitive answer. In my opinion, the best approach is to commit to continuous learning and remain open to new information. What do I mean by that? Well, many people tend to compare...

"They basically all do the same thing". That’s a lot of marketers' views on ESPs, and if we take the basic purpose of sending and tracking a bunch of emails then yes, this is true. But those of you in the Only Influencers (OI) community know this isn’t really the case....

WARNING: What you’re about to read might challenge your beliefs, shake your complacency, and make you rethink everything you thought you knew about email marketing. Consider yourself warned. I’m not here to sugarcoat the truth or coddle fragile egos. My mission is clear: to cut through the noise, the endless chatter,...

Today, I’d like to share some insights into unsubscribes—an approach I’ve used for years and highly recommend, especially with the holiday season approaching. Unsubscribes can feel alarming; they’re often seen as a sign that something is wrong with your content, personalization, or offers. But unsubscribes shouldn't be viewed as a single...

I started thinking about this over-sunsetting while working with one of my clients. They are probably one of the strongest performing senders I’ve ever met. BUT they are struggling with list retention and growth. It kills me to see well-intentioned senders struggle with their business when they are doing all the...

As Q4 and the holiday madness swings into high gear, I want to look back at everything I've learned in the last 12 months, at how that shaped our business and my conversations with marketers and executives, and how it will affect our communal outlook and planning for 2025 and beyond....

Summary Have you noticed a shift in the email marketing landscape? As the lines blur between digital channels, channel experts are being asked to deliver more than just great email campaigns — they’re now expected to create unified, seamless experiences across web, social, SMS, and more. This blog dives into the...

Why adding SMS to your Email Marketing Journey is a good thing I would have rolled my eyes a year ago if you had told me I would write a blog about adding SMS to the mix. But today, my view has shifted. SMS, like email, is a great retention channel....

This survey marks the 4th year that Only Influencers and Email Connect have conducted a brief survey with brands. The first three years we focused primary on RFPs and email marketers’ potential plans to switch vendors in the upcoming year. This year we decided to take the focus off of RFPs,...

Regardless of whether you are a believer that AI is going to revolutionize every industry for the better or a skeptic who sees AI as a threat to original content creation and a host of other ‘human’ roles, I think everyone agrees that AI is here to stay. In the email...

Picture this scenario: The marketing team at your scrappy little company huddles for days hashing out the brand guidelines for a critical new product launch. The results, everyone agrees, are brilliant. The name is snappy, memorable and perfect. The tag line says it all. With all-hands-on-deck intensity everything quickly goes public...

In our previous article , we explored how we’ve automated email production with GenAI. While we’ve embraced the technology, we’re still building trust in the content of AI-generated emails. This has led us to seek ways to further improve that content, recognizing that better context significantly enhances email effectiveness. What can...

Picture this: LLMs, your CRM, and your analytics platforms, all working together in perfect harmony. It's like having a marketing supergroup, each member bringing their own unique skills to the table. LLMs crank out personalized email copy that's so good, it feels like it was written just for you. Your CRM...

As an email marketer, it can feel like bad things are always happening to us. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection making it much more difficult to adhere to inbox providers own rules around emailing only engaged subscribers Apple’s Link Tracking Protection making conversion tracking harder for some senders Gmail’s policy of Automatic...

I just got results back from a test we ran on the email invitations we send to subscribers on our Email & More, A Q&A with ... list, and I wanted to share them with you, my fellow Only Influencers, because so many of us sponsor webinar series and other events....