AI is terraforming tech. The content and SEO ecosystem is undergoing a massive structural change.

Human-written content gains value faster for LLM training than for end consumers as the pure profit licensing deals between LLM developers and publishers show.

Publishers struggle to survive from digital subscriptions but get millions that go straight to their bottom line for providing training data.

Content platforms, social networks, SaaS companies and consumer apps coat their products with AI. A few examples:

Spotify DJ (AI-generated playlist).
AI Overview (AI answers in Google Search).
Instagram AI personas (celebrity AI chatbots).
Ebay’s magical listing (turn a photo into a listing).
Redfin Redesign (try interior designs on real house pictures).

The quality of machine-generated content (MGC) challenges human-generated content (HGC). I ran an experiment with my Twitter and LinkedIn followers: I asked them to choose which of two articles was written by a human and which by a machine – and they had to explain their answer.

Only a handful of people figured out that AI wrote both pieces. I intentionally framed the question in a leading way to see if people would challenge the setting or believe that one piece was written by a human if told so.

Not an isolated experiment: A survey of 1,900 Americans found that 63.5% of people can’t distinguish between AI content and human content.1
People seek help: Google search demand for [ai checker] has reached 100,000 in May 2024 (Glimpse).
Dark side: scammers use MGC to make money, as 77% of AI scam victims lost money.2

The quality level of LLMs pushes SEO work towards automating workflows and learning with AI, while writers will take content from good to great instead of zero to one.

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System Builders

Clients, podcasters and panel hosts often ask me what skills SEOs need to build for the AI future. For a long time, my answer was to learn, stay open-minded and gain as much practical experience with AI as possible.

Now, my answer is SEOs should learn how to build AI agents and workflows that automate tasks. AI changes the way search works but also the way SEOs work.

AI + No-code Allows SEOs To Automate Workflows

A few examples:

1/ Cannibalization

Old world: SEOs download search console data and create pivot tables to spot keyword cannibalization.
New world: SEOs build an AI workflow that sends alters, identifies true keyword cannibalization, makes content suggestions to fix the problem, and monitors the improvement.

2/ Site Crawling

Old world: SEOs crawl websites to find inefficiencies in internal linking, status code errors, duplicate content, etc.
New world: SEOs build an AI agent that regularly crawls the site and automatically suggests new internal links that are shipped after human approval, fixes broken canonical tags and excludes soft 404 errors in the robots.txt.

3/ Content Creation

Old world: SEOs do keyword research and write content briefs. Writers create the content.
New world: SEOs automate keyword research with AI and create hundreds of relevant articles as a foundation for writers to build on.

All of this is already possible today with AI workflow tools like AirOps or Apify, which chain agents and LLMs together to scrape, analyze, transform data or create content.

Moving forward, we’ll spend much more time building automated systems instead of wasting time on point analyses and catalogs of recommendations. The SEO work will be defining logic, setting rules, prompting and coding.

You Can Learn (Almost) Anything With AI

I never made the time to really learn Python or R, but with the help of Chat GPT and Gemini in Colab, I can write any script with natural language prompts.

When the script doesn’t work, I can paste a screenshot into Chat GPT and describe the issue to get a solution. AI helps with Regex, Google Sheets/Excel, R, Python, etc. Nothing is off-limits.

Being able to write scripts can solve problems like data analysis, a/b testing and using APIs. As an SEO, I’m no longer dependent on engineers, data scientists or writers to perform certain tasks. I can act faster and on my own account.

I’m not the only one to figure this out. People are learning to code, write and many other skills with AI. We can learn to build AI workflows by asking AI to teach us.

When you can learn almost anything, the only limit is time.

The Work Of Writers Changes

Against common belief, writers won’t be crossed out of this equation but will play the critical role of editing, directing and curating.

In any automated process, humans QA the output. Think of car assembling lines. Even though AI content leaps in quality, spot checks reduce the risk of errors. Caught issues, such as wrong facts, weird phrasing or off-brand wording, will be critical feedback to fine-tune models to improve their output.

Instead of leg work like writing drafts, writers will bring AI content from good to great. In the concept of information gain, writers will spend most of their time making a piece outstanding.

The rising quality work spans from blog content to programmatic content, where writers will add curated content when searches have a desire for human experience, such as in travel.

Unfair Advantage

As often with new technology, a few first-mover people and companies get exponential value until the rest catch up. My worry is that a few fast-moving companies will grab massive land with AI.

And yet, this jump in progress will allow newcomers to challenge incumbents and get a fair chance to compete on the field.

AI might be a bigger game changer for SEOs than for Google. The raw power of AI might help us overcome challenges from AI Overviews and machine learning-driven algorithm updates.

But the biggest win might be that SEOs can finally make something instead of delivering recommendations. The whole value contribution of SEOs changes because my output can drive results faster.

Survey: ChatGPT and AI Content – Can people tell the difference?

Artificial Intelligence Voice Scams on the Rise with 1 in 4 Adults Impacted

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

In a new installment of its “SEO Made Easy” video series, Google provides three simple guidelines for utilizing internal linking to improve SEO.

The video, presented by Google’s Martin Splitt, offers valuable insights for improving site structure and user experience.

Strategic internal linking highlights your most valuable content, ensuring users and search engines can identify them quickly.

Additionally, internal linking can help search engines understand the relationships between pages, potentially leading to better rankings.

3 Tips For Internal Linking

Splitt emphasized three main points regarding the effective use of internal links:

User Navigation: Internal links guide users through a website, helping them find related content and understand the site’s structure.
Search Engine Crawling: Google’s web crawler, Googlebot, uses internal links to discover new pages and understand the relationships between different pages on a site.
HTML Best Practices: Properly using HTML elements, particularly the < a> tag with an href attribute, is essential for creating effective links.

The Importance Of Meaningful Anchor Text

One of Google’s key recommendations is to use descriptive, meaningful anchor text for links.

Splitt demonstrated how clear anchor text improves user experience by allowing visitors to quickly scan a page and understand where each link will lead them.

He stated:

“Users and Bots alike prefer meaningful anchor text. Here on the left you see what that looks like each link has meaningful words as anchor text and you can easily spot what the link will take you to.”

See the examples he’s referring to in the image below:

Splitt continues:

“On the right you see a page that doesn’t use meaningful anchor text and that isn’t a good user experience especially when you try to quickly scan the page and find the right link to use.”

See also: Sentence-Level Semantic Internal Links For SEO

Balancing Link Quantity

While internal linking is vital, Splitt cautioned against overdoing it.

He advises applying critical judgment when adding links and creating logical connections between related content without overwhelming the user or diluting the page’s focus.

Technical Considerations For Links

The video also touched on the technical aspects of link implementation.

Splitt discouraged using non-standard elements like spans, divs, or buttons to create links, saying if an element behaves like a link, it should be coded as one using the proper HTML structure.

In Summary

These are the key takeaways from Google’s video on internal linking:

Internal linking is a fundamental aspect of SEO and user experience.
Focus on creating meaningful, descriptive anchor text for links.
Use internal links strategically to guide users and search engines through your site.
Balance the number of links to avoid overwhelming users or diluting page focus.
Stick to proper HTML structure when implementing links.

See the full video below:

Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, July 2024. 

This new series of articles focuses on working with LLMs to scale your SEO tasks. We hope to help you integrate AI into SEO so you can level up your skills.

We hope you enjoyed the previous article and understand what vectors, vector distance, and text embeddings are.

Following this, it’s time to flex your “AI knowledge muscles” by learning how to use text embeddings to find keyword cannibalization.

We will start with OpenAI’s text embeddings and compare them.

(*tokens can be considered as words words.)

But before we start, you need to install Python and Jupyter on your computer.

Jupyter is a web-based tool for professionals and researchers. It allows you to perform complex data analysis and machine learning model development using any programming language.

Don’t worry – it’s really easy and takes little time to finish the installations. And remember, ChatGPT is your friend when it comes to programming.

In a nutshell:

Download and install Python.
Open your Windows command line or terminal on Mac.
Type this commands pip install jupyterlab and pip install notebook
Run Jupiter by this command: jupyter lab

We will use Jupyter to experiment with text embeddings; you’ll see how fun it is to work with!

But before we start, you must sign up for OpenAI’s API and set up billing by filling your balance.

Once you’ve done that, set up email notifications to inform you when your spending exceeds a certain amount under Usage limits.

Then, obtain API keys under Dashboard > API keys, which you should keep private and never share publicly.

Now, you have all the necessary tools to start playing with embeddings.

Open your computer command terminal and type jupyter lab.
You should see something like the below image pop up in your browser.
Click on Python 3 under Notebook.

In the opened window, you will write your code.

As a small task, let’s group similar URLs from a CSV. The sample CSV has two columns: URL and Title. Our script’s task will be to group URLs with similar semantic meanings based on the title so we can consolidate those pages into one and fix keyword cannibalization issues.

Here are the steps you need to do:

Install required Python libraries with the following commands in your PC’s terminal (or in Jupyter notebook)

The ‘openai’ library is required to interact with the OpenAI API to get embeddings, and ‘pandas’ is used for data manipulation and handling CSV file operations.

The ‘scikit-learn’ library is necessary for calculating cosine similarity, and ‘numpy’ is essential for numerical operations and handling arrays. Lastly, unidecode is used to clean text.

Then, download the sample sheet as a CSV, rename the file to pages.csv, and upload it to your Jupyter folder where your script is located.

Set your OpenAI API key to the key you obtained in the step above, and copy-paste the code below into the notebook.

Run the code by clicking the play triangle icon at the top of the notebook.

This code reads a CSV file, ‘pages.csv,’ containing titles and URLs, which you can easily export from your CMS or get by crawling a client website using Screaming Frog.

Then, it cleans the titles from non-UTF characters, generates embedding vectors for each title using OpenAI’s API, calculates the similarity between the titles, groups similar titles together, and writes the grouped results to a new CSV file, ‘grouped_pages.csv.’

In the keyword cannibalization task, we use a similarity threshold of 0.9, which means if cosine similarity is less than 0.9, we will consider articles as different. To visualize this in a simplified two-dimensional space, it will appear as two vectors with an angle of approximately 25 degrees between them.

In your case, you may want to use a different threshold, like 0.85 (approximately 31 degrees between them), and run it on a sample of your data to evaluate the results and the overall quality of matches. If it is unsatisfactory, you can increase the threshold to make it more strict for better precision.

You can install ‘matplotlib’ via terminal.

And use the Python code below in a separate Jupyter notebook to visualize cosine similarities in two-dimensional space on your own. Try it; it’s fun!

I usually use 0.9 and higher for identifying keyword cannibalization issues, but you may need to set it to 0.5 when dealing with old article redirects, as old articles may not have nearly identical articles that are fresher but partially close.

It may also be better to have the meta description concatenated with the title in case of redirects, in addition to the title.

So, it depends on the task you are performing. We will review how to implement redirects in a separate article later in this series.

Now, let’s review the results with the three models mentioned above and see how they were able to identify close articles from our data sample from Search Engine Journal’s articles.

From the list, we already see that the 2nd and 4th articles cover the same topic on ‘meta tags.’ The articles in the 5th and 7th rows are pretty much the same – discussing the importance of H1 tags in SEO – and can be merged.

The article in the 3rd row doesn’t have any similarities with any of the articles in the list but has common words like “Tag” or “SEO.”

The article in the 6th row is again about H1, but not exactly the same as H1’s importance to SEO. Instead, it represents Google’s opinion on whether they should match.

Articles on the 8th and 9th rows are quite close but still different; they can be combined.

text-embedding-ada-002

By using ‘text-embedding-ada-002,’ we precisely found the 2nd and 4th articles with a cosine similarity of 0.92 and the 5th and 7th articles with a similarity of 0.91.

And it generated output with grouped URLs by using the same group number for similar articles. (colors are applied manually for visualization purposes).

For the 2nd and 3rd articles, which have common words “Tag” and “SEO” but are unrelated, the cosine similarity was 0.86. This shows why a high similarity threshold of 0.9 or greater is necessary. If we set it to 0.85, it would be full of false positives and could suggest merging unrelated articles.

text-embedding-3-small

By using ‘text-embedding-3-small,’ quite surprisingly, it didn’t find any matches per our similarity threshold of 0.9 or higher.

For the 2nd and 4th articles, cosine similarity was 0.76, and for the 5th and 7th articles, with similarity 0.77.

To better understand this model through experimentation, I’ve added a slightly modified version of the 1st row with ’15’ vs. ’14’ to the sample.

“14 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“15 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”

On the contrary, ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ gave 0.98 cosine similarity between those versions.

Here, we see that this model is not quite a good fit for comparing titles.

text-embedding-3-large

This model’s dimensionality is 3072, which is 2 times higher than that of ‘text-embedding-3-small’ and ‘text-embedding-ada-002′, with 1536 dimensionality.

As it has more dimensions than the other models, we could expect it to capture semantic meaning with higher precision.

However, it gave the 2nd and 4th articles cosine similarity of 0.70 and the 5th and 7th articles similarity of 0.75.

I’ve tested it again with slightly modified versions of the first article with ’15’ vs. ’14’ and without ‘Most Important’ in the title.

“14 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“15 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“14 Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”

So we can see that ‘text-embedding-3-large’ is underperforming compared to ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ when we calculate cosine similarities between titles.

I want to note that the accuracy of ‘text-embedding-3-large’ increases with the length of the text, but ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ still performs better overall.

Another approach could be to strip away stop words from the text. Removing these can sometimes help focus the embeddings on more meaningful words, potentially improving the accuracy of tasks like similarity calculations.

The best way to determine whether removing stop words improves accuracy for your specific task and dataset is to empirically test both approaches and compare the results.

Conclusion

With these examples, you have learned how to work with OpenAI’s embedding models and can already perform a wide range of tasks.

For similarity thresholds, you need to experiment with your own datasets and see which thresholds make sense for your specific task by running it on smaller samples of data and performing a human review of the output.

Please note that the code we have in this article is not optimal for large datasets since you need to create text embeddings of articles every time there is a change in your dataset to evaluate against other rows.

To make it efficient, we must use vector databases and store embedding information there once generated. We will cover how to use vector databases very soon and change the code sample here to use a vector database.

More resources: 

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

By Sean Tinney June 19, 2024

One of the most effective emails you can send to your audience is the abandoned cart email. When sent at the right time, an abandoned cart email serves as a helpful reminder to encourage your customers to complete their purchase. Many people put together a cart but get distracted before checking out. In fact, on average, 70.2% of online carts are abandoned.

That is a lot of lost sales. 

But you can recover many of these sales with an automated abandoned cart email campaign designed to increase conversion rates. 

What is an abandoned cart email?

An abandoned cart email is a reminder sent to visitors who added items to their shopping cart but didn’t complete the purchase. This automated email prompts the visitor to finish their transaction. The best reminder emails are creative and timely, aiming to encourage the completion of the sale. 

Supportive calls to actions (CTAs) included in this email can guide the potential buyers to spend more on upgrades or related products or services. Some abandoned cart emails include special deals or free shipping, but most simply serve as a timely reminder to spark action.

Why abandoned cart emails matter

Shopify found that retargeting a customer with an abandoned cart email increases sales by more than 20% and reduces abandoned cart rates by 6.5%. When customers receive a reminder about their left-behind shopping cart, many return to complete their purchase. The best part? You can automate these reminders!

Why do people abandon online shopping carts?

Understanding why shoppers abandon their carts is crucial for creating a more effective sales funnel. According to Statista, the most common reasons for cart abandonment in the US for 2024 included:

Unexpected costs (shipping costs, taxes, or other charges)

Account setup required

Didn’t trust the site with credit card information

Delivery time was too slow 

Complicated checkout process

Inability to see the total cost upfront

To improve conversion rates, it’s important to be clear about costs throughout the process and reduce the number of steps required to complete a purchase. 

How do you determine your cart abandonment rate?

To determine if your rates improve after implementing an abandoned cart email campaign, you’ll need to calculate your cart abandonment rate. This calculation will serve as your baseline.

The cart abandonment rate is calculated by dividing the number of purchases by the number of shopping carts created during a determined amount of time. Then, subtract this value from 1 and multiply by 100 to determine your cart abandonment rate. 

This is the percentage of interest that didn’t end in a sale. Regardless of your current rate, send out reminders to reduce it as much as possible. 

What happens after cart abandonment?

Since there are many different reasons a shopper may leave the website without completing the purchase, there are also several things likely to happen after the abandonment. According to Statista, UK shoppers who abandoned their carts were most likely to:

Purchase the item from the site at a later date (31%)

Purchase the item from an online competitor (26%)

Changed their mind or weren’t looking to buy (23%)

Went to a physical store to make their purchase (8%)

Abandoned cart emails can potentially prompt a purchase from 80% of those shoppers who are still interested in buying. 

15 Abandoned cart email best practices

Writing a powerful reminder email means following best practices for abandoned cart emails. Here are crucial steps you should follow to get the most out of your reminder emails:

1 – Use attention-grabbing abandoned cart email subject lines

Getting your email opened is a huge step with a cart abandonment email since many shoppers are used to seeing them. The best email subject lines stand out from the rest of the inbox but still make it clear what the email is about. Good abandoned cart subject line examples include ”You forgot something” or “Oops, Did Something Go Wrong?”

2 – Trigger the email within 24 hours 

Statistics show that sooner is more effective than later when it comes to reminder emails. Conversion rates for neglected carts are highest when the email is sent out 30-60 minutes after inactivity. However, those rates plummeted after 24 hours when the lead had grown cold.

3 – Copy should be short & direct

Remind people what they left behind with copy that inspires them to take action. Get to the point quickly with creative and succinct copy by trimming out all the excess. Simply highlighting a key benefit or two could help them finalize their purchase.

Speaking of being direct, check out this example from Nike:

4 – Use images to highlight what they are missing

The brain processes images about 60,000 times faster than text. Images will spark instant reminders of what drew them to your items in the first place. Always include pictures or GIFs of the items they’ve left behind to help provoke a response.

Here’s a great example from Hydrow:

5 – Reinforce the product or service benefits

Retargeting with a reminder email is the perfect time to highlight the product they are considering. Offer your most influential reasons for why they should finish the checkout process on the items in their cart.

6 – Consider a discount or value

If you plan to offer a great deal, the cart abandonment email is a good time to offer it. Even a small discount, like $5 or 10%, can make it more appealing to finish the purchase. People love to find deals, which could be the perfect way to help them decide to buy.

Saatchi Art does just that, plus they add a FOMO (fear of missing out) headline:

7 – Offer social proof with reviews

Providing reviews or testimonials can help motivate your leads to take the leap and make a purchase decision. Word-of-mouth marketing is highly influential, and a genuine customer review has a similar appeal.

8 – Include a call to action (CTA) that fits your goals

The primary goal of an abandoned cart email is to prompt a return and complete the sale. Your CTA should be positioned to drive that action. Use FOMO to encourage urgency, such as “Get it before it’s gone” or “Limited availability.”

9 – Set up an automated feature

You shouldn’t have to manually send out your reminder emails. Set automated emails for cart abandonment to go out after a certain lapse of inactivity.

10 – Segment your audience

Tailor your abandoned cart emails to different audiences by segmenting them into groups based on things like purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics. Personalization makes your abandoned cart emails more relevant and, therefore, more effective.

11 – Include dynamic content

Dynamic content in your emails displaying real-time product availability, offers and discounts, or product recommendations keeps your emails feeling fresh.

12 – Highlight limited-time offers:

Draw attention to limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency and to nudge recipients toward a purchase. One way to do this is with a countdown timer. These motivational additions to your email are a great way to get your shoppers to act quickly.

13 – Provide clear contact information

When you simply include your customer service phone number, email, and chat, it gives confidence to your potential customers that you are readily available to answer their problems or questions.

14 – Incorporate additional triggers

Use other behavioral triggers alongside your abandoned cart emails to help keep your brand top of mind. Set up triggers when customers revisit your site or add more items to that old cart. 

15 – Test different send times

We already mentioned that it’s important to send abandoned cart emails within 24 hours. But when exactly should you send your abandoned cart email? Every business is different, and that’s why we encourage you to test different send times to find out what works best for your audience.

Abandoned cart email examples

There are all kinds of abandoned cart emails you can consider when creating your own. Here are some of our favorite examples from real brands, showcasing variations of value promise, humor, imagery, and more.

1 – LEGO

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Fun and engaging graphics

Easy purchase process with “Make it yours in a snap”

Strong positioning of CTAs

Enticing, supportive, and amusing for someone previously browsing LEGO sets

2 – NOMAD

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Adds a touch of humor with “What Happened? Did your Wi-Fi Crash?”) 

Light-hearted but effective

Relevant CTA –  “Seal the Deal.” 

Clever reinforcement of their 30-day return policy

3 – Dote

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Another joke reminder — “Your shopping bag has abandonment issues.”

The light-hearted theme continues with “Save these items hours of therapy and give them a loving home.” 

Clean, simplistic, clutter-free design 

4 – Dollar Shave Club

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Reinforces brand positioning

Offers a bold promise

Highlights several benefits for signing up at the beginning of the email

Large product shot with a natural flow leading the reader to the CTA for more information.

5 – Pepper

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Offers a small discount to spark a purchase

Features the customer’s most recent cart additions to appeal to potential buyers

6 – Peel

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Simple and straightforward design

Creates a sense of urgency with “We’re holding the items in your cart for you, but don’t wait too long!”

Clear call to action in a standout color

7 – Gilt

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Uses the expiring cart threat to spark immediate action

Shows alternative colors of the items in their cart to motivate a purchase

8 – Google Express

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Simple and direct design

Clearly lists items and pricing from the abandoned cart

Positions the CTA right below the headline for prime visibility

9 – Doggyloot

What I love about this example:

Creates urgency with “Items you added to your cart are almost sold out”

Clear and prominent “RESTORE MY CART” CTA

Friendly and warm sign-off

10 – J. Crew

What I love about this example:

Direct and engaging headline

High-quality image of the abandoned product

Clear CTA with “GO TO YOUR BAG NOW”

Additional CTAs

11 – Whiskey Me

What I love about this example:

Personalized touch with the order number

Simple layout focused on action

Friendly reminder of the item’s details

12 – Huckberry

What I love about this example:

Displays the abandoned item with details.

Provides easy access to assistance from customer support.

Creates urgency by mentioning limited sales and inventory.

13 – 23andMe

Image from Really Good Emails

What I love about this example:

Emphasizes the value of the product with a personal benefit statement.

Clean and simple design, focusing on the message.

Clear and direct headline: “Don’t forget to order your kit.”

14 – Le Puzz

What I love about this example:

Friendly and welcoming headline: “Hello again!”

Bright and eye-catching design that stands out.

Creative and engaging copy: “We found a lost puzzle. Could it be yours?”

15 – Stetson

What I love about this example:

Clean and elegant design.

High-quality product image to remind customers of the item.

Free shipping offer prominently displayed to add extra incentive.

Win back more lost sales with the perfect cart abandonment email

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to target a warm lead and recover lost sales. Set up your abandoned cart email in AWeber for an easy solution with powerful results. If you need help getting started, we have a pre-built campaign.

By Jesse Kennedy June 20, 2024

Rather listen or watch? You’ve got it! 

Email design is critical to an effective email marketing strategy. While the actual information you communicate is important, design elements are just as crucial.

After all, studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to our brains is visual.

So, by incorporating email design best practices, you can leave a lasting impression on subscribers, help them remember and trust your brand, and drive more conversions.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a professional designer to create beautiful emails!

In fact, in this article, we’ll cover all the most important email marketing design best practices that anyone can apply, regardless of skill level. 

At the end, we’ll show you a few email design tools to help you start sending gorgeous emails in no time.

Why is email marketing design important?

Email marketing design goes beyond the mere aesthetics of your messages. In fact, design plays a crucial role in how recipients perceive your brand identity.

By giving your email design the attention it deserves, you can help build trust with recipients, get them to engage more, and even drive more conversions.

So, let’s take a look at some of the key reasons you should incorporate email design best practices into your marketing strategy.

1. Create a good first impression

If you’ve put in the effort to get users to sign up for your email list, then it’s key to make a good first impression!

WIth good email design, you can capture recipient’s attention and set a positive tone for their interaction with your brand.

A professional-looking design establishes trust from the outset, ensuring recipients feel like they’re getting the value you promised when they signed up for your list.

2. Drive more conversions

By establishing trust with effective email design, recipients will also be more likely to convert into customers.

So, with the right email design, you can help guide your audience towards the action you want them to take, whether that be making a purchase or downloading a resource.

3. Improve readability and engagement

Incorporating email design best practices is also key for improving the readability of your messages. 

For example, the use of subheadings and bullet points, along with visual elements, like images, can help make your emails more engaging.

A report by Litmus found that people spent an average of just nine seconds looking at an email. So, it’s key that those who open your emails are able to understand the information quickly and easily.

Remember, the easier your emails are to read, the more recipients will be engaged. When recipients are more engaged, they’ll be more likely to convert. 

4. Build recognition with a consistent brand image

One more key reason email marketing design is important is that it can help you build a consistent brand identity.

This is crucial to developing both trust and recognition amongst your recipients.

According to an Edelman report, 59% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they trust, regardless of the price. Likewise, 67% are more likely to advocate and stay loyal to a brand they trust.

So, to create loyal customers, it’s critical to build a recognizable and reliable brand image. By incorporating email design best practices into your marketing, you can achieve this.

11 Email marketing design best practices

Now that you have a better understanding of why design is so important, let’s look at some email marketing design best practices.

By incorporating these tips into your emails, you’ll be able to send emails that create a recognizable brand identity, build trust with recipients, and improve engagement.

1. Pick the right email design layout

The right email layout can make the difference between a subscriber who takes an action and one who unsubscribes. 

Attention spans are getting shorter, so understanding how people read your emails will help you craft more effective messages.

Knowing where their eyes are likely to go can make your email more readable. Better yet, it can help the reader navigate towards your call to action. 

So, let’s explore a few types of email design layouts to help you do that.

Z-Pattern

The Z-Pattern traces the path of your eyes when reading: left to right; top to bottom.

People will read the first line across, then down and to the left, and back across the right again. When reading in this pattern, it forms a Z-shape.

This email design layout works best when you have a lot of information to communicate. The structure will help your subscribers consume all the information in an easy and logical way.

You’ll often see this type of email follow a pattern where you start with a headline and text on the top left, with an image to the right. Then, the lower left corner will have another image, and across from that will be text. 

This works because:

1. Readers’ eyes are naturally drawn to images. By having the images diagonal from each other, you help subscribers follow an easy-to-read path.

2. It creates a cleaner layout by not having all your text on one side of the email.

Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a format used for news stories, but it also works well for emails. This structure grabs attention and focuses on the most important parts of your message. 

It’s good for when you have one thing to tell your readers, and a specific call to action you want them to click on. 

You can use this layout for:

Driving subscribers to your website to read an article

Collecting sign-ups for an event

Encouraging subscribes to purchase a product or service

F-Pattern

Finally, the Nielsen Norman Group first identified the F-Pattern after studying how people’s eyes read a website.

Similar to the Z-Pattern, a reader consumes content from left to right, and then back to the left. However, instead of reading across the second line, they read less. This pattern continues as readers make their way down the email.

This means you should put your most important, attention-grabbing information at the top of your email. 

Then, assume your subscriber is going to skim the rest of your email. Use less text further down in the email, and balance the copy with images on the right.

This email design layout works well when you have a lot of information to communicate. 

You should structure your email with the most important information at the top, and then use bullet points and shorter content further down the email. 

Finally, close with a call to action.

2. Choose the right colors

Select colors that reflect your logo and brand. However, be sure there’s enough contrast for easy reading. Remember, clarity is key!

Text that doesn’t have enough contrast against its background is hard to read.

It’s also a best email marketing design practice to incorporate color psychology. To choose complementary colors, check out this chart about the emotional impacts of different colors.

Free color palette tools like Coolors can also help you create a professional-grade palette in minutes.

Ultimately, this will ensure your emails are better aligned with your brand identity.

3. Leave some breathing room

Densely packed emails may be hard to read. This is especially true on mobile devices, where 49.7 percent of all email opens occur.

Most people scan emails rather than reading them word by word. So, having ample white space between elements makes your emails easier to scan. Essentially, it keeps them from looking visually overwhelming. 

Leaving extra white space has an additional benefit as well: it challenges you to keep your message brief and to only include the relevant details. 

Remember, brevity and clarity are critical to effective email design.

Here’s a great example from TrueCar.

4. Use text as a design element 

Formatting your emails for skimmers and scanners also helps. The most common formatting elements are: 

Subheadings

Short paragraphs

Bullet points

Bolded phrases 

Using visual cues like these will make the most important points of your email easy to find.

Look at this example from Jon Persson of CultMethod. He bolds important elements within the body of his email, while breaking up the copy with bullet points and perfectly-placed headlines. 

Most importantly, each paragraph is short and easy to read.

5. Balance text with images

You should also consider breaking up large chunks of text with visual images. Readers prefer short blurbs of information. So, try incorporating images and lines when possible.

Images help tell the story of what you want to communicate to your subscribers

Just be sure not to overdo it! Instead, follow the 60/40 rule: images should take up no more than 40% of your email.

6. Plan for missing images

Nearly all email services give subscribers the option to hide images. In fact, some even disable images automatically, forcing the user to click a link or press a button to “turn on” images. 

For example, here is how an email with a large hero image appears in Outlook:

Since many popular email platforms block images, you should make sure your email is still readable—and your call-to-action is still clickable—when images are turned off.

Rather than using image-based buttons that hide your CTA when images are turned off, try using a “bulletproof button” instead. This technique combines a background color with a regular text link, providing the illusion of a button that users can see when images are on or off.

Most email marketing services, like AWeber, allow you to easily create bulletproof buttons within your email design layout. 

If the images you’re using are an important part of your emails, make sure you add alt text to the image. This is text that describes what the image is about. 

If you’ve ever laid out webpages or worked with WordPress, you may have added alt text to images before.

When you include alt text, subscribers can still understand what you intended to show them, even if they block images.

7. Pick the right typography

As we’ve mentioned already, making your email easy to read is critical, and your typography is a huge part of this.

So, be sure the font you use in your subheadings and body copy are comfortably readable. Common email fonts include Arial or Helvetica, but you’re not limited to these.

Additionally, ensure you’re using a large enough font size. After all, you don’t want your recipients squinting to try to read your email. For example:

This font size is a 12px, and it can be difficult for people to read

This font size is 16px, which is large enough for most of your subscribers to read without zooming in.

8. Use clear links and buttons

You’ll likely include at least one or two links and buttons in your email marketing design. However, it’s important to make sure it’s clear where all of your links lead to.

For example, instead of writing phrases like “click here”, try using more specific labels.

Something like “buy now” or “get your demo” tell the reader exactly what will happen when they click on your link or button.

For example, in this email from Capital One, their button clearly communicates that when you click it, you’ll be able to view the details of their checking account offer.

9. Attract readers’ eyes

We already mentioned that you’ll want to include some visual elements, like images, in your email design. 

However, it can also be a good idea to add in some creative elements, like a GIF, to really grab your readers’ attention.

If you do opt to include a GIF, just be sure it enhances your message and doesn’t distract from what you want to communicate.

Ultimately, though, small creative touches like this can be a great way to grab attention and engage recipients.

10. Include a call to action

If you’re taking the time to build and send an email to your list, it’s key that you direct your subscribers to take some sort of action when they read it.

Calls to action can include anything from:

Encouraging subscribers to buy your product or service

Directing recipients to download a free resource

Getting recipients to sign up for an event or webinar

Ultimately, you want to engage your subscribers so they take the action you want them to take.

So, be sure to include a CTA that clearly communicates the value it can provide recipients, and make sure it stands out.

11. Send a test email

One more critical email marketing design best practice is to test your email before sending it out to your entire list. This will help you ensure there are no formatting errors in your design.

After all, you don’t want to put in all the effort to design your email only to realize it doesn’t look right in subscribers’ email inboxes.

So, be sure to send a test email to your own inbox first. 

Once you’re positive that it looks the way you want it to, then you can send it out to your entire list.

Email design tools to create beautiful emails

You don’t need to start from scratch to create beautiful emails. In fact, there are tons of email marketing tools that make design a breeze.

So, here are several email marketing design tools to help you get started.

1. Canva

Canva is a free graphic design tool that allows you to create and edit any kind of image. 

Better yet, AWeber has a fully-integrated Canva drag-and-drop button. This means you can create your images in Canva and drag them directly into your AWeber email.

2. Email templates

Sometimes simply getting started is the hardest part of sending an email. This is where an email template can come in handy. 

When you find the right template, most of the work is done for you. All you need to do is customize it to fit your brand by adding your logo and updating the colors. Then you’re ready to go!

AWeber has hundreds of email marketing and newsletter templates ready for you to customize for your messages. These can save you hours of time every week and let you skip most of the heavy lifting of designing your own emails. 

Here are just a few of the templates available. Each template also has at least three color palettes to choose from.

3. Try an email builder

Finally, online tools like Stripo, BeeFree, and Dyspatch also have templates and drag and drop email design editors. They’re similar to what you’ll find in your email marketing provider’s account, but some email designers prefer these tools. 

You can design an email in any of these tools and then import it into your email provider. 

Engage your subscribers with email marketing design best practices

If you’re not a pro designer, building a professional-looking email may seem a bit intimidating. 

However, by incorporating the email marketing design best practices above, you can start creating beautiful emails in no time.

Remember, good email design is critical to building trust, driving conversions, and establishing your brand identity. So, it’s key that you give your design the attention it needs to be effective.

Of course, if you want a custom-designed email or newsletter, we can help with that, too! AWeber offers both custom email templates and landing page designs. 

Full custom designs are $229, or a modification of an existing template is $29. Click here to learn more about our custom design services.

There are often times when more than one keyword (and/or search theme) in your account will be eligible to match for a search term. Yet only one will be selected to compete in each auction.

So, how does Google choose which of your keywords to put forward?

There’s a prioritization framework for that!

We’ve also recently launched several updates to query matching controls, including the new brand inclusions and brand exclusions, to help you steer traffic where you want it.

While the keyword and search theme prioritization framework for query matching isn’t entirely new, it’s evolved in meaningful ways with recent AI advancements.

Now is a good time to dive into the mechanics of keyword prioritization and query matching controls. This will give you a better foundation for organizing your campaigns and ad groups, building keyword lists (positive and negative), selecting keyword match types, and using search themes to drive performance.

We’ll cover various scenarios and what to keep in mind for each prioritization rule – as well as what you need to know about the latest in query matching controls.

Why Keyword Prioritization Matters

Keyword prioritization rules help ensure keyword-to-query relevance to deliver better user experiences and advertiser outcomes.

But another big benefit of keyword prioritization rules is that they help address the reasons why advertisers resorted to using “keyword sculpting” techniques that entailed complex account and bid structures in order to route traffic where they wanted.

How Keyword Prioritization Works In Google Ads

I think of the four priority levels, or rules, shown above in two batches:

Priority rules 1 & 2 apply to scenarios when you have a keyword or search theme that’s identical to the search term or spell-corrected search term.
Priority rules 3 & 4 apply to scenarios when you don’t have an identical keyword or search theme and have multiple matches that could enter the auction.

Top Priority: Identical Exact Match Keywords

If you have an eligible exact match keyword that is identical to the search term or spell-corrected search term, that keyword will be prioritized to enter the auction over all other keywords in the account.

This prioritization rule means:

The exact match keyword [skydiving license] will match to the identical query “skydiving license”.
The identical exact match keyword [skydiving license] will also be prioritized over the same keyword duplicated in phrase or broad match – whether in the same or a different ad group.
It will be prioritized over Performance Max for Search text ads.
And it will be prioritized over any other relevant phrase or broad match keyword that could otherwise match to the query, such as “skydiving certification” or “skydiving licensing.”
Also important to note, if you have the broad match campaign setting enabled, those keywords will be treated as if both a broad match and an exact match version of the keyword were enabled.

Keep in mind:

Misspelled/spell-corrected search terms are considered “identical,” but plurals or synonyms are not.

So [skydoiving license] would be considered identical to [skydiving license], but [skydiving licenses] or [freefall license] would not.

The keyword has to be eligible to serve in order to match – this is true across all prioritization rules.

For example, if the campaign is limited by budget the keyword won’t always be able to trigger an ad.
Or if the targeting doesn’t align, the creatives or landing pages in the ad group are all disapproved, or the keyword has low search volume status, you may see traffic go to other keywords or Performance Max.

2nd Priority: Phrase, Broad Match, Or Search Themes That Are Identical To The Query

Next up, if you don’t have the identical exact match keyword, the system will look to see if there’s a phrase or broad match keyword, or Performance Max search theme that’s identical to the query or spell-corrected query.

This prioritization rule means:

A Search keyword that’s identical to the query will be prioritized over Performance Max, regardless of match type – exact (as covered by the first priority), phrase or broad.

This is worth reiterating because I often see it misunderstood: If you have an identical Search keyword to the query of any match type, Performance Max will not be considered for selection. With one exception . . .

If you have duplicate search themes and phrase or broad match keywords that are identical to the query, priority will be based on Ad Rank.

For example, if you have both the search theme and phrase match keyword “skydiving license” and that’s the query, the ad with the highest Ad Rank will be selected for the auction.
That’s because Performance Max search themes have the same prioritization as phrase and broad match keywords.

If you have the identical search theme to the query in Performance Max but not an identical keyword in Search, the search theme will be prioritized.

Keep in mind:

Misspelled/spell-corrected search terms are considered “identical,” but plurals or synonyms are not. So [skydoiving license] would be considered identical to [skydiving license], but [skydiving licenses] or [freefall license] would not.
There is no performance benefit from repeating the same keyword in multiple match types in a campaign.

Because the system prioritizes eligible keywords that are identical to the search term, you will have the identical keyword covered with any single match type.

Further, there’s a misconception that exact match keywords are “cheaper” than their phrase or broad match types.

If the factors are equal (ad, landing page, bid strategy), the cost for the same broad or phrase match keyword to pick up the identical exact match traffic will be equivalent. More on keyword matching options here.
If you are using phrase and/or broad match keywords and have duplicate keywords across match types within your ad groups, you can dedupe and remove the redundant keywords in the most restricted match types.

We recommend using search themes to fill gaps, rather than duplicate your keywords, in order to help steer the AI in Performance Max. More on search themes here.

Alright, now for the scenarios when you don’t have the identical match to the query in your account, we’re moving on to the next two rules of prioritization . . .

3rd Priority: Relevance (AI-Based Keyword Prioritization)

This is the new(ish) kid on the prioritization block – and the biggest recent advancement in keyword selection for Search campaigns.

AI-based keyword prioritization introduces relevance signals to identify the best keywords from the most relevant ad groups when multiple ad groups are eligible to match to a query.

This prioritization rule means:

Relevance is determined by looking at:

The meaning of the search term.
The meaning of all the keywords in the ad group.
The landing pages within the ad group.

Keywords with a lower Ad Rank but higher relevance can be selected over keywords with lower relevance.
AI-based prioritization currently works on keyword-based Search campaigns only (e.g. it does not work on Dynamic Search Ads).
It is used when your keywords aren’t identical to the search term.

Keep in mind:

A big benefit of AI-based keyword prioritization is that it reduces the need to create granular campaign structures to route traffic manually while still giving you control over which keyword matches to a query using thoughtful ad group theming.
To that end, AI-based prioritization only works as well, as it can infer relevance. This is why ad group theming is so important, particularly when using broad match.
Grouping your keywords into similar themes with relevant assets and landing pages makes it easier for Google to understand the intent of your keywords and landing pages and select the best match for the intent of the user’s search.

For example: Looking closer at the example outlined in the Help Center, a search for “skydiving certifications near me” could match to the ad groups “Skydiving License” and “Advanced Skydiving Courses.”

Both ad groups have related intent to the query, but the “Skydiving License” ad group has keywords and a landing page specific to licensing. Whereas the “Advanced Skydiving Courses” ad group has keywords and a landing page focused on advanced courses.

Because ‘license’ (included in both the keywords and landing page) + ‘certifications’ (included in the search term) are seen as significantly more related than ‘courses’ + ‘certifications’ to a search for “skydiving certifications,” the “Skydiving License” ad group is selected.

(Having worked on many education and certification campaigns over the years, I particularly appreciate this example!)

4th And Final: Ad Rank

Ad Rank is the final prioritization rule used to determine which keyword (or search theme) in your account will be selected to enter the auction. We’ve already covered some of the scenarios in which Ad Rank is used when the other rule criteria aren’t met.

Ad Rank considers a number of factors, including ad quality components, in real-time with every auction to determine which, if, and where your ads are shown relative to other advertisers. More on Ad Rank here.

This prioritization rule means:

If you have the identical keyword to the query repeated in both phrase and broad match, priority will be based on Ad Rank. The ad with the highest Ad Rank will be prioritized.
If you have the identical search theme in Performance Max and phrase or broad match keyword in Search, priority will be based on Ad Rank.
If there are multiple highly relevant phrase and/or broad match keywords eligible after being considered by AI-based keyword prioritization, Ad Rank is then used to make the final selection to enter the auction.

Keep in mind:

Ad Rank also considers other factors, such as your bid, the expected impact of assets and ad formats (e.g., sitelinks, location assets, etc.), and the context of the person’s search.
When you run Performance Max and Search campaigns and don’t have an identical keyword to the search query, the campaign or ad with the highest Ad Rank will be selected.
And a quick note on Quality Score: Quality Score is based on historical impressions for identical searches of your keyword, which means the match type you use doesn’t impact Quality Score – nor does changing match types.

For example, if all else is equal (bid, ad, etc.), the broad match keyword running shoes and exact match keyword [running shoes] will have the same Quality Score.
If your broad match keyword running shoes matches to the search “shoes for running”, that doesn’t factor into Quality Score.

New Controls For Query Matching

In June, we announced several updates for query matching and brand controls. I’ll explain a bit more about each update and answer some of the questions I’ve received about them.

Brand Inclusions For Broad Match Campaigns

This feature (initially called brand restrictions) ensures your ads match only to queries related to your brand name in broad match campaigns.

To use brand inclusions, you’ll need to turn the broad match keywords setting on in your campaign. This will automatically set or change your keywords in the campaign to broad match.

After you create a brand list at the account level, you can apply it to the campaign.

It’s first important to note that there are ongoing, continuous improvements in broad match, and AI advancements are helping to accelerate progress.

For example, in the recent six months, broad match performance improved by 10% for advertisers using Smart Bidding due to AI-powered improvements to quality, relevance, and language understanding1.

And, in addition to using Smart Bidding, there are key controls for steering broad match. We have already touched on the importance of ad group theming, for example.

Brand inclusions is a new control that enables advertisers to use broad match effectively in their branded campaigns.

This means:

You can focus traffic only on queries that include your brand while also using the additional signals available to broad match, including landing pages, keywords in your ad group, previous searches, and more.
You may also now see recommendations to switch your brand-focused campaigns to broad match and apply brand inclusions.

Keep in mind:

Brands are not the same as keywords. Unlike keywords, brands are treated like individual entities.
We use logos, websites, and trademarks to determine the right brand and related products.
There’s no need to include misspellings, variants, or versions in other languages in your brand lists.
If there is a strong correlation between the query and brand entity, your brand products will be associated with the brand.

Brand Exclusions For Search

Already available for Performance Max, brand exclusions will be rolling out for Search in the coming months.

Brand exclusions offer a streamlined solution to prevent traffic from queries associated with certain brand names and misspellings.

As with brand inclusions, you create brand lists at the account level. Then apply them for exclusion to your Search and/or Performance Max campaigns.

This means:

You can exclude matches to searches for competitor brands, for example.
Brand exclusions for Search apply to all match types and Dynamic Search Ads.
You can also use brand exclusions to prevent matches to other brands mentioned alongside the brand you’ve specified.

For example, if you want traffic for “google” but want to avoid comparisons like “google vs samsung phone.”

Or you can prevent traffic on sub-brand queries. For example, you may want traffic for “google” but not “google maps.”
You will be able to apply brand lists for exclusion to multiple Search and/or Performance Max campaigns.

Keep in mind:

Brands are not the same as keywords. Unlike keywords, brands are treated like individual entities.
We use logos, websites, and trademarks to determine the right brand and related products.
There’s no need to include misspellings, variants, or versions in other languages in your brand lists.
If there is a strong correlation between the query and brand entity, the brand’s products will be associated with the brand.
The simplest variant will typically capture all variants when multiple variants of a brand have at least one common word, such as “Google” and “Google LLC.”

For example, “Google” will capture all variants of search queries that include “Google.” You don’t need to add the other variants to your list.

However, when multiple variants of a brand don’t have common words, such as “Google”, “YouTube”, and “Alphabet”, you’ll need to create a list that includes all of the variants.

Otherwise, the more general brand will often, but not always, capture all traffic related to all brands. (More here.)

Brands vs. keywords: You can still add brands as negative keywords, but since negative keywords are limited in that they don’t exclude brand variants, we recommend only using negative keywords for blocking traffic that’s undesired, regardless of performance.

Negative Keywords Block Misspellings

Negative keywords are a valuable control to prevent traffic from unwanted search terms.

And this is a very welcomed update. Negative keywords now prevent matching to misspelled queries. Below are examples of scenarios I’ve been asked about.

This means:

Now, instead of having to monitor your search terms or think of possible ways people might misspell your keywords, you just have to enter the correct spelling.
Misspellings as negatives won’t block correctly spelled queries, but correct spellings as negatives will block their misspelled queries. See examples below.
It will block misspellings but not synonyms, singular or plural versions, and other close variations.
You’ll still need to add those if you want to exclude them. (e.g., YT would be a variant of YouTube, and the misspelling would be yiotube.) See examples below.
You can likely do some negative keyword list culling to remove misspellings and streamline things in your account.

Keep in mind:

This update applies to campaign-level and account-level keywords. More on negative keywords here.
Misspellings will apply to all negative keywords, regardless of match type.
Wondering if a word will be considered a misspelling of your keyword? A good way to check is to search on Google to see if it returns “These are results for” the spell-corrected query.

Will Pausing Low Volume Keywords And/or Ad Groups Impact Query Matching And Performance?

Lastly, another recent change raised some questions that I want to touch on.

Earlier this year, we notified advertisers that we would be automatically pausing Search ad groups and keywords that haven’t received an impression within the previous 13 months.

Clutter happens and idle ad groups and keywords that hadn’t been contributing to performance for some time can add up.

We don’t expect pausing ad groups or keywords that haven’t had an impression for more than a year to have a noticeable impact on your Search campaign traffic or to change the traffic mix between your Search and Performance Max campaigns.

You can continue to review and unpause any keywords or ad groups you think are still needed…however, this brings us back to account structure and ad group theming for relevance.

If you think these paused ad groups or keywords should have been matching to queries and generating impressions, consider before simply re-enabling them:

Check the keyword status for potential issues.
Look at whether these ad groups/keywords will be additive or if other keywords or ad groups are already covering this traffic.
Consider expanding the match type of these keywords to capture more queries.
Then, take a broader look at your ad groups’ creative theming, keeping the relevance signals that AI-based prioritization looks at in mind, including the other keywords and landing pages in the ad group.

Key Takeaway

Now that you have a deeper understanding of how these keyword prioritization rules and query matching controls work, take a fresh look at your account.

You may find opportunities to reorganize and consolidate your campaigns and focus on making your ad groups more tightly themed.

These efforts will help you streamline your account (e.g., simplify management) while also ensuring you are matching relevant queries with your most relevant ads to drive results.

Notes

1Google Internal Data, Oct 2023 – Mar 2024. Performance refers to conversions/conversion value at constant ROI.

More resources:

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

By Pam Neely June 21, 2024

Have you noticed a significant number of your email list subscribers are no longer interacting with your content or following your calls to action? Then it may be time to start a re-engagement email campaign!

This can be a super effective email marketing strategy for winning back inactive subscribers. 

After all, one study indicates that the average email list decay rate, which is the percentage of subscribers who become inactive, is between 22% and 30% per year.

This means that, unless you’re cleaning your email list regularly, you’re likely sending a lot of messages into the void, never to be seen again.

However, with re-engagement emails, you can start winning back some of those inactive subscribers. To be successful, though, you’ll need to keep some best practices in mind.

So, in this article, we’ll explore how to write win-back emails. We’ll also provide examples of some effective re-engagement email campaign strategies, from one-off surveys and free resources to entire email sequences.

What is a re-engagement email?

A re-engagement email, also called a “win-back email”, is a message you send to subscribers who have become inactive. 

These emails aim to rekindle the interest of people who have not made a purchase or interacted with your brand for a while.

Re-engagement email campaigns are a great strategy for sparking the interest of inactive subscribers before removing them from your mailing list. After all, emailing unresponsive subscribers with messages isn’t helping them or your business.

Before saying goodbye, however, a win-back email offers one final opportunity to reconnect and rebuild your customer relationship.

Ultimately, your goal is to re-establish a connection with those who seem to have lost interest in your products, services, or content.

Here is an example re-engagement email from the newsletter pros at Marketing Brew. While the three-week inactivity timeline is pretty tight by most industry standards, they do a great job of ensuring their list is truly engaged with their content.

This way, they keep their email list clean, and ensure most of their messages aren’t getting lost in recipients’ spam folders.

How effective are re-engagement emails?

While re-engagement email campaigns are a great way to win back subscribers, you can’t expect every inactive subscriber to become active again.

Most email win-back campaigns have a success rate of 14% up to 29% in the best-case scenario. 

Several email marketing studies have found that sending a series of emails may be more effective than sending just a single email. A re-engagement sequence of three emails appears to be the sweet spot. 

One recent study found that several different tactics will work, but no one tactic significantly outperformed the others.

Later on, we’ll discuss how each of the methods below work, as well as provide a few additional examples. We’ll also tell you how to set up an effective re-engagement email sequence.

Remember though, the method that works best for your business depends on the needs and interests of your unique audience.

How create a re-engagement email

The goal of your re-engagement email campaign is to get people interested in your emails again. 

So, every element of your email – the subject line, the content, and the call-to-action – needs to support that goal.

Re-Engagement email subject lines

For re-engagement email subject lines, the best ones specifically reference your goal: to win back your subscribers!

Here is an example of an email from Tomasz Borys at Kissmetrics:

You can also take a more personal approach, like this email from Threadless:

Both subject lines work well. However, they each grab the reader’s attention in different ways.

A simple “We miss you!” lets the subscriber know that you appreciate their readership. It also feels more conversational. 

On the flip side, “Do you still want updates from us?” is direct and inquisitive. It tells the subscriber that you care about their time and want to make sure they get something out of the relationship.

For more inspiration, consider reviewing your past emails to see what’s working for your specific audience. Look for common themes like subject line length and tone to see what tends to work best for your target audience.

You can also try using personalization, like including your subscribers’ first names in the subject line. It’s no secret that personalization helps you connect with your subscribers and stand out a little more in the inbox. 

For example, the email from Threadless could have gone one step further by saying, “We miss you, Sam!”

Since these details depend on what your audience responds to, try testing different variations and find that sweet spot.

Re-engagement email content

Most re-engagement emails’ content is short – generally just two or three paragraphs. All you need to do is to make the purpose of your email clear: “Do you still want to get emails from us?”

Then, you might consider explaining the value your emails provide. 

Remember, these are people who signed up to receive messages from you but at some point stopped reading. 

They wanted to hear from you before, so how can you get them re-interested in what you have to say? 

Ask yourself a few questions:

What did my subscribers sign up to receive originally?

Am I continuing to send them content based on their original expectations?

Did I change anything in my email strategy that might have caused them to stop engaging with my content?

What can I offer to pique their interest again?

Once you have those answers in mind, it’s time to start writing your email.

Here’s an example of a re-engagement email we sent to our inactive blog newsletter subscribers:

The format is simple, and it makes a good template for any re-engagement email:

You haven’t opened any emails from us in a while

We want to make sure you’re still interested

Click this button to stay on the list

Here’s what you can expect if you remain on the list

That’s all you have to say in a re-engagement email–just one sentence and a few bullet points. After all, the shorter your email is, the more likely people are to read it and click the button.

Getting inactive subscribers up to speed might also help get them re-interested in your content. So, consider adding a short bulleted list of your recent “greatest hits,” such as:

Products

Content

Promotions

Re-engagement email incentives

Speaking of promotions, offering an incentive, like a white paper or coupon code, might also help you re-engage subscribers. 

If you hooked them onto your list with a piece of content in the past, consider how you might be able to repeat that success during your re-engagement email campaign.

Check out this example from Paperworks, a stationary and premium paper provider:

Offering a special discount is a great way to get subscribers interested in your emails again. 

Not only are you giving your subscribers something in exchange for their time and attention, but you might even get another sale out of it as well.

Re-engagement email feedback

To help you learn more about why subscribers grew disinterested in your content, asking them for specific feedback could help fill in the gaps. For example:

Was there something you could have done better for these subscribers? 

What made them stop engaging in the first place?

Asking these questions directly can help you figure out exactly where you can improve your email marketing strategy.

Additionally, if you make a subscriber feel like their opinion is truly valued, they may want to stick around. Plus, this will give you valuable insight into their needs that you wouldn’t get anywhere else.

As you get feedback and notice common themes, you can implement their suggestions in the future.

Re-engagement email call to action

The whole point of your email is to prompt subscribers to take an action, so make sure your emails have a call to action that is bold and clear.

Generally, you’ll want to limit yourself to one call to action in order to increase your click-through rate. However, there are exceptions to this rule.

Ultimately, your CTA should make it easy for recipients to:

Stay on or opt out of your list

Learn more about a product or service

Download an incentive

For example, check out this email and CTA from Grammarly:

While having one call to action is the classic approach, some re-engagement emails examples also include an unsubscribe link. 

For instance, take a look at this email from a PEW, a non-profit organization:

Finally, some re-engagement emails even let subscribers choose to get emails less often, like the example below.

7 Re-engagement email examples

Now that you’ve got a good idea of what goes into an effective win-back email, let’s look at some re-engagement email examples.

The following ideas are great ways to get customers interested in your brand again.

1. Surveys

If your subscribers aren’t responding to what you’ve been sending, try asking them what they would like to get from you. After all, this can help you better understand your audience’s interests and preferences. 

For example, you might send a re-engagement email with the subject line “We miss you! Tell us how we can improve.” Then, for your call to action, include a link to a brief survey. Consider asking questions about:

Their favorite types of content

Products they’re interested in

How often they’d like to hear from you

Ultimately, this feedback can help guide your future email marketing campaigns, as well as show subscribers you value their opinions.

2. Coupons and discounts

If you’re in ecommerce, the classic way to win back inactive customers is to send them a juicy discount coupon. 

Consider making this a dollar off discount rather than a percent off discount. One study of win-back campaigns found that dollar off discounts activated more subscribers.

For instance, you could send an email with the subject line “We miss you! Here’s $10 off your next purchase.” 

Then, in the content of your email, be sure to include your discount code and a call to action directing subscribers to your store.

You might also think about highlighting new or popular products to entice them even more.

3. New products and services announcements

Announcements are ideal emails to send out if you haven’t mailed to your list in a few months. They’re a great opportunity to let recipients know about new products or services you’re offering.

For example, consider sending a re-engagement email with the subject line “Check out our new arrivals!” 

Then, in your email content, be sure to showcase your latest and greatest products with high-quality images, and include a CTA to your online store.

By showing off your most recent arrivals, you can recapture the interest of customers who’ve grown tired of your old line of products.

4. Free resources

Free resources are also excellent to send if you haven’t emailed your list in awhile. 

A high-value digital resource, like an ebook or a course, can be a great way to demonstrate that it’s worth their time to be on your list. 

For instance, consider using the re-engagement email subject line “Exclusive free ebook just for you!” and provide a link to the download.

You should also be sure to highlight the value recipients will gain from the resource, reinforcing the value they’ll get if they remain active subscribers.

5. Customer testimonials

You can use customer testimonials with other types of content mentioned above. For instance, share a few testimonials about a new service you have.

Think about using a subject line like “See what others are saying about our new service!” and include direct quotes from customers.

This strategy can be especially effective in combination with some of the others listed above. 

For example, including testimonials with a new service announcement or special discount can build trust and credibility while encouraging inactive subscribers to re-engage.

6. Limited time offers

Another great way to win back subscribers is by inducing a sense of urgency in your emails. 

For instance, you might offer a limited-time discount or promotion to encourage recipients to take action quickly.

Consider using a subject line like “Limited time offer! $10 off just for you,” and include a countdown timer or specific end-date.

By inducing a sense of urgency, you can get customers to take action quickly.

7. Resubscription Offers

 Re-subscription offers can be a great incentive to get subscribers interested in your product or service again.

For instance, you might use the re-engagement email subject line, “We want you back! Enjoy 30 days of free premium access.” 

Then, include a CTA to your sign-up page where customers can try out your platform again for a limited time for free.

If your product or service is delivering the value the customer desires, there’s a good chance they’ll stick around after the free trial is over.

Re-engagement email campaign sequences

All email lists are different, so what works best in one situation may not work so well in another. One message might do the trick, but you could be more effective by sending two or three emails to warm people up and get them re-activated.

Since these subscribers are already less engaged, aim to keep your campaign short. Send an email, wait a few days, and see who’s interacted with your content.

If they’ve clicked through to your content or stated they want to remain on your email list, then great! They can stay on your list and continue to get your awesome emails.

Here are two re-engagement email examples that were sent a few days apart.

This is the first one. Notice how short it is?

 And here’s the next one, sent two days later:

The sequence of emails above is concise, and also respectful. Ultimately, even if subscribers opt not to re-engage, it’s important to consider what they want.

This way, if they develop interest in your products or services at a later date, you haven’t burned any bridges.

Start winning back subscribers with a re-engagement email campaign

If you take the time to craft a re-engagement email campaign, there’s a good chance you can win back some subscribers.

However, if some recipients haven’t responded, it may be time to say goodbye. And that’s perfectly ok!

You’ve done what you can to win them back, but if they don’t want to receive your emails, it’s better to let them go. Not only will they appreciate a cleaner inbox, but it’ll also help boost your email deliverability. 

Ultimately, this will improve your email marketing in the long run.

Now, we know that sometimes it can be really hard to write your emails. That’s why we created our What to Write in Your Emails guide and course, complete with 45+ email templates. It will save you hours of work every month.

How do you plan on running a re-engagement campaign of your own? Leave a comment below to share your ideas. 

Or, if you already have an AWeber account, watch this video to see exactly how to create and send your own re-engagement emails!

Re-engagement email FAQs

When should you send a re-engagement email?

Many marketing experts recommend that you wait at least three to six months after a subscriber becomes inactive to send a re-engagement email.

However, the proper amount of time can depend on your specific audience.

For example, if your content is time-sensitive or encourages frequent interaction, one to two months may be a better timeline.

You may even consider starting a win-back email campaign during other times. 

For example, if you’re planning a major list cleanup, updating your product or service offerings, or notice declining engagement rates, you might want to consider sending re-engagement emails.

Ultimately, it’s key to think about the behavior and preferences of your unique subscribers, and align them with your business goals.

How many emails should you send in a re-engagement campaign?

As we mentioned earlier, there’s no perfect number of messages to send in a re-engagement email campaign. 

What works best for your business depends on the preferences of your specific audience.

While sending just one email may be best for some brands, other brands may want to design a sequence of two, three, or even four emails.

So, be sure to test out some different strategies with different segments of your audience. This will help you understand how you can best win back your subscribers.

If you’ve been paying attention to the chatter in the SEO space recently, you might have noticed that “brand marketing” has become cool again.

Due to the Google “leaks,” many SEO pros have come to the conclusion that building a strong digital presence will yield SEO results.

Also, water … is wet.

Leaks, floods, and drips aside, there are better reasons why you should be focused on brand marketing right now.

Allow me to explain. [Warning: This post contains excessive amounts of snark.]

Building The Case For Brand Marketing

I’m not going to do the whole “5 reasons why you should focus on brand in 2024.” It would be off-brand for me.

What I would like to do, if you’ll indulge me, is first build up the case by looking at where the ecosystem we call the web is currently at.

I’m less focused on “the benefits” of the brand and more concerned about why the ecosystem itself demands a focus on this type of marketing.

It’s less a matter of “you’ll get X, Y, and Z” by focusing on the brand and more a matter of why you’ll be out of sync with your potential audience as a whole.

The Web Is Moving To Be More Conversational

The internet has become more conversational, and it’s only going to get more conversational.

One of my soapbox points is that content is one of the most quickly changing things on the planet. What we consume, how we consume it, and what we expect out of it are rapidly and constantly changing, and the consequences are often underappreciated.

My classic example of this was the first televised US presidential debate, which took place in 1960 and pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon.

If you listened to the debate on the radio, you tended to think Nixon won. Those who watched on TV tended to think JFK won.

Why? Well, Richard Nixon comes off as Richard Nixon, and JFK, well looks like JFK. I’m being a bit facetious, but it is true. Nixon famously looked pale, had a five o’clock shadow, and didn’t look directly at the camera.

The evolution of content has extremely understated consequences.

Like in 1960, we are at one of those pivotal moments in the history of content.

Think of the internet like TV commercials. Over time, what once resonated becomes campy and sem, if not downright, spammy.

Could you imagine Coca-Cola running and trying to sell its product using its 1980s Max Headroom “Catch the Wave” commercial?

Try selling my kids a sugar-infused breakfast cereal using a TV commercial from the 1950s. Good luck.

It’s not because those commercials are “bad.” It’s because the language and tone that resonates changes over time.

It’s a simple enough point … unless we’re talking about web content. For some reason, we feel web content and its consumption trends should eternally stay the same.

We write the same kind of content in pretty much the same way and balk at any changes.

But that doesn’t change the reality.

The content we create doesn’t speak to users. It’s not positioned correctly. The tone is off. The goals that support the creation of content, to begin with, are distorted. And more. There are a lot of problems – and to me, they all begin with content not being conversational.

In fact, I will go so far as to say Google should stop saying, “Write for your users,” and should start saying, “Have conversations with your users.”

We all think we’re “writing for our users” – I mean, who else are we trying to lure and convert?

It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking you are “writing for your users.” It’s harder to convince yourself you are having some sort of dialogue with your users – which is what I think Google really means anyway.

All this said, what do I mean by content not being conversational and how do I know it’s even a problem?

What I Mean By Content Not Being Conversational

It’s not hard to see that we are not engaging our users in a conversation or dialogue.

All you need to do is head over to your nearest landing page and have a look at the language.

How much of it is just the company throwing out jargon or borderline nonsense?

Here’s what I came across in literally less than five minutes of digging around:

Is it really without limits? Can I literally do whatever I want without any limitations whatsoever? I don’t get it – are we talking about God or graphic design software?

Is the below really a new way to run high-velocity sales? Does it literally refine the entire process like no one else is doing or has done before? Or is the company just saying this and spitting out whatever they think will drive conversions?

You see this all the time in PPC ads:

No nuance. It is the best accounting software, and I should trust that it is without any form of qualification.

This kind of copy, while it may have worked in the past, doesn’t (and if it does now, it won’t in the relatively near future).

This kind doesn’t actually talk to users in a real way. It actually treats the user like an idiot.

The average web user is far more savvy than they once were, far more mature, and far more skeptical.

Not taking a more genuine approach is starting to catch up with brands.

How Do I Know Not Being Conversational Is Even A Problem?

Greenwashing.

It’s when a company claims to be more environmentally conscious than it is. It’s spin and PR nonsense.

Companies thought they could pull a fast one on unsuspecting users. However, folks are now savvier and are catching on to brands positioning themselves as being “green” when, in reality, they might not be (or at least to the extent advertised).

You cannot get away with it anymore (and you never should have tried). The only thing that works is being genuine.

If your product is not actually “the best,” then don’t say it is – or, in fact, realize there is no “best” or “ultimate” or “fastest” or whatever. There is only what meets the needs of users in what way. That’s fancy talk for “pain points.”

Being genuine means talking to your audience and not at your audience. It’s having a dialogue with them.

Going the “traditional” route with your language is the equivalent of marketing language greenwashing … and it applies to your informational content, too.

Perhaps nothing epitomizes this more than the falling stock of influencer marketing. Study after study shows that younger users are far less likely to purchase something because an influencer is associated with it.

Influencer marketing, as we mostly know it, is a facade pretending it’s not a facade. Do you think Patrick Mahomes really eats Chicken McNuggets or has a strong preference to use State Farm for his insurance needs?

All influencer marketing is just a digital marketing version of a celebrity in a TV commercial.

Do you think whatever TikTok influencer really prefers Capital One or even knows that it’s not a geographical reference?

While the idea of “influencers” seemed like a viable idea at the onset it’s fundamentally not sustainable because it’s fundamentally fraudulent. (For the record, “community” marketing is something else entirely. While it might rely on “influencers” within a community, it is far more genuine.)

It seems that folks have caught on to the idea that maybe this influencer being paid to say or do whatever is not actually an accurate reflection of reality (much like social media influencers themselves, to be honest).

A 2023 Drum article quotes one study as saying upwards of 80% of users say a brand’s use of influencers does not impact them one way or the other.

For the record, there are other studies that indicate that influencer marketing is a viable option. I agree, but I think it needs to be qualified. Just paying an influencer to say good things about your brand is not authentic.

There are authentic ways to work with communities and influential folks within them. That tends to happen more with micro or nano influencers.

This is why we’re seeing a trend towards working with micro or nano influencers who might provide a more authentic experience for audiences – a trend noticed by Hubbspot’s 2024 social media marketing report (among others).

Again, it’s rocket science. Everyone knows the influencer is only saying the things they are saying because they’re being paid to. It’s relatively meaningless in a vast majority of cases.

It shows how much savvier the current web user is relative to the past, and it’s supported by where folks are heading and what they are trusting … themselves (DTA, am I right?).

A seemingly endless number of studies show users looking toward user-generated content. CNBC was quoted as saying, “61% of Gen Z prefer user-generated content.”

Which brings me to my next point.

Informational Content Is Just As Bad & Reddit On The SERP Proves It

Up until this point, I’ve been focused on the nature of commercial content and the demand for conversational content.

The same concept applies to informational content, just for a slightly different reason.

Informational content on the web might not be as opaque as commercial content, but it is entirely sterile and stoic.

By sterile and stoic I mean content that doesn’t actually speak to the user. It takes a topic, breaks the topic down into various subtopics, and simply presents the information, and does so without ever discussing the context of the readers themselves.

No one has more data on emerging content consumption trends than Google and its ability to analyze user behavior in a variety of ways. And what has Google done for informational and commercial queries alike? Plastered the search engine results page with user-generated content.

The proliferation of Reddit on the SERP should tell you everything you need to know about the state of informational content and beyond.

All you need to do is head to the Google SERP and take a look at all of the Reddit results strewn all over the place, from different SERP features to the organic results themselves.

And while SEO pros may be upset about the abundance of Reddit (and rightfully so in my opinion), we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Do you really think Google wants to rank Reddit here, there, and everywhere? I personally don’t. I think Google would much rather have a diverse set of experience-based content to rank.

Regardless of your feelings about Reddit on the SERP, users’ inclination to prefer content created by other users tells you one thing: People are looking to move past all the facades and want something transparent that speaks to them—not at them.

Think about content like dress codes in the office. In the 1950s (at least in the US), it would be unheard of to show up to the office with anything but a suit and tie or a dress.

Just like professional dress codes have become less formal, so has content become “less formal” too.

And it’s a relatively recent development on both fronts. In fact, I would actually argue that office dress codes are a good representation of “where we are at” in terms of how and what we consume in terms of content via-a-vis formality.

While more traditional marketing language might have been acceptable and effective just a few years ago – it’s not any longer (at least not to the extent). We are less formal as a people, which means speaking to each other is also less formal. That has to spill over to web content at some point, and it has.

The AI Of It All

The rise of AI-written content accentuates all of this. When everything starts to sound the same having an actual voice comes more into focus. As AI conversion evolves, users are going to want to know that what they are consuming is “real.”

Much like a paid influencer, AI-written content doesn’t offer an authentic experience. And if we can see one theme in what users are looking for, it is an authentic experience.

I know someone is reading and thinking, “But AI is conversational!”

I would not confuse the fact that AI can reply back to you in an informal way as being an actual conversation or dialogue with another actual lifeform.

I have many relatives who will chew my ear off for hours on end as I nod away – that is not (much to their surprise) a conversation. Inputting prompts in reply back to an LLM and then having that LLM respond is not a conversation. (I feel like it’s insane that I have to say that.)

A real dialogue has to be based on empathy and the coming together of two distinct entities. This is what I mean by conversational. The dialogue has to be based on understanding the user’s pain points and meeting them.

AI not only doesn’t do that – but it dilutes that very concept. AI is content creation inherently devoid of understanding the “other.”

AI-generated content is the exact opposite of empathetic content. It is no wonder that it will drive a greater demand for something that is more connective (i.e., conversational content).

The rise of AI-generated content will inevitably lead to a greater demand for more conversational content simply because it is human nature to yearn for connection and existentially disdain void.

When you couple together the growing impatience with stale and stoic content aligned with the facade of much of the web’s commercial content with the rise of AI, it’s the perfect storm for a shirt in user demand.

A More Conversational Internet Is More Autonomous Internet

What’s this got to do with brand marketing? We’re getting there. One more step.

Users looking for more authentic web experiences point to people not wanting to be sold to. Skepticism and distrust are triggered by being urged to make a purchase.

Rather than being induced to click by some clever headline or urged to make a purchase by some influencer, people want to make their own decisions.

They’re looking for real advice. They’re looking for real information to have real needs met. And then they’re looking to be left alone to use that information to their liking.

It’s not an accident that Google added an “E” to E-E-A-T for “experience.” It wants quality raters to evaluate a page from an experience perspective because it has determined this is what users are looking for.

When your entire modus operandi is to seek out authentic information and experiences, the last thing you’re looking for is to be coerced. The last thing you want is to feel pushed into something.

The quest for authenticity in experience-based information is entirely about being able to make a well-informed, autonomous decision.

Urging users to click and convert with all sorts of marketing language and over-emphasis is antithetical to this mindset. Using language that feels slightly manipulative is antithetical to this mindset.

Trying to create spin and putting up a marketing facade (such as with classic influencer marketing) is antithetical to this mindset.

You can’t have Michael Jordan jumping over Spike Lee in a commercial to sell shoes anymore. It’s not real, and it’s not authentic. It’s fantastical. It’s fake.

You also can’t “drive” conversions by telling users you’ve developed a “new,” “revolutionary,” or “ultimate” solution for them. It’s not real, and it’s not authentic. It’s fantastical. It’s fake.

You have to create an environment where the user feels empowered and uncoerced.

How do you then go about targeting growth and revenue, all while allowing the user to feel autonomous and unsolicited?

Brand marketing.

Brand Is Your Best Friend In An Autonomous Web Scenario

I know there is going to be a tremendous amount of resistance to what I am about to say.

In fact, most companies will balk at my conception of things. For SaaS, it’s probably borderline heretical (I think startup SaaS brands often lag behind consumer trends more than anyone).

If user autonomy is the fundamental brick on the house the ecosystem is built on, then being top of mind is the cement that holds your marketing efficacy together.

What’s the opposite of pushing for clicks and conversions? Allowing the user to come to you at their own time and at their own speed.

Being top of mind is more important than it ever was because it aligns with the underlying psychological profile driving web experiences.

There is a direct equation between the consumer demand for autonomy in the buying journey and brand marketing. Creating the right associations and developing the right positioning with genuine differentiation is of the utmost importance if you want to align with how users think – and, more importantly, feel about the web.

If I had to put in a more “performance-focused” mindset, direct traffic is the future of the web. Get them to come to you on their own terms.

It works for both parties. You’re less susceptible to relying on whatever platform’s funky algorithm (whether it be social or search, it all kind of feels like a mess right now). At the same time, your users don’t feel like you’re overselling, pushing clicks, and otherwise nudging them to convert.

They’re coming to you because they found out about you, liked what they saw or heard, and decided to pursue the possibility of buying from you at their own pace.

Moreover, the brand allows you to connect. Again, in an AI world, the drive for connection will only increase. Brand is the intersection of your identity and your audience’s.

It is an associative connection, and it allows your audience to understand that there is a “you” behind the product or service you are offering.

This is the power of branding in the modern web.

What Kind Of Brand Marketing?

What kind of branding creates autonomy? Education-focused brand marketing.

Brand marketing can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Often, on the digital stage, it means pushing the value of your product across the web.

I am not saying that this doesn’t have value or that it shouldn’t be done, etc. I am saying this is product marketing disguised as brand marketing.

90% of your brand marketing should hardly (if at all) push your product (beyond maybe a mention or something subtle of that ilk).

Brand marketing is about fostering an identity (either of a product, service, or the company as a whole) and using that identity to create messaging that positions the said product, service, or company in a certain way, thereby establishing a connection with your target audience.

The associations you build and the sentiment towards your brand that you establish should, hopefully, result in your audience seeing you as a relevant solution. But this is associative, and that’s important to remember.

The kind of branding I am talking about is focused on adding value to your audience’s life. Note that I didn’t say offering value via your product or service to their lives. First comes the value, and then comes the value from your product.

You can’t push the product in what might be called “branding” without first establishing a brand that showcases concern for the user and their life context independent of any “ask” (such as making a purchase).

You wouldn’t ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar before saying, “Hi, good morning. How are you?”

You shouldn’t ask your consumers to open their wallets and fork over money before establishing a real connection.

Yet, this is pretty much the internet as we know it.

A Note On Performance Marketing

I am not advocating you should not use performance-based marketing tactics to increase your reach and sales and whatnot. Performance-based marketing can be a powerful force for growth and revenue expansion.

What I am advocating for is performance sitting within a broader branding context. There has to be a balance between the two (and I don’t think it is an even balance).

With that cliffhanger, perhaps I’ll explore the balance between brand and performance at another time.

More resources: 

Featured Image: batjaket/Shutterstock

WooCommerce announced their roadmap for the future of WooCommerce, emphasizing two-way communication with the developer ecosystem in order to be responsive to their needs which further the goals of improving the experience for developers, merchants and customers.

WooCommerce highlighted seven important areas for innovation and six specific areas that are targeted for enhancements that will improve developer and merchant experience.

1. Stronger WooCommerce And Developer Communication

WooCommerce recently launched a newsletter that seeks to keep developers in the look with the latest WooCommerce news, offering early previews of new features, plus tutorials and other information that will keep the community in the loop.

The announcement explains three benefits of the newsletter:

“Exclusive Insights:Gain access to behind-the-scenes knowledge and tips that can elevate your development game.
Latest Content:Engage with newly published blog posts and documentation, showcasing our latest releases, resources, advisories, and more.
Feature Updates and Announcements:Keep your projects current by receiving the latest updates on new features and essential changes in WooCommerce.”

2. Upgrading The WooCommerce Blog and Documentation

Another area of improvement that relates to communication is to emphasizing the official WooCommerce blog as a reliable source of information that’s important to developers.

WooCommerce is also committing to improving their documentation with more guides, step-by-step tutorials, best practices and also making it easier to navigate and find needed information.

The roadmap explains:

“Our goal is to fill crucial knowledge gaps in areas such as extensibility, block development, and theme customization, empowering developers to start and thrive on our platform.

This is a welcome news for developers. One person commented on X (formerly Twitter):

“Coincidentally, I saw this immediately after reading my developers’ frustrations about the documentation for the new product editor in our internal discussions – so it’s good to see that improving this is on the roadmap.

Specifically, we have several plugins which add functionality to the ‘Edit Product’ screen, so we need to integrate them with the new product editor. My developers are finding this unnecessarily difficult because:

– The developer information about each feature is scattered throughout multiple news articles when it should be collated in one location.

– The links to the GitHub discussions about the new Product Editor in the “Roadmap Insights” articles point to the WooCommerce Product Block Editor discussion category (which doesn’t exist anymore) instead of the new WooCommerce New Product Editor one.

– We’re reluctant to update our plugins that integrate with the variations editor because the hooks and filters required for this extension are currently marked as experimental, so we might have to redo work if they change in future.

– We were expecting to see a timeline for the new product editor in January/February but this still isn’t clear, so we don’t know how heavily to prioritize the changes in our plugins.”

3. Improvements To REST API V3

Improvements to the REST API v3 are a top priority, with a focus on backward compatibility. They are also committing to reducing the backlog of issues and new feature requests plus improving API performance.

They also said they would focus on:

“…upgrading API documentation, error handling, and debugging capabilities.”

4. Improve Feedback Loop on Extensibility

A feedback loop is the communication between WooCommerce and the developers who use it, with the goal of improvement being a collaboration that results in a superior product that better serves developer and merchant needs.

Extensibility refers to the flexibility of WooCommerce to be extended and adapted, which is an important benefit of WooCommerce. Thus, one of the “destinations” in the WooCommerce roadmap is to make sure that it is adaptable and easily molded by developers.

Communication between developers and WooCommerce is a key part of maintaining and improving the extensibility of WooCommerce.

WooCommerce commented:

“As we make new features the default experience, we are working to create space for collaboration with our developer community in order to refine these features, incorporate feedback, and gradually move towards full adoption.

In the past year, we have begun using GitHub Discussions, Developer Office Hours, and other sources of feedback to shape and prioritize extensibility points in particular. This iterative process not only enhances the platform but also strengthens the ecosystem, making WooCommerce a more robust solution for everyone.”

5. WooCommerce Is Committed To A Block-Based Future

WooCommerce committed to a 100% block-based feature development in late 2023 as part of a vision of making WooCommerce easier to use for non-coders. A second motivation is to create a more adaptable shopping platform to build upon. As part of this commitment WooCommerce is signaling that now is the time to stop relying with older solutions like shortcodes and legacy APIs.

The statement read:

“If your solutions are still relying on shortcodes or other legacy APIs, it’s time to embrace blocks and modernize your approach.”

WooCommerce announced steps they are taking to bridge the transition to a fully block-based development platform:

Adding more resources to the WooCommerce Developer Documentation
Increased frequency of communication on the WooCommerce blog
More posts to introduce new features tutorials for how to use them
A renewed focus on creating video tutorials

6. Streamlined onboarding:

WooCommerce is focusing on further simplifying the process of setting up a store and getting online faster. They are also improving the workflow for developers who set up stores for merchants. They said that their experience from simplifying the setup process was an approximately 60% increase in completion rates.

7. Modern Store Customization

Another focus is on being able to integrate the customization options available to WordPress in general but WooCommerce is also looking into creating fully optimized commerce-based themes that are specific to WooCommerce.

They write:

“While we’re ensuring compatibility with all block-based themes in the WordPress ecosystem, we’re also exploring what it would look like to provide our own fully block-based, commerce-optimized theme out of the box.”

Six Specific Areas For Future Improvements

Flexible product management
Optimized order management and fulfillment
Revamping merchant analytics
Accessible stores
Evolving checkout experience
Better integration of order confirmation with summary and shipping information

WooCommerce Roadmap Leans In On Community

The Roadmap outlined by WooCommerce recognizes that the user community is its strength, thus it’s focused on building a stronger product based on what developers need to provide merchants with the ecommerce experience merchants expect. Focusing on creating more documentation and videos shows that WooCommerce is engaging to support the WordPress developer community and intends to remain the leading ecommerce platform.

Read the WooCommerce roadmap announcement:

WooCommerce in 2024 and beyond: Roadmap update

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Luis Molinero

The upgraded Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE is one of the largest screen laptops with the latest AI-included features available in the ChromeOS lineup.

Released in May, this unit replaces the first-gen Acer Chromebook 516 GE. I had my eye on that earlier model — primarily because of its 16-inch viewing field. But I held off buying the non-Plus predecessor a few months ago, hoping for something better in the Plus range.

Last year, Google introduced the Chromebook Plus category to step up a line of more powerful ChromeOS laptops with AI features that were not available in the non-Plus line. Though not a Plus designation, the original Acer Chromebook 516 GE checked most of my preferred boxes but lacked the build quality and performance boost its replacement provides.

I was also interested in the built-in access to Google’s Gemini AI along with Chromebook Plus perks that provide access to additional special software and services. The new 516 GE checked those boxes. The concept of using a more power-packed Chromebook for personal and work chores and a boost in gaming opportunities make this refreshed laptop an irresistible option.

Worth the Wait

This 16-inch-wide quad extended graphics array (WQXGA) model is powered by the Intel Core 5 120U processor with Intel Graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB PCIe Gen4 SSD storage.

(Photo by Author)

The GE stands for “Gaming Edition” and is unique because it provides cloud-based gaming features with decent performance. Although it lacks a dedicated AMD or Nvidia gaming processor, the tweaked circuitry enhances the fast delivery of games with no lag time on cloud-based gaming servers.

The wait was worth it for this upgraded Chromebook laptop. I bought this unit to supplement my work environment with a more flexible and capable ChromeOS-driven laptop with a larger screen. Chromebooks rarely come with screens larger than 14 inches, so I was immediately drawn to the new release.

For $649, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is a solid performer, giving me an impressive upgrade over my other computers, both Linux and Chromebook varieties. The larger laptop screen, Chromebook Plus moniker, and enhanced performance are tough to find in other Chromebook devices at any price compared to this new unit.

Unbeatable Configuration Pluses

The combination of Acer hardware ideally balances price with performance options. Its superior image quality and high pixel density provide a high-end benefit. The 516 GE is fast and comfortable, two critically important traits considering the number of hours I spend on the keyboard.

The Acer 516 GE Chromebook Plus is powered by a newer Intel Core 5 120U processor, listed as two times faster than the Intel Core i5-1240P in the prior model. If you are unfamiliar with Chromebooks, do not be put off by the installed 8GB of memory. The ChromeOS — a souped-up Chrome browser with built-in tools to let it function as an operating system, is not hampered in its performance due to any RAM strain.

Impressive Audio Quality

I cannot rave enough about the huge audio improvement packed into this device. Four upward-firing speakers, with two each vertically positioned on both sides of the keyboard, bring the best-sounding audio I have heard from my other Chromebooks. The credit goes to DTS Audio and Smart Amplifier technology.

These speakers provide distortion-free sound. The audio components eliminate unwanted sound vibrations using force-canceling woofers fired in opposite directions in perfect unison. You will not find Dolby Atmos in the configuration, but I do not miss it. These stereo speakers provide loud, solid volume and excellent sound quality.

Enhanced Display Features

The 16-inch IPS 16:10 QHD 120Hz screen hits 350 nits of brightness with a 2560 x 1600 screen resolution. WQXGA technology is used in high-end monitors and screens and delivers higher pixel density with sharper images compared to lower resolutions of 2560 x 1600 pixels.

This panel provides more screen space, detail, and a better visual experience. It’s also faster, with a 120Hz refresh rate that doubles the 60Hz standard on every other Chromebook.

However, this is not a touch screen. That, for me, is just a minor compromise. However, more dedicated gamers looking to play Android games on this Chromebook might be dissatisfied with not having touchscreen access.

Since this laptop is not a two-in-one design, reaching across the clamshell just to touch input on the screen is not part of my usual computing routine. At least for my usage, if the keyboard does not detach from the panel or fold under it, I have little need for a touch screen.

Superior Build Quality

Chassis quality, keyboard dexterity, and touchpad travel are factors in lesser-quality Chromebooks that cheapen their appeal. The Acer 516 GE avoids all three, giving it a substantial physical upgrade.

Weighing 3.7 pounds, the new model looks classy in two-tone black. My only disappointment with the outer appearance is the smudge-fest on the smooth, glossy, obsidian black metal fame. Fingertip remnants do not easily disappear.

(Photo by Author)

The aluminum frame has no play. It feels rigid and steady in the hand and to the fingers. The RBG backlit keyboard design is also a solid selling point for gamers and office workers. Numerous color options and brightness levels are available.

(Image courtesy of Acer)

This laptop has one HDMI 2.1 display connector. I would prefer two, as a second HDMI port would be useful for attaching more accessories. It has two USB Type-C (supporting DisplayPort and USB charging) ports, one USB Type-A port, an Ethernet RJ-45 port, and a 3.5mm headphone/speaker jack.

The 10-hour power from the 65-watt-hour Lithium-Ion battery is not an exaggeration. I tested the fully charged battery, which lasted within 20 minutes of the stated 10-hour capacity before running out of juice.

I was pleased with the front-facing, full HD camera (1920 x 1080) with 1080p video at 60 FPS compared to typical Chromebook low-quality webcams. Its image quality, however, is not as good as the third-party mountable webcams I usually use as Chromebook video cam replacements. The temporal noise reduction and blue glass lens features produce acceptable, but not premium, results.

Bottom Line

The Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE could be one of the best Chromebook Plus options. It serves a dual purpose as a very capable cloud-based gaming computer and a feature-rich general-purpose laptop for business and personal use. Combine it with a big external monitor and mouse to create a functional desktop computer alternative.

This model exceeded my expectations for ease of use and performance. Acer added key features beyond what was available in the earlier model to put the Chromebook Plus unit in a class of its own.

Be careful if you decide to buy this unit. Its earlier non-Plus version is still on sale at an attractive reduced price. Ensure you are getting the upgraded model by checking these three details:

The model number is CBG516-2H-59S4
The build date is 2024
Chromebook Plus branding on the cover 

Acer plans to offer at least a second version of this Chromebook Plus 516 GE configured with 16GB of RAM, larger storage capacity, and a choice of colors.

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