- Tips & Tricks
- Jul 03, 2025
347 Billion Emails Are Sent Every Day, How Can You Make Sure Your Online Store Stand Out?
Throughout 2025, an average of 347 billion emails were being sent and received every single day. With a 10% year-over-year growth rate, email remains the top-performing marketing strategy in the e-commerce industry.
As open-rate competitions rise amongst online brands, mass-sending a single email template to all subscribers is no longer sufficient. Instead, customers are looking for personalization, targeted offers, and constant updates on their orders.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a guide to making your marketing emails stand out. From hyper-specific subject lines to mobile-first design, here’s how to improve your open rate.
Email Marketing: The Key To Securing Conversions
There’s no doubt that email marketing is one of the most powerful tools your brand can leverage.
Since 58% of people check their emails first thing in the morning, before even looking at social media, there is a huge opportunity to get seen.
However, when it comes to crafting the perfect email strategy, quality over quantity is a must.
As an industry, retail currently holds the title for the lowest open rate by industry at just 17%. However, it has also seen the biggest jump in open rate year-over-year, going up 4.5%.
This is because users are more selective about the brands they interact with and the discounts they explore. A lot of consumers find transactional emails — such as shipping updates and click-to-shop discounts — more important than product line drops, PR updates, and standard seasonal greetings.
If you want your emails to drive engagement, they must offer instant value in the inbox.
Here are five strategies to get you started on a winning email campaign.
Tease Your Deals Early
Inboxes are flooded during peak seasons, making it difficult to stand out from competitors. Early engagement is the key to a successful email campaign.
If you launch your teaser sequence ahead of the rush, you immediately increase your chances of catching your subscribers’ eye early with your exclusive discounts and deals.
A three-part email sequence is a brilliant strategy. This would include:
- The First Teaser: Start a month before your campaign begins with a quick ‘coming soon’ message to build curiosity.
- The Second Teaser: To continue building anticipation for your promotion, next give your audience a sneak peek at the top deals.
- The VIP Ending: Reach out just before the offers drop with a VIP-early-access message to sweeten the deal while stock levels are complete.
Take a look at this teaser example from personalized greeting card sender, Moonpig. They have teased that “something big is coming soon”, cleverly keeping readers intrigued over what is to come.
(Image Source: Moonpig)
Craft Hyper-Specific Subject Lines That Cut Through the Noise
Your subject line is your first chance to make an impression on your consumers.
If you want to cut through the noise in a busy inbox, your subject lines must be short, dynamic, and click-worthy to grab inbox attention.
Vague and generic subject lines such as “Sale Now On” have been used a million times.
To grab attention, try personalising your approach. Try testing dynamic tags, such as first names or location-based messaging.
(Image Source: EmailLabs)
Personalized subject lines get 22% more clicks, and open rates rise from 15.7% to 18.3% by simply adding a customer’s name.
Another way to make your subject lines more clickworthy is to make them hyper-specific and benefit-driven. For example, move away from ‘All Products 40% Off” and get specific with your targeting.
If your lead has left one of your winter jackets in their cart, try a targeted subject line such as “Save 40% on All Winter Jackets – Today Only”.
Segmenting your approach is a sure-fire way to engage your customers based on their own shopping preferences.
It’s also crucial to step outside of the box and break the rules when it comes to perfecting your email subject lines: trial emojis, question-based subject lines, and playful seasonal phrases. The wackier, the better.
The key here is to stand out in the inbox, not blend in with your competitors. To ensure your strategy hits the ground running, don’t forget to A/B test your subject lines for maximum engagement.
For example, if you plan to segment your subject line content, A/B-test different variations with different target groups for a chance to see what approach attracts the most clicks.
Segment Your Messaging
On the topic of segmentation, don’t forget to personalize your entire email, not just the subject line.
Platforms like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or ActiveCampaign are brilliant at helping you segment your approach by consumer browsing history, past purchases, location and even abandoned carts.
Thanks to the introduction of AI into email marketing, you can even add personalized product recommendations to your email body or display different images based on user interests.
Brands like ASOS know precisely how to segment their emails.
(Image Source: ASOS)
Take a look at this example, for instance. Below the CTA they have listed clickable brands each subscriber might like, based on their previous engagement with ASOS. This makes it quick and easy for consumers to jump straight into a browsing session.
Design for Mobile-First
If you want your emails to stand out, designing for mobile-first interaction is crucial.
Mobile email designs are fast-loading and scroll-friendly. Remember, mobile inboxes also allow for shorter subject lines and much bigger body text.
(Image Source: Design Modo)
To achieve the best mobile design possible, focus on your imagery. Take a look at some of these promotion templates above. They draw in the consumer’s eye with pops of color, product photos, and visually graphic text displaying their deals and discounts.
Avoid those long paragraphs if you want your subscribers to keep scrolling, and don’t forget to move your design to a single-column layout.
For mobile, think big buttons, simple sections, and engaging product images.
Optimize Your Ecommerce Site to Support Your Email Campaign
While emails play a critical role in attracting shoppers, the real conversions happen once subscribers take action on your message.
Even the most compelling subject line or beautifully segmented campaign won’t drive results if your ecommerce site isn’t optimized for a spike in traffic.
To ensure that your subscribers return, building a high-performing ecommerce website is crucial.
If your site experience is slow or confusing, you’ll experience more abandoned carts and lost revenue, leaving your email strategy pointing nowhere.
To create a conversion funnel that works, start by designing an email template that naturally guides the lead to your desired product page.
Make sure every CTA links directly to a relevant landing page, and don’t forget to match each destination to the personalized offer in your email template.
By pairing powerful email marketing with a well-built ecommerce website, you can offer your consumers a seamless journey from inbox to checkout, which is exactly what they are looking for as they enjoy a spot of online shopping.
Let Your Subscribers Feel ‘FOMO’
The best promotional emails use urgency and scarcity in all the right ways. If your target consumer feels like they’ll miss out on a great deal, they’ll immediately engage with your email.
The key here is to get creative with it. Add real-time countdowns to your email body, and highlight limited-stock items in the subject line and header.
As your sale comes to a close, this is the perfect time to send your last sequence, using buzzwords such as ‘Today Only’ or ‘Ends Tonight’.
This is an easy way to capture those last few leads.
(Image Source: Lou & Grey)
This brilliant example from Lou and Grey knows exactly how to tease FOMO without ending up in the spam box.
Using a simplistic design that hints towards time running out and the use of a catchy header reading ‘Time’s Not Exactly On Your Side’, they invoke a sense of urgency within their subscribers, encouraging them to act before it’s too late.
Wrapping Up
Email is still one of the ultimate conversion machines for marketers. When approached well, it could draw in your best open rates, referrals and lead generation to date.
The key here is to stand out from the crowd. Personalize your emails down to the letter, optimize your content for a mobile-first experience and don’t forget to get creative with your content.
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