Editorial
The Gist
- Generative AI gains popularity. Thirty-four percent of email marketers use generative AI for copy, outpacing video and CSS interactivity.
- AMP struggles in email. Only 7% use AMP for email, hindered by lack of support from major email clients.
- Top email trends for performance. Live content, multivariate testing and personalization lead in improving email marketing performance.
Marketers constantly wrestle with which tactics and technologies they should invest their time and money in. What's on the mind of marketers in the world of email marketing? Here are some insights into email marketing trends to help them make the best decisions for their brands this year.
Generative AI Is Popular, But Weak on Performance
For a technology that’s been mainstream for not even two years, usage rates are impressive. According to the State of Email Trends report from Litmus and Oracle Digital Experience Agency, of nearly 500 email marketers, 34% use generative AI for copy at least occasionally, making it more popular than CSS-based email interactivity (26%) and video in email (33%). Only 9% of respondents are using generative AI for image generation.
That divergence between generative AI for copy and for generative AI for images makes a lot of sense. To get generative AI to create images that meet brand standards and usage requirements takes art direction skills that most email marketers don’t have. On the other hand, copy is much more forgiving — and much, much easier to edit.
Another interesting divergence is that organizations with fewer than 500 employees were significantly more likely than larger organizations to use generative AI in their email marketing programs. The legal risks with generative AI are clearly less of a concern with smaller brands, which also find generative AI attractive as a time-saver and skills gap-filler.
While usage is high for a new technology, the performance improvement reported by users is not. In fact, of all the 38 email marketing elements, tactics and technologies asked about, respondents rated generative AI for copy and for images among the bottom three in terms of performance (along with Email Annotations and schema). This supports the view that generative AI is predominantly about time-savings, not performance increases — at least for now.
Related Article: Machine Learning and Generative AI in Marketing: Critical Differences
AMP for Email Continues to Struggle
Five years after the release of AMP for email, only 7% of respondents report using it at least occasionally, making it a very niche tactic. That said, the small number of organizations using it seem to be quite pleased with the performance boost it produces.
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Its low adoption is understandable given the small percentage of US email marketing audiences that are addressable with it. While AMP for email faces numerous challenges, the fact that Apple Mail and Outlook don’t support it is the biggest one. That’s because more than 60% of emails are viewed in those two inboxes collectively, according to Litmus’s Email Client Market Share data.
The biggest catalyst for a change of fortune for AMP for email would be for Apple to support it, but that seems incredibly unlikely given the company's focus on privacy and putting limits on marketers and advertisers. In the US at least, that means AMP for email will likely continue to be a niche tactic for the foreseeable future.
Related Article: Don’t Write Off AMP for Email Yet, Marketers
The Most & Least Impactful Email Marketing Trends
Among the 38 email elements, tactics, and technologies we asked about, more than 85% of respondents said the following ones generated some or much performance improvement:
- Live or real-time content.
- Multivariate testing.
- Personalization using dynamic content.
- Action-triggered emails (e.g., welcome, cart abandonment).
- Email segmentation.
- Advanced performance analytics.
- Customer data platform (CDP).
- Omnichannel marketing.
That makes all of those wise places to continue to invest. At the other end of the spectrum, respondents saw the least improvement with:
- Emoji in subject lines.
- Email Annotations and schema.
- AI-generated copy.
- Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI).
- Inclusive and/or accessible techniques.
It’s worth recognizing that some of these require relatively little lift, such as emoji in subject lines. Also, I was quite surprised to see inclusive design and accessibility rated so poorly, but then I realized that these techniques don’t boost performance much because all the people who would respond positively to them have likely already unsubscribed in frustration. Investments in inclusive design are an investment in retaining your new subscribers at a higher rate than in the past.
Related Article: 13 Inclusive Design Changes to Increase Your Digital Marketing Engagement
Email Marketing Is the Great Equalizer
As one might expect, larger organizations with 500 or more employees have the resources to make fuller use of all the email marketing tactics and technologies available to them. In fact, they use nearly all email trends at higher rates than smaller organizations.
However, with just a few exceptions, the differences in usage aren’t dramatically different. While the responses about usage are surely concealing some significant differences in sophistication in usage, it’s heartening to see smaller brands embracing the email marketing trends that serve bigger brands so well. Email marketing is truly a channel that all brands can use to great effect, so lean forward, test new tactics, and embrace minimally viable programs that can be a foundation for growth.
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