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Increase Conversion Rates by
Advancing Your Email Creative Strategy
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Session recording and slides will be sent
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● Resources available as handouts
Persephanie Arellano
Webinar Coordinator
Today’s Logistics

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Experts-Only Approach
Strategic acquisitions have positioned us as the
leading independent performance marketing agency
Search • Social • Amazon • Email • Display • Shopping & Data Feed • SEO • Affiliate •
Conversion Rate Optimization • Creative Services • Analytics & Marketing Science

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Amy Slater
Sr. Strategist, CRM & Email
Today’s Speakers
Sammi Nutsongtat
Design Specialist

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1. Design Best Practices: Fundamentals
2. Mobile Considerations
3. Testing to Optimize Creative
4. Looking Forward: Design Trends
5. Template Design Tips With Campaigns & Flows
Agenda
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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Design Best Practices:
Fundamentals

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● Around 34% of emails on mobile and
54% of emails on desktop are
abandoned or only skimmed1
● Email attention span is reportedly about
13 seconds2
on average
● Keep the copy short and sweet, and
make your email instantly visually
interesting.
Simplify Email Design
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
1
Source: ReturnPath, 2018
2
Source: Litmus, 2019

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● Establish visual hierarchy and good
text-to-image ratio
● Keep headline on two lines or less
● Keep text on a simplified background
so it’s easy to read
● If you do have copy that is longer than three lines,
bold or highlight key words/phrases
● Use directional cues to draw the eye to the most
important part of your email.
Keep it Clean
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Rotate design layout to avoid using the
same framework over and over again -
emails will become stale.
○ Pro Tip: Create at least four different
wireframes to cycle through your email
program. Once these have been tested and
optimized, use of color/typography/imagery
can create the illusion of a much wider
template library. Master templates help build
emails more quickly and reduce errors
Vary Layouts
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
Hero + Headline +
CTA
Copy
CTA
Image +
CTA #1
Logo + Navigation
Example Wireframe#1
Image +
CTA #2
Hero
Image
Logo + Navigation
Headline
+ CTA
Copy +
CTA
Section
Image
Text
Example Wireframe#2

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● Test a mix of illustrated heros, lifestyle images, typography
heros, and product highlights, and GIFs.
Tips for GIFs:
○ 1MB or less
○ Avoid too many animation elements in one email
○ Outlook does not support animation. The first frame must communicate
your message
● Avoid reusing heros: often times, this will fail the “glance test”
● Consider Video: video is expected to make up 80% of content
on the internet by 20201
and video in an email can lead to
200-300% increase in click-through rate2
Vary Your Creatives
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
1
Source: Forbes, 2019
2
Source: Hubspot, 2018

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● Placement: CTAs should be above the fold
● Number: Use Multiple CTAs where it makes sense. Every
email creative should have at least one CTA - if contacts
get used to having no engagement point, click rates will
decline over time
● Treatment: Buttons should be large, for ease of mobile
use. Make sure color stands out against the design and
text is easy to read.
● Copy: Don’t be afraid to change up your CTA text. Aim to
use something different than “Shop Now” for every CTA in
the design.
Best Practices: Calls to Action
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Navigation with multiple end locations is recommended,
in the event that contact does not choose to engage with
primary CTA. Header/footer navigation can account for
as high as 25% of total clicks
○ Pro Tip: Track using heat maps or link reporting. If certain
location/navigation categories are consistently performing higher or
lower than the average, test new categories/destinations
● Incorporate Sub-banners. Sub-banners can increase
clicks and conversions, especially if the main content is
highly focused on one product or offer.
● Include social channels and referral programs.
Additional Engagement Points
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● DO maintain updated Brand Guidelines, and keep your
branding consistent email over email and across your
other channels
● DO consider user experience to reduce bounce
○ Pro-tip: use analytics to review your site bounce rate for the email
channel specifically. Is it high in comparison to your overall bounce
rate? Take a critical look at design of landing pages to identify if there
is a disconnect
● DON’T discount design-shock
○ Pro-tip: when rolling out new creative, aim to test on a cohort of new
contacts, to accurately measure lift and optimize design before
rolling out to full subscriber base
Branding: Dos and Don’ts
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● 40.7% of marketers polled in a Litmus study1
placed “focusing more on personalization and
dynamic content” as the top email trend in 2019
● First step: inventory your data
○ Pro tip: most brands have enough information to know
where a contact falls in the funnel, basic demographic or
location data, and past browse and purchase behavior
● Utilize product recommendation tools to
dynamically display products customers may be
interested in
Personalization
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
1
Source: Ltmus, 2018

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● Start Segmenting: Marketers who use
segmented campaigns note as much as
a 760% increase in revenue1
.
● Use emails as a way to gather
information on user preferences for
further segmentation opportunities
Personalization
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
1
Source: Campaign Monitor, 2019

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Mobile Considerations

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● Over 50% of all emails were opened on
mobile in 2018 - and we know this
number is much higher for younger markets
● Poor formatting is the number one
complaint about mobile email. If an email
displays poorly, no matter how good the
content is, it’s likely to be deleted in under three seconds
(in >70% of cases)1
● Conversions rates for mobile traffic are growing quickly year-over-year,
while conversion rates for desktop traffic are dropping2
Mobile Stats
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
1
Source: Adestra
2
Source: Yesmail

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● Assets should be sized at double typical email width (sized to
1200px) to render clearly on retina displays
● Enlarge your fonts. Depending on the typeface, the headline
font should be a minimum of 22px and body font 14px or more.
● Stick to single-column layout
● Keep copy concise. Rule of thumb: your reader will likely scroll
through 2 times or less before moving on
● Test your email across multiple devices
Mobile Requirements
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
○ Pro-tip: Run your email through email rendering software to see
how your email displays in the inbox across most devices.
Otherwise, gather info on top opens across devices and
optimize for those

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Types of Mobile Design
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
Mobile Friendly Mobile Responsive
Execution Executed in design (image slices) Executed in design and code
Device Render Same across desktop and mobile
Different design and layouts across devices
based on device-width
Support Supported across all platforms
Supported by most platforms, but some app and
older webmail clients do not support CSS
Considerations
● More/larger images may affect email
load time
● Emails must be designed as a grid,
without overlapping elements
● Limited support for background images
When You Should Use It
● Highly-stylized, minimal text emails
● Single column templates
● Strict brand needs (fonts, colors, etc)
● Text-heavy emails, such as newsletters or
informative emails
● Multi-column layouts (adjust to single
column in code)
● Dynamic content

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Testing to Optimize Creative

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How often are you testing?
Poll Question
● I regularly A/B test my subject lines, messaging
and send times to optimize for engagement
● It’s valuable but I don’t know what to test
● It’s valuable but I don’t have the tools
● It’s not important to me

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● 31%
of respondents regularly test
● 42.9%
of respondents don’t know what
to test
Survey of Email Marketers
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
Source: Yesware Blog

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● Develop a hypothesis that you are trying to prove.
● Execute true A/B splits whenever possible.
● Make sure groups are large enough to be a true sample of database; generally
recommend test sizes above 10K contacts.
● Tests should be run across multiple sends over a time range to normalize against
external noise.
● Run any single test 1 to 2 times a week over a 3 to 4 week time range, depending on
the test. Tests within workflows should run for 2-3 weeks
● Tests should be run on similar types of sends and segments to avoid skewed results
● If you have high confidence in clear takeaways, incorporate learnings into the email
program.
Testing Best Practices
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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Testing Types
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
Test Type DO DON’T Best Used For
A/B
● First testing approach for
new ideas
● Use 50/50 split
● Review metrics too early
● Make decisions after one
test
● Determining what works
best
Multivariate
● After exhausting A/B
Tests, consider
Multivariate to enhance
● Test with multiple KPI
success metrics
● Align element combos to
one success metric
● Optimizing combinations
of winning elements
Champion Vs.
Challenger
● Plan test period to have
breaks for implementation
● Test during Holiday or high
season as it skews results
● Ongoing testing of existing
experience/many ideas to
consider
Hold Out
● Consider control groups
instead for different
experience testing
● Use this method unless no
other options are valid
● Measuring incremental
contribution of marketing
to Conversion/ROI

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● Gradual test process to gather
results on layout and copy
first, and brand updates after
● New cohort used to minimize
the effect of design-shock
Example: Template Updates
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Test run for Active Customers
and Non-Purchasers
● 323% lift in click for Active
Customers
● 123% lift in click for
Non-Purchasers
Testing: Layout
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Segments created by location,
and live content used to serve
hero based on location
● 61% lift in conversion rate
● 56% lift in revenue per delivery
Example: Personalized Content
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
VS.

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● Different text used for each CTA
as opposed to same generic
“Get Yours” CTA
● 26.23% lift in click-to-open
rate
Testing: CTA Copy
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
WINNER
VS.

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● Tested a more visual layout of
an information-heavy email to
new partners
● Separated text with blocking
and color highlights
● 143% lift in click-to-open rate
Testing: Text vs. Visual
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue
WINNER

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Looking Forward:
Design Trends in 2019 and Beyond

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● Bundles best stuff at the top
● Enriched Preview: Images, deals,
calls-to-action
● Sender-customizable
● Nudges in the primary inbox
Gmail Promotions Annotation
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Accelerated Mobile
Pages (AMP) for email is
open source technology
for Gmail that allows
senders to create more
engaging, interactive and
actionable experiences
directly within the email.
AMP for Gmail
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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● Complex Animated Gifs
● Live Content
● Cinemagraphs
● Embedded Video
● CSS Animation
Advanced Animation
What Top Brands are Testing to Grow Email Marketing Revenue

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Best Practices for
Email Design

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Sammi Nutsongtat
Klaviyo Product Expert | Designer

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1 // Design Basics
2 // Template Design Tips
3 // Actionable Takeaways
Agenda
Agenda

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Design Basics

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“Reduce the
cognitive load”
Is your content relevant? How long is
too long? Who is your audience?

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Design Basics39
Fonts
● Custom fonts vs. web safe fonts
● Use a maximum of 2 font faces
● Responsive font sizes.

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Colors
● Stick to brand colors.
● Bright and bold for
important CTAs.
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CTAs
● Separate main CTAs from
secondary CTAs
Design Basics

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Mobile vs. Desktop
● Know your audience
● Mirroring layouts
● Media query support
(responsive design)
Takeaways
● 1-column layouts
● Responsive font sizes
● Keep it simple and clean
Design Basics

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Text Based vs. All Image Email
● Branding
● Think about deliverability
● Blocked images or poorly scales down for mobile
Takeaways
● 80/20 rule
● Include Alt-Text on all of your images
● Branding doesn’t need to be 100% sacrificed
Design Basics

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Template
Design Tips

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Email Types
Campaigns Flows

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Campaigns

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Campaign - Why this works...
● Brand: Car Keys
● Type of Email: Blog/Informational
● ‘Long’ in length but content is short and concise
● Clear CTAs
Campaigns

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Klaviyo Level Up
Segment your users and only
show them content based on
their profile properties
Campaigns
person.bmw

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Campaign - Why this works...
● Brand: Headspace
● Type of Email: Product Sale
● Offer expiration (sense of urgency)
● Minimal CTAs
Campaigns

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Klaviyo Level Up
Replace the expiration date
with countdown timer
Campaigns

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Campaign - Why this works...
● Brand: Alit
● Type of Email: New Product
● Focused content
● Captivating imagery
● One main CTA
Campaigns

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Klaviyo Level Up
Create a segment for your
predicted high-value
customers to share news first
Campaigns

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Flows

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Flows - Why this works...
● Brand: Beardbrand
● Type of Email: Abandoned Cart
● Standalone logo
● One CTA – Two chances to click
Flows

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Klaviyo Level Up
Use a conditional split to send
personalized abandoned cart emails
based on specific attributes
Flows

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Flows - Why this works...
● Brand: Warby Parker
● Type of Email: Welcome Series
● Intro to BTS of their product
● Top categories in the navigation
Flows

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Klaviyo Level Up
Collect more information or update a
profile property through clicks
Flows
{% update_property_link 'profile_property'
'property_value' 'redirect_link' %}

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Flow - Why this works...
● Brand: Missguided
● Type of Email: Birthday
● “Personalized” text
● Simple CTA
Flows
sammi

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Klaviyo Level Up
Auto-apply a dynamic coupon
within the CTA for easy use
Flows

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Actionable
Takeaways

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Design Basics
● Content is key
● Stay within brand guidelines
● Optimize for readability
● Structure layouts based on the
purpose of communication
Campaigns
● Clear and concise
● Sense of urgency
● Clear primary and secondary
CTA buttons
Flows
● No distractions
● Short and sweet
● Make broad emails
feel personal
Next Level Tips
● Create flows based on
predictive analytics
● Collect information to learn
about your customers
● Show/hide dynamic content

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62.
Q & A
Type Your Questions In The Chat Box
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Amy Slater
Sr. Strategist, CRM & Email
Sammi Nutsongtat
Design Specialist

63.
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