AMP, BIMI, and AI Can Supercharge Your Email Campaigns — But Don’t Forget the Basics

Three in five people say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, and according to Adobe’s 2019 email survey, the average American spends more than five hours a day checking their email. The benefits of email marketing aren’t going away and can’t be oversold. Email eclipses social media when it comes to driving up average order value, and it’s 40 times more effective at driving new customer acquisition than Facebook and Twitter combined.

Innovative technology powering better email results

Email is changing — it’s getting smarter and smarter. Here are some new features and capabilities that can help drive innovative inbox experiences — and, with that, greater engagement and conversions.

Interactive email

Nine in 10 marketers agree that interactive content is effective in educating buyers, while fewer (70%) agree on the effectiveness of static content. Interactive email elements, like an image carousel, elevate the communication from a boring block of copy to an experience that engages customers and gets remembered.

Google AMP for email

Taking interactivity to the next email, Google’s AMP for Email allows customers to create app-like experiences right in the inbox. Great digital marketing always keeps an eye on convenience by looking to trim extra steps. AMP is an HTML email with limited JavaScript markup that lets you embed interactive elements into the body of any email. The benefit to customers is that they can perform critical actions without leaving their inbox.

Using AMP, for example, a company could embed an interactive survey right in the email body. A retailer could email an offer for a blue cashmere sweater in size medium to the customer looking for it, all based on live inventory. Once the email is received, that targeted customer can purchase the sweater directly from the email, without ever even clicking through to the site. It’s a simple, seamless customer experience that’s ideal for mobile shoppers who love one-click commerce.

Accessibility

Marketers as a whole are becoming more mindful about designing email with accessibility and convenience in mind. For instance, increasingly, emails are no longer a read-only medium. Using voice assistants ilke Alexa, customers are having their emails read aloud to them. Suddenly, emails have to both look and sound engaging.

Similarly, when it comes to designing for those with color-blindness, designers must shift their approach so that color is not their only method of conveying important information, per guidelines from the organization WebAIM. Email marketers who make their email campaigns accessible and engaging are sure to win new customers to their brand and improve their campaign performance. Check out this recent webinar for more details on this topic.

BIMI

Upon opening their inbox, a customer sees your company logo. Thanks to the brand indicator messaging identifier (BIMI), that added brand impression gives a sense of security that the email is genuine and not malicious. This relatively modest innovation positively impacts open and click-through rates.

For example, in online banking, BIMI can help build customer trust and loyalty with this security feature. But because BIMI incentivizes companies to adopt the DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) standard for authenticating email, it fosters greater attention to cybersecurity overall for companies. As cybersecurity standards across the internet tighten, brands that adopt BIMI early on will stay ahead of the curve, keep their brands in front of customers, and protect both their brand and their customers from cyber threats.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive send time optimization

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning hold the power to personalize your email campaigns at scale and integrate them seamlessly with campaigns across channels. Few new innovations are quite as powerful as AI in the sweep of what they are capable of. Predictive send time optimization (STO) — which sends an email at the time the individual customer is most likely to open and engage with the content — is just one example.

Elevating and accelerating email experiences

For most, just getting daily email campaigns out the door every day is a feat — and often that laser focus is keeping marketers from taking a step back to look at the latest technologies available for this marketing channel. However, more than ever, customers are putting email marketers on notice — surprise, delight, and deliver meaningful value, or we’ll stop checking.

To ensure you’re optimizing every email, don’t forget the foundational practices. If you’re not at least complying with these basics, quickly take a step back and make some updates. You can read about them in more detail in our Adobe Campaign Deliverability Best Practice Guide.

Keep your list clean

No matter the size and scope of your email list or campaigns, data hygiene is important. Use basic format filters, for example, to ensure all email addresses collected are usable and addresses from role accounts like “info,” “admin,” or “support,” as well as those without an “@” symbol, are rejected.

Implement double opt-in

Also ideal for improving the hygiene of your email database is the implementation of a double opt-in. This ensures email subscribers truly want to receive your email versus being signed up by someone else, or accidentally opting in.

Build a positive reputation with ISPs

Another critical email best practice is ensuring you have a solid internet service provider (ISP) reputation. To do this, it’s essential you carefully control email volume. Sending too many emails right off the bat can put you on an ISP’s block list, hurt your reputation, and ultimately suck up your time with bulking and blocking issues. Be mindful of the volume thresholds for each ISP and ramp up slowly according to their specific requirements.

Increase engagement rates

Lastly, engagement rates play a huge role in your ability to navigate and excel with ISPs — improve your campaigns’ targeting criteria to boost deliverability. Integrating double opt-in efforts, as mentioned earlier, helps keep lists clean and reliable.

Orchestrating consistent, relevant, innovative experiences

Email marketers who choose to shake themselves out of autopilot mode and actively seek to deliver more personalized, orchestrated campaigns that build on the basics will find themselves ahead of the customer experience curve. While others settle for tried and true practices without evolving their program along with technology advances, forward-thinking emailers will be sending out interactive experiences that lead to faster, frictionless conversions.

This journey starts with ensuring your email campaigns are built on the latest practices for success. Read the Adobe Campaign Deliverability Best Practice Guide to learn more.