Segmenting, offering incentives, automatization are the most important in email marketing, but nobody speaks about design. You're selling a good product and the inbox is one of the most important part of the subscriber journey - make it attractive! Make your emails accessible and design for engagement. How the browser game Rail Nation (by Travian Games) redesigned it's emails to increase the conversion, retention and reactivation of the players and doubled the revenues. Templates to be opened in browser: Birthday with fireworks: http://bit.ly/2kmdXut Unveil train by mouse over: http://bit.ly/2z2RJ5e Travian Games Christmas email (turn the lights on/off): http://content.traviangames.com/pics/traviangames/xmas2017/TravianChristmas2017en.html Radu Neag, CRM Manager @ Travian Games. Munich, 01.2018

1. THE ART OF EMAIL

2. IN ONE
SENTENCE
Email marketing helps businesses see instant
sales from existing customers, but more
importantly, it maintains and builds long-
lasting, loyal relationships – which are the core
of most successful businesses.

3. Hello!
I am Radu Neag
EmailGeek & CRM Manager @ Travian Games
Breathing email marketing daily - from
strategy, design & coding to
automatization and implementation.
You can follow me online:
raduneag

4. DESIGN AS STRATEGY

5. HOW TO DO IT (ALREADY AN EMAIL MARKETER? IGNORE)
■ Build email list / collect email addresses
■ Plan, develop, implement your emails
■ Schedule & Automatize them
Where to start in planning & developing email campaigns:
Develop: design & coding (you can externalize)
Copy: write your emails
Localize (if necessary - recommended)Segment – create target group
Schedule, track & analyze
Optimize & automatize

6. What do you want to achieve?
Most important KPIs in email marketing
Revenues
The ROI of your campaigns.
Retention
Make them stay/use the
product longer.
Reactivation
Re-engage them to come
back.
Segmentation
Your email list consists
of different kind of
people, with different
behavior and
interests. Why treat
them all the same?
Split your email list
into groups that are
alike.
How to improve/increase the KPIs using email?
-> Good open and click rates
Personalization
When you send the
right message to the
right person at the
right time. Emails with
personalized subject
lines are 26% more
likely to be opened.
E-mail design
Amongst so much
competition, a great
email design needs to
capture the attention
of the reader right
away to avoid being
deleted and risk never
being seen.
Testing
Test your template to
make sure it’ll work in all
the different email clients.
Split test the subject lines,
copy, buttons, images. It's
the most effective for
encouraging opens or
clicks.

7. (RE)DESIGN AS STRATEGY – why design is important (too)
By following the brand
guidelines
Increase open and click
rates -> better conversion
Design for
engagement
The 10m players of our games (Travian, Rail Nation, Goalunited)
come from different generations. There are very old, but also new players.
OBJECTIVE: Improve the layouts of the emails from flat and standard email
templates and implement the latest design techniques (advanced CSS,
interactivity, hybrid approach) to keep up with the games redesign and
updates.
FIT ALL INBOXES FRESH CONTENT IMPROVE KPIs

8. THE RAIL NATION CASE
How we improved (a lot!) the revenues and
reactivation by revamping the design
of our emails

9. PRODUCT: A browser game for strategy gamers
& railway/trains fans

10. Where do Rail Nation players read/open the email?
Analysis: openers of an email
campaign (200k) which targeted
the whole Rail Nation database

11. HOW DID IT LOOK LIKE BEFORE?

12. SO WE STARTED CODING AND TESTING

13. AFTER: All new & clean
 Respecting the brand guidelines
 Clear message and CTA
 Localized in 19 languages
 Responsive (hybrid)
 Animated

14. OUTLOOK FALLBACK

15. 50%
That’s a lot of money
More clicks -> more conversions
More players returned
in the game
OLD vs. NEW RESULTS?
6%
27%
REVENUES UPLIFT
ACTIVATIONS UPLIFT
CLICK RATE UPLIFT
Based on AB test, sent daily for 40 days

16. SO WE DID THE SAME FOR OTHER CAMPAIGNS

17. AND REVAMPED AL MAJOR CAMPAIGNS/TEMPLATES

18. Click Rate Click to Open Rate
Uplift 23.32% 25.29%
OVERALL UPLIFT (~ 1 year, all campaigns)
5 campaigns revamped during 1 year and
were compared with the old ones. Results:

19. SUMMARY
 IMPROVE / INCREASE revenues and reactivation by
redesign -> it’s working;
 ALIGN your design to the brand (images, color, fonts);
 IMPLEMENT latest design techniques (if there’s no
time/budget -> externalize);
 TEST always (email clients, design approaches, copy,
subject lines, ANYTHING);
 BE CREATIVE, it never gets boring!

20. EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES OF EMAIL MARKETING
INTERACTIVITY
+ engagement
+ aspect
+ different
> conversion
Not working everywhere,
but always possible to
have nice fallbacks or
send them to webversion

21. EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES OF EMAIL MARKETING

22. Thank you!
Questions?
You can follow me online:
raduneag
Or write me:
raduneag@gmail.com