Email Marketing Tools, Trends & Tips
If you work in email marketing, you already know how fast things move. What worked a year ago might feel stale today, and keeping up with what's actually resonating with people takes real effort. So let's talk about where to look for inspiration, what's trending right now, and the one thing you absolutely cannot ignore.
Where to Find Inspiration
Two sites worth bookmarking: Email Love and Milled. Both pull together real emails from real brands, and you can browse by category or trend. It's the kind of thing you find yourself going down a rabbit hole on, in a good way. If you're stuck creatively or just want to see what other brands are doing, start there
Trends Shaping Email Marketing Right Now
Animated GIFs are everywhere but they come in two flavors.
Some brands are going big. We're talking cinematic, cinemagraph-style GIFs that are five or six megabytes. Yes, that's large for email. But when done right, they stop the scroll and make an impression. On the flip side, a lot of brands are taking a much quieter approach - small looping animations, subtle motion in toolbars or transitions, things that move the reader through the email without making a big scene. Both can work, depending on what you're going for.
Mobile-first design is no longer optional.
A lot of the bigger brands have quietly dropped the standard 600-pixel email width. In its place: single-column layouts, bigger text, and call-to-action buttons you can actually tap without pinching your screen. It's a simpler approach, and honestly, it just makes sense given how most people check their email these days.
The Most Important Tip: Prioritize Email Deliverability
Trends and design mean nothing if your emails never reach the inbox. Email deliverability should always come first. Here are three things you can do to protect it:
- Authenticate your email domain - this signals to inbox providers that you're a legitimate sender.
- Keep a clean subscriber list - only send to people who have opted in to receive your emails.
- Remove inactive subscribers - regularly pruning unengaged contacts helps protect your sender reputation.
Get deliverability right, and everything else falls into place.