When it comes to email marketing, it’s easy to get distracted by the latest trends, shiny tools, and best practice checklists. But according to Beth “Queen of CRM” O’Malley, Founder of Astral Digital, the real problem starts much deeper.

“We’ve all been taught the wrong fundamentals when it comes to email,” says O’Malley. Turns out Beth is not here to politely polish old assumptions. She wants a reset.

Beth O’Malley will be presenting at the DDMA Email Marketing Automation Summit 11 June with her session called “The Email Reset: Strategy, Behaviour, and Performance in 2026″

Ahead of her session, she sat down with email marketing consultant Jordie van Rijn to talk about inbox psychology, broken email foundations, deliverability, AI, intent-based marketing, and why brands need to stop treating email like a machine and start treating it like human communication.

The great email reset

Your talk is called the great email reset. What is it that needs resetting? And why do we need it now?

Beth: What the Great Email Reset is really about is resetting how we think about email, expectations, objectives and of course, resetting what we think success actually looks like.

Because I think we’ve all been taught the wrong fundamentals when it comes to email. A lot of the current email philosophy is heavily shaped by e-commerce and performance marketing.

We’ve been taught that email means ROI. That it is a revenue-generating channel, so optimise opens and clicks, capturing attention. And we’ve been taught  “best practices” that are heavily outdated and some just incorrect.

How we use our inboxes is different from what marketers think.
Beth continues: “The inbox is utility-driven. In our personal lives we use email because we have to. It’s where order confirmations go, travel details, insurance documents, conversations about buying houses, important documents, important information.

And then in our professional lives, it becomes even more task-oriented. No matter how many tools businesses introduce like Slack or Teams, email is still the primary communication tool for work for most people. So psychologically, people enter the inbox differently.

You enter it with purpose, you enter it to complete tasks, you enter it to process information.

Not to endlessly browse. It’s always one thing: to check.

And when you understand that, you start to realise that inbox behaviour is completely different to social or site behaviour. Even down to how people scan information, look at the design, make decisions, and how their eyes move across the screen.

Contrast that to how we use social media. Social media is passive; it’s entertainment, it’s browsing and it fills our brains with dopamine hits.”

Most email best practice ignores the way that we use the inbox

We’ve become obsessed with whether one email got slightly more opens, instead of looking at email as a relationship-building channel over time. Because really, email should be nurturing, supporting, informing, and helping somebody move through a journey with you.

Are we delivering value consistently?
Are we building trust?
Are we helping somebody?
Are we creating a return on relationship rather than just chasing short-term performance?

That’s what The Great Email Reset is really about.
It’s resetting how we think about email, resetting expectations, resetting what success actually looks like and resetting your objectives.

How does AI influence the need for looking differently at Email?
I think we need a reset now more than ever because AI and automation are accelerating everything.

We’re constantly being told to do more with less, generate more results, move faster and automate more. Plug this tool into this tool, and suddenly your email performance magically improves. But in a lot of ways, we’re just accelerating bad habits, approaches and expectations.

So for me, the reset is actually really simple. If we fundamentally understand what the inbox is for, how human beings behave inside it, and how people naturally process communication, email becomes significantly more effective.

And ironically, when you stop treating email like a machine and start treating it more like human communication, the commercial results usually improve too.

Email market trends and how to ignore them

What can email marketers learn from trends they see? We know you are a bit weary of just following what others are doing. So, what is your beef with trends?

The thing that I don’t believe in with email, first of all, is trends. You can’t have an email trend. There are no such thing as trends in the inbox.

And I’ll give you probably one of the best examples of this, which is the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day opt-out campaigns. Ultimately, this became a trend. One brand did something, everybody praised it, thought it was amazing, really emotive, really thoughtful, and then every other brand jumped on it.
So what started as one thoughtful campaign turned into every single brand doing the exact same thing. And what we started seeing in the UK, was consumers receiving huge numbers of these emails. And the original intention gets completely lost.

Because if somebody has lost their mum, and they receive 20 or 30 emails asking if they want to opt out of Mother’s Day campaigns, it stops feeling thoughtful. It stops feeling kind. It actually becomes emotionally exhausting because you are repeatedly forcing somebody to revisit the same emotional trigger over and over again.

And this is one of the biggest problems in email, everybody thinks their audience only sees their email. People think if they make their email clever enough or emotional enough or good enough, people will ignore everything else in the inbox. But that’s not how the inbox works.

Your email doesn’t live in isolation. The complete media and inbox consumption including what people are receiving from other brands and companies shape how they experience your email. And in turn, how they engage with you.

The idea of trends in email is flawed because you can’t control what else your audience is receiving around you. This is another massive reason why we need this reset.

How about copying or “getting very heavily inspired” by examples from others?
We’ve created this culture of copying. People go onto email inspiration galleries, “really good email” sites, award sites, LinkedIn posts, and everybody is trying to copy what somebody else has done because they think, well, it worked for them so it must work for us.

But like everything in marketing, it depends. It depends on your audience, your relationship with them, your goals, your brand, your timing, your positioning, your trust levels, all of it.

And with email specifically, copy-and-paste marketing just doesn’t work in the way people think it does because everybody ends up sounding and looking the same.

The other side of this is deliverability, and this is another reason we desperately need a reset, because spam filters and inbox providers are finally catching up with brands that have spent years just blasting emails to entire databases without really understanding strategy, audience behaviour, or even the laws around the inbox itself.

The other big thing is volume. Since COVID especially, email volume has massively increased and I don’t think we’ve really recovered from that. Everybody is sending more, more campaigns, more automations, more nurture journeys, more sales emails, more newsletters, more AI-generated content.

A lot of businesses got very comfortable just sending everything to everyone, following a calendar, pushing volume, repeating campaigns, and now they’re suddenly finding that what they used to get away with doesn’t work anymore because inbox providers are becoming stricter to protect the user experience.

And I always say there are laws of the inbox; deliverability is absolutely one of them. Inside that you’ve got reputation, engagement, list quality, trust, consistency, authentication, audience behaviour, all of these different things that now matter more than ever.

So for me, the reason we need the reset comes down to all of this combined, we’ve got trend culture, copy-and-paste marketing, rising email volume, AI accelerating content creation, worsening inbox experiences, and stricter deliverability systems, but underneath all of that is still the same issue: brands are forgetting they are communicating with human beings inside a shared environment.

Shattering the email glass ceiling for better results

You talk about the email glass ceiling. What do marketers need to catch up on?

What I see constantly with marketers is what I call the email glass ceiling.  It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you can’t do the next layer until you’ve properly optimised the layer underneath it. It is more of an inverted pyramid, but the principle is the same.

And at the bottom of that hierarchy sits your three pillars of email:
* your systems,
* your strategy, and
* your data.

I’ve trained thousands of marketers across the world, I work with marketing teams every single year, and one of the biggest frustrations I see is marketers being expected to generate better and better results whilst working within broken foundations.

They’re expected to build automations, improve revenue, use AI, personalise journeys, increase engagement, but one or more of their three pillars is either broken, messy, outdated, disconnected, or just fundamentally not fit for purpose.

And that creates an email glass ceiling. There comes a point when no matter how talented the marketer is, they physically cannot get better results because the foundations underneath them are limiting what’s possible.

So if your systems are not integrated properly, there’s your first glass ceiling. If your CRM and your email platform are disconnected, your data is already out of date the second you export and import it. You are constantly working reactively instead of strategically.

If your data is messy, incomplete, badly structured, or you’re not collecting the right information, data quality and list hygiene is another glass ceiling because you cannot do proper intent-based marketing, segmentation, automation, or personalisation without good data.

And if your strategy is weak, if email is just “send a newsletter every Tuesday because that’s what we’ve always done”, there’s another part of the glass ceiling.

How is this different from 2 or 3 years ago?
So I think one of the biggest differences now versus even two years ago is that marketers need to become much more aware of what is realistically possible within the environment they are working in.

What are the expectations being placed on them?
What are the actual capabilities of their systems, strategy, and data?
What sits inside their circle of control?
And what actually requires business-wide transformation to achieve?

Because I think marketers have been carrying a huge amount of pressure to produce better results from environments that fundamentally aren’t designed for modern email marketing.

Jordie adds: “If you look at it from a zoomed out marketing perspective, the email marketing and life cycle role is, in cases, marginalised to only mean Promotion.

But you can’t see separately from Product, Price, Place, and all those other Ps and Cs that influence the outcome. Remember Michael Porter, remember 4 to 7Ps of Marketing, and I even think Mark Ritson is correct in saying Product is what you want to influence.

So we should take back the discussion into the sphere of influence, where you can adjust things: Adjust propositions, segments, make your own landing pages, change pricing and discount offers, go arrange partnerships to grow your list.

Revolt, Revolution, Relevancy! (ok sorry about the mini-rant, but this may need a reset of its own :P) ”

The second thing is deliverability.
Beth brings up the second issue: If somebody came into email marketing today and ignored deliverability, they would already be behind. Because even if your strategy never changes, even if you’re just a business sending a newsletter every Tuesday from a content calendar, understanding deliverability alone could dramatically improve your results.

If more of your emails reach the inbox, that is already a win.

You don’t necessarily need to completely reinvent your strategy overnight. Sometimes the biggest issue is simply that a significant percentage of your audience is not even seeing your emails because they are landing in spam, promotions, junk folders, or being filtered entirely.

And the problem is most marketers have never properly been taught deliverability.

It’s become one of the biggest areas I specialise in because there’s very little education out there that properly teaches marketers how to understand it, monitor it, audit it, track it, or know what to actually do when there’s a problem.

Most people stop at, “we think we’re going into spam.”

Okay, but why?
What caused it?
What signals are inbox providers seeing?
What behaviour is damaging your reputation?
What does healthy engagement actually look like?
How do you recover from it?

There’s a huge gap there.

Human behaviour in the inbox

You mentioned the behavior in the inbox before is a reason for the reset, let’s zoom in on that a bit. What is

Understanding human behaviour in the inbox is a marketers’ job. Because when I talk about inbox psychology, most people instantly relate to it personally. Everybody suddenly goes, “yeah actually, I barely click marketing emails myself.”

It’s always a minority of people who actively open, click, engage, and convert from email. That’s normal human behaviour. So when you understand inbox psychology properly, you stop chasing impossible expectations and you start approaching email differently.

You can become more creative, more strategic, more thoughtful, because you stop treating every single campaign like it has to “win” immediately.

Ironically, when marketers lower some of those unrealistic expectations and start understanding how people naturally behave inside the inbox, they usually end up getting much better results anyway.

Young talent and personal growth for marketers

We have an award at the Email Summit that goes into Young talent and often winning cases are driven by individual people (and their teams). What would a marketer need to get the label “Queen of CRM” like you?

I think the first thing is to fail repeatedly and be really open to changing your own beliefs and mindset. Where I am today is very, very different to where I was five years ago and even the things I used to teach or talk about five years ago. My thinking has evolved massively through experience, through projects, through things not working, through being wrong.

And I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have is that experts somehow know everything or never fail, and that’s just not true.

I fail all the time!

I would never sit here and say, give me any business and I can absolutely guarantee I’ll transform their email marketing overnight because everything depends. Every business is different, every audience is different, every system is different, every challenge is different.

I still make mistakes. I still sometimes get things wrong. I still test things that don’t work.

But I actually think being wrong teaches you the most important lessons.

A huge amount of what I know now has come from failure, from pressure, from troubleshooting, from projects going sideways, from having to figure things out in real time.

And I think being self-employed accelerated that learning massively for me because I work across so many different businesses, industries, systems, teams, and problems all at once. You see patterns really quickly, you learn really quickly, and you develop this ability to connect dots across completely different environments.

So I think the first thing is being willing to fail and evolve your thinking instead of becoming too attached to your own opinions.

Being confident is a huge win for marketers.

The second thing is confidence. And I don’t mean arrogance, I mean genuinely believing in yourself and your knowledge enough to put your voice out there.

Because no one is going to magically turn around one day and crown you “the queen of CRM”. If anything, the title itself is a bit cringey and a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I knew very early on that if I wanted to educate people, help people, and genuinely change parts of the industry, I needed to stand for something.

I needed people to remember me, see my point of view, and have confidence in my own voice. Because if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else is going to believe in you either.

And I think the other really important thing is having an opinion and being willing to say something different.

Not for the sake of being controversial, but because you genuinely believe it.

Everything I teach, every framework I’ve built, every piece of education I put out there comes from years of experience, testing, failing, observing patterns, and understanding what fundamentally works in the real world.

And I think people connect with that because it’s coming from experience, not theory.

So for me, becoming really good at CRM, email, strategy, any of it, comes from a combination of failure, curiosity, confidence, experience, and being brave enough to challenge things that you don’t think are right anymore.

Jordie adds: “This is such an important part. I’d say confidence isn’t a state of mind, but a reflection of confident actions and what you say. In a relaxed way. Confident people are the most relaxed people in the room. If you at least act confident, mindset will follow over time.

Put yourself in an environment that stimulates growth and initiative. Help shape that environment for yourself – every day again. Not throwing things “over the fence”. It may just be the key to unlock a bonus-tier and wind at your back for everything that you as a marketer do. An all star marketeer, if you have the chops, reputation works for you, just like a top athlete for instance.

It is good to keep in mind: Brand management wants you to take initiative and to succeed, or if you are external, your contact wants their agency and freelancer to go the extra mile. And if you can’t lay your creative eggs in work, start a side quest and your own newsletter, personal brand on social.

To make it practical: Often marketers tend to get in a discussion about details and get a lot of feedback, that just drags out the process. And often where it isn’t needed.
For example I often remind myself and use these three:
“If we both have opinions on what works best, let’s go with my opinion, because that is what you hired me for.” and
“Design like you are absolutely right, then test like you were wrong from the start.”
“You can have a look if you want, but I am not asking you to review it”

What are some “assumptions / best practices” that aren’t really best practices in your eyes anymore?

Beth: I think the overarching thing with best practice is that every single marketer I meet just wants to know they’re doing things the “right” way.

And I completely get that because as humans, we don’t like getting things wrong. We don’t like the idea that there’s potentially a better way of doing something and we’re not doing it yet.

So a lot of the time when marketers go to webinars or events or training, they’re in part just looking for validation. They want someone to tell them, yes, that’s right, yes, you’re doing the right thing, yes, that’s best practice.

And the question I get constantly is, “what should we be doing?” Like, what should we be doing that we’re not doing already? What’s the right thing? What’s the best practice?

And underneath that is usually fear. Fear of getting it wrong, fear that another brand is doing something better, fear that there’s some secret formula everybody else knows about.

But I actually think the businesses that become the most successful are usually the ones that embrace getting things wrong because they understand that’s actually how you learn what works.

And I think one of the biggest assumptions in email is this idea that if we follow all the best practices, we’ll automatically get results. Marketing unfortunately doesn’t work like that.

And I know that because I used to be that marketer. I remember being in-house and genuinely thinking that if I just learned all the frameworks, followed all the advice, implemented all the best practices properly, then of course it would work.

But everything in marketing depends.

It depends on your audience, your positioning, your timing, your strategy, your relationship with your audience, your brand, your skills, your systems, all of it.

One of the biggest problems is that the industry takes practices and labels them as universal truths.

And I think once marketers stop obsessing over getting everything “perfect” and instead focus more on understanding people, testing properly, learning from failure, and understanding their own audience, they usually become much better marketers.

Jordie adds: “It helps to think of your strategy as a start-egy instead. You start with the plan you trust has a solid chance to succeed, put together considering the environment and restrictions. But the strategy isn’t the main part of the success, it is the starting and doing. The plan should change over time anyway (and it will).”

Beth: Yes, and for instance in tactics, a really good example is, your call-to-action should always be above the fold.

Again, that’s not a best practice, that’s a technique. It might work brilliantly in one email and terribly in another depending on the audience, the message, the intent, the design, the device, the context, all sorts of different things.

So I think marketers need to stop looking for universal rules in email because there really aren’t many.

Most things in email are practices, techniques, approaches, guiding principles, things that need to be adapted to your audience and environment.

How does a marketer go and make sure they are serving their audience, rather than doing hacks that work?

Beth: It’s quite rare that I look at an email and think, wow, that tactic was genius.

For me, the smartest email marketers are very rarely the ones doing flashy things or clever hacks or weird growth tactics. The smartest ones are usually the ones that deeply, deeply understand their audience.

And I think there’s a really big difference there.

I definitely see marketers who already know exactly what they want to do strategically, but they’re restricted by tools, systems, budget, internal sign-off, data quality, all those kinds of things. A lot of marketers are actually far smarter than the environments they’re working in allow them to be.

One campaign that always sticks in my mind was an abandoned basket journey.

What impressed me wasn’t the design or the copy or some crazy tactic, it was the way she understood the psychology behind why people abandon baskets in the first place.

Because most abandoned basket emails are really assumptive. They basically go, “hey, you forgot this” or “you left this behind.”

But most people didn’t “forget”, most people deliberately leave things in baskets. An abandoned basket is usually an open question. It’s uncertainty. It’s hesitation. It’s somebody thinking, “I’m not sure yet.”

So instead of treating abandoned basket like a reminder campaign, she treated it like a trust-building and objection-handling campaign.

The whole journey was built around answering questions, reducing uncertainty, building confidence, reinforcing value, adding trust signals, helping people make a decision.

She understood that maybe the person thought it was too expensive, maybe they didn’t fully understand the value yet, maybe they were comparing alternatives, maybe they just weren’t emotionally ready to buy at that moment.

And because she understood the audience psychology so well, the performance was incredible.  A really great e-commerce marketer I worked with did this, I think the abandoned basket journey had something like an 87% conversion rate. It was genuinely one of the best-performing journeys I’ve ever seen.

But again, it wasn’t because of some magical tactic.

It was because she understood people. And I think that’s probably the biggest compliment I can give any marketer. When I receive an email and I genuinely feel like somebody understood me, understood where I was at, understood what I needed at that exact moment, that’s when I’m impressed.

Those are the emails that get a little round of applause from me, and usually a reply as well, because I actually like marketers knowing when they’ve done a really good job

What about the tools and software?

Beth: The first thing I always say when people ask me about tools is that the tool is very, very rarely actually the problem.

People constantly ask me things like, what’s the best email service provider, what platform should we move to, what tool should we be using, and my answer is usually… none of them, or all of them, because fundamentally most email service providers now all do very similar things.

They all have automations, segmentation, reporting, templates, AI features, all of that stuff.

So for me, the tool itself is rarely the thing holding people back.

What actually matters is your three pillars, your systems, your strategy, and your data, and I’d actually say data is probably the biggest one there because the real power of tools comes when you have integrated data and a proper source of truth across the business. That’s when tools become more useful.

So for me it’s always data over tools.

In terms of features and new things coming out, there honestly isn’t really a feature where I’ve looked at it and gone, wow, that completely changes everything.

I think the things that are interesting are anything that helps marketers understand people better, analyse behaviour better, identify patterns faster, anything around predictive analysis, intent signals, things that help marketers process information quicker, those are useful.

Anything that speeds up operational tasks is useful as well, like helping build emails faster or helping structure things faster, but I don’t think any of it replaces the audience brief or the strategy layer.

Jordie adds: “I help companies select email marketing software for over 10 years – and guide dozens of RFPs and selection questions. More than anyone out there. My experience tells a picture – where I agree with Beth that foundations are… foundations so you have to get that right.

But the right Marketing  can really make the difference between success and frustration.

It is the same point as Beth makes, but a layer on top. I have seen so many teams be frustrated by the tooling that was over-promissing, inherited, or it is a great tool, but not the best fit for the team and job they wanted to do. A hammer is great for hammering, not so much for baking a cake. Making the wrong decision can set you back a year, year and a half – you may even fail the implementation and need to start over.

To give you a simple example that explains it all:
In a selection I guided, there was a team that had to manage international versions of each mailing. In the tool they had that was terrible. Another could do it, but still would take about 20 hrs a week. Another (they didn’t know about, but we ended up selecting) they brought that international email process back to 2 or 3 hours a week. That makes all the difference.”

Everybody is looking at AI – what are your thoughts on that?

Beth continues: I’ve seen loads online around AI agents that can supposedly run your entire email programme for you, build campaigns for you, write everything for you, optimise everything for you, and are we there yet? No. We’re absolutely not there yet.

And I’ve always said this, if you already don’t understand email strategy, inbox psychology, audience behaviour, all the philosophy stuff I talk about, AI just allows you to produce more bad content faster.

You might get slightly more output, you might even get slightly better results because you’re producing more volume, but fundamentally it doesn’t solve the underlying issue.

And I also think people massively underestimate how much time they spend trying to fix AI outputs.

I’ve literally watched people spend half an hour rewriting prompts, tweaking wording, correcting tone, trying to make something sound human, changing bits over and over again, and at some point you have to ask yourself, is this actually saving time?

Or are you trying to use AI to replace a skill gap that still fundamentally needs human thinking behind it?

AI is not magically fixing poor strategy.

The AI tools I genuinely use and would struggle without now are mostly around data analysis, pattern recognition, helping process large amounts of information quickly, helping identify trends or gaps faster, that’s where I think AI is genuinely very powerful right now.

But when it comes to replacing human understanding, audience psychology, strategic thinking, relationship building, understanding nuance, emotion, timing, context, I just don’t think we’re there yet.

Jordie adds: “Generative AI really already heightened the bar, and changed what interesting content has to look like in 2026. Think about what you can do with images, video, writing and coding. The development in those areas is phenomenal. Marketers feel the mix of excitement mixed with tears and fear for the future.

And there is no way to keep up with the latest (shiny) things in all areas. The worst thing to do is put your head in the sand and pretend this isn’t happening, second-worst is to believe all the hype and mass delusion. AI email writing tools, for instance, have gotten verrrryyy good. Already general models like ChatGPT and Claude are so good, if you know how to use them. You can choose to use AI tools or use handwritten and a mix. Just make sure you do it for the right reasons.”

Practical tips to improve email performance

Beth concludes with some practical tips:

I think the first thing, as I’ve said already, is deliverability, because if your emails are landing in spam, that’s your biggest issue right now.

The more people that actually see your emails, especially the right people, your warmest audience, your highest intent audience, the people most likely to engage with you, that alone can massively improve performance without changing loads of other things.

The other big practical strategy for me is intent-based email marketing, and I really don’t think this is spoken about enough.

And actually, I don’t really believe in personalisation anymore, at least not in the way it’s been pushed out into the industry for years, where personalisation basically became putting someone’s first name in a subject line or dynamically changing a product block.

I’m much more interested in intent.

Because intent tells you where somebody is psychologically.

Intent-based email marketing is really about understanding what somebody has shown you or told you through their behaviour. That could be warm intent, cold intent, hot intent, but your hot intent is the most important because that’s where somebody is actively trying to solve a problem or make a decision.

And I think marketers need to become much better at creating intent buckets.

So instead of just blasting campaigns to everyone, you’re asking yourself, okay, what has this person shown me, what have they told me, what behaviour have they demonstrated that means I now need to send this message at this exact moment?

Because your audience is constantly giving you signals.

That could be form submissions, website visits, webinar attendance, pricing page views, content downloads, product browsing, all sorts of things.

And this is where I always recommend doing a TFDS exercise, thinking, feeling, doing, saying.

If somebody is showing intent, what are they thinking? What are they feeling? What are they doing? What are they saying? And you map everything out.

Are they uncertain?
Are they comparing options?
Are they Googling solutions?
Are they talking about this internally?
Have they written it on a to-do list?
What objections do they have?
What unanswered questions do they have?

Because that then can become your content strategy.

So for example, from a B2B perspective, if somebody downloads a lead magnet around email deliverability, then visits my certification programme pages multiple times, then starts reading all my deliverability blogs, especially the more problem-focused ones, I already know that person likely has a deliverability issue they’re trying to solve.

That’s intent.

So I’m going to activate that person differently because they’ve shown me where they are psychologically and commercially.

Or from a B2C perspective, let’s say somebody completes a hair quiz on a haircare website, browses loads of products afterwards, spends time looking around, then leaves the site.

Most brands immediately jump to discounts or promo codes.

But actually, that person probably has uncertainty. They probably have unanswered questions. They’re not fully convinced yet. They’re still evaluating.

And because they completed the quiz, they’ve already given you loads of information about themselves that you can now use intelligently.

So instead of sending generic abandoned browse emails, you create an intent-based journey around the likely uncertainty they’re experiencing.

And for me, intent-based email marketing will almost always outperform generic campaigns because it’s based on what somebody has actively shown you or told you.

So one of the biggest practical things marketers can do immediately is go and look at everything they already track.

What are people filling in on forms?
What behaviour are they showing?
What signals are they giving you?
What intent can you identify?

And then start grouping people into intent buckets.

The other thing I’d say is marketers need to get much better at understanding what metrics actually matter and understanding the impact email has outside of opens and clicks because opens and clicks only tell you a very small part of the story.

A lot of the things I talk about around intent, inbox psychology, relationship-building, deliverability, all of that stuff, I write about a lot anyway, so honestly the best thing I’d recommend is just going through my blog because everything I teach is built around these principles and practical application rather than generic email advice.

Beth O’Malley is the Founder of astral, an unstoppable CRM and email marketing expert (and an ADHDer with a great sense of humour).

She’s trained thousands of marketers, developed industry-shaping guidelines, practices and training. Plus, she’s helped businesses generate £10M+ in assisted revenue from her expertise in just 18 months.

She’s been awarded best Full-Service CRM & Email Agency 2024, Top International Women Entrepreneurs, and a recognised HubSpot Partner. Beth helps businesses reimagine, rethink and transform CRM, data, and email marketing. You can connect with her on Linkedin and read her blog “the Vault”

Author:
Jordie van Rijn independent email marketing consultant and founder of Email Vendor Selection.

At NS, CRM specialists Daan Hulzinga and Adinda Nieuwstraten work on campaigns that encourage consumers to travel more often by train. One of the most distinctive campaigns they developed is Wintercity. “I had only been working at NS for a few months when we started the first edition,” says Daan. “Now, three editions later, I can proudly say we have developed something extraordinary.”

Wintercity is a personalized digital advent calendar that runs on an online platform. Throughout December, NS subscribers get online access to a new surprise deal every day. Adinda: “Surprise deals vary from a coupon for free coffee to extra weekend discounts or a first-class upgrade.”

Rewarding loyal customers

The campaign originated during the COVID period. In times of empty trains and uncertainty, the campaign offered a way to appreciate loyal customers. “People couldn’t travel much, or sometimes at all, but remained loyal subscribers to NS”, Adinda explains. “We developed Wintercity to give something back to our loyal customers”. In the meantime, Wintercity has grown into a campaign with a clear impact.

Focus on subscribers

So, who qualifies as a loyal customer? “We looked at product level, not at travel frequency,” Daan explains. “In short: customers that have an active subscription at NS are considered loyal customers. Too often companies only focus on new customers, while loyal customers no longer receive any extras. We wanted to approach our customers the exact other way around.”

In the public eye

That choice aligns with NS’s public role. “We’re very visible in the media and impact nearly everyone in the Netherlands,” says Adinda. “That’s exactly why we must carefully consider what actions to take and how we want to be perceived.” She emphasizes that societal role: “What we communicate can quickly become national news. That’s always part of our consideration. Everything we do has a lot of impact and that’s reflected in our campaigns.”

KPIs that reveal true impact

Customer engagement with Wintercity is measured on multiple levels, using both behavioral data and qualitative feedback. “One metric we track is platform visitors,” Adinda explains. “Our platform has a huge reach.” These figures are supported by signs from customer service. “We notice an increase in the number of calls: people actually call our customer service to ask whether and when Wintercity will return. That says a lot about how alive the campaign is.” Besides platform traffic, the team monitors email metrics. “Open rates are less relevant,” says Daan. “We mainly look at click-through rates and unsubscribe rates. We want to know: is it perceived as spam, or are people truly engaging?”

Sustainable customer communication via CRM

Email plays a central role in customer interaction during the Wintercity campaign. “Ninety percent of what we do for Wintercity comes from our CRM system,” says Daan. NS communicates at a large scale. “That’s why we constantly monitor email performance: click rates, send volumes, feedback, and of course, unsubscribe numbers.”

But it’s not just about campaign performance. Email also supports long-term customer relationships. “We’ve set up a full Customer Lifecycle Campaign (CLC),” Adinda explains. “From the moment someone signs up for a subscription until about a year and a half later, we keep them engaged and informed about our products. We can clearly see that loyal customers deliver more value in the long run, so we invest a lot in them.”

Efficiency and reusability are also important. Daan explains: “The API we built for Wintercity is now also used in other campaigns, like the ‘Weg is Weg’ weeks.” Thus, the email foundation contributes not only to loyalty but also to ongoing, sustainable communication efforts.

Measuring sentiment

At the end of each campaign, the team actively collects feedback on what could be improved and which rewards were appreciated. “We get a lot of positive reactions,” says Daan. Still, measuring sentiment isn’t always easy. “Online, the negative voices tend to stand out. That was pretty tough the first year,” he recalls. “We invest a lot of effort into the campaign, so critical feedback can be challenging to navigate.” Now, NS collects feedback via thumbs-up responses in emails and detailed surveys. “Evaluations show that 90 to 95% of people experience the campaign very positively.”

That enthusiasm also shows in behavior. “People were calling customer service as early as October to ask when Wintercity would return,” says Daan. Adinda: “We have real fans, people who love the train. You can see that reflected in high engagement figures.”

At the same time, the team has learned to deal with criticism. “When you’re deeply involved, the negative feedback can stick with you the most,” Daan admits. “Then it’s important to focus on the large group that is positive.” Adinda emphasizes that focusing on loyal customers pays off: “They appreciate the work we put into it, and show it.”

Adinda: “Also, most of the time, criticism isn’t about the campaign itself but caused by external factors like national strikes. “Then you have to put things into perspective,” says Daan. “Ultimately, we’re doing it for the large group that looks forward to Wintercity every year.”

Tips and tricks

Daan and Adinda’s first advice to other organizations: start early. “It takes much more time than you think,” says Daan. “There are a lot of stakeholders involved. Not only do legal aspects play a role in the process, alignment with other transport operators and political interests have to be considered as well.”

Another lesson they want to emphasize is to value loyal customers. “Put them in the spotlight,” says Adinda. “It really makes a difference when you show appreciation.” Daan agrees: “Recognizing the value of existing customers is a skill in itself.”

“Just roll up your sleeves and go,” says Adinda. “We dove in, discovered a lot, and learned from our mistakes.” One key insight: successful campaigns don’t always rely heavily on ATL or paid media. “CRM can make a huge impact alongside other channels,” Daan emphasizes. Where acquisition once dominated, email and CRM activation proved surprisingly effective.

Wintercity at EMAS

EMAS visitors can look forward to a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what Daan describes as “one of the most successful CRM campaigns I’ve ever done.” The session will show how a relatively compact CRM team can have a huge impact, with results that exceed expectations.

“We’ll demonstrate the kind of impact you can make with KPIs we had never seen before”, says Daan. Adinda adds: “Numbers many companies can only dream of.” It’s not just about high click-through rates, but about the overall scale and effectiveness of the campaign. “It really offers insight into what happens when you turn the right knobs,” says Daan. “Then a kind of flywheel is set in motion, where everything aligns and results keep growing.”

Their session promises not only to inspire with its impressive results but also to surprise with how a large organization like NS creates space for creativity, agility, and experimentation. Got your EMAS tickets yet? Get them now at: shop.emas.nu

For eight editions, Ralph de Kruif has been closely involved in the ‘Battle of the Agencies’, an annual highlight at EMAS. Together with interviewer Mark Kruisman, he reflects on the evolution of this unique email marketing concept. 

Mark Kruisman: Ralph, let’s start at the beginning. What exactly is the ‘Battle of the Agencies’? 

Ralph de Kruif: The Battle is a competition between three agencies, each developing an email campaign based on the exact same briefing from a single advertiser. These emails are sent out simultaneously to three equal segments of the database. The only difference? The email itself. That’s what has to make the difference. 

Mark: Just one email? Isn’t that a bit limited, considering all the possibilities of email marketing? 

Ralph: I hear that a lot, and I get it. Email marketing really gets interesting when you can respond to user behavior and create complete journeys. But we want to keep it manageable for the agencies. One email forces focus. Plus, it makes the comparison fair: everyone has the same contact moment, with no influence from timing or segmentation. 

Mark: And that’s what makes the Battle so unique? 

Ralph: Absolutely. It’s a win-win-win. The advertiser gets three fresh perspectives on their email marketing, the agencies can flex their creative muscles, and the EMAS audience gets one of the most inspiring sessions of the year. 

Mark: What does the process look like behind the scenes? 

Ralph: We start by announcing the advertiser. Agencies can apply with a pitch no longer than one A4. These pitches are anonymized so the advertiser chooses based purely on content. Then the three selected agencies receive the same briefing and get to work on concept, design, and copy. After a feedback round, the emails are built, sent out, and the results collected. Finally, the agencies present their case live at EMAS. 

De Batttle live meemaken? Haal nu je EMAS tickets.

Mark: Sounds like quite the operation. Is it easy to find advertisers? 

Ralph: It’s not hard to get them enthusiastic, but finding the right one is a challenge. We’re looking for an advertiser with a large database, who is open to transparency and doesn’t already have a fixed agency partner. Ideally, we want to measure results based on conversions, not just opens and clicks. 

Mark: And for agencies, it’s a great opportunity to showcase themselves? 

Ralph: Definitely. They really go all out. Think late-night brainstorming sessions with pizza. Some agencies turn their pitch into a real spectacle. I remember one time an agency did their presentation in full Steve Jobs-style — turtleneck and all — even though it was 30 degrees outside. 

Mark: You’ve also facilitated a case yourself, right? 

Ralph: That’s right, with Holland Casino during the second edition. Thanks to the agencies’ creativity, we could experiment with animated and interactive emails. It was special to be on the other side of the table for once. That experience helps me now when I talk to potential advertisers. 

Mark: What’s stuck with you the most? 

Ralph: The rise of the text-only email, haha. Two years in a row, a plain text version won. That took some getting used to — after all, design matters too. But in the end, results are what count. Fortunately, we’ve been seeing beautifully designed emails again in recent years — ones that both inspire and convert. 

Mark: This year, the advertiser is the KNVB. Can you tell us anything about that? 

Ralph: I always stick to one rule: I only talk about the ongoing Battle after EMAS. What I can say is: this will be another exciting edition with three totally different agencies and three rock-solid emails. And the EMAS program is fantastic again this year, so if you don’t have a ticket yet… act fast! 

Experience the Battle LIVE! 

Want to witness this unique email showdown live? Then make sure to attend EMAS 2025 on June 26 at Circa Amsterdam. During the Battle of the Agencies, you’ll see this year’s nominees — Yellowgrape, Ematters, and MandAd Email Marketing — compete to craft the best campaign, all based on the exact same briefing but with completely different approaches. The audience not only gets a glimpse into the creative process, but also sees the results that truly matter. Don’t wait too long: ticket sales have already started and spots are limited. 

For this article, I spoke with Jennifer Birks. She will be presenting at the EMAS DDMA Email Marketing Summit in the Netherlands on 27 June with a session called “Interactive Experiences to Elevate your Email Engagement” or IEtEyEE.

Jennifer is an email developer and marketing automation engineer who runs an Email Marketing YouTube channel called The Email Code. She has 10 years of experience with campaigns for clients like Nissan, Vodafone, Odeon Cinemas, Secret Escapes and many others.

This interview has been published by the DMA UK. Read the full article here.

Author

Jordie van Rijn
Email Marketing Consultant | EmailMonday

Michiel van der Blij, Lead webredactie bij Crossphase, ziet overal clichés. Zeker op het gebied van e-mailmarketing valt men vaak in herhaling en lijkt originaliteit ver te zoeken. We zijn daarom zeer verheugd dat hij dit jaar op het programma staat van de DDMA Email Marketing Automation Summit – om ons praktische tips te geven hoe je clichés kunt killen. Wij stelden hem in de aanloop naar zijn presentatie op de EMAS alvast 10 vragen.

1. Laten we met het belangrijkste beginnen. Hoe zorgen we ervoor dat we geen clichés in dit interview plaatsen?

We denken en praten vaak in clichés. Bij de eindredactie van het artikel kun je de menselijke touch toevoegen. Dus de druk ligt bij de eindredacteur van het interview ?

2. Kun je vertellen wat je gaat doen op de EMAS?

Het wordt een leuke interactieve sessie, waarbij ik het publiek ga vragen om een product of dienst aan te prijzen. Vaak zie je dan heel veel productgerichte en functionele teksten komen. Bij het aanprijzen van een fiets gaan die bijvoorbeeld veel om ‘stevige banden’ of ‘een licht frame’. Er veilig van A naar B mee kunnen fietsen is al beter. Op basis van de input uit het publiek geef ik concrete tips waardoor je clichés herkent in je eigen teksten en hoe je kunt zorgen dat je teksten schrijft die passen bij je merk. Merk-waardig schrijven noem ik dat!

3. Vaak zie je dat in een poging om iets opvallends te schrijven, men gebruikmaakt van woordgrappen. Hoe zorg je ervoor dat je niet doorslaat met flauwe woordgrappen?

Met slim taalgebruik, zoals Hema doet met hun inhaker op de Appel Gadget. Daar haken ze met simpel taalgebruik in op de actualiteit en prijzen ze toch een product aan. Dat vind ik echt een goed voorbeeld. De uiting op de bezorgbus van Albert Heijn ‘Ons kan je om een boodschap sturen’ vind ik minder sterk, omdat die uitdrukking niet bij iedereen bekend is. Dat is ook gelijk de truc. Het is heel makkelijk om een spreekwoord te maken met je product erin. Maar je moet wel zorgen dat ze passen bij je merk en niet te complex.

4. Mooie voorbeelden, maar als ik dit zo hoor ben je hier ieder moment van de dag mee bezig. Kan je nog normaal over straat?

Haha, ik ben er de hele tijd mee bezig. Als ik een mooi voorbeeld of juist een vaak gebruikt cliché zie, dan maak ik vaak even snel een foto voor collega’s of mijn volgende LinkedIn-post. In het dagelijks leven worden sowieso heel veel clichés gebruikt, vooral op kantoor. Door het vele jargon wordt de boodschap vaak verhuld. We zijn er continu mee bezig en we doen er allemaal aan mee. We praten elkaar na en het voelt ook heel normaal. Dat is de kracht, maar ook het gevaar van clichés.

5. Op welk kanaal kom je de meeste clichés tegen?

Outdoorreclame is vaak creatief. Daarbij zie je ook, hoe groter de uiting, hoe meer aandacht er is voor de copy. Vooral in persoonlijke e-mailcommunicatie staan heel veel clichés, zeker als je per verzender de mails terugleest en op een rijtje zet. Zinnetjes als ‘Bedankt voor je bericht’ of ‘Ik kijk uit naar je reactie’ … ze zitten er vol mee!

6. Welk cliché zie je het vaakst binnen e-mailmarketing?

Veel clichés komen voort uit de 7 principes van Cialdini. Elke marketeer kent en gebruikt ze. Maar als je altijd hetzelfde principe toepast, krijgt elke boodschap dezelfde insteek, zeker als je kijkt naar specifieke dagen met uitingen als ‘Alleen met moederdag’ of ‘Alleen vandaag nog’. Deze uitingen zeggen allemaal hetzelfde, met als gevolg dat ik als ontvanger het merk of product zelf niet meer herken.

7. Wat kun je doen om ze te voorkomen?

Laten we nog even doorgaan op het voorbeeld van de fiets. Ik raad je aan om regelmatig verder te gaan dan productgerichte of functionele aspecten. Denk bijvoorbeeld na over de oplossingen die jouw producten bieden voor het probleem van de lezer. Dat probleem kan zijn: mijn rit van huis naar school duurt nu te lang. De oplossing van de nieuwe fiets: je komt voortaan niet meer te laat op school.

Om je tekst vervolgens écht merkwaardig te maken, moet je kijken naar het archetype van je merk. Staat jouw merk voor zorgzaamheid? Dan beschrijf je de oplossing met andere woorden dan als je merk voor ‘de beste zijn’ staat. In mijn presentatie laat ik zien hoe je deze match tussen oplossing en archetype maakt.

8. Door de opkomst van ChatGPT kunnen we toch gewoon ChatGPT vragen om een stukje tekst te schrijven zonder clichés?

Dat klopt, maar wat je dan vaak ziet, is dat het over-the-top wordt. Het is of te gezocht grappig of te excentriek. Zo’n hypercreatieve creatie is overigens wél een goede voorzet of inspiratie voor een goede zin of tekst.

9. Je bent dus niet bang om vervangen tot worden door ChatGPT?

Nee hoor, en zeker niet in het omzeilen van clichés. Je zou kunnen zeggen dat ChatGPT clichés juist bevordert, omdat het achterliggende taalmodel  uit veelgebruikte zinnen put. Dankzij steeds betere tone-of-voice-functionaliteiten vind ik dat we het schrijven van 1000 vergelijkbare productteksten nu al voor een flink deel door AI kunnen laten schrijven.  Met een menselijke eindredactieslag om het verschil te maken.

10. Maar die 5 woorden op je billboard? Daar laat ik nog geen bot op los. Hoe erg is het om af en toe toch stiekem een cliché toe te voegen? Pleit je voor een clichéfilter?

Totaal niet – helemaal weglaten is onmogelijk en ook niet wenselijk. Mensen zijn gewoontedieren, dus er iets niets menselijker dan een paar clichés. Als je alle clichés uit je tekst haalt, wordt je tekst te apart. Bovendien zouden redactie en eindredactie dan te veel tijd (en dus geld) kosten. Dus om dit interview met een cliché af te sluiten: je moet streven naar een goede balans tussen merkwaardige eigenzinnigheid en sympathiek overkomende clichés

AI is momenteel een van de allerheetste onderwerpen binnen de marketingindustrie. Opvallend, vindt Charida Dorder, oprichtster van A.I. for Marketing Academy en auteur van het boek ‘AI in marketing’, die een aantal jaar geleden nog door haar oude baas voor gek werd verklaard toen ze AI binnen haar organisatie een plek wilde geven. In de aanloop naar haar presentatie op de EMAS 2023 gingen we met haar over deze AI sentimentswitch in gesprek.

Charida is oprichtster van AI voor Marketing Academy. Daar traint ze inmiddels al 6 jaar marketingprofessionals in het begrijpen en toepassen van AI. Daarnaast is ze auteur van het boek ‘AI in marketing’, is ze lid van de Nederlandse AI Coalitie en geeft ze praktische cursussen over AI aan de Beeckestijn Business School.

AI-beweging is in volle gang

De AI-beweging is eindelijk op gang gekomen, aldus Charida. Hiervoor merkte ze vooral weerstand bij het overbrengen van AI. Charida: ‘Men beweerde dat AI geen plaats had binnen organisaties, tenzij je een grote organisatie bent met voldoende middelen. Om ermee aan de slag te kunnen, kwam je al gauw terecht bij de ‘grotere’ partijen, zoals Microsoft, Amazon of Google. Leuk, maar qua prijzen niet echt aantrekkelijk voor de gemiddelde marketeer. Tegenwoordig is dat anders. Dankzij de enorme groei aan data, toenemende computerkracht en het goedkoper opslaan en verwerken van data is de toepasbaarheid van ai in een stroomversnelling gekomen. Maar destijds waren dus alleen de grote tech-bedrijven ermee bezig. Dit frustreerde me steeds meer en daarom ben ik me er steeds verder in gaan verdiepen.’

Hoewel er nog steeds terughoudendheid heerst, is het sentiment nu volledig veranderd, aldus Charida: ‘Nu marketeers beseffen dat ze AI kunnen inzetten voor contentcreatie, komt de beweging eindelijk op gang. Maar hierin schuilt ook een valkuil. Organisaties willen vaak direct met AI beginnen, terwijl hun data nog niet op orde is. Voor contentcreatie is dat geen drempel. Je kan direct starten met de nu zo populaire Large Language-modellen, zoals ChatGPT, om content te maken. Voor het maken van voorspellingsmodellen is dit anders. Het op orde hebben van je data is voor dit soort analytische AI-toepassingen de eerste vereiste. Bovendien moeten marketeers niet zomaar met AI beginnen alleen om het gebruik van AI zelf. Ze moeten kijken naar hun doelen en taken en hoe AI daarin mogelijk een rol kan spelen, en welke middelen daarvoor nodig zijn. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan welke data, welke vaardigheden, en welke mensen.’

Charida laat dus zien dat AI echt een samenspel is van data, technologie en mensen. Dat je alle drie aandacht moet geven als je AI succesvol wilt inzetten in je organisatie. De sentimentswitch ziet Charida ook terug in de mensen die ze binnen organisaties die ze adviseert spreekt. Charida: ‘Vroeger werd ik direct doorverwezen naar IT-afdelingen. Voorheen werd AI vooral gezien als ‘een taak’ voor de IT-afdeling. Maar met de komst van non-coding platformen en toepassingen zoals ChatGPT, bijten steeds meer marketeers zich hierin vast’. De voortvarendheid uit deze hoek komt deels voort uit de angst om de AI-boot te missen. We moeten beseffen dat we niet per se achterlopen als je nog niet alles op orde hebt op met AI te beginnen of als je morgen nog geen AI-toepassing live hebt staan. Het is echter wel belangrijk om een begin te maken om helder te krijgen wat je nodig hebt.’

De marketeer krijgt een nieuwe skillset

Er bestaat een angst binnen de marketingwereld over AI en dat het ’t wellicht het werk van marketeers gaat overnemen. De huidige ontslagrondes bij grote techbedrijven wakkeren dit sentiment aan. Je zult altijd mensen nodig hebben, claimt Charida. ‘ alleen de manier van werken verandert. Dit betekent wel dat op den duur onze functies anders gaan vormgeven, en nieuwe skillsets nodig zijn. Factchecking wordt daarmee steeds belangrijker binnen marketingteams en dat heeft invloed op de functies binnen het vakgebied.

Denk bijvoorbeeld aan het maken van voorspellingsmodellen voor een e-mailmarketingstrategie. We moeten ons bewust zijn hoe de modellen werken. Dat je begrijpt dat het om voorspellingen gaat en geen zekerheden, legt Charida uit. ‘Hetzelfde geldt voor contentcreatie. Als je teksten schrijft met ChatGPT, kun je niet zomaar aannemen dat alles wat het produceert het waar is. Het is vaak inconsistent. Het gevecht om de beste marketing zal de komende jaren niet worden uitgevochten in het aantal jaren ervaring en expertise, maar in hoe goed jij in staat ben als marketingprofessional deze technologie te omarmen. AI vervangt niet de marketeer, maar de marketeer die werkt met AI wint wel het van de marketeers die dat niet doen.’

We moeten de kenniskloof tussen IT en data vs. marketing reduceren

Nu marketeers zich bewust worden van de mogelijkheden die AI biedt op het gebied van zowel machine learning als contentcreatie, ontstaat er een overvloed aan wensen en eisen. Dit kan soms voor wrijving zorgen, legt Charida uit. ‘Enerzijds schrikken IT’ers omdat ze het IT-landschap beter als geen ander kennen maar daarom ook geneigd zijn voorhand al veel obstakels en beperkingen te zien bij de ideeën die marketeers initiëren. Anderzijds is dit vakgebied nog redelijk nieuw voor marketeers. Door enthousiasme willen we toepassingen liever gisteren dan vandaag. We moeten ons alleen realiseren dat met name analytische toepassingen, niet overnacht zijn geregeld. Het is zinvol om de taal van IT’ers en datadeskundigen te spreken om AI-analytische vraagstukken concreter te kunnen formuleren. Beide partijen moeten leren hoe ze het gesprek met elkaar kunnen aangaan. Je moet van tevoren scherp hebben welke vraag je beantwoordt willen hebben en dan samen met IT- en data team dit gaan vormgeven. Bovendien worden IT en data vaak op één hoop gegooid, terwijl het eigenlijk totaal verschillende disciplines zijn. Het verminderen van deze kloof in kennis is van essentieel belang, maar is meestal niet iets waar beiden partijen zich bewust van zijn.’

Marketeers realiseren niet altijd dat ze zelf een grote rol spelen in de kwaliteit van de AI-toepassingen die ze voor ogen hebben, benadrukt Charida. ‘Goede kwaliteit data is een belangrijke voorwaarde voor een goed functionerend voorspellingsmodel. Marketeers zijn verantwoordelijk voor de manier waarop data wordt verzameld, bijvoorbeeld door het opstellen van formulieren en het verzamelen van gegevens. Als dit niet goed gebeurt – wat vaak het geval is – wordt de data vervuild en zijn de resultaten van de AI-modellen niet accuraat. Marketeers zijn daarmee de grootste vervuilers van hun eigen data.’

Risico’s en regelgeving rondom AI: Bewustwording essentieel voor bedrijven

AI en machine learning kunnen aanzienlijke voordelen bieden voor je bedrijf, maar ze brengen ook risico’s met zich mee, vooral op het gebied van privacy, waarschuwt Charida. ‘Het gebruik van ChatGPT-plug-ins neemt toe, ook in e-mailmarketing. Mensen realiseren zich vaak niet dat de gegevens die ze via deze plug-ins invoeren rechtstreeks naar het corpus van OpenAI gaan. Op deze gegevens wordt het model verder getraind. Bovendien belanden de gegevens daardoor ook in de VS, wat momenteel in strijd is met de GDPR. Tegelijkertijd moeten we ook fouten maken. Alleen op die manier kunnen we ontdekken hoe wet- en regelgeving eruit zou moeten zien. Als we alles vooruit reguleren, stellen we regels op voor iets waarvan we niet weten hoe het zal evolueren.’

Daarnaast loopt wet- en regelgeving altijd achter op technologie. Er zijn wel duidelijke overheidsinitiatieven om AI beter te reguleren. Zo heeft de Europese Commissie ethische richtlijnen opgesteld voor het gebruik van AI en er wordt gewerkt aan de AI Act, een set regels voor het gebruik van AI in heel Europa, legt Charida uit. ‘Het is positief dat wetgevers hiermee bezig zijn, om ook de sector scherp te houden. Er is echter weinig kennis over AI binnen overheidsorganen en beleidsmakers, waardoor richtlijnen vaak vrij interpreteerbaar, vaag en onduidelijk blijven. Dit maakt de uitvoerbaarheid lastig. Juist voor organisaties die het goed willen doen.’ Maar ondanks de ontwikkelingen op juridisch gebied zal AI nooit echt verboden worden, zoals sommigen wel eens beweren. Volgens Charida zit het zo: ‘Critici moeten beseffen dat AI niet gelijkstaat aan schending van privacy. Er zijn genoeg manieren om AI veilig in te zetten.

Onder aan de streep is AI is puur een technologie waarmee gegevens verwerkt worden. Het is een middel. Je moet wel bewust zijn van de tools waarmee je werkt en waar je gegevens met die tools naartoe gaan. Als je dat goed inregelt, worden AI-toepassingen gewoon tools in je toolkit. Ze worden onderdeel van het dagelijks leven, net zoals dit al gebeurt met AI-toepassingen bij bedrijven zoals Siri, Netflix of Spotify. Daar zitten ook modellen achter waar we eigenlijk niet meer bij stilstaan.’

E-mail- en marketing automation-professionals: Ga met je leverancier in gesprek

Charida benadrukt dat het cruciaal is voor e-mail- en marketing automation-professionals die de ambitie hebben om AI in te zetten, om nu echt in gesprek moeten gaan met leveranciers. Charida: ‘Stel bijvoorbeeld vragen over de roadmap en of de implementatie van AI daarin is opgenomen. Wat is eigenlijk de visie van de leverancier op AI? Wordt de toepassing ervan binnenkort mogelijk gemaakt binnen de systemen en tools waar jij mee werkt? Wat wordt er van jou als e-mail- en marketing automation-professionals verwacht? Welke rol speel jij, en welke de leverancier? Wat heb je nodig om te kunnen starten? Als je dit weet kun je hierop voorbereiden. Want dat is nu vaak de ham-vraag: hoe goed ben jij voorbereid?’

E-mailmarketeers zijn omtrent AI aan zet. Hoe goed ben jij al voorbereid voor een succesvolle implementatie van AI. Op 22 juni spreekt Charida tijdens de Email Marketing Automation Summit ’23 en gaat daarbij dieper in op de inzet van AI binnen e-mail en marketing automation. Daarbij gaat ze onder meer in op een aantal use case, van grote én kleine organisaties, en geeft ze tips en tricks over hoe je er direct en ethisch mee aan de slag kunt gaan. Tickets verkrijgbaar via emas.nu.

Brand Indicators for Message Identification, oftwel BIMI, is een manier voor adverteerders om vertrouwen te creëren bij hun doelgroep. Hoe werkt dit precies? Wat zijn de voor- en nadelen? Zijn er al ervaringen? Wij vroegen het aan Dirk Jan Koekkoek, VP Product management bij Mimecast en spreker op de aankomende DDMA Email Marketing Automation Summit op 22 juni.

Auteur: Jasper Kolwijck, Lead Email & Messaging bij KPN en lid van de DDMA Commissie E-mail

De impact van BIMI op vertrouwen en deliverability

Het principe van BIMI draait om een logoweergave direct in de mailbox van de gebruiker. Dit logo geeft domeineigenaren, de verzenders van e-mails, een extra laag vertrouwen mee. Het is daarmee een middel waarmee consumenten makkelijker kunnen vaststellen of een e-mail betrouwbaar is, vertelt Dirk Jan. ‘Er zijn nog meer voordelen. Naast meer vertrouwen en een extra gevoel van veiligheid bij de consument is BIMI namelijk gemakkelijk te implementeren. Dat komt omdat BIMI gebaseerd is op de standaardmethode DMARC, een implementatie die veel domeineigenaren al hebben en waarmee je als domeineigenaar kunt voorkomen dat je domein wordt gespooft door hackers.’

‘Daarnaast kan BIMI bijdragen aan de deliverability van domeineigenaren. Mailboxproviders kijken natuurlijk naar veel elementen van een e-mail en of die doorgelaten mag worden naar de inbox van een ontvanger. Als je – los van alle andere checks die providers doen – qua DMARC-compliance goed zit en je hebt óók nog eens de moeite genomen om BIMI te implementeren, dan gaan mailboxproviders je daar zeker voor belonen. Het zijn allemaal plussen ten behoeve van de afleverbaarheid van een e-mail.’

Uiteindelijk gaat BIMI dus zeker een impact hebben op de prestaties van e-mail. Harde data hierover is er nog niet, geeft Dirk Jan toe. ‘Uiteraard kun je als domeineigenaar wel zelf kijken naar hoe je e-mails presteren vóór en na de implementatie van BIMI. Houd hierbij wel rekening met het feit dat de consument BIMI nog niet goed kent. Zij weten niet dat de logoweergave een extra laag van vertrouwen geeft. Als domeineigenaar is het dus zaak hierover te communiceren om je ontvangers hiervan op de hoogte te stellen.’

BIMI moet nog tractie krijgen

Tegelijkertijd moet BIMI nog wel echt tractie krijgen. Dirk Jan: ‘Hoewel er meerdere mailboxproviders (onder meer Google, Lapost, Yahoo en Fastmail) BIMI mogelijk maken, heeft nog niet iedereen zich bij de BIMI-beweging aangesloten. De grootste afwezige is natuurlijk Microsoft, een provider die gigantisch veel mailboxen onder haar hoede heeft en nog niet heeft geuit BIMI in Microsoft-mailboxen mogelijk te maken.’

Uiteindelijk zullen ‘hoog-risico-partijen’ als eerste over de brug komen, aldus Dirk Jan. ‘Partijen waarbij vertrouwen en veiligheid cruciaal zijn, gaan doorgaans voorop bij dit soort bewegingen. Dat gebeurde ook bij DMARC. Partijen als Paypal, Rabobank en American Express – waar het draait om geld en een mogelijk risico op fraude – gingen daarmee als eerste aan de slag.

Potentieel gaat ook BIMI gemeengoed worden, uiteraard wel met de voorwaarde dat meer mailboxproviders BIMI een kans gaan geven, legt Dirk Jan uit. ‘Kijk maar hoe dat met andere veiligheidsstandaarden is gegaan, waarbij de brede adoptie doorgaans altijd met een S-curve is verlopen. Neem de HTTPS-standaard; als je als webwinkel geen slotje laat zien in de URL van je website kom je al meteen onbetrouwbaar over, of erger nog, browsers kunnen je website volledig blokkeren. Als je dan tot de minderheid behoort die de standaard niet toepast, moet jij met de gevolgen dealen. Ik kan me goed voorstellen dat dit voor BIMI ook in het verschiet ligt, in ieder geval voor organisaties met grote mailvolumes.’

BIMI is vooralsnog weggelegd voor grote organisaties

Helaas beschikt niet iedereen over de middelen om BIMI te implementeren. Er is namelijk aardig wat voor nodig, aldus Dirk Jan. ‘BIMI is vooralsnog weggelegd voor grote, gevestigde organisaties. Ten eerste omdat je een logo moet registreren als trademark. Kleine organisaties of startups die net beginnen kunnen dat niet zomaar doen. Het zijn dus vooral de sterkere merken – die al trademark-logo’s hebben – die direct met BIMI aan de slag kunnen. Daarnaast moet je een VMC-certificaat hebben, dat mailboxproviders laat zien dat je merklogo geverifieerd is, en dus echt van jou is. Uiteindelijk vergt BIMI dus best een investering, ook qua kosten. Je moet hierbij wel in je achterhoofd houden dat een kleine verbetering in conversie uit e-mailcampagnes je direct meer kan opleveren.’

Doe aan list management

Naast BIMI, zijn er ook andere punten die je kunt doen om deliverability te verbeteren. Wat marketeers vaak vergeten – of misschien (onterecht) bewust niet doen – is list management, stelt Dirk Jan. ‘Men is doorgaans huiverig om inactieve abonnees uit te sluiten. Men hecht te veel waarde aan grote mailbestanden, maar dit is onterecht. Uit onderzoek blijkt dat als je inactieve ontvangers uit je lijsten verwijdert, dat de conversie van de mensen die je wel benadert stijgt. Nou is het wel zo dat het verwijderen van inactieve ontvangers niet zomaar gedaan is. Het is vaak een beslissing waarbij meerdere stakeholders bij betrokken zijn en waarvoor je een goede business case voor moet opbouwen.’

Security gaat niet alleen om techniek, maar ook om marketing

Security in e-mail is niet alleen een technisch onderwerp, aldus Dirk Jan. ‘Marketeers moeten dit echt beseffen. Security is ook voor de marketeer echt belangrijk, zeker in het geval van e-mail, omdat je het kunt inzetten om conversie te verhogen. Tijdens de DDMA Email Marketing Automation Summit op 22 juni ga ik het hier uitgebreid over hebben, inclusief concrete tips en tricks om security in te zetten als optimalisatie-instrument. BIMI komt daarbij uiteraard ook aan bod.

Author: Ralph de Kruif, Base Marketeer at Holland Casino

April Mullen describes herself as an email geek with experience on both brand and agency sides. In 2016 she co-founded Women of Email, a professional network with 6,000 members aimed at promoting leadership among women within the email marketing niche. April would have spoken on last year’s edition of the Email Marketing Automation Summit (EMAS). Luckily she is available this year too. We got the chance to talk to her beforehand!

What are you aiming to achieve with Women of Email?

“Our main goal is to empower women and other marginalised groups in the email space. We found out that there weren’t many women speaking at conferences, even though the male to female ratio in the email industry is around fifty-fifty. We discovered that many women didn’t have the confidence for whatever reason to get out and speak at conferences or publish their thoughts on email. ‘I don’t think people would find my work interesting’, they would say. But on the contrary, we discovered that the things women in email are working on are fascinating, but that there just was a big confidence gap. With a bit of support and encouragement and some help in writing conference pitches and abstracts, women are very eligible to speak at conferences. Now, conferences reach out to us frequently to ask for speakers. We essentially make sure that conferences have many intelligent women in the email space they can connect with.”

Looking at email marketing in different parts of the world, do you notice any significant differences?

“Yes. A lot of differences come down to privacy laws. Privacy basically guides the approach of what you can or can’t do in email. In the US, privacy laws are not very strict. I actually wish our government would enforce a law like the GDPR in Europe. We find that some of our strategies are not possible in other places, and they might be seen as not-consumer-focused. Still, many good email strategies are being implemented in the US, but on occasion, some of them would not be legal in other countries.

In Europe, specifically in the Netherlands, there’s a strong valuation of privacy as a fundamental human right, and Dutch marketing reflects that. So one of the things I really love about being connected to a global community is that in Europe, specifically the Netherlands, it has been a social norm to ensure that people have their privacy, even before laws mandated it. So, creating strong CRM strategies and using first-party data in a respectful, permission-based way has been something European countries have been doing for a long time. While in the US, we have larger lists but we’re newer to being more personalised and we’re just now starting to think about privacy on the level that Europeans do on a broader level. So, it’s been exciting to watch to see the sophistication in how Europeans use automation and personalisation but doing it in smaller populations of people that have given permission.

Looking at the position of women in the US, there is not much support for women in terms of maternity care. Your job is protected, but you may not be compensated while you’re out on leave. The decision is up to the company you work for. In the UK, I think it might be a bit better. But in other parts of Europe, it’s just natural for women to have the kind of support they need when they go out on maternity leave, and even paternity leave for fathers. Next to that, there is a high level of sexism. In the US, the industry is very patriarchal in terms of who sits on boards and leads companies. You don’t see a lot of women in senior leadership positions. I don’t live in the Netherlands, but it feels like there’s a lot more natural equality. I’m sure there are issues everywhere, but it feels there’s a lot more support for men and women to be equal in Europe, while in the US, that’s not the case, although it is getting more attention.”

If we’re talking about email marketing, in most cases, it encompasses much more than that. Should we call an email marketer even an email marketer anymore? This year we have changed the name to Marketing Automation Summit, what do you think of the new name?

“Email marketing is typically not just about email but usually also about managing SMS, push notifications and some aspects of web personalisation. I think this is because the email marketer is an expert orchestrator of managing and using first-party data. Wherever you go in the world, the email marketer knows how to take the first-party data in your CRM or database and make it actionable. So I understand the question of email should be called something more than just email. It’s really about delivering good customer experiences, including other channels that can be personalised using first-party data.”

What should be some of the core goals for anybody in email marketing / CRM in your eyes? What are the most important KPI’s?

“If you don’t have people engaged, people will unsubscribe, or worse – hit the spam button. I think the primary goal of email is lifetime value. Brands today, at least in the US, spend a fortune on acquiring customers. But there’s not a lot of focus on retention to drive lifetime value. Then you’re not retaining them long enough to get the money back on initial acquisition investments you’ve made. Many companies are just looking at the money their emails made, but not at a customer level. Even in Europe, companies struggle with measuring lifetime value across channels. I’d love to see it normalised that we’re tracking lifetime value and not just looking at results of individual marketing automations or campaigns. I’d love for us to look at things across the value of what we’re driving, for the consumer and our companies.”

What are the biggest challenges we’re facing within the email marketing industry?

“So as I said, It’s measuring lifetime value and providing privacy, especially in the US. Email is often already seen as spam in the US. People are wondering how they got on lists much of the time, which is terrible. The complexity around privacy is a big challenge as well. You have to put a lot in place to manage privacy and do it in a compliant and legal way. You also have to ensure that customers have a good experience.

Another challenge is that people outside of email (business leaders, tech company executives) don’t understand how powerful email is. When you think about email versus other channels, it has an exceptional job. Messages on other channels like social don’t lend themselves to come back to later when you might have more time to engage. Compared to other channels, the email inbox is a very organised place. Email messages can be organised and triaged, with folders and labels, so if you see an email that interests you, you can save it. Email provides the possibility to come back to messages in an organised way. Other channels don’t offer this type of flexibility.”

Are there any common mistakes every email marketer needs to stop making right now?

“I’d love to see email be more strategic in the way that it’s applied to the customer experience. I don’t know any email marketers that are not drowning in work. They are always busy. Part of the reason is that a lot of hands have to touch it. People have to write and design content. As a result, we spend so much time on execution but not nearly enough time on strategy. This is just the nature of the business, making it just that more challenging to do email marketing well. It’s not the fault of email marketers; it’s just the nature of working in email.”

Within the email marketing industry, we focus a lot on deliverability. We consider a sent email as a success. Shouldn’t we pay more attention to inbox placement to prevent emails from being categorised as spam?

“Yes, absolutely. First of all, deliverability is very confusing and complicated. It isn’t easy and constantly changing. This is because if everyone knew how to ace deliverability, then actual criminal spammers would make it to the inbox too. But coming back to how much email marketers have to manage, they don’t have time to fuss about deliverability. But the single best way to have excellent deliverability is engagement. And to ensure that the subscribers you’re sending your emails to are engaged at a very regular cadence. I think this is where Europe has a leg up because your lists are smaller and a lot more targeted and personalised. In the US, we have lists of millions of people, many of them unengaged. So again, spending more time on strategy and thinking through what is in it for your subscribers is a great way to tackle deliverability.

Another thing that I see, which is a mistake a lot of email marketers make, is that we tell people not to reply to emails. If you allow receiving replies, your deliverability will actually be better. Mailbox providers will see that people respond to your emails and that there is this bidirectional communication flow happening, which looks like your brand is known and that there’s a relationship. I know this causes an operational situation for the customer service team, but it’s also a great way to drive lifetime value, be helpful and support better deliverability.”

Are there any upcoming trends we should pay attention to this and in the coming year?

“Accessibility will definitely be a trend. Dark mode as well, which kind of fits in with accessibility and a wider user experience trend in general. Nowadays, phones, apps and laptops all allow you to use dark mode. Voice in email falls into accessibility as well, which enables people with visual impairments to have their emails read to them. So it will become increasingly important to add HTML text (vs. image text) and ALT text to your emails so they can be read.

Apart from accessibility, brand indicators for messaging identification (BIMI), the evolution of DMARC, where company logos show up in the inbox, will be used more widely. Companies can use it to build another layer of security and trust in their emails.

Finally, I still like to point out AMP, though many people don’t like using it because it’s hard to execute. While AMP may not be the right technology, the concept is fascinating. I hope that the idea eventually leads to engaging experiences, such as subscribers being able to fill in open-ended survey questions right from their emails.”

Next to your role at Women of Email, you work SparkPost. Can you tell anything about Messagebird’s acquisition of SparkPost and what they hope to achieve with it?

“We’re very excited about it. SparkPost and all its capabilities are not going away. We are going to continue the work we’re doing. Our new parent company MessageBird has committed to continuing to invest in email. They were actually a customer of ours before they acquired us, so they see the importance of email for their own business as well.

But the idea of email being tied in the other channels MessageBird offers is an exciting idea. And while I don’t know what it will look like from a product development perspective, we’re very excited about email being elevated alongside a lot of other channels leveraging first-party data, such as SMS and push. We’re really excited about what’s ahead.”

What can visitors expect from your presentation at the DDMA EMAS 2022?

“I’ll bring many great examples of good marketing of different parts of the world and discuss them in the context of the construct of a psychologist, Abraham Maslow. I’ll especially look at these examples through the lens of everything that happened in the past years. It’s been a traumatising time, but I’ve seen many good emails. Email professionals basically were heroes, not on the same level as medical professionals, but in terms of businesses struggling. Many companies unable to invest in advertising put their efforts into email. Email was a workhorse that kept the lights on for many companies and kept customers informed of how to interact with brands. It was fascinating, and it made me proud to see the excellent work from our global community. I’ll share some of those examples and hopefully inspire people as we get back to the new normal, which hopefully is a bit closer to the old normal.”

Really Good Emails is a website that showcases the best emails that hit the inbox, which according to Mike Nelson, one of its founders and speaker at the EMAS 2022, is ‘strangely popular.’ Still, this is an undeniable fact; with over 10,000 email examples and over 200 categories to search through, and more than 2 million email creators aiming to find inspiration for what to build next. We got the chance to talk to Mike about his platform and his vision of email design. And get a sneak preview about his presentation at the EMAS 2022.

The need for Really Good Emails: adapt, learn and improve

‘Having worked in digital marketing/design and managing email programs for a long time, I and the other founders of Really Good Emails have always been sharing good examples of emails with each other, team members, clients, and event audiences,’ Nelson explains. But they noticed that all this creative inspiration wasn’t very accessible. Nelson: ‘All these e-mails were locked up in their inbox folders, not viewable by people, who just wanted to browse to get some good ideas. That’s when we started capturing emails, categorizing them, and uploading them to a blog called ReallyGoodEmails.com. Over the past 8 years, the site has transformed into a platform where users can upload, search, collect, share, and collaborate.’

Nelson states that the aim of Really Good Emails is to make email better. A pretty lofty goal, but definitely necessary. Nelson: ‘We still get a ton of really bad emails. We want users to be able to see what the best emails look like so that they can learn, adapt, and get better results out of their own messaging.’

The real importance of email design

How essential is the design of an email? According to Nelson, it is very essential, but maybe not always in the way you think it is. ‘We often say that email is “relationship designed,” but not every email needs to be “visually” designed (for example, it can just be text),’ Nelson claims. ‘Each email, however, needs to be designed in some way. What we mean by that is that there needs to be a purpose, a strategy and a desired outcome. Well-designed emails have to meet all those points. This could be accomplished by having concise, punchy copy and a strong call-to-action. It could be accomplished using the inverted pyramid that utilizes strong imagery and supporting copy to draw the eye to a button. It could be a series of emails that help someone become a better customer or user. If you aren’t thoughtful about the design, you shouldn’t expect better results. Similar to any relationship, the more thought you put into it, the more you will get out of it.’

A fresh view on the most important email metrics (spoiler alert, it is not just CTR)

Data is becoming more important in the email industry. When it comes to design, CTR is considered an important metric. But opinions on how to boost CTR differ. At Really Good Emails they will not tell you that changing the colour of a CTA button will increase your CTR. According to Nelson, the best way to increase engagement (often measured by CTR) is to include content that is relevant and timely to the subscriber – and omit the extra information that blocks them from taking that action. Nelson: ‘Often the most simple emails are the most direct. If you’ve ever watched any of our Feedback Friday videos, you’ll learn that we’re big fans of something we call design golf. As you streamline your fonts, colours, spacing, buttons, text length and imagery, you increase the scanability of the email which helps readers make actions. The more variables you add to your emails, the more complicated it gets for readers to figure out what they should do.’

‘In addition to design golf, we are big fans of watching what content blocks recent subscribers click on. This gives a good indication of what value they are looking for in the email; it can tell you if you need to redesign an email to show off other values that resonate better with them. Some more sophisticated ESPs allow you to tag links based on their category. You can measure clicks by link number reference (such as newsletters that have multiple article links), hero image vs product image, navigation link, social link, etc. Over time you will get a sense of what elements are driving the most engagement.’

‘We also like to look at design metrics by segmentation. Using dynamic content can show if something is tipping the scale when everything else is constant.’

Ultimately, the most important KPI in email design is Unsubscribes, Nelson claims. Nelson: ‘If you are seeing an increasing amount of subscribers leave over time, it will tell you that you are not delivering an email that they want to engage with. Again, design isn’t just how “pretty” something looks, but everything down to the cadence, content, and clarity (the 3 Cs).’

The paradox of WYSIWYG Editor and templates

Working in a tech-centralized industry that likes to stay ahead, email marketers aim to work as efficiently as possible. But striving to work efficiently often inhibits us in our creative thinking, Nelson claims. That is why Nelson coins WYSIWYG Editors and templates as two of the biggest challenges the email industry is currently facing when it comes to design. Nelson: ‘WYSIWYG Editors and templates are great to increase the speed to build an email, but often make emails look homogenous and constrict creativity. You want to stand out in the inbox and an ESP template isn’t going to do that automatically.’

The technical constraints

In email design, code and creativity go hand in hand. Without proper technical builds, we can’t fully make use of the creativity of designers. This relationship is exactly what is holding us back from having great experiences inside our inbox, Nelson states. Making inboxes more flexible and giving email creators additional technical tools will mean a whole new email experience: where people can watch videos, purchase items, change their reservations – all without leaving the email app. ‘as long as ESPs and inbox providers can’t help email creators with making technical emails more accessible, they will look much like they do today. The goal is to get to a point where the email itself is the destination, not to where the email points you.’

Maybe that is why the question of the durability of email often comes up. ‘Is email dead?’, critical thinkers even ask themselves. Apparently, email is considered a channel that has outlived its time, at least to some people. Nelson claims the opposite, at least, if you know what you’re doing. Nelson: ‘Consumers are getting way savvier and can spot spam emails from a mile away. But if you are responsive to readers’ needs, your email program will be very much alive. That is why large open rates and list sizes do not equal successful email programs (unless you are a publication and you are still selling against those archaic metrics). Stop making emails that are one-size-fits-all and make emails that are built based on segments. You will have much better results.’

Where is email headed? Find out at the DDMA EMAS 2022

Email trends can tell us where email is headed (and also what to avoid). Every year Really Good Emails analyses the emails that are hitting their collective inboxes to give them a sense of the elements that brands are adopting to drive engagement. Their research focuses on a lot of visual analysis, such as how an element is replicated in similar formats across a lot of brands. There’s also some quantitative analysis of how many emails we see that have that element.

Nelson: ‘Based on what we know about these elements and their ability to drive engagement, we can extrapolate their effectiveness for each trend. And that’s what I’ll discuss at the EMAS 2022. A lot of people can fall into the trap of copying others. I will tell you when it is a good idea and when it isn’t.’

Reasons why you should not miss Mike Nelson’s presentation at the EMAS 2022

On the 23th of June Mike Nelson will share his insights and thoughts about email and his vision on the future of email. This is an unique opportunity to get inspired. Nelson also added ‘If you don’t come you won’t see this big, strange American.’ No need to say more.

Note: the Email Marketing Automation Summit will take place on the 23th of June 2022 in Amsterdam. Buy your tickets now to ensure your spot in the audience. Get inspired & connected: emas.nu.