This document summarizes research on how to make emails go viral through forwarding. Some key findings include: - Smaller audience sizes, segmented/triggered emails, personalization, and "share" calls-to-action increased forwarding rates. - Event-related and transactional emails had higher forwarding rates than promotional content or newsletters. - The most viral 1% of emails had forwarding rates 17.6 times higher than median emails, demonstrating exponential growth in virality. - Forwarding is a sign that emails are meeting subscribers' needs and expanding reach, engagement, and conversions. Consistently low forwarding rates may mean content is not deeply relevant.

1. How to Make Your
Emails Go Viral
Chad White, Research Director, Litmus
@chadswhite
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director, Litmus
@meladorri

2. We tend to associate ‘going
viral’ with social media—in part
because it’s relatively easy to
see and measure the noise of
social sharing.
@chadswhite @meladorri

3. However, the much quieter
email forward is often a much
more powerful influencer.
@chadswhite @meladorri

4. Major viral influencers

5. For industries including, Consumer Products, Financial Services, Membership
Organizations, Retail, E-Commerce, Pharmaceutical, and Others
18Months
3.2MillionConsumers
119Social Referral Marketing
Campaigns
We trackedand measured
consumer actions to see
how they connected and
shared informationwith
others, as they acted on
behalf of brands.

6. How consumers
referred others,
across industries,
according to
SocialTwist.

7. Although more consumers are
reached through Facebook,
email results in a greater
response.
Distribution of new visitors, by method of
outreach of their friends, according to
SocialTwist.

8. The 1-to-1 or 1-to-few nature of
email forwards makes them
much more personal and much
more trusted—and therefore
more likely to drive action.
@chadswhite @meladorri

9. Nielsen research found that
“recommendations from people I
know” are the most trusted form
of advertising.

10. Nielsen research also found that
more trusted forms of advertising
drive more action in response.

11. Learn how to increase your
forward rate.
GET YOUR EMAIL SHARED 
Check out our free post.

12. Understanding the influence of
email forwards

13. To better understand the quiet, often
invisible influence of email forwards, we
used Litmus’ Email Analytics to analyze
the forwards generated by more than
400,000 email sends with at least 500
opens between Jan. 2013 and March 2015.
@chadswhite @meladorri

14. To reduce the impact of list size, we
normalized forward activity by calculating
the forward-to-open rate—that is, what
percentage of opens generated a forward.
@chadswhite @meladorri

15. And to understand the drivers of email
forwarding, we analyzed more than 200
emails from among the top 1% of viral
emails and another 200-plus emails from
around the 50th percentile—looking at
tactics, topics, and other email elements.
@chadswhite @meladorri

16. The findings from Litmus’ “The Viral Email” report
Benchmarks for
Forward-to-
Open Rates
Tactics that
Affect Forward-
to-Open Rates
Email Topics
that Affect
Forward-to-
Open Rates
1 2 3

17. Benchmarks for
forward-to-open rates

18. The median email (50th percentile)
produced a 0.27% forward-to-open
rate. Put another way, the middle-of-
the-pack email generates 1 forward
for every 370 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri

19. The 99th percentile of viral emails
was 17.6 times more viral than the
median, generating 1 forward for
every 21 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri

20. Email Forwards per Open Benchmark

21. Email Virality Grows Exponentially Vs. Median

22. Get more benchmarks and
research findings.
DOWNLOAD THE FREE REPORT 

23. Tactics that affect
forward-to-open rates

24. Tactics we’ll explore…
@chadswhite @meladorri
• Audience Size
• Segmentation & Triggered Emails
• Personalization
• “Share with Your Network” Calls-to-Action

25. Audience size
@chadswhite @meladorri
Does an email sent to a small
audience or a large audience have
more viral potential?

26. Small audience! The median email
among those with 500 to 50,000
opens was forwarded 90% more
than the median email among those
with more than 50,000 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri

27. Small Audience
Forward-to-Open Rate
Large Audience
Forward-to-Open Rate
Small vs. Large
And it’s even more stark among the most viral emails
@chadswhite @meladorriSource: Litmus
75th Percentile 0.71% 0.32% 2.2
50th Percentile 0.30% 0.16% 1.9
99th Percentile 5.04% 1.91% 2.6
95th Percentile 2.29% 0.89% 2.6
90th Percentile 1.49% 0.60% 2.5

28. Segmentation + triggers
@chadswhite @meladorri
Are segmented emails and triggered
emails more or less likely to be
forwarded?

29. More likely! The emails in the 99th
percentile were 4.3 times more
likely to be segmented and 2.9
times more likely to be triggered
than emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri

30. San Diego Magazine
segmented these event
promo emails to attendees of
last year’s event and to
attendees of another event
they held. Both were among
the top 1% of viral emails.

31. Personalization
Are personalized emails more or less
likely to be forwarded?
Note: We ignored first-name merges and other superficial
forms of personalization.

32. More likely! Emails in the 99th
percentile were 4.5 times more
likely than emails in the 50th
percentile to include personalization.

33. “Share with Your Network” CTAs
Are emails that include SWYN calls-to-
action more or less likely to be
forwarded?

34. More likely! Emails in the 99th
percentile were 13 times more
likely to include a “share with your
network” call-to-action than emails
in the 50th percentile.

35. This highly viral email from
Chevy Safe & Fun included a
photo taken at an event, as
well as prominent “share with
your network” links.

36. Recipients of this segmented
email from JustGiving were
very happy to spread the word
that they were among the top
1% of fundraisers during 2014.

37. See what other email tactics can
improve your emails
CHECK OUT EMAIL BEST PRACTICES 
From inbox to the landing page..

38. Email topics that affect
forward-to-open rates

39. Email topics we’ll explore…
@chadswhite @meladorri
• Promotions/Deals/Discounts
• News/Helpful Content
• Events/Webinars
• Transactional/Account Change/Action
Required

40. Promotions, deals, & discounts
@chadswhite @meladorri
Are emails about promotions, deals,
and discounts more or less likely to be
forwarded?

41. Less likely! Promotions were the
most common topic among emails
in the 50th percentile and were
67% less likely to be the topic of
the most viral 1% of emails.
@chadswhite @meladorri

42. News + helpful content
@chadswhite @meladorri
Are emails about news and helpful
content more or less likely to be
forwarded?

43. Less likely! Although very common
in the 99th percentile of viral emails,
news and helpful content was
slightly more prevalent among
emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri

44. Promotions and helpful content
are staples of email marketing,
so subscribers are only driven
to forward those that are
truly great.
@chadswhite @meladorri

45. Plan your email content calendar
so that you’re occasionally
sending an awesome deal,
exclusive news, or similarly
impactful content.
@chadswhite @meladorri

46. A really good deal—combined
with the announcement of
store closings—made this
email from Home Decorators
Collection highly viral.

47. Presented as an infographic,
news that GameChanger’s
app had tracked 800 million
pitches for amateur teams
went viral.

48. Events + webinars
@chadswhite @meladorri
Are emails about events and webinars
more or less likely to be forwarded?

49. More likely! Emails in the 99th
percentile were 3.2 times more
likely to be about an event than
emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri

50. An exciting, controversial
topic and a compelling
speaker propelled this event
email into the top 1% of most-
forwarded emails.

51. Transactional + account changes
Are emails about transactions, account
changes, and required actions more or
less likely to be forwarded?

52. More likely! These emails were 4.6
times more likely to be among the
99th percentile of viral emails than
among the 50th percentile.

53. Two types of email forwards…
• Social forwards build awareness and
start others down their own funnels toward
conversions.
• Advice-seeking forwards help the
forwarder decide whether to convert.

54. Whereas most forwards raise
awareness and help convince
others to convert, the forwards
of this triggered transactional
email from Glo primarily
helped the forwarder convert.

55. Collect data surrounding your
forward rate to track improvement.
START TRACKING NOW 
Free 14-day trial of Litmus. No credit card required.

56. Subscribers’ needs and your
forward rate

57. When your subscribers forward your
emails, they expand your reach,
increase conversions, and boost
your email engagement metrics—
which is good for branding, revenue,
and deliverability. @chadswhite @meladorri

58. Forwards are a powerful indicator of
the overall health of your email
program, because they are a sign
that you’re fulfilling your subscribers’
needs at the highest level.
@chadswhite @meladorri

59. Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs

60. If your monthly forward-to-open rate
is in the bottom quartile (less than
0.11%), then your email program is
probably not delivering experiences
that are deeply relevant.
@chadswhite @meladorri

61. The Viral Email
To explore all of our
findings, check out our
full report:
@chadswhite @meladorri
DOWNLOAD FREE