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Are your emails not performing as well as you hoped, despite your slick design and clever copywriting? It might be time to step back and revisit the foundations of your email marketing strategy.

In a world where inboxes are guarded by sophisticated filters and recipients wield the power to mark your message as spam with a single click… it’s easy for your plans to go sideways fast.

This blog will walk you through the email marketing fundamentals you need to build better campaigns, protect your sender reputation, and ensure your content actually reaches your audience.

A team reviewing a successful email campaign.

Compliance: Why It Matters

Legal compliance is the backbone of any successful email marketing strategy. Without it, you risk hefty fines, blacklisting, or completely losing your audience’s trust.

Let’s cover the key email marketing laws you need to follow to keep your reputation sparkling.

The United States of America (CAN-SPAM Act)


Under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, your promotional emails must:

  • Avoid false or misleading header information.
  • Avoid deceptive newsletter email subject lines.
  • Identify the message as an advertisement.
  • Include a valid physical postal address.
  • Provide a clear way to opt out of future emails.
  • Honor any opt-out requests promptly.
  • Monitor third-party agencies sending emails on your behalf.

European Union (GDPR)


If you email anyone physically located in the EU, you’re subject to General Data Protection Regulation requirements, which include:

  • Obtaining consent that is “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous” (often requiring a double opt-in).
  • Leaving checkboxes unchecked by default.
  • Implementing data protection measures.
  • Preparing for data requests, corrections, or deletion.
  • Reporting certain types of data breaches within 72 hours.
A woman considering purchasing an email list.

Purchasing Lists: A Risky Shortcut

It’s tempting to rush your growth goals by buying a list, but this decision can have serious consequences. 

While it’s technically legal to purchase a contact’s information in the US, reputable marketers will strongly advise against it. Here’s why:

  • Buying lists includes people who never consented to hear from you, leading to increased spam complaints.
  • Many contain spam traps – decoy addresses designed to catch scammers.
  • You’ll see high bounce rates and unsubscribes, damaging your credibility.
  • Your email marketing platform may suspend your account if it detects bought contacts.

This case study outlines how mailing to purchased lists can tank your email marketing efforts—ultimately harming your ability to reach real, valuable leads.

A better alternative? Learn how to grow your email list organically through website sign-ups, gated content, or event registrations. These subscribers actually want to hear from you, which is what email marketing is all about.

To get started, check out our full guide on building and maintaining a high-quality email list.

A woman stressed because her email campaign went to the spam folder.

Spam: Protecting Your Emails From The Junk Folder

We often think of spam as obviously malicious or shady content, but even legitimate businesses can end up in the junk folder if they aren’t careful. 

Spam filtering is extremely complex, taking into account a combination of factors that include recipient behavior, content analysis, and sender reputation.

What Counts As Spam?

These potentially harmful emails are: 

  • Unsolicited
  • Sent in bulk
  • Often commercial in nature
  • Sometimes malicious (phishing, malware, scams)

Even if you aren’t trying to trick your recipients, poor list hygiene or fishy content can still get you in hot water.

Email Spam Filtering

Avoid these common mistakes that can land your emails in the junk folder:


  • Phrases related to making more money (“be your own boss,” “earn extra cash,” etc.)
  • References to drugs, pharmaceuticals, or adult content. 
  • All-caps text in your subject line.
  • All-image emails, which are often used by spammers to avoid filters. The right text-to-image ratio is between 60:40 and 80:20. See why image-only emails hurt your deliverability here.
A team reviewing a compliant email campaign.

Deliverability: Ensure Your Emails Reach The Inbox

Deliverability is the most critical and complex aspect of your email marketing. Even stunning campaigns with flawless copy are meaningless if they’re filtered out before your audience ever gets the chance to see them. 

Let’s explore the factors that impact deliverability, including your sender score, IP and domain reputation, and authentication.

Your Sender Score

Each inbox provider (Like Gmail, Apple, or Outlook) assigns every sender a score (also known as your email sender reputation). You can think of it like a credit score, but instead of allowing you to take out a loan, it determines whether your emails make it to your contacts.

Your sender score consists of two main elements:


1. Your IP Reputation

  • There are 2 types of sending IPs: A dedicated IP vs shared IP.
  • Shared IPs are common when using email sending platforms like Mailchimp or HubSpot, meaning your reputation is also influenced by other senders using the same IP. Fortunately, most platforms also monitor their customers’ habits to ensure no particular sender is harming these “pre-warmed” group IPs.
  • Dedicated IPs give you more control of your reputation, but they also require a warm-up period, high send volumes, and come at an additional cost (ActiveCampaign, for example, requires 100,000+ contacts and a fee of $750).


2. Your Domain Reputation

You may be asking: how can I see my sender score? Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward. Email clients intentionally keep their exact scoring systems opaque to prevent malicious individuals from gaming the system. Each uses a distinct combination of parameters, meaning you might land in the inbox for one recipient and the spam folder for another. 

While you can use tools like MXToolBox’s IP/domain reputation checker to get a general sense of where you stand, there’s no universal scorecard. That’s why always following deliverability best practices is the most reliable way to get your emails where they belong.

Email Authentication: SPF, DKIM, DMARC

Authentication is your digital proof of identity when sending emails. Without the proper setup, inbox providers may flag or block your messages altogether.

There are currently three standard email authentication mechanisms: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a list of IP addresses approved to send emails on your domain’s behalf.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an encryption method to ensure your email content hasn’t been manipulated.
  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) specifies what to do if the message fails SPF and/or DKIM authentication checks. 

Most email service providers will supply the TXT records that need to be added to your DNS server to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (usually by a developer or IT specialist.) 

SMTP Relays

If your website’s contact form submissions aren’t coming through, your server setup may be the culprit. 

Platforms like WPEngine use MailChannels, a third-party program that filters and sometimes blocks form notifications sent via email. Implementing an SMTP relay creates a direct tunnel for deliverability, but may come at an additional cost.

A woman using a checklist to ensure her email follows all laws and best practices.

Email Marketing Best Practices: A Checklist

Before hitting send on your next campaign, ask yourself the following:

✅  Compliance & Consent

  • Have your subscribers explicitly opted in?
  • Are you following email marketing compliance laws relevant to all subscriber locations?
  • Does your email footer include a clear unsubscribe link and physical address?
  • Are you avoiding purchased or scraped lists to protect your deliverability?

✅  Sender Reputation & Deliverability

  • Have you authenticated your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC?
  • Have your sending IP and domain been warmed up appropriately before large sends?
  • Is your sending volume consistent to avoid sudden spikes?
  • Do you regularly clean your list to remove inactive or bounced email addresses?
  • Do you monitor deliverability metrics to catch and resolve issues quickly?

✅  Spam & Content Filters

  • Have you tested your email content for spam trigger words or phrases?
  • Is your email content balanced with an appropriate text-to-image ratio (60:40 to 80:20)?
  • Have you checked your domain reputation on MXToolBox to ensure you’re not blacklisted?

✅  Template Design & User Experience

  • Are your subject lines concise and truthful?
  • Is your email template branded and recognizable?
  • Is your email template responsive and accessible?
  • Is your overall layout user-friendly with a clear CTA?

Final Thoughts: Build A Strong Foundation First

Targeted email marketing only works if your emails are delivered to real people who want to see them. Without compliance and deliverability best practices, even the most captivating campaign is destined to fail.

Consider this your essential email marketing guide to crafting ethical, authentic, and effective messages – because when your strategy starts with a reliable framework, everything you build on top has the potential to flourish.

Need help troubleshooting deliverability issues? Tower can help.

Get My Email Marketing Back On Track

So you’ve decided to take the leap and invest in email marketing for your business. Congratulations! Professional email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience, drive sales, and build lasting customer relationships.

Now comes the challenging part: finding your white whale in the vast sea of tools available to you. You’ve been tasked with finding the right email marketing software that offers the functionality and support you need, all within your budget.

Luckily, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. We’ve compared some of today’s top email marketing platforms — HubSpot, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign — so you can find the best fit without hours of grueling research. Let’s break down the highlights and drawbacks of these leading email service providers (ESPs).

Short on time? Jump ahead to our price and feature comparison tables below.

A woman checking her email on the phone and computer.

Option #1: HubSpot

HubSpot has built a reputation as an all-in-one solution that combines marketing, sales, service, content, operations, and commerce capabilities. For those who value efficiency and want their email campaigns to exist within a larger ecosystem of contact touchpoints and data, this may be the ideal choice. 

But this option does come with a cost — and it’s a steep one. While HubSpot offers a free plan, their fees can escalate at an alarming rate if your organization requires anything more than the basics. 

Another detail to consider: HubSpot is a CRM at its core, meaning email is not its primary objective, but just one of a myriad of features. This may be why, according to Tooltester Network’s Email Deliverability Test, HubSpot had the lowest deliverability rates of any service we’re covering today: Less than 80%.

Pros:

  • Seamless CRM integration 
  • Detailed reporting and analytics 
  • A wealth of educational resources

Cons:

  • Expenses can increase rapidly as your needs evolve and your contact list grows
  • Cannot downgrade your account for a year after choosing your tier
  • Poor deliverability when compared to other leading ESPs

Best for:

Businesses looking for a comprehensive marketing solution with less budgetary concerns, where email is included but not a top priority.

A woman checking her email while relaxing on the couch.

Option #2: Constant Contact

Founded in 1995, Constant Contact is the oldest and most established platform on our list. It’s known for its sleek user-friendly design, and some event-based functionality not available from other email clients.

That being said, it does suffer from a lack of flexibility and is missing many capabilities that come standard in other mass email senders. Their automation actions are limited, and segmentation is only included in their more expensive plans. 

Unless you need its more niche offerings (mostly related to event marketing), you’re likely to miss the level of customization you’d find in other software.

Pros:

  • Intuitive user interface
  • Strong customer support, including phone support at all tiers
  • High deliverability rates

Cons:

  • Limited segmentation and automation features
  • Basic reporting and analytics
  • Cancelling your account is needlessly difficult (must be done over the phone)

Best for:

Businesses focused on event marketing that need tools for managing invitations, registrations, and tickets.

A woman checking her email in her office.

Option #3: Mailchimp

Mailchimp is synonymous with promotional email itself. It has long been a favorite among startups and entrepreneurs due to its affordability, user-friendly design, and the excellent marketing they’ve done to promote their own services. 

Because of their widespread popularity, they may also be the only platform with a native integration to any industry-specific software you may use.

While it could certainly be a strong candidate, there are some notable drawbacks. They tout CRM functionality, but it’s nowhere near the capabilities of HubSpot or ActiveCampaign. Unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts also count toward your total account limit, unlike other email marketing companies. And unless you shell out for the most expensive tier, they only allow 1, 3, or 5 audiences (lists).

Pros:

  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Affordable pricing, including a free plan
  • Most likely to integrate with other programs

Cons:

  • Charges for unsubscribed contacts
  • Limited automation capabilities
  • CRM and lead scoring are not as advanced as other applications

Best for:

Entrepreneurs and small businesses seeking a low-cost and user-friendly solution who don’t need more advanced contact tracking.

A man checking his email in his workplace.

Option #4: ActiveCampaign

Unlike many of its competitors, ActiveCampaign has a strong focus on behavioral-based email marketing, meaning your messages can be sent based on user actions such as form submissions, link clicks, or entering a CRM stage. Its advanced automation capabilities and detailed customer engagement tracking make it an industry leader in effective email marketing.

Companies that need highly targeted and personalized campaigns will benefit from its extensive automation triggers and steps. While it has a steeper learning curve compared to other platforms, its extensive functionality makes it a solid choice for those looking to create a highly tailored inbox experience. 

This exceptional level of performance is why Email Tool Tester named ActiveCampaign as it’s #1 choice when comparing 18 of the best email marketing services available today.

Pros:

  • Advanced automation, segmentation, and email editing software
  • Robust reporting and engagement tracking
  • High deliverability rates

Cons:

  • Steeper learning curve
  • CRM and SMS marketing are paid add-ons
  • Fewer pre-designed templates

Best for:

Businesses requiring sophisticated email deployment and customer journey tracking with the time to learn the intricacies of a more versatile platform.

Price Comparison

It can be tricky to make a 1:1 price comparison of these bulk email services when the features and value for your dollar vary so much by sender. However, let’s assume you:

  • Want the lowest paid tier possible
  • Have just under 10,000 contacts to import
  • Don’t need any additional add-ons or logins
  • Want to be charged monthly vs. annually

Given the details outlined above, you could expect to pay the following monthly for each:

HubSpotConstant ContactMailchimpActiveCampaign
$380 
(Marketing Hub Starter tier with 9000 additional contacts)		$120 
(Lite tier with 10,000 person contact limit)		$110
(Essentials tier with 10,000 person contact limit)		$189
(Starter tier with 10,000 person contact limit)

Feature Comparison Table

Each of these platforms offers a free trial, so you can ensure they meet your specific requirements. Before you dive in, here’s a quick guide you can use to compare each at a glance.

FeatureHubSpotConstant ContactMailchimpActiveCampaign
CRM Integration✅ Yes❌ No⚠️ Yes✅ Yes
Deliverability⚠️ Poor (79.8)✅ Strong (92)✅ Strong (92.6)✅ Strong (93.4)
Automation⚠️ Limited❌ Basic⚠️ Limited✅ Advanced
Ease of Use✅ Easy✅ Easy✅ Easy⚠️ Moderate
Support✅ Strong✅ Excellent⚠️ Limited✅ Strong
Integrations✅ 1800+⚠️ 300+⚠️ 250+✅ 950+
Free Version Available?✅ Yes❌ No✅ Yes❌ No

So — Which Platform Comes Out On Top?


Choosing the right email marketing system ultimately depends on your top priorities and budget. If price is a major factor, Mailchimp and Constant Contact offer cost-effective solutions, but they come with trade-offs like limited automation and reporting capabilities. If you need a comprehensive tool with seamless CRM integration, HubSpot might be the right fit—but be prepared for a steep bill and potential deliverability issues.


For businesses that require advanced automation, detailed reporting, and behavior-based outreach, ActiveCampaign is the clear choice. While it may take some time to get used to, its powerful audience tracking and segmenting tools make it worth the investment, especially for those looking to create highly targeted and personalized email campaigns.

Need help getting set up in a new ESP? Tower can help.

Start My Email Marketing Journey

HubSpot offers a comprehensive platform that promises to streamline your workflows, enhance your marketing efforts, and boost overall engagement. But is it the perfect fit for your business?

Join me as we explore both the benefits and drawbacks of HubSpot, from its ease of use and powerful features to its escalating costs and limitations. We’ll delve into its pricing tiers, add-ons, and how it compares to other providers — helping you decide if HubSpot will be your marketing hero or a budget-straining villain.

The Pros Of HubSpot: Why It Could Be Your Marketing Hero

HubSpot has earned its reputation as a leader in the marketing industry. From its all-in-one capabilities to its user-friendly interface, the functionality it provides can significantly improve efficiency and drive growth. Let’s examine the key upsides of HubSpot and why it might just be the resource your organization needs.

It’s An All-In-One Platform

One of HubSpot’s most significant advantages is its versatility. It consolidates a wide range of products, allowing professionals to combine and monitor their:

  • Marketing tools
  • Sales tools
  • Service tools
  • Content tools
  • Operations tools
  • Commerce tools

The ability to manage all these pillars without needing to juggle multiple third-party solutions can be a strong incentive for those who prioritize efficiency.

It Boasts A User-Friendly Interface

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a brand new to marketing, HubSpot’s streamlined design minimizes the learning curve and allows teams and individuals to get up and running quickly.

This ease of use is especially important for small-to-medium businesses that may not have the time and money to invest in the training needed to maintain more complex systems.

It Provides A Wealth Of Educational Resources

HubSpot Academy, their educational library, offers a plethora of courses and certifications on topics ranging from inbound marketing to sales automation.

These resources are also routinely updated, empowering companies to maximize the product’s value without having to rely on external consultants. 

It’s Highly Scalable

Various tier levels are available through HubSpot, from free accounts to advanced Enterprise plans — allowing customers to expand their services as they grow. 

A free plan provides access to their CRM, email marketing, forms, live chat, ad management, integrations, and reporting. However, there are notable drawbacks, including:

  • Limited customization (their branding can’t be removed from emails, forms, or live chats)
  • No marketing automation
  • No A/B testing
  • No advanced analytics
  • No custom sales pipelines
  • No custom dashboards
  • No phone or email support
  • Integration limits

Moving to higher-tier plans unlocks more advanced tools, and when comparing the free vs paid HubSpot options, it becomes clear there are significant benefits to upgrading.

It Offers Automation And Personalization

Automating repetitive tasks and personalizing customer interactions can lead to higher levels of engagement, better user experiences, and increased conversions. These valuable features enable organizations to create precise and targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with individual customers.

Examples of these advanced offerings from HubSpot include: 

  • Workflows
  • Lead scoring and segmentation
  • Email personalization
  • Smart content
  • Behavioral triggers
  • Multi-Channel marketing

It Has Robust Integration Capabilities

With over 1,600 integrations as of 2024, companies that use other specialized applications can still benefit from HubSpot’s central CRM. Some of the most popular connections include Gmail, WordPress, Outlook, and Facebook.

Plus, new products and connections are continuously added, ensuring the list stays current.

The Cons Of HubSpot: Why It Might Be Your Marketing Villain

While HubSpot offers a host of complementary services, it also presents its fair share of obstacles, from stacking fees to platform limitations and difficulty exiting the system. 

It Can Be Prohibitively Expensive

How much does HubSpot cost per month? Unfortunately, for those attempting to plan a marketing budget, the answer can vary greatly based on your number of contacts and required functionality.

The price of higher-tier plans, particularly at the Professional and Enterprise levels, can be exorbitant for small businesses. For example, the Marketing Hub Professional plan starts at $890 per month, while the Enterprise plan starts at $3,600 per month. 

Additionally, there are supplemental costs associated with add-ons, which may make HubSpot more expensive than it initially appears. Some of their most common upgrades include:

  • API limit increase: $500/month
  • Ads limit increase: $100/month
  • Custom SSL: $100/month
  • Dedicated IP: $300/month
  • Transactional email: $600/month

It’s A Jack Of All Trades (But Master Of None)

While HubSpot is praised for its all-in-one approach, this versatility means it also doesn’t excel in any single area to the extent that other, more specialized products do.

Here are some HubSpot alternatives to consider, based on your marketing needs:

CRM Functionality: Salesforce

For companies with complex sales processes, a service like Salesforce offers deeper customization, robust reporting, and nuanced sales automation.

Email Marketing: ActiveCampaign

Dedicated email senders like ActiveCampaign provide advanced list segmentation, more automation triggers/actions, and a sophisticated campaign builder.

Content Management: WordPress

Those that require custom web design or multifaceted content strategies would benefit from a more flexible platform like WordPress.

SEO: SEMrush

Online visibility tools like SEMrush provide detailed analytics, competitive analysis, and keyword research capabilities. 

Reporting & Analytics: Google Analytics 

The depth of insights provided by Google Analytics 4, the industry-standard software for tracking conversions and engagement, can’t be replicated in HubSpot.

It Locks You Into The HubSpot Ecosystem

The integrated nature of HubSpot can become a double-edged sword if consumers decide to leave and transition to another solution. 

Migrating data, adjusting workflows, and retraining staff can be time-consuming and costly, as opposed to the effort required to adopt a new channel-specific technology.

Is HubSpot The Right Fit For You?

Ultimately, the decision to invest in HubSpot will come down to your individual needs, budget, and long-term objectives.

If you’re a small to medium-sized business looking for a comprehensive product with numerous integrations and extensive resources, HubSpot could be a viable choice. 

However, if your organization requires advanced customization, has a complex dataset to manage, or operates on a tight budget, you may need to explore more specialized options.

Need more help deciding what marketing platform(s) to pursue? 

Reach Out To Discuss Your Goals

Where’s your cell phone right now? It’s probably within an arm’s reach, definitely close enough to hear the ping of a new text message. 

Across the globe, over 6 billion text messages are sent daily. If you work in digital marketing, you can use this to your advantage. 

Think about how often you pick up your phone a day. Now think about the visibility your messages could have if you can reach people through text.

If you’re looking for an effective customer retention strategy to keep your audience engaged, text marketing can be a powerful channel to invest in. From best practices to tips on growing your contact list, explore how SMS marketing campaigns can transform your business.

SMS Marketing: The Basics

Short message service, or SMS, marketing is a form of mobile marketing that uses text message campaigns to send information to a consumer’s cell phone. This could include anything from discounts and order confirmations to business updates and customer feedback surveys.

Much like email marketing, SMS messages are managed in a CRM where texts can be sent manually or in bulk. Unlike emails, however, SMS marketing campaigns are simpler, more concise, and more likely to be opened.

Text campaigns have a nearly perfect open rate of 98%. Of those opens, 97% happen within the first 15 minutes of delivery; 90% in the first 3. No other distribution channel comes close to an open rate this high.

Bottom line: it’s one of the most powerful digital marketing tools because it puts businesses in direct contact with customers on a channel that’s proven to capture attention. 

Types of Campaigns

SMS marketing campaign messages usually fall into 1 of 2 categories: promotional or transactional. Let’s take a look at how they’re used. 

A screenshot of a text message from Xfinity Live, asking to join their VIP Club.

1. Promotional

Anything that pushes the sale of a product or service — discounts, coupon codes, limited-time offers — is categorized as a promotional message. These have a clear marketing intent: user engagement. 

Whether it’s to make a purchase, fill out a survey, or opt-in to a loyalty program, promotional messages are sent with conversions in mind. 

Some examples of promotional text message campaigns might include:

  • Coupons 
  • Flash sales
  • Sweepstakes
  • New product announcements
  • Event promotions
  • Loyalty program invitations
  • Early access deals

Overall, promotional campaigns help keep your business top of mind and are popular for driving engagement with new and repeat customers. 

Promotional SMS Marketing Compliance

Just like email marketing, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lays out clear opt-in and opt-out requirements for text message campaigns. Sending unsolicited promotional messages without permission is illegal and punishable by some hefty fines. 

To stay compliant, businesses must obtain explicit consent from users before any communications are sent.

From a marketing standpoint, sending messages without permission could be detrimental to your brand reputation as well. Text inboxes are perceived as more personal than email inboxes. Sending a text to your customers without an invitation is an invasion of privacy and could cause them to think about your brand differently. 

A screenshot of a text from Olive Garden saying your to go order will be ready later today.

2. Transactional

Transactional SMS marketing campaigns happen after the purchase or desired action is taken. They are often automated, and sent in response to an action being taken. 

Some common examples of transactional messages could include:

  • Order/booking confirmations
  • Shipping & delivery updates
  • Billing information
  • Appointment reminders/confirmations/cancellations 
  • 2-factor authentication (2FA) or verification codes

They differ from promotional SMS marketing campaigns because their marketing intent is simply customer care. The message content delivers essential information to support the customer’s journey with your brand. 

For this reason, they are a valuable customer service tool that can help boost customer satisfaction and trust. 

Transactional SMS Marketing Compliance

Unlike promotional SMS text regulations, transactional compliances are a bit more flexible because they’re seen as an expectation. Consent can sometimes be implied because communications provide convenient updates for recipients about their orders.

As a best practice, however, it’s still highly encouraged to obtain expressed consent. It shows your customers that you value their privacy and boundaries, and it protects your business from any possible legal infringements.  

Benefits of SMS Marketing Campaigns

Now that you have a better idea of what text campaigns are and how they can be used, let’s take a look at why you should use them. 

A screenshot of a text from a doctor reminding Lily of her upcoming appointment. The name of the business is blurred out.
  • Allows for personalization: The key to any effective marketing campaign is personalization. Consumers love a message or deal that’s tailored to their interests, and at this point, it’s an expectation. Adobe reports that 76% of users are “frustrated” when brands don’t personalize their messaging.
  • Builds loyalty: Through personalization and respecting communication preferences, text campaigns can make your customers feel valued. The more important they feel, the greater the chances they’ll become a repeat customer. 
  • Supports other channels: On its own, SMS campaign performance is strong. But it can also be used to boost your performance on other digital channels, too. You could run a promotional SMS marketing campaign to get users to subscribe to your email list or to follow your social media accounts. 
  • Easy to create: Character counts and other content constraints make SMS messages easy to produce. They must be short and to the point, which can save time and get time-sensitive messages to your contacts faster.  
  • Accessible for any industry: Whether you work in retail, finance, tourism, or healthcare, text campaigns can support communications in any B2B or B2C industry. 

Disadvantages of SMS Marketing Campaigns

Though the list of advantages is long, there are a few drawbacks to also consider.

  • Permission-based: Explicit consent is required to send text campaigns. If you’re building your contact list from scratch, finding customers to opt-in can be a challenge. 

But don’t let this stop you — according to an Attentive Mobile Consumer Report, over 91% of survey respondents expressed interest in receiving SMS marketing campaigns from businesses. 

  • Message limitations: Most CRMs have text limitations in place, which can complicate the delivery of certain messages via SMS. Standard plans require texts to contain 160 characters or less. Anything exceeding that limit will be sent in a string of 2 messages and will cost 2 SMS credits. 

Character limits are even more restrictive if your text contains Unicode. Messages with Unicode must be kept to 70 characters or less. (Emojis are considered Unicode and are counted as 2 characters, so craft your messages wisely!)

SMS Marketing Strategies

After you’ve decided to add SMS to your business toolkit, it’s time to perfect your strategy. Below, we’ve outlined some best practices to follow when it comes to building lists and improving engagement.

Building Your Contact List

Building your contact list starts with awareness. Your target audience must know that you have a text message option available. In that same vein, it’s also a best practice to let them know how you intend to use their number. 

Any additional information you can provide about the type of messaging and the frequency of messaging could be a determining factor in getting users to join your list. Transparency = trust = conversions.

So how do you get users to join your list? There are plenty of strategies your business can try.

  • Text-to-join: The most basic, but tried and true method for getting users to join your SMS contact list. It requires users to text a keyword to your SMS short code or 10-digit number to opt-in 
  • Sign-up forms: Get users to sign up using a form. Try embedding forms on your homepage, site footer, or in blog content. 
  • Use your email list: If you already send newsletters to an email list, use that to your advantage by encouraging them to sign up and stay connected via SMS. (Note: Even if they consented to receive email communications, it cannot be assumed they want to receive text campaigns, too. Consent is still required!) 
  • Checkout opt-ins: If you have an eCommerce site, ask users for their phone number during checkout. Add a check box near the number entry for users to check yes or no to consent to receive SMS communications. 
  • Incentives/exclusive discounts: With a little extra incentive, like offering opt-in discounts or running deals for only your SMS contact list, more users are likely to sign up. 
  • Promoting on other channels: Raise awareness for your SMS program by promoting it on social media. For the best results, try running a paid ad on your preferred social media platform. If you don’t have the extra budget, promoting it organically will work just fine. 

Best Times to Send

Like your email marketing strategy, the success of text marketing campaigns relies heavily on being sent at the right time. Textedly suggests limiting send times to regular business hours for promotional SMS campaigns. Transactional, on the other hand, can be sent at any time since they’re typically sent by an automation triggered by a user action. 

Audience Segmentation

If you’re looking for additional ways to optimize your SMS campaigns, audience segmentation can be crucial. Segmentation is the process of categorizing your target audience into additional smaller subgroups based on interests, behaviors, or other criteria. 

To get started, here are some basic ways to categorize your contact lists:

  • Engaged/unengaged users
  • First-time/repeat purchases
  • Location/time zones

You can use these categorizations to help improve your personalization strategy. If you know how they’ve engaged with your SMS marketing campaigns in the past, you can send personalized offers based on what you know they’re most interested in. 

Drive Results with an Integrated SMS Marketing Strategy

SMS is proven to be a highly effective tool for driving results, especially when integrated to assist your existing marketing efforts. If you want to boost your brand visibility and meet your users where they are most active, it’s time to tap into SMS marketing. 

Explore how your business can benefit from text marketing. Contact our team of specialists to start seeing results.

Reach Out

Encouraging brands to embrace digital marketing opened the doors for new opportunities and success, however, it also brought along a new set of challenges, one of those being a constant flood of marketing industry jargon.

In this blog, we will help you cut through the clutter and provide basic digital marketing terms you should focus on when building a strategy that will help you and your business succeed.

What is Digital Marketing – And Why Should You Care?

Marketing is everywhere, but when people think of it, they often think of billboards, magazines, television commercials, and even ads on the radio.

These are what we refer to as traditional marketing techniques. However, like most things, as the world has evolved, marketing has too.

Digital marketing is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the Internet or other forms of digital communication.

According to the Pew Research Center, three in ten U.S. adults claim they are “almost constantly” online. This explains why businesses are choosing to focus on digital marketing rather than traditional techniques. Using the Internet allows businesses to reach more customers in a shorter amount of time and with less effort. In addition, digital marketing is known to be more cost-effective.

a woman types on her laptop, the screen showing charts and graphs

Digital Marketing Key Terms

For brands to get the most out of digital marketing services they need to have a basic understanding of digital marketing terminology and the ability to differentiate these terms with buzzwords.

Buzzwords are words or phrases that are trending during a certain period. These words, or jargon, won’t have the same effectiveness as those that experienced marketers use and know.

Below, we’ve broken down some important digital marketing terms to start with as you build your knowledge.

Organic

When it comes to digital marketing terminology, you should know the three primary terms marketers will often use when they are discussing how to drive traffic (a term we will cover below) and gain leads. The first term is organic.

If someone finds your site on a search engine without clicking on an advertisement or other type of promotional content, it is considered organic traffic.

This is a natural way of spreading brand awareness and generating leads. For example, sending out email newsletters, publishing monthly blog posts and social media posts (not advertisements), or other pieces of content that don’t require a set budget.

Paid

The second way to drive traffic and gain leads is through paid marketing techniques. These include advertisements or campaigns that require a daily or lifetime budget. For instance, running monthly social media advertisements on LinkedIn.

Typically, businesses will find that paid campaigns perform better than posting organically. This is often because platforms will allow you to use detailed targeting. However, having a balance of both paid and organic marketing is beneficial since you’re likely to reach more people overall.

Referral

If a user finds your site without organically searching or clicking on a paid ad, it’s known as referral traffic. When someone visits a hyperlink from a social network or website and ends up on your site, search engines can recognize this as a referral visit.

Many businesses will also use UTM codes to track exactly where these users are coming from. Doing this allows you to see which social networks or sites are bringing in the most traffic.

Traffic

As promised above, the next digital marketing term everyone in the industry should be aware of is “traffic”. Simply put, traffic refers to the number of users who have visited your website or social media profiles.

This metric is crucial for every brand, but especially those who are trying to increase brand awareness. It’s important for marketers to not only see that traffic is coming through but also to locate where users are coming from.

For example, in Google Analytics, you’re able to identify if a user came to your site organically (in a search engine) or through a paid ad. Determining this will help you build a marketing strategy that is aligned with your overall goals.

Session

As we mentioned previously, you can track the traffic for your site in Google Analytics, but to do that you need to understand another key digital marketing term known as sessions.

Every time a user visits your site, they start a session, and after 30 minutes of inactivity, the session ends. This means if someone is on your site for even a second, they are counted as a session. In the same respect, if a user leaves your site and comes back a few hours later or the next day, it’s counted as a new session.

However, most businesses don’t simply want to know if people are visiting their site, but also how long they’re staying. This is where engaged sessions come into play. When a user stays on your site for more than 10 seconds, completes a conversion (we’ll discuss more about this below), or has at least 2 pageviews, it’s considered an engaged session.

While sessions alone can be helpful, engaged sessions are arguably more important because they show businesses that users are absorbing information on their site and therefore becoming one step closer to becoming leads or customers.

Lead

The primary goal of any company or business is to gain customers and increase revenue. Marketers can assist them in this by creating strategies to bring in new leads. A lead is any user that shows interest in a brand, product, or service.

Depending on the company itself, the quality of leads may vary, however, for the most part, a qualified lead refers to someone who fills out a contact form, requests a quote, signs up for a trial, or takes any other action that pushes them closer to becoming a customer.

Conversions

We’ve mentioned the term conversions a few times, which is appropriate because, in many ways, these are some of the most valuable metrics in digital marketing. When creating a marketing strategy, marketers will break down a number of actions they want users to take.

Conversions can vary in importance, what the business is trying to achieve will greatly impact what types of conversions digital marketers decide to set up.

This could be viewing a landing page, clicking a contact button, or downloading a file, a conversion happens whenever a user completes a desired action.

Call to Action (CTA)

A digital marketing term you’ll hear frequently is a call to action or CTA. This refers to the next step a marketer wants the audience to take to push them further through the sales funnel.

Usually appearing at the end of a content, ad, or email, a good CTA will be clear and concise. Often CTAs will include a direct link for a user to click on.

Whether it leads to a contact form, product page, or another resource, the goal of a CTA is to keep the reader engaged and interested in a service or product.

A/B Testing

Also known as “split testing”, A/B testing is a digital marketing term that describes the process of comparing two variables to determine which performs better.

For example, if you are experimenting with email headlines and want to see what is more effective, you can send out two emails that have the same copy, and list but contain different headlines.

Based on how each performs, you can determine which headline is stronger. This is a technique digital marketers use in several areas to improve conversion rates and optimize their content.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Commonly referred to as KPIs, key performance indicators, are how marketers measure their progress against an objective.

There are two types of indicators to be aware of when creating goals: lagging and leading. Lagging indicators assess the current state of business performance while leading indicators work to predict future success.

It’s important to take into account both types because while lagging indicators aren’t helpful with making ongoing adjustments, they can help you shape your goals which should be based on leading indicators.

two people type on their laptops at a table. the table top is covered in pieces of paper and sticky notes

Tactical Digital Marketing Terms

Now that we’ve covered some of the basic digital marketing terms, it’s time to dive into the specifics.

Generally speaking, 4 main types of services go hand-in-hand with digital marketing. In the following sections, we’ll explain what these are and what terms are specific to the work they do.

Basic SEO Terms to Know

Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the process of improving a website to increase its visibility in search engines, like Google or Microsoft Bing. The main goal of SEO is to increase traffic and attract users who will become leads, customers, or an audience that continues to come back.

Title Tag– The name of a specific web page. These will appear at the top of a web browser or in search engine results.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)– The page of results users see when they type a word, phrase, or query into a search engine.

Meta Description– Tied to a specific page, these are used to describe web pages and encourage users to click on links in the SERP.

Keyword– A word or phrase a user types into a search engine to find what they are looking for. Using keywords in titles, headings, and body of texts will help improve a page’s ranking.

Ranking Factors– The criteria applied by search engines when evaluating web pages to decide where each page should fall on the SERPs.

Events– A metric that records a specific user interaction or occurrence on a website, for example clicking a button, submitting a form, downloading a file, and more.

Conversion Rate– Measures the number of users who converted (taken action) as a percentage of the total number of users who visited a site. This can be calculated by the total number of conversions divided by the total number of clicks.

Basic Content Marketing Terms to Know

Content marketing involves the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant online material that is intended to promote a brand as well as spark interest in its products or services. These materials include a wide variety of content pieces from blogs to whitepapers.

Buyer Persona– A detailed description of a business’s ideal customer, outlining their customer’s desires, pain points, demographics, etc.

Bounce Rate– The percentage of users who enter a website and leave rather than continuing to browse pages within the same site.

Landing Page– Any page on a website where traffic is sent to prompt a specific action or result.

Copywriting– The process of creating content for web pages, blogs, or social media posts to convert users.

Customer Journey– An outline of the different steps users will take to become qualified leads, customers, or clients.

Sessions Per User– The average number of sessions each user engages on a specific site or application. This can be calculated by dividing a site’s session count by its user count.

Basic Email Marketing Terms to Know

Email marketing helps you reach potential customers, increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and promote other marketing efforts. The messages in emails can include valuable content, updates, coupons, or exclusive offers.

Email Automation– An email marketing strategy that sends specific messages according to certain triggers or scheduled times.

Dynamic Content– Email content that changes based on a user’s data, preferences, and behaviors to show them specific messaging.

List Segmentation– A process of breaking down email lists into smaller segments to create personalized messages.

Email Deliverability– The ability to successfully deliver emails to users’ inboxes.

Drip Campaign– A series of automated messages or emails sent to leads regularly and over a scheduled period.

Open Rate– The number of email recipients who opened an email.

Click Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and clicked on a link or ad within the email. This can be calculated by dividing the number of emails clicked by the number of emails sent.

Click-To-Open Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and then clicked a link within that email. This can be calculated by dividing unique email opens by unique email clicks and then multiplying by 100.

Basic Social Media Marketing Terms to Know

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to interact with customers to build brands, increase sales, and drive website traffic. Social media can be shared organically and can be used for paid advertising.

Impressions– The number of times content has been shown on the feeds of social media users.

Engagement Rate– A metric that shows how much interaction a social media post or ad campaign earns from users. This can be calculated by dividing the total engagement by total followers and then multiplying by 100%.

Conversion Rate– The percentage of users who follow through a social media post or ad’s call to action.

Cost Per Click (CPC)– A metric that determines how much advertisers pay for social ads based on the number of clicks the ad receives. This can be calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by the advertisement.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)– The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times an ad is shown.

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Staying educated about basic digital marketing terminology is beneficial for businesses because it gives them the ability to not only understand what other competitors are doing online but also the chance to create a marketing strategy that will put them ahead of their competition.

With this knowledge, you have the opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people who can help tell your brand’s story and achieve your goals.

Interested in learning more about digital marketing? Browse our case studies to see some of our recent marketing projects.

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This blog was originally published on March 30, 2021, and updated on November 1, 2023.

Successful businesses put a high priority on enforcing their brand standards—and rightfully so. It’s a visual representation of the relationship they have with their customers, and they maintain that rapport by always using the same fonts, colors, logo, and image styling.

That’s why it can be so jarring when you begin crafting an email marketing strategy for your client only to realize you’re limited to web-safe fonts, can’t easily overlay words on images, and can’t control the exact appearance of text because padding or margins vary by inbox.

Because of this, you may be tempted to create an image-only template so your email always looks exactly the way you want it to. Unfortunately, this is a short-sighted strategy that is likely to cause more problems than it solves. Keep reading to learn why (and what you should be doing instead).

Why You Should Avoid Image-Only Emails

Sadly, the benefits of image-only emails do not outweigh the drawbacks. Below are just a few of the reasons you should be avoiding them.

They Can Cause Deliverability Issues

When it comes to crafting your email campaigns, your top priority should always be deliverability. Image-only emails are often sent straight to the spam folder because they can be a tactic used by scammers to circumvent text filters put in place to detect offensive or deceptive wording.

The overall file size of your email also affects deliverability, as shown in this email on acid article, and image-only emails are much larger than HTML emails.

They May Be Slow to Load—or Not Appear at All

Some email clients may have images turned off by default for security reasons or to protect users from potentially offensive content or malware. If you’ve created an image-only email, they may see nothing but a wall of broken image icons, like the examples shown in this litmus article about image blocking.

Image-heavy emails can also greatly increase the amount of time it takes for the email to load, which can be detrimental to user engagement. People spend an average of 10-13 seconds reading an individual email; this means if there’s any lag time while images load, the already narrow window of opportunity you have to get your message across will shrink even further.

They Compromise Accessibility

Visually impaired people will have a much more difficult time using a screen reading device to interpret an image-only email. Although images in an email should always have descriptive alt text relevant to the email content, they are not meant to replace the email text entirely.

Two elderly women sit next to each other and use tablets.

They Aren’t Optimized for Mobile

If you design an image-only email for desktop, your customer will be squinting to see it on their mobile device. On the other hand, if you design it for readability on phones, it will look cartoonishly large on a computer screen.

The same responsive design is shown on a laptop screen, phone, and tablet.

They Aren’t as Searchable as HTML Emails

If you send an email with information a contact wants to reference later, like a coupon or upcoming event, they will have a harder time searching their inbox for your message if all the text is image based.

Now that you’re aware of all the reasons why you shouldn’t create image-only emails, here are some best practices to keep in mind when crafting beautiful and effective HTML emails.

Best Practices for Creating HTML Emails

Does this mean you should avoid having images in your emails? Not at all! Most resources suggest a 60/40 text-to-image ratio for the best balance of deliverability and an optimal user experience. Try these strategies for creating emails that make an impact with or without images showing.

Reduce the Size of Your Images as Much as Possible

You can—and should—still include images in your email, but their file size should be minimized before adding them to your email template.

To export your images for an email from Photoshop, select File > Export > Save for Web. For opaque images like photographs, the JPEG file format will allow for a smaller file size than PNG. For illustrated images like logos that require transparency, PNG is the ideal option.

If you don’t have access to Photoshop, a free online image compression tool like tinypng can help keep your image sizes to a minimum.

Use Live Text

In the majority of cases, all email wording should be HTML text that can be selected with a cursor and read by a screen reading device. Although the original list of web-safe fonts are your safest choice, some inboxes may display your font (for example, Gmail will show Google Fonts).

You can always opt to use your brand font first with web-safe fonts as a fallback. By using commas in CSS, you are telling the inbox to use the first font if possible, then the second if possible, and finally any other sans-serif font if the other two aren’t available.

<style=”font-family: ‘KoHo’, Arial, sans-serif”>

Create Bulletproof Buttons

A bulletproof button is any email button created using HTML instead of an image. They can be made using several methods including padding, borders, or Vector Markup Language (VML).

This bulletproof email button creator can help you easily create a stylized button that will display beautifully in most inboxes, including Outlook.

Swap Images for Gifs for Maximum Impact

You may be surprised to learn that an animated gif can be even smaller in file size than a photograph. It all comes down to the complexity of the image and how many pixels change between frames.

This article provides several detailed strategies for creating reasonably sized gifs for your emails. Some of these tips include:

  • Cutting instead of fading for transitions
  • Using illustrated vector elements instead of photos
  • Using an overlay to limit the color palette

Include a “View in Browser” Link at the Top of Your Email

Some users will prefer to have images turned off by default, or they may not be able to control this feature because they have a workplace inbox with built-in security features.

This is why it’s always a good idea to include a “view in browser” link at the top of your email so the contact can see the email as it was originally designed.

Use Text Elements Instead of Image Icons

Experiment with text-based/CSS elements in place of images when possible. For example, instead of creating an image of an arrow, see if there is a web-safe font that includes one. You can google “ASCII” or “Unicode” followed by your keyword to check. This chart shows all the symbols you may not have known were part of the Arial font family.

Make Images an Optional Accent Element

A recent trend we’ve noticed is emails that use images to blend seamlessly into solid-colored backgrounds. This gives the illusion of an image-only email while retaining the HTML text and responsive design for desktop and mobile.

An example screenshot of an email that blends HTML text seamlessly into an image.

Although you may not have the option of your ideal fonts and layout, a well designed HTML email is still a highly effective marketing tool that can be used to reach every one of your patrons—regardless of their demographic group or physical capabilities.

Do you need help creating artfully optimized email templates? Our email marketing team is ready to assist you in creating the best possible inbox experience for your customers.

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Creating a genuine connection with your customers via email can sometimes be difficult. Messages sent on such a large scale often feel cold, impersonal, and ill-timed. 

Fortunately, email marketers now have the resources at their disposal to create purposeful communications that meet contacts at each stage of their journey and provide content tailored specifically to their needs. 

These personalized email marketing tactics will help you elevate your email marketing and develop a more meaningful relationship with your audience.

What Is Email Personalization?

Personalized email consists of more than just inserting someone’s first name at the beginning of your email message. Your goal should be to create a personalized experience – a customer journey that feels organic and responsive. 

The first step in this process is to understand how prospects and customers interact with your business specifically and develop a strategy accordingly. Every brand is different, so knowing the needs and expectations of your contacts is essential for successful personalized email interactions.

The Benefits of Personalized Email Marketing

Looking for evidence of how effective these personalized email marketing tactics can be? Here are some eye-opening statistics to consider:

  • 71% of consumers expect companies to offer personalized communication, and 76% get frustrated when it doesn’t happen. (McKinsey & Company)
  • 90% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. (123FormBuilder)
  • 90% of U.S. consumers find personalized marketing content somewhat to very appealing. (Statista)
  • Segmentation of email campaigns can increase revenue by up to 760%. (Hubspot)
  • Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. (Campaign Monitor)

4 Highly Effective Personalized Email Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using

Leveraging the strategies outlined below will help you deliver more meaningful content and product offerings to the people who’ve entrusted you with their contact information and personal data.  

1. Segmenting

Before you hit send on your next email campaign, ask yourself: Is this relevant to everyone on my list? 

Segmenting is a powerful tool used to create niche subgroups you can then target with more relevant messaging. It is essentially the opposite of the outdated “spray and pray” email marketing strategy (sending each message to everyone on your list regardless of a contact’s likelihood to interact with it).

The segments you create might include those who have (or have not) opened an email, clicked a link, or made a purchase. The beauty of segmenting is that unlike static lists of contacts, segments will update automatically in real-time based on your subscriber’s behavior.

Segmenting is also important for creating a clean and well-maintained email list, which is an integral part of effective ongoing email marketing.

2. Timing

Sending the right message to the right person at the right time is the key to successful email marketing, but the timing aspect of that winning formula often isn’t given as much thought as it deserves. 

Here are some examples of common drip campaigns and when they should be scheduled (of course, every business is different, so you may need to make adjustments according to your own customer base):

  • A welcome email should go out immediately when someone provides you their email for the first time.
  • An abandoned cart message should be sent while your offering is still top of mind. Reaching out less than an hour after they leave your site is probably too soon, but more than three hours after may also be too late.
  • An email asking someone to review a product should be sent a few days post delivery/installation so the consumer has time to evaluate their purchase.
  • A re-engagement email should be sent 3-6 months after the last time someone opened an email from you. 

Automated emails like these that trigger based on a contact’s actions almost always result in dramatically higher open dates than a typical monthly newsletter. 

Anniversaries and birthdays are also ideal times to reach out to customers via email and offer them coupons, discounts, or promotions.

ManLookingAtWatch SizeReduced 4 Personalized Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Engagement

3. Personalized Content

Personalized content is created using the data we store on our contacts, from first and last names to their pronouns, job title, or geographic location. 

Having accurate information about your contact is key to creating personalized messaging. It’s also important to gather this data in a straightforward and transparent way. (See this article explaining why you should never rent or purchase an email list.)

You can ethically acquire information about your potential and current customers in the form of newsletter sign-up forms, interest surveys, contests, quizzes, or gated coupons. 

Including this information in your subject line, preview text, or email body is fairly simple and straightforward. It typically consists of using a placeholder like %FIRSTNAME% or %LASTNAME% that will pull in the data dynamically for each individual. 

The more challenging task? Using those personal details in a way that feels natural. 

Below are a few examples of personalized subject lines I’ve received. Some were excellent and engaging, while others felt clunky and forced. 

Good example:

Welcome, Danae! Here’s what you need to know.

This example is both friendly and straightforward. The addition of the first name and emoji usage is the perfect way to offset the overall frankness of the message.

Bad example:

Danae, create crazily effective content!

Simply tacking on someone’s first name at the start of a subject line you’ve already written will always feel forced. Personalization needs to be used deftly to have the desired effect. 

Good example:

Wondering where to begin, Danae? We have a few ideas

This subject line addresses the fact that I may be looking for guidance, and the inclusion of the first name here implies the information provided will be relevant to me specifically.

Bad example:

Marketing insights for Danae

This makes me feel as though I’m being spoken about, not spoken to. It also lacks the conversational tone I’m looking for when a subject line includes my first name.

Here’s a quick rule of thumb to follow: if the person’s name can easily be replaced with “you” without drastically changing the tone of the sentence, it’s worth considering a rewrite. 

Another personalization tip to keep in mind: People like being spoken to like a person and by a person. Instead of sending emails from your company name with a no-reply address, use the real name and email address of someone in your business (you can then set up email filters to avoid replies flooding the individual’s inbox).

4. Dynamic/Conditional Content

Conditional content (also known as dynamic content) can consist of images, text, or any other element in an email that is shown to (or hidden from) a contact based on actions they’ve taken or their personal data.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, this simple diagram shows the framework of an email with conditional content.

However, we do not recommend sending only image-based emails. With HTML emails, you can create more dynamic content.

ConditionalContent 01 4 Personalized Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Engagement

Conditional content is ideal for messages that contain wording and images applicable to most recipients, in addition to interchangeable elements that enhance the experience when selectively chosen for smaller groups of individuals.

By combining the tactics and technology behind segmenting, timing, personalized content, and dynamic content, you can build hyper-personalized marketing emails that leave a lasting impression.

Ready to create email messaging that resonates with the person behind the screen? Learn how we can help!

Contact Tower

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this blog, we recommend you do so first before continuing. We will reference and build on topics like DMARC, SMTP and DNS servers, and adding records. 

In Part 1 of this blog, we provided a high-level overview of how to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) email authentication. Now that you have a solid understanding of these email authentication basics, you’re ready to take a deep dive into the necessary steps for you (or a trusted developer) to set up a BIMI record on your own domain!

What are the steps for implementing BIMI email authentication?

There are two main components of setting up BIMI on your domain. 

1. Your email must be authenticated using a DMARC record.
2. You must publish a BIMI record alongside your other DNS records.

Although these requirements are fairly simple and straightforward, the work that goes into them has the potential to be complex and time-consuming. Let’s walk through how to set up BIMI step by step.

Step 1) Authenticating your email using DMARC

To comply with BIMI, your DMARC TXT record must be set to “reject” or “quarantine”. In addition, the “pct” (percent) element must be set to nothing less than 100. If you omit it entirely, it will be 100% by default. 

Here are some BIMI compliant DMARC record examples:

"v=DMARC1; p=reject; pct=100; rua=mailto:leads@towermarketing.net"
"v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:leads@towermarketing.net"

Setting up your logo

In order to display correctly in the inbox, your logo will need to be in SVG format. This is a web-friendly vector format using code to create the image, meaning it can scale to any size. Specifically, your logo will need to be converted to the SVG Tiny Portable/Secure (SVG P/S) format.

If your logo already exists in another vector file type like .ai, .eps, or .pdf, you should be able to export it as a standard .svg file. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to export an image as the SVG P/S file type directly from Adobe Illustrator or other vector design programs. You can download a standalone SVG to SVG P/S converter tool for Windows or Mac on the BIMI website, or you can download a script designed to export this file type and add it to your Illustrator program.  

If a vector version of your logo does not exist, it will need to be recreated by a graphic designer familiar with the programs used to generate these formats. Now may also be a good time to reevaluate the effectiveness of your current logo and consider an update before further steps are taken.

Uploading your logo

Once your logo is correctly formatted as a SVG P/S, you will need to upload the file to a public, web-accessible directory (more than likely, the same place you host your other website files) so you can generate a URL and link to it in the BIMI record.

Step 2) Purchasing a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate)

A Verified Mark Certificate provides proof of ownership for your logo. Although it is not strictly required for creating a BIMI record, some email recipient servers will require it to display your logo in the inbox, so it is strongly suggested that you purchase one. 

The very first step in the process is ensuring that you own your logo in the form of a registered trademark. If you haven’t done so already, it’s recommended that you begin the process immediately as it can take some time to complete. 

After you’ve registered the trademark for your logo, you can begin the VMC process. There are numerous organizations that sell VMCs, but the two recommended by the Authindicators Working Group are DigiCert and Entrust.

A VMC offered by these Mark Verifying Authorities (MVAs) can cost between $1000-$1500, and lasts for one year (the renewal price is the same as the initial purchase price). They will also ask you/your organization for documentation proving that you own the trademark of your logo. 

It’s important to note that the acceptance of your VMC can vary by mail service provider. There is a chance a mail service provider may only accept certificates from a specific MVA, or it may not accept them at all. . This decision is entirely up to the recipient’s mail service provider, but having a VMC can only help the likelihood of your logo displaying for your customer.

Uploading your VMC 

After you’ve purchased your VMC and proven you legally own your logo, you’ll receive a Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) certificate file. Just like your logo’s .svg file, you will need to upload this .pem file to your web server and add its resulting URL to the BIMI record.

Step 3) Setting UP BIMI Record

Your BIMI specifications are added to your DNS server as a TXT record, just like DMARC. Here is a BIMI record example: 

v=BIMI1;l=https://images.yourdomain.com/brand/your-bimi-logo-file-name.svg;a=https://images.yourdomain.com/brand/your-certificate-file-name.pem

This example is comprised of three parts: 

v=BIMI1 – this indicates that it is a BIMI record.

l=https://images.yourdomain.com/brand/your-bimi-logo-file-name.svg – this is a link to your logo’s image. 

a=https://images.yourdomain.com/brand/your-certificate-file-name.pem – this is a link to a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). This element is optional, but highly recommended, as some email recipient servers will require it.

Step 4) Testing your BIMI compliance

Once you’ve added your BIMI record to your DNS, including a link to your SVG logo and (optional) VMC, you can test for compliance using this tool on the official BIMI website. It will check to see if the necessary email authentication protocols are in place, as well as look for the BIMI record and a SVG logo image. 

If your BIMI record is working correctly, you’ll be able to see an inbox preview and even check what your logo will look like if the recipient’s phone is in dark mode.

If you make any changes to your BIMI record, it may take some time to correctly reflect. You can reduce this delay by lowering the TTL (time-to-live) value for the DNS record to its lowest possible value (this value varies based on your DNS Provider). TTL is measured in seconds, so we recommend setting an initial value to be 300, which would be a 5-minute wait.

Still struggling with how to setup BIMI? Our web developers are available to meet all your hosting and maintenance needs.

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It’s no secret marketing automation is becoming increasingly popular in the business and marketing industry. On average, 51% of companies are currently using marketing automation, and more than half of B2B companies plan to adopt these strategies. Learning how to implement marketing automation can help your business capture and nurture qualified leads. 

Knowing what marketing automation is and including it in your business will ensure your company doesn’t lose its competitive edge. In this blog, we’ll explain why marketing automation is beneficial, and how you can start putting it into practice. 

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the process of using tools and technology to automate repetitive marketing tasks. However, it also can be beneficial in tracking and measuring campaign performance, improving productivity, and driving efficiency by minimizing manual actions. 

While marketing automation has proved to improve business growth, it’s important to remember that customers appreciate timeliness as much as thoughtfulness. 

You don’t want your automations to replace the human touch behind your business. They should be used to complement your other marketing strategies. 

Understanding Your Customer’s Journey

One of the main ways you can ensure your company is staying thoughtful in your marketing automation is to understand your customer’s journey. This refers to the experience a customer has while communicating with a company. 

In its simplest form, the customer journey can be broken down into 3 stages: 

  1. Awareness. Spreading general information about your products and services to your target audience.
  1. Consideration. Focusing on promoting why your product or service is more beneficial to the customer than any competitors. 
  1. Conversion. Keeping the customer’s attention and prompting them to take action. 

Understanding your buyer’s persona and what stage they’re in will help you better direct the priorities of your automated message. Doing this will not only bring your customers’ satisfaction with timeliness, but it will also build trust and strengthen your relationship with the buyer.

Analyzing marketing metrics.

5 Key Marketing Automation Objectives

Before you learn how to implement marketing automation, you may be wondering why you should. Below, we’ve outlined the 5 key objectives and advantages of marketing automation, which will help to persuade you to put these tactics into practice. 

1. Boost Marketing Productivity

Tasks such as creating marketing strategies, calendar planning, customer experience mapping, or campaign performance monitoring and reporting are all critical to any marketing team. Statistics prove that businesses that use marketing automation are 20% more productive. 

Deciding to use marketing automation can give your team the time they need to put their efforts where they matter most, resulting in a boost in productivity overall. 

2. Improve Marketing Efficiency and ROI

One of the most important elements in a marketing campaign is evaluating its performance, impact, and profit. However, as organizations expand, it becomes less efficient and less cost-effective to manually keep track of your ROI  and engage individual prospects and customers. 

Automation allows teams to do certain tasks that will improve the efficiency in delivering outcomes as well as improve their ROI since it gives the team more time to engage in creative and strategic tasks. Marketing automation can take care of scheduling bulk emails, identifying and segmenting prospects, nurturing qualified leads, triggering engagements, and other tedious tasks. 

3. Enable and Deliver Campaign Personalization

Connecting with your customer is critical when it comes to nurturing leads, which is why you should consider marketing automation to help you personalize your messaging. The more data you gather, the better you know your audience. This allows you to deliver the right content, to the right prospect, at the right time.  

Including automation with your customer relationship management (CRM), will allow you to get better insights into your audience and eventually define more relevant segments. 

4. Provide Real-Time Performance Measurement

What’s the point of creating a marketing campaign if you can’t see its performance? Measuring performance is imperative when it comes to assessing your success because it allows you to see and understand what’s working and what isn’t. 

Studying certain analytics such as click-through rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, open rate, list growth, overall ROI, click-to-open rate, and many other important email marketing metrics will give your team new insights. These details will help show you what subscribers responded to or what wasn’t effective. This gives you the opportunity to change or optimize elements of your campaigns over time. 

One of the main reasons marketing teams adopt marketing automation is for its reputation to improve engagement. For example, a study showed that triggered emails have a  higher open rate and higher click-through rate than a regular email blast. 

5. Enhance Customer Acquisition and Retention

As we said before, prospects are attracted and customers stay when a company uses personalized marketing throughout the customer’s journey. These are messages that are relevant to their buying preferences. A recent report stated that 70% of companies believe the most important benefit of automation is better-targeted customer communication. 

Learning how to implement marketing automation takes care of regular campaign management, follow-ups, and customer interactions. This means your team will have more time to focus on strategizing customer acquisition and retention

Email Marketing Automation Services & Softwares

There is a lot of automation software available for marketers. However, the most common way to incorporate automation into your marketing strategy is through email. Understanding how each of this type of automation works is essential to know before narrowing down how you’re going to implement it.

Email Marketing 

Most marketers know that email marketing automation tools allow your team to schedule and send bulk emails. However, there are many other tasks it can help with, such as automating and creating audience segments based on data that’s collected. Email automation  also aids in creating workflows for nurturing qualified leads, as well as creating delivery and bounce reports.

Many email marketing tools, like ActiveCampaign,  include performance measurement dashboards that will show you metrics like delivery rate, opening rate, click-through rate, and other important details. 

When it comes to email automation, there are lots of techniques and practices you can use to improve your email marketing. Some of the most common ways you can use email automation software include:

  • Welcome series– These messages are triggered the first time a contact is added to the platform. For example, a general best practice in email marketing is to require a double-opt-in and to send a “Confirm your subscription” message to the customer or client. 
  • Automatic responses– These automations are triggered when a contact fills out a form online. For example, a message may read, “We’ll be in touch soon”, or “Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.”
  • Website tracking– This requires adding tags by interest, adjusting a contact’s lead score, or sending an email automatically based on them visiting a specified web page. These tasks can also be updated if an email is sent to a contact and then forwarded, replied to, or shared on a social network. 
  • Last engagement emails– Email marketing platforms allow you to track the last time a contact opened an email or visited a website, this could trigger an automated re-engagement email being sent to a contact. 
  • Abandoned cart emails– These emails are used by eCommerce companies. You can connect your email platform to your website and send an automated email to someone who has abandoned their cart. 
  • Blog post notifications– These emails are triggered when a new blog post is updated on a company’s feed. Using RSS allows you to automatically send an email telling the contact that there is new content for them to read. 
  • Date-based emails– Sending an email or performing another action can be triggered after a specific amount of time has passed. This could be the time of day, as well as a day of the week, month, or year. 
  • Special deals– Email platforms often have built-in customer relationship management (CRM). This feature allows you to create automations that will be triggered and sent to customers. You can also set up internal notifications that are sent to sales representatives, as well as specific customer service messages based on what stage the contact is in the pipeline. 

Depending on what you would like to incorporate into your automations, there are various email marketing platforms you can use, ranging from beginner to advanced. The more simple options offer basic automation functionality, as well as easy to use and access. While the more complex ones will require some learning to navigate but offer more robust functions.

Marketing team meeting.

How to Implement Marketing Automation in 3 Steps

There are three simple steps you can take to ensure you’re incorporating marketing automation in the most effective way. Following these steps will guide you through setting up the proper automations to achieve success. 

1. Define Your Goal

The most important thing you need to figure out when learning how to implement marketing automation into your business is your goal. This is when you ask yourself, “what are my priorities?” 

Evaluating which marketing activities are critical to your business will help you understand the best way to use marketing automation. You’ll also want to ask yourself which of those marketing activities involve enough repetitive tasks to allow the automations to work successfully. 

2. Find the Right Platform

Choosing the right platform is essential for your marketing strategy. There are many options available (as listed above) but you want to ensure you’re selecting the platform that’s best suited for your business. Here are the questions you should ask before you choose:

  • Does it offer the features you need?
  • Is it accessible and user-friendly for my team?
  • Will it be easy to integrate into your current marketing strategy?
  • Are there any special requirements, modifications, or customizations you’ll require?
  • How will it impact your marketing budget?
  • Is there any post-implementation support from the platform?

Once you’ve asked yourself these questions, you’ll have a much clearer idea of which platform will be the most suitable for your marketing automations. 

3. Create a Deployment Plan

Finally, you’ll want to make a plan. Ensuring your data is integrated from appropriate sources is essential to gathering the right results. Some important steps you should take when creating your deployment plan include: 

  • Setting up an account
  • Add your assets or lists 
  • Organize your account 
  • Strategize automations alongside key stakeholders
  • Build specific automations for your account
  • Launch or schedule them
  • Train your team
  • Evaluate their success to make improvements

Make sure your team is trained in your marketing automation platforms or software and include a feedback mechanism. The launch phase is critical and should be planned accordingly, that way the work you put into creating your automations won’t go to waste.

Reviewing reports.

Best Practices to Remember

It may be tempting to jump right in to using interesting and complex features in your marketing automations, but remember that starting with the essentials will be a safer road to success. Take time to experiment with different tools gradually, that way you can find the best approach that will guarantee the results you want.

Marketing automation success requires learning, analyzing, and improving your campaign through these evaluations. Setting clear lead stages, understanding the customer journey, and personalizing your messages are all great ways to build your marketing automation a strong foundation. 

Lastly, remember that thoughtfulness matters. Automations are meant to complement your current marketing efforts, not replace them. 

Looking for more guidance on how to implement marketing automation? Talk to our email marketing team to find out how we can help elevate your business.

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