Email Marketing Best Practices: Insights from Leading Brands

 

Email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools for customer engagement, retention, and driving sales. Top brands such as Holland Cooper, Skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Groupon, and Lookfantastic leverage email campaigns smartly by following key best practices that combine creativity with technical know-how. Here are five essential best practices to consider:

1. Personalisation and Segmentation

Why it matters: 

Customers expect relevant, tailored content. Personalisation can dramatically increase open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.

How top brands do it:

Holland Cooper: Sends personalised emails based on customer location and purchase history. For example, customers in colder climates receive promotions on knitwear during autumn. They also send birthday discounts to loyal customers.

Skims: Segments by style preference and size, recommending products in personalised fit guides or restocking alerts for favorite items.

Kylie Cosmetics: Uses segmentation heavily for product launches—fans who’ve previously purchased lip kits get early access emails for new collections, while skincare buyers get tailored product tips.

Groupon: Sends location-based deals and category-specific offers (restaurants, wellness, travel) depending on user interests and browsing history.

Lookfantastic: Leverages purchase                  frequency to target VIP customers with exclusive early sale access or beauty tips aligned with past buys.

Technical competence:

Segmentation requires a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or email marketing platform like Klaviyo or Mailchimp. Using dynamic content blocks that adapt based on recipient data (e.g., first name, location, purchase history). Employing conditional logic in email templates to serve personalised offers or content.

2. Mobile Optimisation

Why it matters: 

Over 50% of emails are opened on mobile devices, making mobile-friendly design essential for user experience and engagement.

Holland Cooper: Uses large, clickable banners and minimal text for quick mobile browsing. Buttons like “Shop Now” are thumb-friendly and stand out in the design.

Skims: Employs a clean, grid-style layout that loads fast on mobile, showing product images with concise descriptions.

Kylie Cosmetics: Their mobile emails often have videos or GIFs optimised for mobile to showcase new products dynamically.

Groupon: Minimalist design with clear CTAs and bold deal headlines that fit neatly on small screens, ensuring users can quickly tap to redeem offers.

Lookfantastic: Responsive product carousels within emails make scrolling easy and interactive on mobile devices.

Technical competence:

Responsive design using HTML and CSS media queries ensures emails adjust layout depending on screen size. Avoid tiny fonts or buttons and test across multiple devices using tools like Litmus or Email on Acid to ensure compatibility.

3. Clear and Compelling Call-to-Action (CTA)

Why it matters: 

The CTA guides recipients toward the desired action, such as “Shop Now,” “Claim Offer,” or “Learn More.”

How top brands do it:

Holland Cooper: Uses strong CTAs like “Shop the Collection” or “Explore New Arrivals” placed centrally and repeated to catch attention.

Skims: Often uses CTAs such as “Find Your Fit” or “Shop Now” paired with countdown timers for limited releases, creating urgency.

Kylie Cosmetics: Their CTAs include “Get Early Access” or “Limited Stock — Shop Now” to drive immediate clicks.

Groupon: Uses urgency phrases like “Today Only” or “Deal Ends Soon” combined with “Redeem Now” buttons in bright colours.

Lookfantastic: Employs “Add to Basket” or “Shop the Edit” CTAs, designed with hover effects to encourage interaction.

Technical competence:

Use buttons with accessible HTML (not just images), ensuring they render correctly if images are blocked. Include clear, concise text and use tracking parameters (UTM codes) in links for performance analysis in Google Analytics or similar tools.

4. Consistent Branding and Visual Appeal

Why it matters:

 Brand consistency builds recognition and trust. A visually appealing email enhances engagement.

How top brands do it:

Holland Cooper: Emails use earthy tones and elegant serif fonts, consistent with their heritage British luxury style.

Skims: Minimalist design with neutral tones, soft shadows, and clean typography to align with their modern, body-positive brand.

Kylie Cosmetics: Bold, colourful visuals with playful fonts that reflect Kylie Jenner’s personal brand and energy.

Groupon: Clean layout emphasising deals with bright green accents (brand colour), plus fun icons highlighting deal categories.

Lookfantastic: Sophisticated visuals with high-quality beauty product shots and clean white backgrounds that showcase luxury.

Technical competence:

Use a branded email template with consistent fonts, colors, and logos. Compress images for fast loading but maintain quality. Ensure alt text is included for accessibility and SEO benefits.

5. Testing and Analytics

Why it matters: 

Continuous improvement depends on data-driven decisions.

How top brands do it:

Holland Cooper: Tests subject lines that focus on seasonal collections vs. product benefits to see what drives opens best.

Skims: A/B tests email send times (morning vs. evening) to optimise customer engagement.

Kylie Cosmetics: Measures conversion rate differences between emails with video content and static images.

Groupon: Regularly tests different deal formats (percentage discount vs. fixed price) and tracks redemption rates.

Lookfantastic: Uses heatmaps and click-tracking to optimise placement of CTAs and product images for maximum engagement.

Technical competence:

Set up A/B testing capabilities within your email platform to test variables like subject lines or images. Monitor open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversion metrics using built-in analytics and integrate with tools like Google Analytics for deeper insights.

Summary

Email marketing success lies in the balance of creativity and technical precision. By personalising messages, optimising for mobile, crafting compelling CTAs, maintaining strong brand visuals, and continuously testing, brands like Holland Cooper, Skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Groupon, and Lookfantastic create campaigns that not only capture attention but also drive meaningful results.

Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid: Lessons from Adidas, Amazon & Airbnb

While email marketing is powerful, even big brands like Adidas, Amazon, and Airbnb sometimes stumble with common errors that reduce campaign effectiveness. Avoiding these pitfalls is crucial.

1. Overloading Emails with Too Much Content

Brands sometimes cram too much information into one email, overwhelming recipients and diluting the message. For example, Adidas has occasionally sent newsletters packed with multiple unrelated product launches and promotions, making it difficult for users to focus on a clear CTA. Overcrowded emails increase bounce rates and lower engagement.

Technical Incompetence: 

Poor layout design without adequate white space and unclear hierarchy frustrates users, especially on mobile. Neglecting responsive design results in cluttered displays that cause users to abandon the email.

2. Neglecting Email Frequency and Sending Too Often

Amazon, known for sending frequent promotional emails, can overwhelm subscribers, leading to email fatigue and increased unsubscribe rates. Sending too many emails without meaningful value causes recipients to ignore or delete messages without engagement.

Technical Incompetence:

 Lack of segmentation or frequency capping means all users receive every email regardless of preference, ignoring behavioural data and diminishing overall campaign effectiveness.

3. Ignoring Deliverability and Spam Compliance

Airbnb has occasionally faced challenges when promotional emails ended up in spam folders due to poor authentication or non-compliance with anti-spam laws. This severely limits reach and wastes marketing resources.

Technical Incompetence: 

Failing to implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC email authentication protocols, neglecting list hygiene, and using misleading subject lines increases spam filtering. Ignoring unsubscribe options or GDPR compliance also harms sender reputation.

Summary

To avoid these mistakes:

• Keep emails focused with clear CTAs and clean design.

• Respect subscriber preferences by managing frequency and segmentation.

• Ensure technical best practices in deliverability and compliance.

Learning from these brand missteps ensures your emails reach the inbox, engage readers, and convert effectively.